Archives for May 2008

Tips for Pitching a Blog to a Network

May 30, 2008 by david 1 Comment

Many network bloggers, or aspiring network bloggers, have great ideas for blogs. If this is the case, they might want to pitch it to their networks. The worst they can do is say "no", right? If you have an untouched niche or a fun idea running around in your head, do suggest it to your editors. Here are a few tips to help you out:

Take Your Time

Instead of rushing off a hurried email to your editor, take your time to craft a well-written, well thought out proposal. Describe exactly what you had in mind with the blog and why you feel it will be successful. Include:

Possible name and available domain names
A detailed description
Statistics regarding the niche
Links to other similar blogs
How you plan on making it different from others in the niche.
Who do you feel will read this blog?
How do you plan on promoting your blog?

Don’t Bug

Don’t bug your editor or contact at the network. If you don’t hear back in a day or two remember editors and people in charge are busy and get email inquiries from hundreds each day. After a decent amount of time, say 30 days, write back and inquire. If you still don’t receive an answer you have several recourses:

Continue to wait
Shop your idea elsewhere
Start up your own blog

If the network turns down your idea

If the network turns down your idea, hopefully they will give you a reason. For instance, they don’t see it as a profitable idea or they already have a similar blog. You can continue to shop your idea around or you can start the blog on your own. It’s good to remember being turned down is nothing personal. There’s a business decision behind it, but that should deter you as a blogger.

You also not let one rejection discourage you from coming up with other ideas in the future. Bloggers are creative people and rejection is only a momentary setback. If you think positive, you’re sure to find an outlet for your ideas.

How To Look Like A Smack Amateur

May 27, 2008 by david 1 Comment

Don’t note your sources.

For crying out loud – this is blogging 101. This weekend I did my weekend prowl for cool news and other items, and must have seen at least 40 blogs with items, pictures, and quotes, yet not a source among them.

If you didn’t build it, make it, think it, create it, let me know who did. Nothing is more obnoxious than a blogger showing a house or cool art creation and not sourcing it. None of the blogs I saw tricks like this at were network based, but some were client owned blogs, or blogs for profit. Some of the blog were bigger names in their niche too. Shame on them. I’d list them, but don’t want to give them any link love.

If you are posting images or statistics or quotes with no source it’s not on the up and up where legalities are concerned, and worse, it makes you look lame and uninformed – read this: Blogs and Images.

Ok, rant over; I guess it’s just that few things make me as mad as finding a cool house I can’t mention or link to at Offbeat, simply because the blogger didn’t source it. Back to our regularly scheduled nice friendly tips.

If You're Not Feeling A Post… Stop Writing

May 24, 2008 by david 2 Comments

Just a quick tip. Sometimes I get a “brilliant” idea for a post, start to type, get stuck, and then sit and ponder what to say next. HUGE time waster. Sitting and staring seems like an easy issue to avoid, but I know lots of people who note that they do this.

Train yourself to simply hit save and move on when you’re stuck. Whether you’re stuck on wording, or how you feel, or for some reason you didn’t have enough info to write the post in the first place; just stop. Hit save. Go work on another post. You can always go back later.

Do you ever participate in sit and stare behavior?

10 Ways to Let Your Competition Be Your Guide

May 22, 2008 by david 11 Comments

I’m always hesitant to use the word "competition" to describe other bloggers in my niche. I always like to look at them as colleagues in which to share ideas and community rather than the person whose traffic I should be stealing. For the purpose of today’s blog post, we’ll allow it just this one time.

If there’s one thing I learned with Freelance Writing Jobs is that if you have a popular blog, others will want to do the same exact thing. It used to frustrate me, but I decided to use this to my advantage. Rather get frustrated with all the other job listings blogs, I look to them to see how I can do things better or different.

Some of my network blogs are in competitive niches as well, my blogs on saving money or beauty tips certainly aren’t the only ones out there. How do I stand out among the rest?

Here are 10 ways I let my competition be my guide.

I participate in their communities – It would be silly to expect no one else to have the same type of blog, wouldn’t it? My philosophy is, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The great thing about the blogosphere is that there’s room for everyone. If I’m not going to be the only blog re-listing freelance writing jobs or offering tips for finding said jobs, I’m going to welcome the others into the neighborhood. By participating in the other blog communities I’m offering my insight, learning and gathering new ideas from others, and maybe even gaining a reader or two.
I look to see what they’re missing – When I look at another blog like mine I wonder what they’re missing. What do their readers have questions about and what topics aren’t they discussing? Offer something your competition doesn’t have and people will respond.
I define my niches. When I visit other blogs in the same niche I wonder how I can do things differently. For instance, with Freelance Writing Jobs I became more than a "relisting" blog. I began offering advice for finding and getting jobs. At this blog, Jennifer and I target bloggers who work for others rather than the usual make money online blogging blogs. At the List Maven, my beauty blog, I offer all tips and product reviews in list form, and at Simply Thrifty I offer stories from my youth and updates on home DIY projects. Even my celebrity blogs are different – I have one featuring celebrity role models and one featuring celebrity lists. Now when people visit me it won’t be the same old thing they see on other blogs.
I continue to evolve – This holds hands with point number 3, by continuing to evolve I don’t get stuck in a rut. I don’t have to talk about or do the same things over and over. It’s ok to change your blog’s focus now and then to adapt to your readers’ tastes. Sometimes that’s by widening a narrow niche, other times it’s by changing a blog’s design.
I look to see what my competitors do right – When I see other blogs in my niche, I want to know what they’re doing right. I’m not going to copy them, but I am going to use them for ideas for bettering myself and my blog.
I investigate the most and least popular articles – What topics do their communities respond to most and least? This will give you a good indication of what your readers might like to learn about. Don’t copy, but do add your own point of view.
I investigate their traffic – Knowing how the competition is faring can be a great kick in the ass. How many comments do they get? What is their Alexa, Technorati or Google ranking? Are they at the top of the search engines? Where does a lot of their traffic seem to be coming from? Do they get lots of track backs from other blogs?
I investigate to see who is linking to them and why – Other other blogs and communities responding to my competitors’ posts? If so why? What makes one post more popular than another? Is controversy or negativity such a good thing? Knowing which posts get the backlinks might give you some good ideas of your own -and might also give you an idea of other communities to target.
I offer to trade guest posts – By trading guest blogger posts with your competitors or fellow niche bloggers you’ll be sharing ideas and traffic.
I keep them on my radar – Even the bloggers with the most popular blogs keep their competitors close. Even if you only visit the blogs or feeds once a week, know what others in your niche are talking about as well as the reaction of their readers. This way if they start to all of a sudden gain a lot of traffic or comments you’ll know why…and know what to do to use it to your advantage.

Repeat To Self: Food, Sleep, Exercise Are Not Time Wasters

May 18, 2008 by david 5 Comments

We’ve got two major time wasters leftover from last week. I’m saving my worst sin, “Getting side tracked while posting” for last. Today let’s talk about work breaks and everyday life stuff, like sleep, meals, and exercise.

Breaks, sleeping, eating, and exercise are things I don’t have a lot of time for when I’m in full work mode, so I tend to consider them time wasters. However, they’re not really time wasters, are they? If I avoid them, my work suffers. Obviously we can function on very little sleep, food, and exercise when we want, but it’s just not healthy. Sometimes I’ll work so hard on the weekends, I’ll skip two mealtimes and not even realize it. Or at least I used to. Here’s how I’ve been running things for the last few weeks.

Rules I made for myself:

Never eat at the computer. Never. I don’t care if I have a deadline or not, if you’re going to eat, take a break and eat, then get back to work. Then you get to eat and take a break – double them up.

Set the timer for meals. Because I’m bad about eating on the weekends, I started setting my cell phone timer to go off at dinner and lunch. This has worked pretty well. Twice I turned it off, and since I was in the middle of something, went back to work, and forgot it went off, so I had to add in a new rule; when it goes off, I save what I’m doing and get up from the chair.

Exercise like it’s a normal day. On weekdays (when I don’t work full-time) I exercise in the mornings, plus my son and I usually go for a long walk each day, and in the evenings play soccer or Frisbee at the park. I never used to exercise on the weekends because there’s just no time. However, I realized that I feel more energized on the weekdays, and thought, hey, maybe it’s the darn exercise. That said, I decided to keep my regular exercise routines somewhat on the weekends. I cut out the long walk, but I do still ride my bike, and although my son is with his dad on the weekends, the ex lives next door, so I just go borrow Cedar for some evening park play on at least one weekend day.

Take normal breaks: It’s not smart to sit at your desk for hours on end. I will though, so I made up a rule that every four posts I get up and walk around for at least five minutes, but I aim for ten minutes. During my little breaks I’ll do boring stuff like throw in laundry or wash some dishes; dull but a good break from sitting. I also do some desk stretches.

Sleep: I don’t tend to sleep much on the weekends, and I haven’t been exactly successful at finding a way to make me go to bed. Really, I’d rather work than sleep on the weekends. Bad; I know. It’s also not productive, once you’re too tired, you’re just hitting the keyboard all helter skelter style. I’m one of those who can function well on very little sleep. Even when I’m super tired, I only sleep about five hours a stretch (at most). My current goal is simply to go to bed when I’m tired. Once I stay up past the point of tired I hit a new stride and end up staying up.

What’s working. Since I implemented my new eat, sleep, exercise, and break goals, I’ve been doing ok. Except for on the sleep issue. Since I’m not perfect, I have to take what I can get, and hopefully formulate a new sleep plan. Do you skip sleep when you’re in full-time work mode, or are you worse about skipping out on something else, like exercise?

What are your goals for a healthy lifestyle when you’re blogging full-time?

Actual time wasting activities you might be interested in:

Payment is Late: When Should You Worry?

May 5, 2008 by david Leave a Comment

For the first time in years, the first few days of the month have gone by without payment from any of my clients. Normally at least one client can be counted on to pay on the first day of the month, the rest will come within the first week. It’s been a long time since a client tried to rip me off, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t worry. Still, I’m not in the habit of contacting my clients on the second day of the month if payment isn’t received. Before you start panicking and sending around "hey I’m being ripped off" emails, consider the following:

If You work for a Big Network You’re Safe

If you work for a large, high profile network, do you really think they’re going to rip you off? Consider this: If the most prestigious blogging network in the world hasn’t paid you yet, do you think they want the world knowing or do you feel it’s in their best interests to keep you happy? The last thing they want is for the press or other bloggers to think they’re deadbeats. Of course they’re going to pay you. Every now and then there’s a rare occasion when payment is late.I can only count one such occasion in the year I’ve been working for networks and it wasn’t late by much. Networks have money. They’re not in the business of ripping off their bloggers. Before you start emailing everyone in the network, talk to your editor. There’s probably already a note of explanation on the way.

What Does Your Contract Say?

Though you might be paid on the first of the month, your contract might state you’re to be paid within the first two weeks or fifteen days of the month. Your client or network doesn’t have to pay you on a specific date, though it’s a nice courtesy. Read your contract, if it says you’ll be paid within the first week of the month, wait until that week is up before you start sending out the emails or making the phone calls.

When to Bug Your Individual Clients

Individual clients are different, especially ones you just started working with. First check the terms of your contract and wait until the promised payment time has passed. If your agreement says you’ll be paid within the first of the month, wait a day or two after and send a nice note of inquiry. If it’s a trusted client, I usually give it a week or two past due before I start to get a bit nudgy.

Instant Gratification

When I freelanced for print, I received payments months after my piece was published. The web has made us spoiled because of the instant gratification of immediate publication and payment. Still, it’s best to be reasonable. Your client has no intention of stiffing you and probably has a good reason for paying later than normal. Be patient, wait a few a days and send a nice note asking if there’s a problem. Keep it on good terms, as you don’t want your client to be put off by a nasty tone. I know there are ripoffs out there, but I haven’t encountered any in the blogging world.

I hope you don’t either.

Sneaky Clients – Acts That Should Make You Run for the Hills

May 4, 2008 by david 2 Comments

Sneaky clients at best are somewhat silly to obnoxious, and at worst may want you to break the law. I’ve never had a network ask me to do anything questionable, but stand alone clients have been another story. Here are some things that a sneaky client might try.

Give you a demotion for low stats early on. First off, ask if you can have access to stats, then it’s easy to know where stats stand. Also, unless it was in your contract, you shouldn’t get a pay cut, especially not if it’s a new blog. It takes a long time to build stats, some clients aren’t smart enough to know this. I know one blogger who took a pay cut once on a blog because stats were low, but she already had a good long-term working relationship with her client, and there were other circumstances. In most cases if you do your job, you need to get paid.

Tell you to buy photos for posts. If it wasen’t agreed upon in the contract, do not pay for premium photos. There are places to find free images, and if it’s something like celebrity photos, that often do need to be bought, the client should pay, not you.

Tell you to take photos or text from another blog without permission and post it at their blog. Um, yeah. Don’t ever do this. Furthermore if a client asks you to do this run; run fast. You don’t want your name and rep as a blogger associated with them.

The twist on the above sneaky act is when clients add questionable stuff to your post after the fact. If your name is on the post, you could get in trouble for stolen content.

Wants you to post each day without fail at 3pm. You agree. Then they change it to 5am, then 10pm. You’re not a traffic guinea pig. If your client is being obnoxious with timing, don’t put up with it. There are plenty of clients who won’t do this

Asks you to wait to agree on a pay amount until they see how you do. Don’t work for free – period. You could start your own blog “just to see how you’ll do” and make more money.

Changes your work and then tries to not pay you. I used to have this ghostwriting gig for a client. Until I know a client, I save posts in Word, which is a good thing, because this client was going in and changing my posts. Cutting words, cutting photos; and I had no clue. Then comes payday, and I get an email that says, “Due to you not following our contract, no pay” – I got pretty snippy and actually I did get paid, but I was just lucky. Of course I quit. Having gone through that, I’d suggest you pay attention to new clients until you know them.

What sneaky client acts have you run into?