We’ve had some discussions before about the ups and downs of working with Demand Studios. If you haven’t yet looked into this content writing site, or if you’ve been away for a while, recent changes to the site’s policies might make it worth taking another look!

Previously, content editors would rate writers on their grammar and quality of content, but inexplicably, these scores were not available to writers. Feedback was provided only in the event of a rejection or rewrite, making it difficult for writers to know of any areas of improvement. Recently, the site introduced the writer Scorecard, which provides writers with their ratings and other statistics. Continue Reading

As we learned last week, there are lots of great formatting tricks you can do with your blog posts if you know a little HTML. There are also a lot of cool things you can do even if you prefer not to mess around with code. Rich text editors (RTEs) are becoming more and more robust, making it easy to achieve high levels of customization even without any knowledge of HTML. If you’ve never explored all the little buttons on your RTE, take a few minutes to learn what some of them do — you may be surprised by all the options! Continue Reading

Whether you’re working on your own blog or Web site or posting to a client’s site, having a few HTML tricks up your sleeve can help when it comes to getting everything formatted the way you want it. Though updates in Web publishing tools have made it easy to post Web content without knowing HTML, many rich text editors (RTEs) still have their limits.

Basics

First of all, let’s explain some basic HTML terminology.

If you don’t know HTML at all, take a look at your code the next time you post to your own blog. You’ll probably see things like <p>, <strong>, <ul>, and <a href=”www.yourwebsite.com”>. These are all HTML tags. In general, most HTML formatting requires a start tag and a close tag. For example, if you have bold text in your blog, you would see

<strong>your bold text here</strong>

(As a side note, you may sometimes see bold text notated as <b>, but some Web sites don’t recognize this formatting, so it’s best to always use <strong>. The same goes for italics, which is sometimes coded as <i> but should always be <em> [for “emphasis”]).

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If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, you may not have considered the need to learn HTML. Isn’t that something programmers use? Well, yes, but chances are you’ll be writing a lot of Web content, and that means being directly involved in a Web development environment. Much of your work may be ghost-written articles that you can submit via a regular old Word document, but some clients may want you to post directly into their publishing tool, and that’s where knowing HTML comes in handy.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, and it’s a way of formatting your text online with things like bold and italics. It also allows you to add images and hyperlinks. If you’re publishing to WordPress or a client’s customized rich text editor (RTE), you will have controls at the top of your editing tool that do these things for you. Most RTEs these days are so user friendly you can post to a blog or a Web site without knowing HTML at all. WordPress in particular has some great features that allow you to perform some pretty advanced functions without knowing HTML, but WordPress is only one of many RTEs you may encounter in your freelancing career, and it’s good to have a few tricks up your sleeve just in case. Continue Reading

The other day I was thinking about the differences between all my clients. I have a handful of clients who pay me $15 for each assignment, which is the same payout as Demand Studios. Now, I know writers sometimes complain about the availability of assignments on Demand, but I usually have no problem finding interesting topics. I like to write about alternative medicine and women’s health issues, and I think it’s pretty awesome when I can spend an entire day writing about, say, herbal remedies for psoriasis or different methods of contraception.

Which made me wonder — why even accept a $15 assignment from a client who wants me to write about used cars or mini fridges? Should I — should any writer — write for private clients that don’t pay any better than content sites that give you more control over your topics? Continue Reading

With all the job search advice available online, you’d think we’d all be pros when it comes to applying for and securing new gigs. But the Internet abounds with stories about job interview mistakes — from dressing wrong to arriving late to failing to conduct research on the company. Just tonight over drinks, a friend told me that her boyfriend saw nothing wrong with telling a prospective employer that his ideal job would be working at a gas station “because it would be easy.”

As freelancers, most of us don’t do many face-to-face interviews, but we still make our share of job search snafus. Make any of the mistakes below, and your application e-mail is sure to be deleted without a second thought.

1. Ignore the ad’s instructions. Writing samples … references … salary history … whatever the ad asks for, send it. This is your first opportunity to show that you are attentive and can follow directions. Don’t blow it. Continue Reading

A lot of freelancing Web sites and blogs have been talking about Examiner lately, and if you’ve been looking for writing gigs, you’ve probably run across their ads. If you aren’t yet familiar, Examiner is a fairly new site that provides geographically specific information on a virtual cornucopia of categories. As of May, Examiner had launched in 90 major U.S. markets. Examiners — as the site’s writers are called — specialize in a particular niche and maintain their own pages. Categories include just about everything you can think of: film, books, sports, news, health, green living, parenting, relationships, etc., etc.

I write for Examiner, and I didn’t go into it expecting it to be a huge money maker. I view it as an opportunity to explore a topic that interests me (yoga), have a more creative outlet to balance some of my other assignments, and maybe get some free yoga classes out of the deal. So far, I’ve been posting about once a week, and I enjoy it. Continue Reading

Since my writing life lately has been focused on increasing my productivity, I’ve also been examining my work habits in an effort to curtail my procrastination tendencies. I already knew that I am most likely to procrastinate at the beginning of a project. Like AC said in Amping Up Productivity, staring at a blank screen and trying to think of ideas for an article is the worst part of any assignment. So how do you get yourself in gear and get something down on the page?

Examine your motivations

When I open a blank document and know I have to start researching a new subject, that’s when my train of thought starts heading in this direction:

Oh wait, I need to check my bank account balance and see if that PayPal transfer came through. And then I need to pay that credit card bill. Oh, and I should check my last post on Want to Freelance and see if there are any comments I need to respond to. And, oh yeah, I was going to look up how to devein shrimp.

What is the motivation behind these thoughts? None of these things is so important that it has to be done right this minute. Usually when this happens, it’s because I’m feeling intimidated by my subject matter. But I know from experience that once I get started, it’s never as hard as I thought it was going to be. Reminding myself of this helps me keep my focus. Continue Reading

We’ve been talking about productivity on this site quite a bit. Nacie wrote a great post on 18 ways to improve your productivity, AC wrote about evaluating your personal work preferences in terms of environment and work approach, and I previously tackled the time-management matrix. When you’re freelancing, your income is directly dependent on the amount of work you produce. There’s no set salary for you to rely on. And while working from home definitely has its advantages, it can also be really hard to stay focused. Time-management skills are crucial, and so is being aware of your personal work habits and your most productive times of day. But to perform at your personal best, never underestimate the importance of a well-organized, comfortable workspace. Continue Reading

In the world of freelancing, a big part of your work is … looking for more work. We here at WTF generally discourage the use of any job sites that require you to pay for leads or for a membership. With a little resourcefulness and some determination, you should have no trouble finding quality job leads. Here’s a list of some good places to start (in no particular order). Continue Reading