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How much should you charge to blog?
Making Money A lot of clients want a rate quote before they’ll hire you as a blogger, and setting your fees can be tricky. Set them too high and you’ll be dismissed in favor of cheaper workers; too low and they’ll think you don’t respect your work enough to charge for it. So how do you decide what to charge? I try to consider a few different factors when setting my own rates. How much time will this take? If you’ll be spending a lot of time ...
Continue readingWhat to do if you don’t get paid
Making Money You’ve been professionally blogging for a month. You posted as often as required, conformed to all requirements, and now it’s time to collect the cash. So where is that check? Most clients are not villains, out to steal your work in return for nothing. In fact, a good rule of thumb is to proceed – at least initially – as if every non-paying client is Doc Brown from Back to the Future. In other words, when people neglect to pay you on ...
Continue readingThree things I beg you not to do with your MySpace page
Blogging Probably most of you don’t use MySpace as your primary blog, but any blogger can learn from the MySpace don’ts. Don’t set up sounds that play whenever someone visits your site. This includes funny noises, YouTube clips and that song “Wonderland,” no matter how much you might love it. A lot of people surf the web when they’re supposed to be doing something else: at office jobs, in class, etc. When we’re pretending to create a ...
Continue readingSo you want to be a professional blogger…
Blogging, Making Money I work as a journalist, a music critic, a copywriter, an event planner, a travel writer, a teen magazine writer, and a professional blogger. Believe me when I say there is no better writing gig than getting paid to blog. I can use an informal, personal style. I can crack jokes. And most of my blog editors (including Kevin; thanks, Kevin!) give me a tremendous amount of freedom when it comes to choosing topics and crafting a “voice.” As ...
Continue readingGrammarians unite
Blogging, Writing if your not hvaing a problem with this sentence than shurely something is wrong. The internet is famously informal. With all these lols, emoticons and pwnings being thrown around, it can be hard to see the point of using full sentences, capital letters, correct spelling, or any of the other basic elements of good grammar. So why bother? One word: clarity. Your writing style is a window that shows people what you’re thinking. If your style is ...
Continue readingPlagiarism: the occupational hazard of bloggers
Writing Using someone else’s words to make a point is all too easy these days, when all you have to do is run a quick search on a topic and pull a few sentences off a stranger’s website. So when is it okay to use someone else’s content to enhance your own point? And when is it okay for someone else to quote you? First of all, it’s never acceptable to quote someone without indicating that you’re quoting. Writing someone else’s words as if ...
Continue readingSomething to say when you don’t know what to say
Writing Elaine Ramos recently offered some excellent suggestions on how to combat “blogger’s block.” I’d like to follow up on her idea by offering ways to prevent it before it happens. Being stranded without an idea in your head happens to every writer. You can even plan it into your writing schedule: 12:00 – 12:30: Experience writer’s block. Despair. But don’t forget to write the next part: 12:30 – 1:30: Rummage through my ideas folder ...
Continue readingWhen should you censor your posts?
Writing What started as a way to update your friends on your life has spiraled out of control. Suddenly, strangers are finding your site and commenting. You’re popping up on Google searches. People know who you are! And, as you know, with increased notoriety comes increased hatred from random strangers. Obviously, you don’t want to write anything libelous. But apart from that, at what point do you need to start bowing to public opinion? When ...
Continue readingTeam blogging
Blogging Space Ghost: Okay Zorak, we’re all a team now…And there’s no “I” in team. Zorak: But there is an “A.” In team. Space Ghost: …Right, which means, probably, partially, whatever you do should…be okay. If you’ve ever co-authored a blog, you know it can be tough. You’ve got to maintain the right balance between authors, cooperate on site maintenance and appearance, communicate regularly and ...
Continue readingTo theme or not to theme?
Blogger, Blogging, Personal, Writing You see the word ‘blog’ a lot these days. It seems like everyone has a blog, from grandmothers to garden supply stores. What started out as a few bored geeks posting online diaries has rapidly grown into a phenomenon that’s difficult to describe. Just what constitutes a blog? Can a series of posts about a company’s product, peppered with links and keywords and SEO terms, really be considered in the same category as a thirteen year ...
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