Posts filed under 'Great Publishing Tips'
Would you like to know a winning formula on how to make money on the Web from writing articles? Here’s how I do it: I write an article, create 4-5 versions of it, and sell it for use by others in my same profession. In fact, just that one part of my business generates enough income to fully support myself comfortably. Just about anyone in any profession or business can copy this formula.
I write articles for executive coaches and business consultants. They use different versions of my articles in their own newsletters, with their own names in the byline. When they purchase an article, they get reprint rights, but not exclusivity. But since they are in all parts of the country, and the world, they don’t bump into others using the same article. They are also free to change the article.
This formula can be used in any industry. Let’s say you are a veterinarian. You know a lot about pets, and about your vet clinic clients. You can easily write articles that appeal to your customers who are pet owners. You may already write and publish a regular newsletter with articles that appeal to your clients and potential clients.
What’s to stop you from writing your article to suit the needs of other vets who need to send out a newsletter? You post a brief synopsis of this article on your website for vets, offering it to them for a fee. They buy the reprint rights, and it gets used by hundreds of other vets who want to save themselves time and energy on their own newsletters.
That is one way of making money by writing articles on the Web, but here are four more ways, all from the same article.
This same article is revised several times in several lengths. It can be sold in three different lengths, for example, 2000 words to form a 4-page newsletter, 1000 words for a 2-page newsletter, and 600-700 words for electronic email ezines. That makes three more ways to sell the same article.
You also take that same article, change the title, make it more personal adding your own experiences, including your personal details and website links. You submit it to article directories on the web.
This version of your article with your name on it gets picked up - this time for free - by other websites looking for content. Each time another website publishes your article on their site, they link back to your site. The more incoming links you have to your website, the higher value the search engines give you.
This means you will start coming up higher in the search engine rankings when people type in key words in Google or one of the other search directories. That is a fifth way to make money from the same article. This technique is more indirect. Your article is being used for free, but the linking power will drive new customers to your site.
Finally, you can use this same article, or another altered version of it on your own website and blogs, to attract new clients to you. Having quality content on your site and on your blogs will ensure that readers appreciate your expertise and use your services, or buy your products.
Here’s a bonus idea for making money from your articles: compile a group of articles about the same topic, format them into a PDF e-book, and sell it on your site.
You probably have knowledge and expertise in your own field that others would pay for, in order to have quality content for their own newsletters. This method requires good writing skills, or you can hire a professional editor to help you. It also requires you master the art of marketing on the web in order to reach potential buyers of your articles. To market successfully, you can submit your articles to the many article directories on the Web, and quickly build traffic to your websites and blogs.
Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. of Customized Newsletter Services has a doctorate in psychology and a background in journalism. She is a leading provider of content and newsletter services to executive coaches and business consultants. She licenses her newsletter system to a variety of industries. For information, visit www.CustomizedNewsletters.com
June 14th, 2008
Use an Expected Income Schedule to Fill the Year with Money
By David Geer
You know how you can work like the dickens and still have months
where you don’t make enough to buy groceries? I’ve developed a
form to help get enough work at the right times and to make sure
each month will begin and end with do-re-me-dough!
I now have a chart for the whole year with empty fields under
each month (about 20 fields). A sample form has been provided
for you to use with my blessing - feel free to adapt and alter
it at will.
As I earn new assignments, I mark the name of the publication
and the amount I am to be paid, not under the month I got the
assignment, but under the month during which I can expect to be
paid according to their writer’s guidelines, and confirmation
from the editor (in case the payment policy has changed).
I keep notes on the same sheet as to how many dollars worth of
work I need to drum up, by when, in order to fill the rest of
the year with paychecks. For example, if it is January and I
have now been using this form consistently for several months, I
may have plenty of money scheduled to come in the next few
months and this month. However, if I look down the road, I may
see that I don’t have enough checks coming in June. I will make
a notation under January to the effect that I need to assemble
gigs that will pay a certain amount by June.
I have five months starting now to dig up enough work so that by
June I will be flush with cash. Though you should be querying
constantly whenever you’re not completing assignments, this form
can help you find work that will pay the right amounts at the
right times to keep your head above water and a tide of unpaid
bills.
Assignments I can look for that will help pay in June include
all the following. Assignments I can get in a week or two,
complete in a few weeks, and which pay by two or three months
from deadline will work. These may be some of your pay on
publication assignments. You want to approach editors who will
get back to you sooner but where you can live with them not
paying you until June once you have the assignment. You can also
pitch editors who may not get back to you right away, but who
pay on acceptance or within a month or so when the job is
completed. Of course it is always OK to take jobs that pay well
ahead of schedule, so long as you can save.
As you can see there is a pattern here. For each publication you
are considering querying, you will need to add up the time it
takes to query, the editor’s usual response time, time to
negotiate, time to deadline and time to payment. If all that
leaves you time to pitch and still get paid in June, then you
have an example of a publication you should pitch to now.
I have 20 fields under each month so that I have room to mark
down the high number of assignments I feel I’ll need to get paid
for each month to thrive. Some of the fields will be used to
note how many dollars worth of assignments I need to be digging
up now for the coming months. Goals for a certain month’s income
begin to be set and worked toward five months out. Believe me, I
have worked for editors who assign work a lot further out than
five months.
How is my Expected Income Schedule working for me?
I turn in nine assignments this month (it actually happens to be
January as I write this) and expect payment from seven. I’m
expecting payment from at least five in February, three in March
(I still have a little more work to line up for that month) and
one, two or three each month the rest of the year.
This organizational tool can effectively help you to target your
efforts in gaining new assignments in such a way that you can
build and manage a fairly steady stream of writing income.
May 21st, 2008
There was an idea and discussion I had with Cyndi, my wife,
which seemed to stick. She told me that in order to be creative,
I must think creative. Find associations to people, places, and
things that are out of the loop of being normal.
You see, I’ve been struggling to get out a simple poem let alone
some of my own blogging. The ideas and thoughts about my writing
concepts have been just going blank. Call it an inactive muse if
you will, but I think it’s much more than some made up fairy
that tells an author what to write. I think in some ways, our
own creativity and the ability to grasp odd imagery comes from
life experiences and how we see the associations from one thing
to another. I’m a communications design engineer by trade, and I
find it a little hard to associate some imagery and creativity
with squiggly lines all over a map, or the endless numbers and
information I find within the database’s software. It’s a little
hard to find imagery in fiber optics that people will understand
and get the meaning I could try for. But I’m finding that it’s
not my specific job functions that I can find creative
beginnings or understandings. It’s with the people I work with,
my family, friends, and whoever I come into contact with. It’s
looking at something during my commute to work, and while it may
seem normal, find a way to make it spectacular.
Here are a couple of examples:
Not long ago on our way into work, a beat up work truck with
ladders all over the top passes us on the freeway. That’s pretty
normal and nothing to concern more time with. However, it was
the little details that caught the interest of Cyndi and a
conversation that followed. You see, a taillight had been busted
and they fixed it. Normally, you’d see some type of plastic
covering or red tape over the gaping hole to keep the light
underneath from blinding the driver behind them. But, with our
truckload of workers, they had to come up with something a
little more creative. They cut the plastic label off of a
Coca-Cola 2 liter bottle and duct taped it over the hole. The
label was faded, but you could still make out the words and
logo. We laughed at the redneck ingenuity, however, it
immediately sparked an idea within a story that I’ve wanted to
write. It could be something big, or something little in the
story. Who knows, it could even be a part of the climax within
my own imaginary world of writing. It’s something as small as
someone’s make-shift fix for a broken taillight that can spark a
maelstrom of possibilities and associations. It doesn’t have to
be within a story, but maybe a poem. It seems that in the South,
there are a lot of instances that will create a thought or image
of something stimulating to the creative mind.
A while back, we were heading to lunch with my in-laws. When I
sat down in the cream leather captain’s chair of the minivan,
noticed a bug on the floor making way for my foot. I stepped on
the bug and smeared it into the carpet. When Cyndi asked what
happened to the minivan invader, I replied “He was killed and
quickly reincarnated into carpet.” I didn’t happen to think
about what I was saying at the time, but the combination of bug
and carpet just came together like this.
Have you ever had a family member who would make strange, yet
hilarious associations in a quote about life? What were some of
them and could you use it in a story?
Take a look at some successful musicians, novelists, and
cartoonists. I’m sure you’ll find associations of the abnormal.
No matter how strange some of the imagery associations may be,
they click within the reader’s mind and it makes sense. Take a
quote from C.S. Lewis.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a
jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an
egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on
indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be
hatched or go bad. ~ C. S. Lewis
I don’t know about you, but the thought of an egg in flight is
rather humorous. The message behind what he said impacts a
person’s mind not by what is said, but how the words paint a
picture in the mind. Maybe years later, a person will remember
this quote and the impacting meaning all because of the funny
image the person received.
It all comes down to allowing our minds to think differently and
wildly. In my experience, creativity comes when we push aside
our normal living habits and thoughts, while still participating
in our hum-drum activities. It comes from reading stories by
other authors and listening to what one may have to say. Movies
can give you ideas in a visual overload, but sometimes, to me,
movies and TV shows rob us of our own artistic ability.
So, my questions to you are, how do you associate the normal
into interesting and flamboyant ways of creativity? How do you
find creativity and imagery?
Like a monkey stealing a soldier’s last MRE, I’m leaving you to
your own thoughts.
April 24th, 2008