As long as consumers continue using tech devices and digital platforms to gain access to products, services, and other information, there will always be a need for online content. That’s great news for freelance writers who often rely on gigs developing blog posts, web content, newsletters, and more. Unfortunately, the increased demand for quality writers has created an unprecedented amount of competition. If you’re going to stand out, you must continue looking for opportunities to evolve. [Read more…]
Write Like a Pro With These 15 Tips from Best Selling Authors
As every aspiring novelist knows, coming up with the ‘big’ ideas is the easy part. But, unfortunately, developing your scribbled notebook entries into a fleshed-out story with believable characters isn’t quite so simple. [Read more…]
Controlling Your Unconscious Bias While Writing
As a writer, your website is your own personal space to write about virtually anything you want. But, writers who want to find success in freelancing typically write about things that other people can relate to as well. With over 500 million blogs on the web, being able to compete is important if you want to write for a living. [Read more…]
Writing Tips: Don’t Make a Big Thing Out of Writer’s Block
You know that feeling. You check your word count and you still have several hundred words to go before you can finish an article. Or you’re trying to write a report for school, and you just can’t find the next sentence. It’s called writer’s block. You might have seen an exaggerated version in The Shining or Barton Fink. The important thing to remember is that writer’s block happens, but it’s usually not the end of the world. [Read more…]
Quick Tips to Become a Better Writer NOW
Whether you write website copy, e-books, magazine articles or blog posts, there’s plenty of competition out there. Upwork, the world’s largest online marketplace, has 12 million registered freelancers and (at the time of writing) 15,861 writing jobs available. Not all 12 million of those freelancers are writers, but enough of them are to ensure that competition for each writing job is fierce. And that’s just on one single site. [Read more…]
How to Write Outstanding Technical Content Even If You’re Not an Expert
Writing about highly technical topics is challenging in many ways. In addition to learning a brand new subject, it forces you to follow strict guidelines that typically aren’t present when tackling more generalized writing projects. Whereas you might be able to take a few shortcuts when writing on a well-known topic, there’s no room for oversimplification in technical writing.
But every now and then, you’re going to encounter a client who operates in a very specific vertical that you know nothing about. Every word must be carefully chosen and each sentence must be crafted with the reader in mind. How you handle these clients will have a big impact on whether you’re able to retain them.
How to Write Outstanding Technical Content Even If You're Not an Expert Click To TweetPaid by the Word? 10 Tips for Becoming a Faster Writer Without Sacrificing Quality
When you’re a freelance writer, you may often be paid by the word or per project rather than by the hour. This means the faster you can write, the more you’ll make for your time.
But moving faster can result in low-quality writing, which can eventually put you out of a job. Quality in your content is critical, but that doesn’t mean you can’t adjust your speed. You might even find that your writing improves alongside your time if you use some of the tried and true speed strategies below. [Read more…]
Be A Better Writer: 4 Simple Steps To Take Today
When you work as a freelance writer, it can be difficult to feel like you’re experiencing meaningful growth. Sure, maybe you snagged a gig at a prestigious magazine or you worked with a genuinely helpful editor, but freelancing can be lonely work. It can easily foster a feeling of stagnation, with your professional improvement at stake.
How are you supposed to get better at your job without the day-to-day mentoring and camaraderie that comes with a more traditional kind of work? The key lies in self-motivation and focused effort, targeting the skills that you struggle with and the areas most highly in demand, rather than just writing draft after draft without specific goals to achieve.
So, how do you escape the potential effect of the lonely freelance life and be a better writer?
Here are four things to do.
[Read more…]
5 Ways You Can Become a More Credible Writer
Students have always been taught to evaluate the credibility of a writer before using a source. In today’s digital-centric world, credibility as a writer is even more important. There are a lot of writers on the web who aggregate content from other online sources instead of pulling from their own knowledge. This information may or may not be factual, and readers are much more interested in those who write content based on their own authority. Those with have built their authority find more writing contracts, gain more online readers, and receive more clout in the digital world. [Read more…]
Avoid Using “Very” Because It Makes Your Writing Very Weak
“So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women – and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society
I’ve always thought that lazy writers are worse than “bad” writers (those who just need to hone their craft). If we were to live by the quote above, I suppose I just revealed how I think of myself as a writer — at times, at least.
There is no point in denying it — I use “very” more than I should.
How about you? Are you aware of how often you use the word? [Read more…]
