Welcome to the Writing Career Center

Five Things Remember When You Respond to an Online Job Ad

Write like you know how to write

If you are applying for a writing job (or for any job really) you want the person who reads your response to believe that you are an intelligent, professional candidate who knows how to write. Write in complete sentences and leave out the Twitspeak (OMG!).

Explain why you are the right person

Read the ad carefully and respond to every one of the job requirements. If the ad says they want someone with editing experience, tell them about your editing experience. Tell them about any relevant work experience or education. You want to convince them that you are the best person for the job.

Leave your personal life out of it

If your life experiences apply directly to the job’s requirements feel free to include them in your response but don’t add details just because you think they make you sound sympathetic. Being poor, a struggling writer, a writer with a disability, a deeply religious person, or someone who has overcome addiction means nothing unless it is directly applicable to the topic you will be writing about. When you include those items, it makes you sound like you are trying to use emotional blackmail to get the job. Concentrate on why they need you for the job, not why you need them to give you the job.

Beware of scams

There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there, and job ads are one ways that these people find their victims. Most ads are legitimate but beware of any ad that:

• Sounds too good to be true
• Tells you that your compensation should be anything other than money
• Wants you to give them money in order to get the job
• Wants you to perform work upfront for free (such as writing a free article for their site to prove you are “qualified”)

Include your resume and samples

Always include your resume and either writing samples or links to work you have done. Give your potential employers a chance to see your work and read all about your past work experience. You want them to be as informed as possible before they start cutting down their initial list of candidates. Give yourself the best possible chance to succeed.

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Join Me at BlogWorld!

Good News Everyone! After months of anticipation, BlogWorld has invited me to speak at this year’s convention! I will be teaching a seminar titled, How to Write a How To, scheduled for 11:00 to Noon on Friday, October 15th. It’s a fun topic, and one that I recently covered as part of the Writing Success Series here at Poewar.

In case you haven’t heard of BlogWorld, it is the largest Blogging and social media event anywhere, and it has the added bonus of happening at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. This is one of my absolute favorite hotels in Las Vegas. The rooms are great. there are plenty of non-gambling things to do and it’s big enough to hold a whole bunch of bloggers.

BlogWorld is going to be three days of learning, conversations and tchochkes. Some of the biggest bloggers in the world will be there, as well as assorted real celebrities. More importantly, I’ll be there, and I KNOW you’ll want to meet ME. Here are some of the featured speakers:

Keynotes

• Scott Stratten
• Doug Ulman
• Darren Rowse
• Sonia Simone
• Brian Clark
• Jeff Hayzlett

Monetization

• John Chow
• Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schumaker
• Anita Campbell
• Jonathan Fields
• Lewis Howes
• Michael Michalowicz
• Scott Ginsberg
• Barry Moltz
• Dave Taylor

Content Creation

• John Hewitt (That’s me!)
• Amy Parmenter

Social Media Business Summit

• CC Chapman
• Mari Smith
• Mark Davidson
• Declan Dunn

Tools and Technology

• Aaron Hockley
• Kris Krug
• Andrew Hayes
• Andrew Bennett

New Media 101

• Daniel Sococco

New Media 102

• Brian Layman
• Brandon Eley

Community

• Patrick O’Keefe
• Chris Garrett
• Lara Kulpa

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Defining Community Response, Stakeholders, Buy-in, Content Strategy, and Content Sourcing

Michelle V. Rafter over at WordCount wrote about some of the new terms that freelancers should know. Most of them are web inspired, such as click-through, SEO, uniques, content mill and site producer. Others probably came about because of the web but have broader meanings such as hyperlocal and PIE (payment in exposure). I have to admit that I had not heard the term content assets before, but I guess it makes sense now that content is the new umbrella term for not only people’s writing, but also art, audio and video. If any of the above terms are unfamiliar to you, check out her article. Meanwhile, here are a few more terms that seem to be cropping up in writing circles.

Community Response: This is a term that takes into account a combination of factors such as uniques, comments, links to content, tweets and shares. It tries to measure the overall response to piece of content.

Stakeholders: Anybody who will be contributing to, reviewing or approving the work you do.

Buy-in: The level of enthusiasm and support that the stakeholders have for the project. If you fail to get buy-in, your stakeholders may decide to kill or alter (interfere with) your project.

Content Strategy: The overall plan for creating content that appeals to the target audience and furthers the goals of the company producing the content.

Content Sourcing: Finding or creating content on an ongoing basis. As a freelance writer, you may be part of a content sourcing strategy.

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Coworking

I just read an interesting article by Simon Mackie at Web Worker Daily about Coworking. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to coworking lately because I like the camaraderie and social interaction that comes with a workplace, even though I am trying to make a go of a single person business. Unfortunately, my community isn’t large enough for me to shop around, as the first tip suggests. I can find only one coworking facility in Tucson, which makes me wonder if it might be a good business idea to open up another one.

The main concept of coworking is that you share a semi-casual office space (tables, desks, wifi, coffee, meeting rooms) with other professionals who either freelance, own their own businesses or work remotely. Collaboration and discussion are encouraged, and there are often learning opportunities such as lectures and seminars.

For me this would fulfill a need to build more relationships and share ideas, something that just doesn’t happen as often when you are working out of your home. Most of my friends and family are in different fields and most work for companies rather than run their own businesses, so I find that I have few opportunities to talk about the things I love to do with people who are interested. A coworking situation might be just what I am looking for.

If anybody out there has used a coworking office, could you please chime in and tell me about your experiences. I would appreciate it.

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Comic Strip Writing as a Career

Like most endeavors that fall into the realm of creative writing, comic strip writing is a hard way to make money. For years the goal of a comic strip writer was simple, get syndicated and appear in tons of newspapers. If you could get a major syndicate (such as King Features Syndicate, Universal Press Syndicate, United Media, the Washington Post Writers Group, or Creators Syndicate) to accept your comic, then you could get placed in daily newspapers. If your comic strip did well, dozens or hundreds of newspapers would pick up your comic and you could make a living. If you were lucky enough to create the sort of comic that sold well as books (not all do) then you could make even more money. If you had the sort of characters were easy to market as toys or other merchandise (Snoopy, Opus the Penguin, Garfield) then you could hit the jackpot and really make some big money.

While syndication is still the most obvious path toward success, it is not an easy path to navigate. To begin with, it is very hard to break into newspapers, even if you have a syndicate behind you. Newspapers aren’t exactly doing well. Every few days we get news of yet another newspaper folding. The city I live in, Tucson, Arizona, recently lost its afternoon daily.

With each newspaper that folds,  the market for comic strip shrinks a little more. Even when a newspaper stays in business, it still doesn’t mean that it will be seeking new comics. Many newspapers have dropped the number of comics they carry, often going down from two full pages to one or less. Also, because newspapers appeal to older readers more than younger readers, the comics tend to remain the same year after year. In many cases, even after the original comic writer or illustrator dies, the syndicate just replaces them because it is easier to keep a successful comic going without its author than it is to get a new comic placed. In recent years, newspapers have even resorted to printing reruns of popular old comics such as Peanuts, For Better or For Worse, Bloom County and Foxtrot.

The good news is that newspapers are no longer the only place to get your comic seen and read. Like most forms of writing that are hard to market elsewhere, comic strips have found a home on the web. The writers of these comic strips, such as Basic Instructions, Medium Large and xkcd have built a following on the web. Francesco Marciuliano, the author of Medium Large also has a syndicated comic, Sally Forth, which he took over from another writer. The web doesn’t offer the kind of money that successful syndication offers, but there are opportunities for profit such as books or merchandise. Scott Meyer of Basic Instructions, for example, sells books, t-shirts, clip-art and custom drawings. One advantage to putting your comic on the web instead of using newspaper syndication is that there is a great deal more freedom. A web comic can tackle material too controversial for newspaper comics, such as almost anything that has to do with sex.  It can also break the format rules that bind newspaper comics. Basic Instructions, for example, has a large four panel style that will never fly in a newspaper. At one point, under the tutelage of Dilbert author Scott Adams, Meyer tried to turn his comic into a three-panel piece like in most comics, but everyone seemed to agree that it works best in its original format (see links below).

To sum up, comic strips aren’t a place to go to get rich. You might get lucky (there are some new comics making headway in the newspapers such as My Cage) but chances are you’re going to struggle for a long time before you get a profitable following. It is something you should do if you love, just like writing poetry or writing short stories.

Articles about the comic strip writing life:
Comic Strip Writing 101:  Francesco Marciuliano (Sally Forth, Medium large) writes a nice tongue-in-cheek guide to his day.

The Interview: ‘Pearls Before Swine’s’ Stephan Pastis “If you’re from a certain generation, you basically learn to read with “Peanuts.” It’s sort of the template for the modern strip. Its influence ceased to be noticed because it’s in everything.”

Interview with Tom Batiuk (Funky Winkerbean, Crankshaft) This has some great details of how he got syndicated.

Here is a nice series of  advice that Scott Adams (Dilbert) gave to Scott Meyer (Basic Instructions)

Basic Instructions, Part 1: Basic Instructions Part 2, Basic Instructions, Part 3, Basic Instructions Part 4, Basic Instructions part 5, Basic Instructions part 6, Basic Instructions Part 7,

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Homework Assignment: Go read some comic strips

I thought I would spend the next few posts discussing a type of writing that doesn’t get much mention here, even though I am a great fan. The comic strip is the essence of tight writing. Most days you have anywhere from one to four panels to tell a little story, even if that story just leads to a bad pun or some ineffectual navel gazing (I’m looking at you Funky Winkerbean!).
There’s actually a lot of variety in the comic strip world. Some comics are soap operas (Mary Worth, Apartment 3G) some are hero fantasies (Spiderman, Dick Tracy) some focus on humor (Dilbert, Garfield) and some are just strange (Zippy the Pinhead, Ballard Street).
Before I jump too heavily into the topic, I want to give my vast audience a few links so that they can follow along with some of the comics and web sites I will be discussing or at least know some of my favorite reads.
For the newspaper comics, the Houston Chronicle is the best place I know to read your weekday comics. For the Sunday comics I usually swing by the two Seattle newspapers, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
There are also a lot of web-based comics. In fact, there are literally hundreds of these, but I only follow a few:

• Basic Instructions
• Medium Large
• XKCD
• Garfield Minus Garfield

I also enjoy Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s blog Inkygirl, which includes her writing/freelancing related comics.
When it comes to discussing the comics, The Comics Curmudgeon is the hands-down best place to go. His comments on the comics are often funnier and more interesting than the comics themselves.
Another good site for fun commentary is Comics I Don’t Understand.
That’s enough to look at for now. Do some homework over the weekend so you’ll be up to speed when I discuss comic strips in more detail next week.

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