NAIWE NewsWire

Staying “Well-Fed” in a Changing Writing World:

Short and Long-Term Strategies for Boosting Your Writing Income

Wednesday, 17 March 2010, at 3:30 p.m. EST

It’s a tougher writing world out there today, and the writers who thrive in the coming years are those who can successfully adapt to the changing realities. In this one-hour info-packed session, join NAIWE Expert Peter Bowerman, veteran commercial freelancer and self-published author of the award-winning “Well-Fed” titles (www.wellfedwriter.com), as you explore…

* Strategies for standing out in crowded writing marketplace
* How to “un-commoditize” your writing and raise your market value
* How to diversity into the lucrative field of “commercial” freelance writing
* How to turn your expertise into multiple money-making products and services
* Why self-publishing could be your best publishing option
* How self-publishing a book can boost your industry reputation, your short-term profitability and your long-term financial security

And much more… Don’t miss it!

BIO:

Peter Bowerman, veteran “commercial” freelancer and popular business coach, is the self-publishing author of the award-winning Well-Fed Writer titles on lucrative commercial freelancing (www.wellfedwriter.com). He chronicled his self-publishing success (60,000 copies of his books in print and a full-time living for eight-plus years) in the award-winning 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living.

Members will receive call-in information for the class via a member mailing. Be sure that you’ve whitelisted *@naiwe.com (an asterisk, followed by @naiwe.com) in your e-mail program so that you receive the message.

If you’re not a member and you’d like to join in time for this teleclass, you may click on this “Join NAIWE” link to do so.

If you would like to register for this single teleclass only, you may do so for $27 by visiting the Teleclass page.

We’ve updated the NAIWE member site engine to the latest version of WordPress to make posting even quicker and easier. You can go to your NAIWE site (http://yourname.naiwe.com) and reach the log-in screen directly from the right sidebar. You’ll find a spiffy new interface that makes posting more fun. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see screenshots of the new Wordpress dashboard. I think you’ll like it!

If you already have a website or domain name, what can you use your NAIWE site for?

Drive traffic to your primary website: Whenever you post on your primary site, copy the first few lines to your NAIWE blog, and finish with a “Read more…” tag, linked to the post on your primary blog. This will be a quality incoming link that will help your site show up higher in search engine results.

If you already have a domain name you’ve been planning to use for a primary website: Forward it to your NAIWE site, and use the NAIWE site as your primary spot for posting. This will eliminate reasons for procrastination, and get your web presence started in the quickest and easiest way possible.

Remember that building quality incoming links to whichever site you choose to use for your primary site is an important part of search engine optimization. Each link provides another way for readers to find you, and the more links you have coming in, the higher your ranking will be in Google and other search engines.

In addition to linking to your NAIWE site from any other sites you own, we recommend that you link to NAIWE and your member site from social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s also helpful to place a link to your member site in your e-mail signature (you do use one, don’t you?). An e-mail signature is a quick, easy and unintrusive way to share your website, book titles, upcoming classes, an invitation to subscribe to your newsletter, or anything else you can fit into a few discreet lines.

Your NAIWE member website is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, and we encourage you to make the most of it. Post on it, then tweet your post title and a link so that others can read what you’ve shared. It’s an ideal way to connect with readers or potential clients, because people who are looking for writers or editors come to NAIWE to search the database. Your NAIWE-linked site is a lot easier to find than an isolated single site with few connections. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Screenshots

1- How to reach the log-in page:

*Go to your member site and click on "Log in" in the right sidebar.

2- How to log in to post on your member site:

*Use your NAIWE username and password to log in.

3- The back-end or “dashboard” for your member site:

*Your navigation links are in the left sidebar. Click on "Posts" to create a new post or edit an existing post. Add or edit pages through the "Pages" link; comments and links through their respective links. It's pretty easy!

The main thing to remember is to never ever copy and paste something directly from Microsoft Word into any post or page. Convert it first to plain text, then paste it and format it using the tools at the top of the Post or Pages box. Word leaves a bunch of gunky coding that results in odd formatting and symbols that show up in all the wrong places.

Enjoy working with your site!

The October teleclass with Paulette Ensign, our Tips Booklet Expert was inspiring, and we got a lot of great feedback! As a direct result of the teleclass, we have decided to commission Paulette to create a “collection of experts” booklet that the Association and participants can offer, both on our websites and at the conventions and speaking engagements that we’ll be going to next year. With Paulette’s amazing promotional ideas, plus fourteen people and the power of the Association behind it, this booklet should travel far and fast!

The idea of a tips booklet fits into the kind of cooperative marketing that NAIWE advocates. By joining with other members and experts, we can share great information to a much larger audience than we would have alone.  People who purchase or receive a copy of the booklet will have plenty of reason to keep it, and the freelancers who share tips automatically gain a greater measure of credibility through the quality of their information and their inclusion in the project.

We have settled on the theme of “Building Credibility as a Freelancer” because that was the number one reason people cited for joining a professional association in our January survey, so it’s obviously a concern. The booklet will be a wonderful way to introduce the association and those of us who want to participate by sharing 5 tips and a short bio.

I’m way too busy to take on another big project, and I’m sure you are too, so this sounded like an outstanding way to promote without a lot of effort. Paulette is the most organized person I know, so it’s nice to have her doing the work. Each participant will be able to use the booklet in any way– as a promotion, list builder, bonus, or just a “sticky business card.” Every time it goes out, it will promote all the participants by offering useful information people will want to keep and use.

I have already invited our NAIWE Experts and members, and some of them will be participating, so there are fewer than twelve spots left. As experienced freelancers, I know that each of you has worked hard to establish credibility, and you probably have some very good tips to offer. You’ll find all the details below and at Paulette’s website.  I’d love to have you join me in this!

Invitation to Participate in the NAIWE Tips Booklet

You know what it’s like balancing your marketing and delivering your services, even if you enjoy the marketing part at all. Like you, I’m forever looking for ways to promote my business as easily, economically, and uniquely as possible so it doesn’t get in the way of doing the part of my business I love most.

Wait ‘til you see a solution I discovered. This is probably the easiest promotion you’ll ever do, since your colleagues are marketing your business for you, positioning you as a leading expert in your field in the process.

It’s a cooperative tips booklet, spearheaded by the Queen of Booklets herself, Paulette Ensign. Paulette has personally sold over a million copies of her own booklet without spending a penny on advertising, so she knows how this is done.

• It takes you less than 10 minutes to participate
• You get instant credibility with your prospective clients as an author in addition to  your book
• The price can’t be beat.

This is not some slicked up brochure, but rather a resource packed with information that prospects and clients will be begging to get their hands on.

It’s a no-brainer. For a small investment of time and money, you’ll get tons of things from Paulette’s company. I was surprised by how much she put into this package and how little she’s charging. And Paulette makes it incredibly easy, which is also why I’m bringing this to you.

To see what you get and how you can benefit from a Collection of Experts Tip Booklet, go to www.CollectionOfExperts.com.  A link for our booklet, “NAIWE.com Building Credibility as a Freelancer – Tips from a Collection of Experts” is at the bottom of the page.  If you still have questions, contact Paulette at paulette@tipsbooklets.com or 858-481-0890 (Pacific time zone).

A maximum of 14 experts will be accepted for the booklet and the deadline for your commitment is November 6. Priority is given to NAIWE Members and Experts.

This is an easy, inexpensive way to add more options for your clients and readers to know about you and your company or your books. Do this today! Go to www.CollectionofExperts.com   The link to our “NAIWE.com Building Credibility as a Freelancer – Tips from a Collection of Experts” is at the bottom of the page, ready for you to take action.

If you’d like to participate, please don’t wait– there are fewer than twelve spots available at the last count! Visit www.CollectionOfExperts.com right away to sign up.

I just came across an excellent article discussing what blogging can do for your business. In Blogging: The Best SEO Tool for Small Businesses, Small Business Trends writer Janet Meiners Thaeler reports on a Hubspot study that shows “companies that blog have far better marketing results” than companies that don’t, including:

• 55% more visitors to their website
• 97% more links to their website
• 434% more indexed pages

Every time a member blogs on one of the NAIWE-linked blogs, the entire site receives an SEO boost, and the blogger rises in Google search engine rankings. I’ve informally tested how long it takes for a NewsWire post or one of my personal posts to show up in Google Alerts or on the front page of Google (when searched with relevant keywords), and it’s often less than an hour. The search engines love the PHP format and fresh content!

The lesson? Post something on your blog at least once a week. If you’re not sure where to start, Thaeler offers helpful tips and links to other resources. Blogging will benefit your business and can be part of the rising tide that lifts all NAIWE blogs!

I meet a lot of freelance writers and editors, and the ones who seem to be most successful have an “and” in their job description or elevator speech. One of our busiest NAIWE members is not only a proofreader and copyeditor, but is also the author of local histories. Another member not only writes middle-grade fiction, but also illustrates juvenile literature and does manuscript evaluations for others.

Isn’t this contrary to the idea of specialization and niching? Not at all, as long as you choose your “and” wisely. Troy Howell, the member who writes, illustrates, and evaluates is able to use the skills, knowledge, resources and contacts that he gained in the publishing field for all of his work. Susan Sheppard’s proofreading and copyediting skills stand her in good stead as she is writing local histories, and she is able to transfer her genealogical research skills to history writing as well.

We have other members who have discovered that diversification isn’t only for investment portfolios, and passive income is a wonderful alternative or supplement to a dollars-for-hours service business. I’ll be discussing this idea more in the next few issues of The Edge, so don’t miss them!

I recently received a copy of the following note from NAIWE member Mary Mowen. She had been contacted by a prospective member, who asked: “How helpful has NAIWE been to you as a writer?  From your vantage point, is the NAIWE a good professional affiliation?” She forwarded her response, noting that perhaps others had similar questions and would be interested in the answer. I appreciate Mary’s willingness to respond to a query like this, and hope that the response will be helpful to others.

Hello—

NAIWE has inspired me to market myself as a freelance writer/editor much more aggressively than I have in the past.  I think membership in a reliable, respected professional organization is important to members of any profession; and it is probably more crucial to those of us who work independently.

I appreciate the opportunities NAIWE provides for networking with other freelancers; ours is a pretty solitary enterprise, after all, and it’s good to know that there’s a free database of pros in almost every aspect of writing and editing available to me through the site, people I can call on when I find myself in need of expertise that’s different from my own.

[Director] Janice Campbell impresses me very much.  Besides providing a wealth of resources for members on the NAIWE site, she goes out of her way to provide as much personal help to individual members as they need.  I appreciate being only an e-mail away from her patient, kind, answers and the broad scope of her knowledge of writing, editing, and business matters, and have called on her several times in the six months since I joined NAIWE.   As a successful self-marketed professional, she truly leads by example, a trait I value very much.

I’ve decided to set up my business site on the NAIWE host pages rather than elsewhere.  I guess if I was going to sum up in a few words what the organization has meant to me, I would say that it has helped me to take myself and my abilities more seriously, and encouraged me to have a much more structured and diligent approach to working from home as a freelancer.

Don’t know what type writing or writing-related work you do, but hope this helps.  NAIWE seems constantly to be seeking to improve their services and their site.  That speaks very well for them.

Sincerely,

Mary Mowen
http://marymowen.naiwe.com 

P.S. I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten to mention that I am presently hard at work on a large and lucrative editing job received through a NAIWE referral.  A big membership plus, without question–opportunities to land more jobs increase through the NAIWE network.

There you have it: inspiration, networking, support, services, and referrals. Is membership in NAIWE the key to making your freelance business more profitable and rewarding? Join us, and let NAIWE help you build your ideal business!

This little video offers a look at why authors need to get up to speed on blogging and social networking before their book is published. Timing is critical in book promotion, and if you’re not ready with a website and in these critical areas, your marketing efforts will be too little, too late.

Many writers and editors have found that LinkedIn is an excellent place for networking. It’s a little more business-oriented than FaceBook, and has several distinctive features. NAIWE member Jim Sutton has posted an excellent article describing exactly how the Q&A section of LinkedIn can lead you to others in your field and help you make the connections you need in order to help your business grow.

Social networking is just one way to build your business or your reputation as a writer or other expert, but it’s growing in importance. NAIWE recommends that you begin by creating your own website and blog, as Jim Sutton has done at his member site (http://jimsutton.naiwe.com), then driving traffic to the site through the strategic use of the social networks most useful for business– LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

We’ll talk more about why and how to create a social network strategy in future posts, e-zines, and member teleseminars. Enjoy!

Publicity is the lifeblood of any author’s marketing campaign. A good book signing or speaking engagement can net an author new fans and a strong base of readers for future books. Book signings and speaking gigs often depend on the good will of a book store or organization, so it’s simple common sense for an author to cultivate a solid relationship with booksellers and others who sponsor author events.

Writer, bookseller, and blogger Kris Neri has posted a thought-provoking article on “Authors Behaving Badly.” It provides a detailed outline of what not to do if you get the opportunity to have a book signing. Achieving the lofty status of published author doesn’t negate the responsibility for behaving with basic courtesy and respect. The post would be funny if it weren’t true!