Thank You for Your Submissions

The May 28th deadline has come and gone, and I want to thank those of you who sent your guest blogger entries. If I haven’t gotten back to you, its because I will be reading the remaining submissions over the weekend. The first three weeks are already set, I think I’ll have enough to finish out the month, but I won’t be sure until I read through them all. I really appreciate those of you who took the time to write. I know how difficult it can be to take on an extra article beyond all the ones you write for your own blogs. I think that we have some fun and interesting articles on their way. I’ll post the guest blogger list over the weekend once the final articles are set.

Thank you again.

John

The Basics of Press Releases

This is day three of my discussion of, Write for the Web! A Beginner’s Guide to Writing on the Internet. This e-book was created by the men behind Men With Pens. They wanted me to take a look at it and give them my thoughts, so I am sharing my thoughts with you.

One of the topics MWP discusses is writing press releases. Press releases can make for a nice little income if you like working in public relations. The press release is a very traditional form of marketing and public relations that has a well-established set of rules. MWP explains a few of those rules such as:

The press release must include the following information: what’s new (headline), date that event happened, name of the company issuing the press release, what’s the story (opening paragraph), quotes (usually from CEO or VP of Marketing),  a line or two about the company, and what it does, and contact information, (name of PR officer, his telephone number, email address, and cell/pager number).

I was kind of surprised that they assumed the PR officer is a male. Most of the PR people I’ve dealt with are women. I also haven’t met anyone with a pager in almost ten years. A fax number is more likely, but still decreasing in use. The rest of the advice is spot on. I would add the following:

Write it in a News Style

Put the primary information (who, where, what, and when) into the lead (first paragraph and keep the sales pitch subtle. No exclamation points!!! Use short words and sentences. Make sure what you’re saying is very clear. Many publications will directly reprint (or at least reprint blocks of) a press release as long as it is written in a professional news style. Buy either the AP Stylebook (most newspapers) or the Chicago Manual of Style (almost everyone else) and learn the general guidelines for abbreviating words, writing numbers and capitalizing names.

Show and Tell

If you have good photos, send them or include the words “photos available upon request” with your information at the top of the first page. Only send high quality photos and only send them if they add to your story.

End it Properly

End a press release with either “###” or ” -30-” typed across the center of the page, three lines below the end of your text. If a release has greater than one page, type “-more-”, centered at the bottom of the pages preceding the final page.

For more information on writing press releases (the old fashioned way) read my article: Sending Effective Press Releases.

Freelancing Means Customer Service

OK, Freelancing doesn’t mean customer service, but if you want to be a successful freelancer, you’d better be prepared to provide great customer service. This is day two of my discussion of, Write for the Web! A Beginner’s Guide to Writing on the Internet. This e-book was created by the men behind Men With Pens. They wanted me to take a look at it and give them my thoughts, so I am sharing my thoughts with you.

The Pen Men list eight keys to great customer service:

• Be courteous — professionally and socially
• Be responsive
• Be friendly
• Be confident
• Be an expert
• Be realistic
• Be calm and collected
• Be there

All those items are good advice. They all represent a key principal that is true for almost any job. Be Easy To Work With! It is good advice everywhere, but it is crucial in the freelance world, in which another freelancer is always just an Internet search away.

To me the key to being easy to work with (and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always measure up to this) is to have empathy. This is true whether you are working with a freelance client, your manager at work or with with another writer. The questions you should ask yourself are:

• What do they WANT from me?
• What do they NEED from me?
• What DON’T they need or want from me?

If you can give them the first two and keep the third to yourself, you’re going to do well when it comes to customer service.

I used to do some freelance writing and web work for a private detective. This guy was seriously nuts. Some of his requests were downright strange and he he was frequently annoying. I never once complained to him and I gave him what he needed (after eliminating the more insane parts of what he wanted). Why did I put up with him? He gave me a lot of business (right up until he disappeared) and he always paid upfront in cash. To me, that made him a valuable client.

Are You Determined Enough to be a Freelance Writer?

“Talent and hard work are more valuable than fancy degrees in the web writing world.”

I have a fancy degree, and I have been reading, Write for the Web! A Beginner’s Guide to Writing on the Internet. This e-book was created by the men behind Men With Pens. They wanted me to take a look at it and give them my thoughts. I tend to multi-task, so I thought I would use this as an opportunity to do some active reading with you, my enthusiastic and attractive audience. (Don’t worry James, I won’t reveal the surprise ending)

One of the first issues they cover in the book is “Am I Good Enough?” This is an excellent question, one that I have been asked a few dozen times by prospective writers over the years. The answer, one MWP comes up with as well, is yes AND no. Chances are, if you are interested enough in writing to be coming to my site, you have the writing skill and passion to at least potentially make a living as a writer on the Internet. If you can write with some enthusiasm and readability about a variety of subjects, then you have a chance to make a living as a writer on the web. That said, most people will never make a living writing for the Internet.

This is for a variety of reasons. Writing talent is important, but it takes more than that to make a living. MWP lists several of the things you need besides writing talent:

• Customer service
• Sales and Marketing
• Negotiation
• Time management
• Accounting

They also discuss some of the more intangible qualities you need. To me the intangible comes down to a single word.

Determination

It doesn’t take determination to go to a job every day, even one you hate. You simply show up. Whether you’re effective or not, you stick around until its time to go home. It may not be pleasant. You may desperately want to quit (and become a freelance writer), but leaving is what requires determination, not staying.

Determination to succeed as a freelance writer means:

• Finding work when you don’t have any
• Promoting yourself even if you’re shy
• Writing when you don’t feel inspired or energetic
• Staying productive despite a hundred minor distractions
• Completing assignments on time even when you have a good excuse not to
• Taking assignments that aren’t interesting
• Finding ways to improve as a writer
• Learning, learning, learning

What it all boils down to is that succeeding as a writer means working hard — constantly. Most people have trouble doing that, especially when there isn’t a boss keeping an eye on them.

5 Reasons I Love Blogging More than Freelancing

If I had two kids, Blogging and Freelancing, Blogging would get most of the attention. I would play catch with Blogging in the backyard. I would let Blogging sit in the front seat (and yell at Freelancing for fidgeting). If I could only afford braces for one of them, Blogging would get them. Why?

I don’t have to send out query letters

I would rather be writing articles than query letters. It is just that simple. The process of querying publishers or potential clients can take months and there is no guarantee it will lead to a sale. With blogging, I spend my time writing actual articles (and occasionally poems). I don’t spend my time trying to convince other people to publish me.

I can write about whatever I want

The beauty of blogging is that I am my own publisher. I determine what I write about and then I go out and write it. I don’t have to tailor my writing to a certain magazine’s style, space or content rules. I can write in my own voice and develop my own style. I get to be me.

I don’t have to answer to an editor

I have no doubt a good editor could make my articles better. My site could certainly benefit from one of those pricey word polishers. Unfortunately, I have often found myself the victim of arbitrary cuts determined by either an incompetent editor’s ideas or a publication’s space limitations. These are not problems I have to deal with as a blogger. Bloggers have the freedom to determine the length and style of their work. I love that freedom and I hate it when I have to give it up.

I get published when I want to be

The beauty of blogging is that I determine my own publishing schedule. I can publish an article as soon as I finish it or schedule it for whenever I want it to appear. The decision is mine. I’ll never get that kind of freedom as a freelancer. As a freelancer, I have waited as long as a year for an article to appear (and to get paid). Also, in the rare cases when I am having trouble with an article and it is taking me longer than I expected, I don’t have to worry about explaining myself to an editor or a client. I simply keep working on it until I get it right. I can even quit and move on to something else without any repercussions.

I get to connect with my readers

When I write for traditional print publications or for business clients, the best I can hope for is one or two sets of comments. In many cases, I receive absolutely no feedback from the audience. If I do, it’s a one-time event. Readers don’t follow my work. With my blog, I can develop long-term relationships with my readers. Not only will they comment on one article, in many cases they will come back again and again with their own ideas and opinions. They catch things I miss. They let me know when they like what I wrote. They let me know when they don’t. Knowing they are out there keeps me writing.

Why Newspapers are Dying (and what they can do about it)

I’ve been picking on newspapers for a while, for much longer than I have been a blogger. To me the decline became apparent in the eighties and nineties when the big corporations started snapping newspapers up and the focus of newspapers drifted away from news and moved toward profits. Newspapers, at their best, are a very personal enterprise. Corporations, especially ones that are big enough to buy a slew of newspapers, know nothing about passion. Still, for a long time they only had television to compete with. TV is just as bland and corporate as newspapers are. It took the Internet, and passionate individuals, to dig the grave for newspapers.

A Lack of Interest

I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper since the early nineties. I occasionally buy the local paper, but it is usually because I want the car or the grocery ads or because I have some time to kill in a restaurant. I certainly don’t buy the local paper looking for a great reading experience. Every newspaper runs the same canned stories off of the news wire. Their local coverage consists of mostly basic police/court coverage, business stories, road construction updates and reasonably good coverage of the sports scene. None of these are things I can’t do without. More importantly, I can find any of it on online if I bother to look. For the record, I also don’t watch the news, local or national, on television. Television “news” is all about blood, pundits and car chases. I don’t need it.

New News Sources

I am far from uninformed. I read the news just about every day, spending at least ten minutes and as much as an hour scanning headlines and reading anything that seems interesting. I do almost all of my reading online. Google News is my primary source, but I also subscribe to feeds from a number of specific publications and many blogs. I would subscribe to my local papers’ news feeds, if they had them. Unfortunately. the two daily papers don’t seem to have much interest in allowing people to read their articles without being subjected to their ad-filled web sites. I don’t really blame them, but I don’t miss them either.

A Very Long Decline

Print journalism is in the middle stages of what I expect will be a very long decline. Newspaper readership has been dropping for many years now, but over the past couple years that drop has been accelerating. There is no reason to expect this drop to end any time soon. Sadder yet, newspapers are having trouble online as well. People aren’t just leaving their print version behind, they are leaving their online versions behind too. I am sure this is because of the focus on wire feeds and canned news. You can get that kind of news anywhere. In fact, you have to make a deliberate effort if you want to avoid it.

An Outdated Model

The biggest problem is the lack of real journalism. For years now, newspapers have been getting by on wire feeds from AP, Reuters and a variety of smaller news services. Back before the Internet, this model worked because a person in Tucson wouldn’t have access to a newspaper in San Antonio, so it didn’t matter if they ran the exact same stories. Now, however, all that duplicate national and international coverage can be accessed by anyone anywhere. Why read your local paper’s limited international section when you can access the news from anywhere in the world through the web. With Google News and other news aggregators, it is just as easy to find out the news in England from England as it is from your local paper. As for that AP article, it is repeated so endlessly online that you are bound to catch it too, if you bother to look.

Raw VS. Canned and Bland

Print journalists endlessly deride bloggers, and some of their criticisms are valid. Many, though by no means all, bloggers have less news experience and greater political and personal bias than newspaper reporters do. They make up for those shortcomings, however, by being more timely, more passionate, and more detailed in their coverage. The world of journalistic blogging (there are many blogs that have nothing to do with the news) is uneven, but when it is good, it is far better than the canned, bland news stories that the newspapers reprint. Because there are so many sources to choose from, it is easy to decide for yourself what is good and what is worth reading.

Decline and Rebirth

Newspapers are going to continue to decline in readership and relevance as long as they continue to follow the old model of wire stories and short, uninteresting local articles. The only reason to pick up a newspaper (or visit a newspaper’s website) in Fresno is to find out what happened in Fresno. Only newspapers that invest heavily in local coverage and allow their writers to spend more than 300 words on an article will be relevant as the years pass. That probably won’t happen until the giant corporations that own most newspapers lose interest in these now unprofitable entities and move on to other media. It is difficult to image any conglomeration of newspapers embracing individual voices and local reporting. Once it becomes unprofitable enough, however, I predict that as newspapers begin to fold and be sold, passionate local people will return to print. Until then, I’ll continue to get my news online.

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