Why is There so Much Bad Writing on the Web?

. . . And What Can Be Done About It
I owe readers of my work a big apology. Why? Because I've contributed to bad writing on the web. Now I know, to a certain degree, why this is - and what can be done about it.

If you regularly submit content to the web - whether it's for your blog, an e-zine, a newsletter, website copy, etc. - read and heed!

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Why Is There So Much Bad Writing on the Web: Reason #1

Volume: In the last year and a half, 25-30% of my workload has become web copy. I also have a blog, a website and a newsletter - all of which require regular updates.

In short, I turn out a huge volume of text on a regular basis; it's not unusual for me to write between 3,000 and 6,000 words a day. In terms of articles, that's the equivalent of 10, 600-word articles a day.

This can take 10, 12 or 13 hours. In between, there's research, fact checking, interviews, formatting, etc., to be done.

So, what gets pushed back? What we in the publishing industry used to call QC (quality checking). This is the editing, proofreading and rewriting.

Because the web is in "real time," freelance writers are almost forced to respond in real time. There's a constant need to update content, respond to content, produce new content, etc. Again, what gets pushed to the side - copyediting, editing and proofreading.

While this is certainly no excuse, the amount of time spent on copy has a direct bearing on a freelance writer's income, which brings me to my next point - balancing time to make money.

Why Is There So Much Bad Writing on the Web: Reason #2

Money: As any freelance writer will tell you, time literally is money. Because our income is directly related to how much copy we can produce, edit, rewrite, etc., we have to maximize it to the fullest.

The writing has to get done. The interviews have to be conducted. The web pages have to be updated. What can usually slide? The copyediting, editing and proofreading.

Why IsThere So Much Bad Writing on the Web: Reason #3

Laziness: Yep, I'm going to put this right out there - plain old laziness. Many times, as freelance writers, we're just ready to get a piece off our desk. We get tired of looking at it, tired of the concept and tired of trying to make it "just right."

So, we publish it without doing a final proof, a final edit, a final rewrite.

And, while there is certainly a time when you should "let a piece go," it should never be before the quality check is complete.

Solution to Bad Writing on the Web

There's only one way to stop this - and that is to get back to good old-fashioned copyediting and proofreading.

And, while spell check is a great tool - it can't read your mind. That's why "write" for "right" will get through.

So, to readers of my work - who I value and respect immensely - my promise to you is that my work will get better. While I can't promise to never write another piece without errors, I do promise that the quality of what I put out will go up - markedly - from here on out.

Now, I'm off to proofread this before I hit "Publish."

Coming Monday: Monday will be wrap-up day. What do I mean? On 4/02, I posted about an Editor-in-Chief's job offer I received. I've made a decision on that.

AND, for my post on 4/26, Lillie Amman awarded me The Thinking Blogger's Award (yeah!). So, I have to tag five other bloggers whom I think deserve this award.

Have a good weekend,

Yuwanda Black, Publisher
InkwellEditorial.com
InkwellEditorial.blogspot.com
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Copyright Notice: May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. First-hand freelance success stories, e-courses, job postings, resume tips, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Launch a Profitable Freelance Writing Career in 30 Days or Less -- Guaranteed! Log on to InkwellEditorial.com.
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How to Make More Money from Clients You Already Have

Upselling is a skill that most freelancers don't use nearly enough. What exactly is upselling? Simply put, selling a client another, usually closely related product, after you've made an initial sale.

For example, if you complete a brochure for a client, you might pitch them on adding it to their website, in the form of web copy.

When most small business owners outside of the publishing/advertising/communications realm first start to use freelance writers, they have no idea how they can grow their business.

So, it's up to you, the freelance writer (graphic designer, web designer, illustrator) to let them know. All that being said, how do you upsell a client? Following are 3 things I've found that work well for me:

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1. Make it a Habit: Most freelancers will finish a project, turn it and say something to the effect of, "Keep me in mind for all your freelance writing needs."

This is not upselling! To effectively upsell, you need to make it a habit, and this means having procedures in place so that you don't forget. A good way to do this is a Project Follow-up Calendar.

What is a Project Follow-up Calendar? It lists specific actions that you take each time you turn a project in. For example, if you vow make three follow-up actions every time you turn a project in, it might look something like this:

2/12: Turn Project in

2/19: Follow up Action #1: Call to make sure all was well with project turned in last week and ask about brochure* I sent along with project. Depending on answer to this, do the following:

2/26: Follow up Action #2: Do follow-up on brochure I re-sent after last week's call

3/5: Follow up Action #3: Touch base to see if they want to move ahead with e-book we discussed last week

*Do a brochure that lists all of your services - and include it with every project you turn in. A week or so after you turn the project in, follow up and ask if they've had a chance to look over the brochure with the other services you offer. If they say no, offer to follow up again in another week or so. [Follow the actions outlined in your project follow-up calendar].

2. Get Specific to Their Business: While including a brochure listing all the services you offer is a great idea, one that works even better in my opinion is to get specific to their business.

Eg, I noticed an article on your website about the benefits of Flood Insurance. Have you ever thought about making this a direct mail piece and/or or a full-fledged e-book detail the pros and cons of this type of insurance?

Research has shown that the more serious prospects are about buying a product, the more information they want about it. Having an e-book and/or mailer done about this can dramatically increase sales.

A 7-page e-book on the above can be completed within a week. It can be a wonderful promotional tool for homeownership seminars, networking conferences, stand-alone giveaways, etc.

I'll follow up in the next three days about this, after you've looked over this project. This type of follow up shows clients that you: i) have researched their business; and ii) are proactive in thinking of ways to help them grow it.

Did you know? NOTHING can happen with a contact unless you stay in touch. Waiting for them to call you is a crap shoot. They may meet another freelancer who does stay in touch, or lose your card, or forget your website.

3. Stay in Contact: Most freelancers - in fact, most small business owners - fall on their sword here.

To repeat, NOTHING can happen with a contact unless you stay in touch. Waiting for them to call you is a crap shoot. They may meet another freelancer whodoes stay in touch, or lose your card, or forget your website.

The onus is upon you to stay in touch because when someone needs a writer (graphic designer, illustrator, web designer, etc.), you want to be among the first they think of.
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Copyright Notice: May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. First-hand freelance success stories, e-courses, job postings, resume tips, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Launch a Profitable Freelance Writing Career in 30 Days or Less -- Guaranteed! Log on to InkwellEditorial.com.
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Freelance Writers: How to Turn Negative Comments into Cash

The Wrath of the Poison Pen

The web is rife with vitriolic rants. It's a medium, unfortunately, that encourages the worst behavior in some.

As a freelance writer, the more you churn out, the greater chance you have of someone spewing venom your way. This can crush the spirit of even the toughest freelancer. I'm starting to get more and more of these because I've been writing and publishing a lot lately - on my blog, to free article marketing directories, etc.

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BUT, instead of letting it get me down, I've created a system of rules that turns negative comments into cash - in a roundabout way. What are the rules?

1. Thou shalt not respond: Instead of wasting my time - which is money when you freelance for a living - responding to these, I just read them and let them go.

On the few occasions where I have responded, I haven't felt much better. So, I figured, why waste my time. I look at it this way, people who have the time to viscerally attack my writing - without making any salient points to the contrary - really aren't worth my time.

If you write for a living, you literally don't have time to work up such anger over someone's writing -- so much so that you sit down and spew out an attack. In my expereince, if you have this kind of time, then you're not making a full-time living writing.

2. Use it to spur me on: This is a mental tactic. The more people criticize, the more it makes me want to do better. After all, success is the best revenge.

Let me say, I don't mind when someone disagrees with what I wrote. It's when there are personal attacks, or those comments that just seem to come out of left field for no apparent reason, that drive me batty. Correction: Used to drive me batty.

After I made my resolution - around the beginning of the year - I've noticed that it takes me less and less time to "get over" one. I have a pretty quick temper, so things rile me pretty easily (don't worry, I'm working on it).

But, "stress kills" as my 13-year-old nephew is fond of saying. As an African American woman, I'm all too aware of how prevalent stress tends to affect my health anyway. So, I "relax, relate and release."

3. Search for the grain of truth: When I'm feeling like a really big girl, I look for the grain of truth in what some ranter has written.

I recently got a comment on one of my articles on Digg.com. The poster noted that my website was "crowded." And, it wasn't said in the nicest way.

In spite of how pissed off it made me, I thought, "you've been meaning to clean up the site for some time, Yuwanda," so this poster is not too far off the mark. I just wish they'd been nicer about saying it is all.

AND, I didn't write a word back. Good girl, gooooddd girl, Yuwanda.

So, the next time someone points their poisonous pen at your much-beloved work, tell'em to go to . . . I mean, ah, use it constructively - find a way to turn it into cash!
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Copyright Notice: May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. First-hand freelance success stories, e-courses, job postings, resume tips, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Launch a Profitable Freelance Writing Career in 30 Days or Less -- Guaranteed! Log on to InkwellEditorial.com.
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3 More Ways to Increase Your Freelance Writing Income by 25%

How to Turn into a Freelance Writing Machine? (Part II of II)

The first part of this article, How to Increase Your Freelance Writing Income by 25% or More, discussed two things you could do immediately to increase your income -- or more. This, Part II, will discuss three more things.

NOTE: I've been a freelance writer since 1993 and have personally tried all of these methods. Therefore, I know firsthand that they work. So, what are the next three things you can do to increase your income by 25% or more?

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I. Organize your income streams. What do I mean by this? I'll explain via example.

To date, I've written six e-books and one freelance writing e-course. I've been wanting to migrate my e-books to Clickbank, an online retailer of digital products, for months. Doing this will allow affiliates to sell my e-books.

How Does ClickBank Work? Essentially, those with websites can sell my e-books from their website. Whenever a sale is made, they're paid a commission.

This could dramatically increase sales because instead of selling them from my site only, I could have 10, 20, or 300 different websites selling my products. Even one sale a day from 10 other sites increases my income tenfold. But, have I done this, no.

There are a couple of other ideas I've been wanting to implement as well, but haven't followed through. So, what do I need to do? Carve out time to organize existing income streams, implement others and tweak what is NOT working. Taking a week or two to do this could mean a dramatic increase in income.

What ideas can you implement, change, tweak to increase your income? Take a week or two every year to analyze this and put it into action.

II. Go with the flow of ideas. Another example to illustrate this -- a few days ago, I had a burst of creative energy. Never considering myself a "writer," I could never quite relate to writers who said that they could sometimes write for days - it's as if they can't get the ideas down on paper fast enough.

On this day, I understood that sentiment perfectly - for perhaps the first time in my career as a freelance writer. I wrote article after article -- completing some outright, creating outlines for others and just writing down headlines for others. I felt like I completed a week's worth of work in one day.

My point? Rather than focus on other tasks that were on my schedule that day, I just went with that flow of ideas. And boy I'm glad I did.

I still don't know what happened to cause this, but I wish I had two or three days a month like this - I'd be a freelance writing machine!

III. Avoid Forums and Social Networking Sites. Why? The same reason mentioned in Part I of this article for avoiding your own work online - they waste valuable time.

Now, don't get me wrong, you need sites like Digg and MySpace to promote your work. But, don't get caught up reading article after article on these, or interacting with others on message boards and Q&A forums.

While it may seem antisocial to "post and run," remember, if you are going to make a full-time living as a freelance writer, the bulk of your time must be spent on income-producing projects.

Even an hour a day spent on these can cost you 10-15% of your take-home pay if you average it out over months and days. On your "off days," you can spend time online playing on sites like these. But, regular work days should be for just that - work - work that produces income.

As this series of articles demonstrate, increasing your freelance income is as simple as paying attention to your time and tweaking what you're already doing. In other words, little changes lead to big dollars! So pay attention and turn your writing into a virtual money tree!

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Copyright Notice: May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. First-hand freelance success stories, e-courses, job postings, resume tips, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Launch a Profitable Freelance Writing Career in 30 Days or Less -- Guaranteed! Log on to InkwellEditorial.com to learn how.

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One Immediate Way to Increase Your Freelance Income by Up to 50%

How “Template Writing” can help you become a prolific income producer

When I first started writing outside of my niche – the business of creative freelancing – it took me some time to get the hang of things. I read other freelancer’s articles on certain subjects, eg, restaurant and product reviews, to see how it was done.

It took me some time to get a system down, but once I did, I was able to turn out a review or article in half the time. So, how did I speed it up? I created a “genre template.”

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What is Template Writing?

In short, formulaic writing. On FreeDictionary.com, template, as related to writing, is defined as "A document or file having a preset format, used as a starting point for a particular application so that the format does not have to be recreated each time it is used."

Example of a Writing Template

To use an easy example, take restaurant reviews. It’s a relatively new medium for me and one that I found tends to pay more than the other types of articles I like to write. So, I started to focus more on these.

My restaurant review template looks like this:

Intro: This includes things like background on the establishment, what I personally like about it, how I discovered it, etc.

The Food: Here, I discuss the menu selections, dishes I recommend and the drinks.

The Price: Usually, this is a few lines about the price (affordable, moderate, on the expensive side, gotta be rich and famous to afford to eat here). I may break it down by specific price for a few dishes (eg, appetizer, main course, dessert), or I may give an average cost of a meal for two.

The Service: Here I discuss how fast or slow the service is, if the staff is knowledgeable about the menu, do they easily allow for substitutions, and maybe the uniform.

Other Items of Note: This section highlights things of interest I think any first-time visitor might want to know. Eg, if the establishment has an outside seating area, music, dance floor, special nights for things like karaoke, menu specials, the parking situation (valet, not enough parking, etc.), banquet rooms, on/off-site catering, etc.

Summary: This is usually a one or two liner about the establishment. Eg, for a fun night out with your gang, Pepper’s is an easy-on-the-wallet rocking, good time!

My reviews may or may not include all of these sections; it depends on the establishment and my experience there.

BUT, having a template in front of me when I sit down to write seriously cuts down on the time it takes to organize/edit material, which, as any writer knows, can be more than half the time spent producing a piece.

A Note About Reviews: FYI, the crazy thing about reviews (product and restaurant) is that they are usually written in 400-500 words and, with a formula in place, can be completed in about 20 minutes (minus proofing and minor editing). Most of my articles take 30 minutes to slightly more than an hour to write (minus proofing and minor editing).

Creating a template for as many types of writing you do as possible can increase your output by 50% easily, ostensibly increasing your income by the same amount. So, go template happy – and watch your bank account increase.
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Copyright Notice: May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. First-hand freelance success stories, e-courses, job postings, resume tips, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Launch a Profitable Freelance Writing Career in 30 Days or Less -- Guaranteed! Log on to InkwellEditorial.com to learn how.

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