Freelancing - 2/7 - Write to Done

How to Build the Writing Platform of Your Dreams Using Social Media

Wasting time with social media?

You’ve got a Twitter account. You’re on LinkedIn. You’ve strolled on by at Google+, and you might even have a well-kept Facebook Page.

But how are those working for you? Marketing and promotions are wonderful, but only if they’re actually working for you. Maybe you’ve made some good connections; a few sales here and there.

But how much time and upkeep do you find yourself spending on your channels and networks?

Or maybe you’ve chosen the route of a few authors I know who have gone and abandoned their accounts permanently, leaving their social footprint to fade away into oblivion.

And not using these new tools isn’t the answer, unfortunately. Being savvy enough to benefit from these new methods of communicating are the mark of a true “pro writer.”

Let me ask you this: what if you didn’t have to spend so much time on social networks? What if you could spend—literally—a few minutes each week only on those same networks, and the rest of your time doing what you love?

Would you do it? I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on social networks, trying to get ready for my own book launch. It’s been fun and rewarding to connect with everyone along their own paths of being (or becoming) a writer, but I’ve also wasted a lot of time:

I’ve wasted time checking email.

I’ve wasted time perusing Twitter hashtag searches.

I’ve wasted time trying to figure out how Google+ affects SEO.

And then I decided to automate everything that I could.

Automation

Yeah, you heard me correctly. Go ahead and cringe: Automate. I said it.

But I mean it. Now, I don’t need to get on Twitter every twenty minutes. I don’t need to log into Facebook, and I don’t need my email “ding.” I can still do all of those things if I’m looking for an excuse to not write, but now I have a platform that does most of it for me. My “Social Platform” does these things:

All of my relationships are collected, organized, and threaded into one unified inbox. It’s not Gmail, so I don’t have to see all of my emails every time I log in.
Every time I read a great post, a Tweet is sent out with a relevant hashtag (#WW, #AmWriting, #Writing).
Every time someone follows me, they get a special welcome message.
Whenever someone responds, comments, or even mentions something that involves me (my brand), I get a notification.
Whenever my Twitter account is updated with a helpful writing tip, my Facebook author page is updated as well.

These examples are, of course, specific things I put in place because of my situation–I needed a way to organize the conversations and connections that I was making, for a few reasons:

I’m generally unorganized. If it’s not written down somewhere, preferably electronically, it won’t get remembered or done.
I don’t have a lot of time to just write. When working on my first thriller, I found that writing could only happen very early in the morning and very late at night. I needed to keep myself from checking emails, Twitter, and Facebook every thirty seconds.
I like the idea of “systemizing” my processes. If there’s a system I can use to handle the mundane, repetitive tasks, I’ll use it. I can spend my own time and effort on things that will directly benefit my writing and career, and delegate the others to a system.
I found I could handle way more with systems in place. My production shot through the roof when I knew I didn’t have to worry about posting to Twitter every five minutes and responding to emails every two.

How do I “automate?”

For me, automation really just means automating the tasks that aren’t directly “people-related.” This means that I don’t have a system that will automatically send a “Thanks for the Tweet!” response to people who reach out to me on Twitter, or otherwise “fake” a conversation. I don’t have an email autoresponder that says, “Hey there [NAME], I’ll be sure to respond to you very soon!”

It simply means that there are things I’d rather not burden myself with doing day in and day out, and so I’ve set up a system to do them for me:

Instead of individually preparing Tweets to links that I find interesting and helpful, I’ll add it to a tool like BufferApp–a platform that allows you to set up a Tweet schedule and a “bucket” of Tweets, and will send out the next Tweet on your list at a specific time. I keep the bucket stocked up with links to stuff I like, and my Twitter profile is updated automatically.
Instead of visiting Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Disqus (commenting system), I use Engag.io. Engag.io lets me see–at a glance–my conversations with other people on each of those platforms. I can even send responses to each one, and they’ll appear on their appropriate network as if I was there!
Instead of adding individual Tweets and links to my Facebook page, I use a tool called If This Then That–a very trendy way of “programming” the web to do what you want. It uses “triggers” (if I mark a ReadItLater item as “read,”) and “actions” (then update my Facebook page with the item and a link to it). It’s really a cool way to automate daily tasks, and you can set it up for other things too, like sending you a text message in the morning when Yahoo! Weather says it’s going to rain tomorrow!

The key to doing all of this, however, is to cultivate engagement rather than deter it. If there’s something I implement that actually prevents me from connecting in relevant and helpful ways with people, I’ll abandon it. I want to use this technology to make more and more useful connections, not the other way around!

These are three of the ways I’ve found to use social platforms to increase my output, focus my effort on building my platform, and using social media to my potential instead of a time-suck. My social platform is growing, and it’s through the use of these tools that I can still participate in helpful discussions and provide relevance to people.

What are some ways/tools you’ve found to improve and grow your social media platform?

About the author
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he writes to help writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life. Check him out on his website, LiveHacked.com and grab his new book, Welcome Home: The Author’s Guide to Building A Marketing Home Base.

Want to become a successful blogger? Join the A-List Blogger Club, the insanely useful training for all stages of blogging. Click below to find out more.

Unleash Your Writing With This Trick From the Movies

When you sit down to write, do you sometimes feel you’re wasting your time?

It can seem like an impossible task, to start from scratch and build a name for yourself as a writer.

After all, there are already so many other, more successful writers.

They get all the attention.

Their blogs have like a bazillion followers and yours has eight.

It seems hopeless

It’s especially tough if you’re trying to earn money from your writing.

The whole freelance-writing game seems so competitive.

And crowded with established pros.

It seems pretty unlikely you could start at this late date and end up earning real money.

Why even start? Why try?

I mean, let’s be realistic here.

Or that’s how you might think, sitting at your writing desk, full of despair.

At the movies, it’s different

When we sit down in that darkened theater, something magical happens.

We believe that mutant turtles that are trained ninjas live in the sewers of New York.

And that British children might attend a school where they can learn to be magicians.

A young girl can travel over the rainbow in a flying house to a kingdom of tiny people.

In showbiz, they call this shift in our thinking the suspension of disbelief.

Ordinarily, we would immediately dismiss these notions. Preposterous!

But under the right circumstances, we pause. We quiet the voice in our head that says, “That’s ridiculous.”

We want to go on this journey, and we let the movie transport us there.

For a time, we believe.

Bring the magic home with you

Now, try applying suspension of disbelief to your writing.

You want to write, yes? This is a journey you want to take.

You can take the first step by letting go of all your thoughts and worries about what you think are the realities of the writing world.

Let that world of the concrete slip away.

Because writing is all about fantasy, isn’t it? And creating new worlds?

So just for today, believe that you can write something wonderful — and it will find an audience.

You might write something that will move and inspire other people. Or teach them how to do something useful.

Your writing is special. No one else writes like you.

Believe that there is room in the writing world for your unique voice.

Suspend disbelief

Many of the most difficult tasks are only achievable if we don’t look at the hard facts too closely.

It’s better not to think about everything that could go wrong, or how long and hard the road might be if we’re planning to summit Everest, for instance.

Or write.

Now look at your fingers and realize what you’ve got in there: magic.

Milo went ahead and rescued the princesses in The Phantom Toolbooth because no one told him the task was impossible until the end.

Building a writing career is the same.

You might think that logically, it’s impossible…but just forget about that for a few hours now, while you’re writing.

Because great new writers emerge every day. Every year there are new bestselling breakout authors.

Find your guide

If you find roadblocks along the way, ask for help, just like the hero always does in the movies. Maybe there’s a scarecrow on the path, or a strange, little green bog dweller who turns out to be a Jedi master.

Turn off the part of your mind that wants to point out it can’t be done, just like you do at the movies.

Keep learning, and keep writing. For now, imagine you have a bright future ahead as a writer.

Envision the writing life you want, and then write your way there.

One day, you might find you don’t have to pretend anymore.

This guest post is by Carol Tice. Looking for a guide? Carol Tice has a 4-week bootcamp starting July 10: The Step by Step Guide to Freelance Writing Success For more info, click here.

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Three Words You Should Eliminate from Your Writing

A guest post by James Chartrand of Men with Pens

Every good copywriter will tell you that you should write concisely. Eliminate every unnecessary word. Be bold with your choice of nouns and adjectives. Choose precise words, not common ones. Cut all the fluff, the clutter and the jargon.

And if you’re a copywriter, you probably follow this advice – or think you do.

Unfortunately, several words are so common that you often don’t even realize you’re using them. These words sneak into your writing all the time, and they contribute nothing to the content.

They damage your credibility. They bring down your writing. They make your work look amateur.

If I pointed those words out to you, you’d probably shuffle your feed and shamefacedly admit they don’t need to be there. You hadn’t even noticed you’d put them in.

Those words are like condiments in your fridge. You open the door a dozen times a day and never see them. It isn’t until a friend comes over and asks why you have two-year-old mango chutney that you realize you should probably clear some of that out.

You should. Here are three words you can clear out of your writing.

Word #1: Really

No, really. Take a look where this word might show up and clunk up a sentence:

It’s really important that you sign up for this.
This is a really valuable product.
You have to check this out – it’s really interesting.

I’m specifically talking about instances where really is an intensifier. In grammar, an intensifier is like a modifier, only better, and its job is… well, to intensify the emotional context of words like “important” or “valuable” or “interesting.”

But an intensifier actually adds no particular contribution or value. Take it out, and the whole sentence still works just fine, thank you very much.

The problem with really is that it’s supposed to enhance the word it’s modifying and amplify its meaning. But really has become so common that it doesn’t actually make us think more of the item in question. It makes us think less of it.

Watch what happens here:

Sign up. It’s important.
This is valuable.
Interesting.

All those words have weight and heft when they stand on their own. But add really to them, and it sounds like you’re trying hard to convince someone that you mean it.

“This is interesting.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, it’s really interesting.”

Unless your reader has some reason to doubt your statement of the facts, really is unnecessary – AND it gives your reader the impression that you don’t believe your own words. Not really.

Word #2: Very

Really and very suffer from similar maladies; they’ve become so common that their original purpose has been flipped in the opposite direction.

It’s uncommon for us to say a house was big. We say it was very big.

We do this automatically, without thinking, and so much so that the word very doesn’t even register in our brains. It’s not as if we think big and by adding very we think even bigger.

We hear very big and we think big. We stay at the same level of perception, without anything being added to our mental image.

Very sweet. Very tall. Very nice. Very interesting.

It carries far more power to drop the word very and allow the word it intensified to stand alone.

The man entered the room. He was very large.

When we read this sentence, we get the impression that the man is fat. That’s usually what we mean when we say someone is very large. But when we simply say:

The man entered the room. He was large.

Now we have the impression of the man’s actual size. Maybe he’s fat, or maybe he’s broad and tall. Either way, there’s a lot of him. He is large. (And probably intimidating too!)

Word #3: Totally

Totally means ‘in total.’ As in, the sum of all. The whole. The entire shebang, completely. Like this:

Are all the boxes here? Totally.

That’s an old-fashioned version, but it still works for emotions:

Can I confide in you? Totally.

You can tell me the sum of all your confidences. Hold nothing back. I’m prepared to listen to the entire shebang of what you have to say.

The problem is that in common language (probably thanks to the explosion of Valley Girl talk in the ‘80s) totally became a placeholder word, modifying that which does not need modification.

Example: I was totally shocked.

Being shocked implies totality. You’re either shocked or you aren’t. Your ears can’t go into shock while your leg stays casual about it all. Your entire body and mind go into shock. That’s what shock means.

Totally, here, is redundant.

Here’s another example: This is a totally great price.

It’s great or it isn’t. A price is about as totaled as you can get – so the extra word serves no purpose.

Take it away. Take all three of these words – really, very, totally – away. And your copy will suddenly stand a bit taller, ring a touch prouder and come off like it was written by a pro.

Have any more unnecessary words to add to the pile? Bring them on in the comments!

About the author:

James Chartrand is a finalist in the 10 Top Blogs for Writers Contest 2011/12. Discover more great writing tips, tricks and techniques with her innovative writing course for business owners, Damn Fine Words. This game-changing course is open right now to new members. Register today and start writing words that get results for your business.[aff link]

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Why Researching Articles to Death Is A Waste of Time

Use "What?" for article marketing

A guest post by Sean DSouza of Psychotactics

The world was flat.
Now it’s round.
Who knows? Maybe it’s square.

Research helps. But there’s a problem with research.

And it’s called counter-research. Tea is good for you. Tea is bad for you. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. Drink 16 glasses of water a day. The list goes on forever. And forever isn’t a bad thing, but the information is grossly conflicting. There’s almost nothing you can nail down with absolutely certainty.

And when you’re writing an article, it’s easy to want to absolutely nail the article down with irrefutable research. So you spend seventeen hours (or seventeen thousand hours, as the case may be) and you come up with data from books, white papers. Or just stuff you find online.

And part of the problem with research is:

1) Research is often funded by lobby groups.
2) Information passed down can miss out relevant bits.
3) Facts that we know about aren’t valid any more.

Let’s take the first: Research funded by lobby groups.

You know the groups. They are like you and me. They have an agenda. They want to sell something. So they make you want to like milk, or spinach or whatever. They fund research; they pour squillions of dollars into it. And all it proves is one thing: That whatever they’re selling is good for you.

Of course you don’t see the research that way.

The way the research is presented is in a nice, interesting fact-driven way that makes you believe in the product/service. Suddenly your perception changes, because as human beings we only have to be given facts and a truckload of statistics, and whoops we change our perception. Lobby groups aren’t some insane bunch of people. They’re just like you and me. We turn to our kids and tell them to eat spinach so that they can grow tall and strong. And the kids buy it.

Doesn’t matter if the spinach doesn’t have the nutrients to get those kids big and strong. Doesn’t matter if we’ve cooked the goodness out of the darned spinach. The kids eat into the idea—and hopefully the spinach. We are a lobby group. The lobby groups are lobby groups. We present information in the best light. Then we add figures and facts. And it becomes something written in stone.

And sometimes it’s not written in stone. Which takes us to our second problem.

Problem 2: The data is hand-me down

Take your tea bags and use the tea in them to polish hardwood floors. Put turmeric and honey in hot water and drink it. And your cough will go away. These are hand-me down facts. They work. But do they work for everyone? And are some of the details being missed out? Who knows? It’s impossible to tell and at best the details remain more or less accurate. Or inaccurate, depending on the situation. The problem is that you can go online today, find these facts (after seventeen hours of searching) and then believe them to be true.

And the fact is the facts often have holes in them.

You can’t necessarily trust that what you’re reading is correct and will work for you. So the only way to find out is to make it work for you. You take those tea bags and polish a part of your hardwood floor. Does it work? Do the floors shine? Ah, now you’ve got a personal story of your own. You’ve got your own hand-me-down tale to tell.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t get distorted along the way, shall we?

So that’s the problem with hand-me down data. It looks very valid indeed. But unless you try and prove it to yourself, it’s something you need to take with a pinch of salt—or turmeric

And that takes us to the final problem: The data keeps changing.

Problem 3: Facts that we know aren’t valid any more.

As recently as the year 1980, most neuroscientists believed that the brain was non-plastic. Plasticity means that the brain is adaptable. That damage, strokes and other horrible things that could ruin a brain, are not permanent after all.

There’s now research (yeah I know the irony of using the word there) that there was tissue damage of 97% in one brain area which should have rendered the patient incapable of doing anything.. And yet the patient re-learned everything: to crawl, walk, and then live a pretty normal life.

I want you to understand one thing. These were neuroscientists. They live, breathe, and map their entire careers around research. And they were wrong. The brain is plastic. We know that now. But hey, that data changes as well. And who’s to know what’s going to come around the corner?

So does this mean you should not use research in your articles?

No it doesn’t mean that at all. All you need to understand is that you can’t be spending those all those hours tracking down facts. Because often these so-called facts are wrong. And then there’s the issue of fluid facts. Facts change as we get to know more. And really what applies to one person is not going to necessarily apply to you.

If someone says they got a 33% increase in turnover, it’s not going to apply to you. That turnover increase was based on a certain strategy, in a certain market, at a certain time. It sounds like a fact, and it is. But it doesn’t always hold good for everyone. Researching information for your article makes it look great, but be aware that data is a moving target.

This may look like a research-bashing article when in fact it’s not.

It’s just a bit of advice to avoid spending endless hours trying to find research that may be flawed in the first place. Go ahead, do your research, but put an egg timer. If you don’t get what you’re looking for in about 22 minutes, it’s time to get your own facts together. No, don’t make it up, but tell us your own experience. In reality it may be better to simply write what you know because it makes for a good story and as you know, stories have facts.

Research makes things interesting. So if you find it, use it.

But your own case-studies are just as interesting. So don’t be bashful. Use it more often.
It saves you time. And yes, you may be wrong.

Well, so were the neuroscientists. So you’re in good company.

To read more articles by Sean DSouza—and get a very useful report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Join Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch in their spectacular training environment for bloggers: the A-List Blogger Club.

How To Make One Story into Many By Being Multimedia Savvy

Get multi-media savvy

By Drew Tewksbury of Ebyline’s Blog

It’s not hard to get discouraged about writing and journalism with all the negative news in the media world.

Newspapers are ceasing production, magazines are going online-only, and new outlets are few and far between. But there is a way for writers to survive.

The key to surviving the clear cutting of print publications: Re-define and re-imagine.

Try to adjust your self-image, you’re no longer just a writer, you’re a multimedia producer. You produce, you create, not just words on the page, but images, sounds, stories. You don’t have to go back to journalism school to learn to use multimedia tools or spend a lot of money on equipment; many new journalism tools are already in your pocket today. With some clever smart phone hacking and a multimedia mindset, you can make every story you report into three (or four, or five…) more stories.

Here’s how:

1. Get the Tools.
These days, being a multimedia journalist is easier than ever before. Many of us already carry the tools of the trade with us everyday. Your iPhone, Droid, or other mobile device can make a good makeshift solution in a pinch. Check out Poynter Institute’s “10 Best iPhones Apps for Journalists” for apps that shoot and publish good video, or programs that help you edit images quickly. If you want to go more pro, keep in mind that you will be able to pay off your gear with increased number of gigs you land. It’s worth it.

2. Audio.
Probably one of the easiest ways to flip a story is to repurpose your audio. Next time you go to do an interview, bring a professional quality recorder with you. The Marantz PMD620 is a professional grade digital recorder that you can slip in your pocket. It has external mics but if your own mic isn’t a bad idea either. Zoom makes some good recorders, which are even cheaper than the Marantz, but both of these recorders are less than $400. So once you’ve recorded your audio, you can use that audio for many different things. You can pitch your the sound of your interview to a radio station or NPR, who will often buy sound files, or “tape synchs.” Also you could pitch a scripted piece that you will write out and voice, with the sounds from your interview woven throughout.

3. Slideshows.
Online publications are in desperate need of photos for their sites. Photo galleries are some of the most financially lucrative parts of websites, so many publications have been hard pressed by their business departments to add one or many photos to their sites. Even if you’re not David LaChappelle, consumer grade digital cameras basically take a photo for you. Bring one along for your next story and you can add a couple extra dollars onto your story.

4. Audio Slideshows.
If you combine steps two and three together, then you have the newish phenomenon: The audio slideshow. These galleries are always a delight to see on a website, and they are relatively easy to create. Soundslides is a great program that lets you take your audio and lay it under a slideshow. If you take your audio from an interview, and juxtapose it with the images that you took, you have successfully become a multimedia journalist. It’s a simple process that adds a whole new dimension to storytelling.

5. Video Clips:
Online publications are dying to be patient zero of a viral video. If you shoot some footage on your phone, or on a Flip cam, perhaps you can help them to realize their dream. If you’re shooting with your phone or another hand held device, the best thing to do is put it down. Maybe you can set it on a book, or a table to eliminate that “Blair Witch Project” shaky-cam look. If you’re in a situation where you can’t do this, use the hand not holding the camera to hold your wrist. This will steady your camera arm enough for some passable video. Once you have the video, you should pitch it to the online or web editor at a publication.

Drew Tewksbury is a radio producer and the editor of Ebyline’s Blog, which explores the business of freelancing life.