Sophie Lizard - Be a Freelance Blogger

5 Ways to Adjust to Blogging on a New (Or New-Look) Platform

(We’ll get to the $100 prize in a few minutes — it’s all explained in this post, if you read through to the end.)

So your client wants you to use their blogging software to submit your posts.

And now you’re sweating with the fear that you won’t know how to use it and you’re gonna look incompetent.

Or maybe, like a lot of people in the blogosphere, you woke one morning not long ago, logged into your own WordPress website, and saw that — what in holy heck? — after the latest update, WordPress 5.0 has given you a very different looking new editing system… *eek*

Or perhaps you’ve never tried publishing on Medium or LinkedIn before, and you’re not sure how it all works.

Or you’ve been talking with a prospective client who sounds awesome, but they use Squarespace and you’ve only ever used WordPress?

Whatever the scenario, it’s all good. Relax and read these 5 simple ways to get your bearings inside a new blogging platform.

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By Sophie Lizard 66 Comments

The Freelance Blogger’s Ultimate Guide to Using Jargon [Or Not…]

“Hey Brad, what’s the CTR on that omnichannel growth hacking infographic?”

“Gee, Sally, I don’t know. Is that part of the remarketing campaign we designed the storyscape for last week?”

Tell you a secret…

I fucking strongly dislike jargon.

Mainly because I can never remember it all. At meetings, I sometimes need to Google to remind myself what it means, so I’m sat there looking up business-speak on my phone instead of joining the conversation. (“What’s a vertical? I forgot…”)

Makes me feel like the only kid in the gang who has to check Urban Dictionary to find out what “Netflix and chill” really means. 😉

But I’m gonna set aside my personal issues with jargon for now, and focus on giving you exactly what the title of this post promises: your ultimate guide to when and how to use jargon in freelance blogging, and when to avoid it entirely.

Just in case we’re not on the same page yet, jargon is specialist language used by a specific group or type of person, often in a business or academic setting.

And part of what defines it as jargon is the fact that it only makes sense to the specialists who already know and use it.

In other words, most people on the planet *don’t* use it and have no idea what it means.

So, first of all, the golden rule is simple:

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By Sophie Lizard 287 Comments

The Total Flake’s Guide to Getting Shit Done [Plus Your Chance to Win $100!]

OK, confession time:

People often ask me for productivity advice, and I usually point them elsewhere because…

…I’m actually a total flake.

Most of the time, I have no idea how I get shit done. In fact, I’m often surprised that I get ANYTHING done.

But recently, I had several conversations with my favourite client (who I just quit working with, even though they’re my uber-best client ever — that’s a story I’ll tell another day) about how I do what I do.

And I realised: Wow, I do get a lot of shit done!

In the past year, I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of copy and content for my clients’ emails, sales pages, books, and blog posts…

…Published an ebook (with Lauren as my co-author)…

…Earned a *very* healthy income from working with a small handful of amazing people — and flew around the world to meet some of them in person…

…Helped my students to start and grow their freelance blogging careers…

…and that’s without even considering all the *other* stuff I’ve done, like taking weeks off work to travel with my family, or going to parent-teacher meetings, school performances, and sports events, or spending hours in IKEA sitting on all the furniture before going home with a multipack of plastic plates and a stuffed toy for each of my girls.

I’ve also wasted plenty of time flicking through Netflix and YouTube, reading articles about stuff I have absolutely no need to know, staring blankly out of the window while interesting thoughts scampered around in my mind, and dream-planning next year’s summer break. 😉

So the question my client asked me was this: “When we’re hiring someone to replace you, what should we look for? How do we identify someone like you, that gets done what needs to be done and doesn’t freak out under pressure?”

To which I said, “Umm… I dunno… I don’t do anything special, this is just how I work… and I DO freak out under pressure, I just do the work anyway.”

Because I’m helpful and articulate like that, right?

(Funny story: in the end, my client hired two new full-time writers to replace me. But their business is growing, so that hiring decision *wasn’t* purely about my mad productivity skillz.)

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to think about it, I’ve finally managed to figure out what I do that helps me get shit done. And now that I know what it is, I’m happy to share it!

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By Sophie Lizard 87 Comments

How to Become a Better Freelance Blogger in Only 5 Days (Without Doing Any Marketing)

You don’t enjoy marketing?

You mean cold calling and sending 10 query emails a week doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? How odd… because that’s exactly what every other freelance blogger tells me, too.

This may be reckless, but here we go:

I give you permission to slack off and skip the marketing for a while. 5 days, to be precise.

Because there are 5 things you need to do. When you’ve done them, you can go back to your marketing and it will work better because of the benefits these 5 actions bring.

Do you wish I’d just shut up and tell you what they are? OK… [Read more…]

By Sophie Lizard 77 Comments

5 Years of Be a Freelance Blogger [Thank You!]

Today, Be a Freelance Blogger is five years old.

5 years! Bring on the “wow” emoji!

You know what was the hardest thing about starting this blog?

It wasn’t the technology, or the content strategy, or the audience-building.

The hardest part was coming up with the damn name.

Seriously. I needed a name that made it clear what my blog was about:

Freelance. Blogging.

Not freelance writing of any other kind, not personal blogging to push your own message or pro blogging for ad revenue and sponsorship money.

Plus I didn’t want it to sound like a content mill, or like a place to hire freelancers. I wanted people to know from the name alone that this is the place to learn how to be a freelance blogger.

I made a huge list of potential names, and they all sucked at least a little bit.

I’m pretty sure when I told Jon Morrow (my coach while I launched this blog) that the best name I had after two weeks of brainstorming and thesaurus abuse was “Be a Freelance Blogger”…

… yep, I’m pretty sure he was stunned into silence for a moment by my lack of originality. Would people even be able to remember a name like that?

Well, the answer is YES – most people remember it just fine, but also NO – because we still occasionally get emails addressed to “Dear Become a Freelance Blogger.” (Hey, it’s close enough; come on in. In a little while, I’m gonna tell you how you can win a prize…)

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