As Father Time ticks down on 2007, and before the alcohol kicks in too much that I start typing double and you start reading this quadruple, here’s a brief look at some of my highlights of the year as a writer.

January

Start 2007 with a bang - I resign from a gig after a big fallout with my principal.

Seriously considered getting a “proper” job but decided to stick with the scribbling in anticipation of turning the corner and making a break.

February

Having decided to carry on scribbling, I have to deal with the aggravation of my former principal who seems intent on rubbishing my name and reputation as much as possible. It seems they are concerned I might actually do OK without their “help”.

I win $3,000 of work and get paid most of it within February which actually opens my eyes to the potential that really does exist and I start considering raising my fees, but due to a lack of confidence I don’t risk it.

March

Work continues to flow through the doors, mostly writing articles and blogs for the web. I still have to contend with my ex-principal who seems to have taken my resignation personally but I try to just keep my head down and get on with it.

This seems to be the right strategy as I continue to get work in and another good month financially.

April

As the mornings start dawning earlier and that smell of Spring starts to make it’s presence felt, there is an extra zest in my writing efforts. I win a long term contract for articles which provides me with some stability with regards my income.

I still think I’m not charging enough for my work, but I have a serious sit-down with myself and look at my options. Part of this involves conducting some market research of my own to see what pricing is like and though my confidence still fails me I start hiking my fees.

May

Personally, a disaster of a month! Work wise it’s OK.

My fee hikes are having an effect on my income and I hit the $3,000 mark which has become my benchmark for my earnings - if I earn less than this there is a serious problem! I work to live not the other way around.

My increase in fees hasn’t affected my existing clients and most have accepted the increases without any comment. Some actually tell me I’m still cheap for the work product, and I experience a huge boost to my self-confidence.

June

This is a month of turmoil.

A client for whom I deliver 100 articles each month wants to cut the fees but I dig my heels in - we have a contract after all. We agree to part company and suddenly I have a hole in my budget and business plan. I’d started to rely on this contract and so had not been hunting for work as much as I otherwise would.

Financially, I hit my target but it is a great strain. Not least, this has an effect on my family as I have to put extra hours in to get the money and work in.

July

With a rainy summer that does not seem to know which way it wants to go, my writing career seems to be in the same mood.

Work is still flowing in, but I sense that I am still undercharging and the quality of the work I am getting is also starting to bother me. My article contract comes back after the buyer realises that actually, I’m producing far better work than he is ever going to get from India or The Philippines and I take the opportunity to hike my fee again.

Though I have had a very busy month, I have concentrated too much on the work and not enough on getting paid. My debtors are high, over $6,000 but I actually only collect a little over $1,000 in the month for a variety of reasons.

I need to get on top of people who owe me money!

August

I start work for Supaproofread !

I also hike my fees yet again, and though I lose some customers I notice a definite improvement in the quality of the work I start receiving.

I win a contract for a freelance website (GetAFreelancer or GAF) and this really makes a difference to how customers and prospects start looking at me. My day rate starts rising to the $600 mark for these types of customers and the issue becomes finding them in order to close them.

I have my best month ever from a financial perspective as I write over $5,000 for the month and collect over $10,000 for my efforts which thoroughly make up for a poor July.

September

Happy Birthday to Me as I hit 43!

I complete my first eBook and get paid for the work which takes me about a week to research and write. I also start winning projects that are more of a research job in character; this is something of a surprise to me, as I never saw the research skills that have been acquired as a marketable commodity in their own right before.

I note that the number of writing jobs I am taking on and completing falls to below 30 for the month however my fees come in at over $4,500 - a sure sign that I am starting to get the quality work I’m after.

October

For some reason I hit a low gear and don’t actually do a great deal. I feel quite tired and lethargic as I run out of writing steam.

 I take some time to mull a few things over, not least a personal writing project which has been on my mind for some time.  This diversion takes me away from paying work and I lose some of my focus as a result.  Balancing work, clients and a personal life becomes an issue as I am finding myself in demand from clients but seem to have hit a low in my motivation.

November

Snapping out of the low of the previous month, I get back to paying work with a vengeance.

I win three new premium clients, each worth over $2,000 for website work.  An old client also comes up with a web-based project and life seems to have taken off again.   This is just as well as I have some heavy financial outgoings in November and I’m always aware that Christmas is around the corner!

December

The final lap of 2007!

It appears that my tiredness is not just a mental problem.  I contract shingles which is what you get from the chicken pox virus when you are a grown-up.  Someone should tell the little blighters that though I have the body of a 43 year old, I’m still a kid at heart but the microbes have not yet evolved ears to listen!

It makes no difference to me financially as I bring home the bacon despite a necessary hiatus while sweating it out.  My debtors are down to less than $2,000 and I collect over $10,000 in payments for my efforts.

Merry Christmas everybody - Daddy’s home!

All that remains is to say “Goodbye 2007″ and we’ll see you in 2008 - have a good celebration wherever you are!

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The quiet interlude between Christmas and New Year presents a brilliant opportunity to get the decks cleared and ready for the New Year.  Unlike our American cousins who seem to accept that Christmas and New Year are two different and seperate holidays, we Brits seem to merge the holidays into one big one.  You can call it “thinking time” all you like however now is the time to consider stealing a march on your competition and get some work in for a good start to 2008.

I’ve bid on half a dozen projects on GAF in the last couple of days and won three of them.  I have bids on several other sites too as I fully intend to be swamped for January, immerse myself in my new offices (aka daughter’s old bedroom) and now is the time to be getting the work in.

While your competition are taking a well earned break from the keyboard, demand for someone to fill the needs of clients is high.  You can charge higher rates, get more work and make yourself indispensable to a whole raft of new clients who are going to remember your work ethic in the New Year.  Now is an opportunity to be different from the competition, and make some good money to settle those fattened credit card bills that are being prepared to drop through your letterboxes  in a couple of weeks time.

This is also a very good time to get yourself organised and clear out any lingering, non-productive administration tasks.  I have bought several adsense domains and have been working on getting them set up and hosted properly, plus I’ve taken some time to get my bookkeeping in order.  Whatever you have lying around that has been put off, get it done now so you can ride into the New Year unencumbered.

If you are working on a calendar year for your business, now is the time to make sure you have a business plan in place for 2008.  Truth be told, you already should have one in place anyway but if you don’t, use this couple of days to get one down on paper and give some serious thought to what you are looking to achieve for 2008.  Mine is already prepared but I’ve been taking some time to look it through and cogitate on the ramifications.  I know what I earned last year and the effort I had to put in for it, but there have been some learning experiences along the way and one of my ambitions for 2008 is to double my income over 2007.  Just as we are exhorted to be passionate and definite when it comes to our writing, the same applies to business planning; there is no point in being wishy-washy if you need to make enough to pay the bills and keep the wolf from the door.

2008 is going to be a year of plenty and my third year scribbling but while my competition is still gorging itself on turkey, ham and christmas pud, I’ve already started the New Year.

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I had a brilliant Christmas Day with my family! I spent the day at my ex-wife’s with our children and stuffed myself silly with ham and turkey. Yes, I do have a happy divorce from my ex-wife which is why we are like brother and sister today

One of my son’s presents was “i before e (except after c)” by Judy Parkinson and is a throw back to “old-school ways to remember stuff” - I just loved reading it, not least for the nostalgia and also to give me something to post about and “Yes, yes, yes!” - I’m scraping the barrel but give me a break, it is Christmas!

One of the verses used to educate the little darlings of 1855 was written by David Tower and Benjamin Tweed and it goes like this:

“Three little words you often see
Are articles: a,an and the.

A noun’s the name of anything,
As: school or garden, toy or swing.

Adjectives tell the kind of noun,
As: great,small, pretty, white or brown.

Verbs tell of something being done,
To read, write, count, sing, jump or run.

How things are done, the adverbs tell,
As: slowly, quickly, badly, well.

Conjunctions join the words together,
As: men and women, wind or weather.

The preposition stands before
A noun as: in or through a door.

The interjection shows surprise
As: Oh, how pretty! or Ah! How wise!

The whole are called the parts of speech,
Which reading, writing, speaking teach.”

The book then went on to deal with punctuation in poetic fashion; Cecil Hartley wrote “Principles of Punctuation” in 1818:

“The stops point out, with truth, the time of pause
A sentence doth require at ev’ry clause.
At ev’ry comma, stop while one you count;
At semicolon, two is the amount;
A colon doth require the time of three;
The period four, as learned men agree.”

Now I think learning English was made a lot more fun in the olden days than it certainly was for me, but then again back in 1818 I’d probably be a chimney sweep covered in soot, a powder monkey getting blown up in a battleship or dying of malnutrition in a cotton mill at the age of 6.

Halcyon Days!

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There are people who can find just about anything on the internet just short of hacking into top government websites.  Then, there are those people who can’t find anything at all.  Google can only get you so far.  Then, you have to learn a few tricks to get you the rest of the way.

 

Speaking of Google, it really is a good way to search for just about anything.  When you type in a few keywords, rather relevant sites come up in the search.  Some search engines will only show you the sites that pay the most money.  But, Google does a good job at creating analytics and sending out digital spiders to crawl all over websites.  With all of their science put together, you can’t help but get some really relevant websites in a search.

 

I have a few favorite sites that I know off the top of my head, and for writing they come in handy all the time.  Merriam-Webster has an online dictionary where you can verify your definitions.  But, it also has a pretty good thesaurus.  EBSCOhost is a research database that has literally millions of articles from newspapers, magazines and encyclopedias all over the globe.  But, you need to be a subscriber.  The backdoor for many of us comes from having a library card and accessing a public information network like Sailor, Maryland’s Public Information Network.

 

Of course, Wikipedia is a great resource that I find myself using more and more.  In fact, the other day when I was writing about the 2007 Writer’s Strike, I actually looked in the Wikipedia to make sure I had my facts straight.  The Wikipedia is anyone’s domain.  If you know something, you can add it to the Wikipedia.  But, there are editors who are on top of things too.  They keep it as factual as they possibly can.

 

I have not even come close to scratching the surface on the great resources the internet holds.  But, I hope you get what I’m saying.  You can definitely tell a good resource from a bad one.  And when you are looking at information that is fishy, you don’t have to disregard it.  Just Google it and look at about ten other sites to see if they support that information or refute it.  Then, that leads us to another issue altogether.

 

Some topics are so debatable that you merely have to take a side.  After you do your research, you’ll hear facts from all sides and you’ll be just as confused as when you went into it.  So, just make up your mind.  Even though nothing says you have to choose a side, it doesn’t bode well in something you’re writing that you don’t have a side.  You might be able to pull it off, but it’s not likely.

 

The internet literally has everything.  If you don’t feel like getting up and finding the phonebook, Yellow Pages are right there.  If you don’t know how much that old foreign coin is worth, Foreign Exchange sites exist all over the net.  But my favorite site is the Internet Movie Database where I can literally find anything out about a movie or an actress.  I love looking up the answers to trivial questions.

 

I have literally hundreds of websites I can visit if I have a question I need answered.  When I have visitors and they ask a question, I have no problem grabbing my laptop and looking for the answer.  I love watching my friends’ expressions as I find information at the drop of a dime.  Yes, there are still people who really don’t know how resourceful the internet is.

 

When I’m writing, I like to know that my information is correct.  It’s really not very credible to say something that is inaccurate when you are trying to make a point.  If you had just spent a few extra minutes looking something up, you would have been able to make your point more effectively.

 

That’s what research is all about.  And the internet makes it so much easier than it use to be.  I used to have to go to the university library or make phone calls to certain resources.  Now, I have it right at my fingertips.  It’s best to learn your way around the internet.  When you’re writing, it’s right there.  It’s in the browser right next to your document.  Have fun with it!

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I’m frequently offered writing projects that involve “minimal research” or “most of the work has been done” and by the time I’ve waded through the hype, it simply boils down to a buyer looking for a rewrite of existing material. The money tends to be low because you do not need to do so much work and a speedy $100 is something we all look for but writer beware - there is a frequent sting in the tail!

I have a basic rule - I do not take on rewrite commissions.

The reasoning is simple and the factors in my refusals are numerous.

Rewriting is a sugar coated form of plagiarism designed to trick search engines and readers that what is being presented is original because “neither” has been substituted for “nor” enough times where necessary or similar. If you are going to create compelling and interesting work, you need to inject a degree of passion into the piece and unfortunately, I have never been able to get passionate about copying someone else’s work.

Commercially, the claims from buyers that the “research” has been done does not cover the low rate of pay offered to perform the job. You still have to take some time to come to terms with the subject matter in order to be able to produce content that makes proper sense in the appropriate context. In addition to this, whatever you are rewriting, you will be relying on the “research” that is implicit in the original piece; all too often I’ve found that the research is nothing more than a huge, steaming pile of “you know what” and needs to be clarified. In other words, you are not “rewriting”, you are “writing” only for a fraction of the fee.

There is an even more compelling arguement against taking on rewriting projects. Chris Knight of Ezine Articles says it best for me:

“Demand more of yourself and produce the majority of your article content from your own expertise before you even consider researching what others have written so you won’t be tempted. You can do it and it is possible.”

Whether you are looking to create compelling sales copy, informative articles or a lucid technical manual or book, rewriting is indeed a slippery downward slope that I personally would like to avoid at all costs. The damage to your credibility and authority is greater than if you simply decided to do a “cut and paste” hatchet job - rewriting indicates that you purposely set out to conceal the deceit!

My personal advice to you is to steer clear of rewriting wherever possible unless the fee is so huge you can retire or are prepared to change your name to “Jeffrey Archer”. If you are bent on taking on rewriting work, then drop me a line - I have a stack of people who are looking for you but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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