Guest Posts 25 - Be a Freelance Blogger

By Jenn Flynn-Shon

How to Protect Your Blog Posts from Copy-and-Paste Poachers

Picture this: your heart starts racing as if you just sprinted a marathon.

Cold sweat.

Clammy palms.

Panic ensues.

These were all the feelings that bubbled up to the surface when I discovered my published work had been stolen.

Google alerted me to the fact my first novel was being offered for free download. Only problem? My book isn’t free.

With my jaw on the ground and my stomach in my throat, I took all my panic and channeled it into research so I could fight back.

Here’s what I found out: this issue impacts all writers online. As a blogger, you might be at an even higher risk of having your work hijacked. Luckily there’s something we can all do to find out if our work has been stolen and then put the smack-down on the offenders.

[Read more…]

By Corey Pemberton

How to Break Free of the Employee Mindset and Make Your Own Freelance Success

You don’t feel prepared for this.

School taught you to sit quietly, memorize information, and spit it out during exams.

That was fine for becoming an employee. You just swapped desks for cubicles, textbooks for company policies, and schoolyard crushes for HR nightmares.

But now that you’re freelancing, hanging on to an employee mindset could sabotage your success.

It’s time to break through this mental barrier once and for all.

It’s time to tap into your full potential and write your own freelance blogging success story.

[Read more…]

By Shannon Cutts

6 Crucial Freelance Lessons from Writing for Content Mills

“Content mills.”

If you’re a writer, just saying those words together is the emotional equivalent of cursing in front of your grandmother.

Truthfully, content mills do make for a ridiculously easy target.

They don’t pay enough.

They work their writers to death.

They churn out crappy copy and turn search engine results into dumpster dashes. They teach writers to be worse at their craft, not better. They eat self-esteem for breakfast. They disappear at the most inopportune moments (like just before payday).

Did I mention they don’t pay enough?

But content mills can also be “crash course” training grounds for long-term success in the grown-up, go-it-yourself freelance world. Here are the 6 most valuable freelancing lessons content mill writers can learn from the experience.

[Read more…]

By Matt Carter

How to Write a Brilliant Blog in a Boring Industry

Have you ever been contracted by a client who wanted you to blog for them, but they were in a “boring” industry?

Maybe they only sell dental chairs or shoelaces.

How on Earth do you come up with a blog to make those products interesting?

I mean, it’s hard enough to constantly come up with interesting things to blog about for a company that doesn’t sell “boring” products.

But I’m here to tell you that you can blog like the blazes about a boring industry.

No matter how boring your industry is, I’m going to show you how you can create a blog that people actually want to read (even if you sell cardboard boxes). Let’s jump right in.

[Read more…]

By Kirsty Stuart

How to Earn More as a Freelance Blogger by “Providing Value”

(Important note: While you read this, give the phrase “providing value” the most childishly sarcastic tone you can muster.)

If you’re looking for ways to earn more as a freelance blogger, the phrase “providing value” is one that you may hear a lot. I don’t know about you, but it’s one that I tend to skim over a lot too.

It’s not that I don’t want to learn ways to provide more value to my freelance writing clients. I do. It’s just, well, the term doesn’t really mean anything on its own, does it?

The irony is, I’ve learned that I’m already providing plenty of this value people speak of, and it’s causing me to earn more. It’s just that I call it something else.

“Provide value” simply means:

Give more to somebody than you ask from them in return.

Permission to delve deeper into what that looks like?

Great. Here goes:

[Read more…]