Writing-World - the site for freelance writers

Writing Police: No Comments!

This is just one example of the large number of rogue apostrophes currently littering the island of Gran Canaria, which Terry and I visited last month. These apostrophes were everywhere: on signs, on menus, on buildings... you name it. I've honestly never seen such widespread misuse of the poor old apostrophe in one place in my life. What happened to cause this sad state of affairs? We'll probably never know. What I CAN tell you, however, is that the bar/restaurant I took this photo in did a really nice lasagna... 

Breathing new life into the old blog

Tap, tap! Is this thing on? And has it really been six months since I last posted here? Apparently so, and no, the fact that this is the second "fresh start" post on the front page of this blog definitely hasn't escaped me, but let's give this another try, shall we?

There are lots of reasons for my total neglect of Writing World over the past year, with lack of time being a major one. The main reason, however, is the one I talked about in this post: the fact that I'm no longer a freelance writer, and am now running my blogging business full-time instead. Not only has that claimed almost all of my time recently, it also means that I'm now totally distanced from the world of freelance writing, and ill-equipped to advise anyone else about it. Hence the lack of posts on my blog about...freelance writing.

I do have a solution, though. I may not have much to say about freelancing these days, but I do have a lot to say about blogging, and I don't really have a place to say it: I post the occasional rant on my personal blog, but I don't want to bore people with shop talk, and as for my long-suffering husband, well, I think he's suffered enough.

This year, then, I'm going to be using Writing World as my place to blog about...blogging. What it's like to blog for a living, tips, advice, er, rants: they can all live here, because while I know the world doesn't really need another blog about blogging, I know I need a place to be able to talk about my working life without cluttering up my other sites.

That's the plan, anyway. As to how long it lasts... um, let's just wait and see, shall we? I know those of you who subscribe to this site (if there are any of you left after the long absence) for freelance writing advice will probably want to unsubscribe around about now, and understandably so. If any of you are interested in making a living out of blogging, though, I hope you'll stick around - and feel free to ask any questions!

How NOT to use blogs to market your product: the Microplane mistake

This post was originally published on my beauty blog, Hey-Dollface.com, which is where the "incident", for want of a better word, happened. I thought I'd also post it here, though, because it's an excellent example of how NOT to use blog comments to try and market your product: and I guess it's also a good lesson to bloggers to trust your gut instincts and take the time to check out your comments if you think there's something fishy going on. Of all of my sites, Hey-Dollface is the one that gets targeted most by spammers, presumably because it's so product-based, but this was the most blatant example of bad self-promotion I've seen in a while.

NOTE: Although I did contact Microplane asking them for an official comment, and making it clear that I was writing a follow-up about this, to date the only response I've had has been from the person who originally commented on my blog. Needless to say, if the company do get in touch to further clarify the situation, I'll be happy to publish their response.

*  *  *

Sometimes writing for a beauty blog - or any blog, really - can be quite the eye opener. It's amazing what some companies will do to try and promote themselves while dissing their competitors, and today I came across a good example of this, on my post about the Ped Egg.

In my post, I compared the Ped Egg to the Microplane Foot File. I've used both, and liked both products (you can read my review of the Microplane here), and as I noted in my review, the only real difference between the two, for me, is the price, with Microplane the more expensive of the two. I stand by that opinion, and the respective costings are simple fact which anyone can check out for themselves.

Midas Media Blog Network: June update

Remember those blog targets I set myself back in April? Never really said much about those ever again, did I? So let's revisit them now, and, in a bid to create a record for myself as much as anything else, let's try and make it a monthly update, shall we?

The good news is that both TheFashionPolice.net had its best months ever in June 2009. The bad news is that because January is always such a good month, and the traffic tends to dip off for a few months after that before picking up again, the final figures weren't massively higher than the previous Best Ever.

Hey-Dollface.com, meanwhile, had

The Fashion Police, June 2009:

660,956 page views
426,104 unique visitors

Hey-Dollface.com, meanwhile, had its best ever month in May, reaching 63,000 page impressions, but had a big dip in June, which can be mostly attributed to the fact that I was on holiday for most of the month, and so the site wasn't being updated (The Fashion Police, on the other hand, continued to publish the same amount of content during my break, so didn't experience any drop-off in traffic.)

Hey-Dollface.com, June 2009:

50,277 page views
37,631 unique visitors

Summer is always a really difficult and weird time for all of the sites, not only because I take a vacation myself, but because other people do too, so many of my readers are off relaxing somewhere rather than staring at a computer screen, and even those who aren't on vacation tend to spend more time out of doors, assuming the weather is good. Then there's the tennis, the 4th of July holiday and various other summer events that keep people away from the internet.

This summer we also launched the other blog I mentioned back in April, Shoeperwoman.com. As the name suggests, this is a blog entirely about shoes, and while it's still early days, at least I'm having fun writing for it.

Hopefully we'll have even better stats to report next month - assuming I remember to write about them, that is!

Unnecessary Quotation Marks: not just unnecessary, absolutely hilarious

Now, I know I said recently that pointing out other people's errors is pretty mean, but let's face it: it's sometimes just plain funny, too.

Take unnecessary quotation marks. Why do people "do" it? Who knows. But the results can be be downright hilarious, so when Fi drew my attention to an entire blog dedicated to recording these bloopers, I knew I was about to lose a large part of my afternoon to sitting chuckling over the images.

It's called The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, and I totally recommend it if you're ever in need of a bit of light relief. My favourite so far is the poster shown above. You just know those people are going to be keeping your small change all to themselves, don't you?*

*Note: Not really.

The Fashion Police named best fashion blog in the Glam Network Awards 2009!

A few weeks ago, my blog The Fashion Police was nominated in the fashion category of the Glam Network Awards 2009.  

I posted about the awards on the site itself at the time, but then more or less forgot about it, so you can only imagine how excited I was yesterday when I received an email notifying me that The Fashion Police was the winner of its category!

This is the first major award any of my sites have won, and, coming a few weeks after I decided to quit freelancing and focus on my own blogs full time, it couldn't have come at a better time. The award is voted for by blog readers, so if there's anyone out there reading this who voted for us, my heartfelt thanks: you helped made my day! (And my week, too...)

Follow me on Twitter!

I've mentioned Twitter a few times here recently, and will probably mention it a few more, given that so much of my online life is spent over there now, so I thought I'd invite those of you with Twitter accounts of your own to come on over and say hello.  I tend to use Twitter for social rather than work purposes, but it's always nice to find a new way to connect with people: you can follow me here.

Typos, and why they're not always the end of the world

I have a confession to make: sometimes I make typos. In fact, sometimes they're not even typos. Sometimes - and this will really shock you - sometimes they're actual spelling errors.

I know, I know: a professional writer who sometimes makes mistakes. I should resign right this very second and go and get a job that doesn't require me to write at all, ever: especially given that I actually have a website about writing. I'm not going to, though, because here's the thing: I don't think minor typos are that big a deal. There, I said it. I will let you take a moment to pick yourself back up off the floor here...

Still with me? OK, let me clarify: I'm not saying it's OK to make mistakes, and that we shouldn't bother about them. Not at all. On the contrary, I think anyone who makes a living from writing should make an effort to ensure their writing is as clear, and as error-free as possible. Absolutely.

What I am saying, though, is that when the odd, minor typo creeps in, I don't think it's the end of the world. I mean, we've all done it, haven't we? To err is human, after all, and I can't think of anyone - not a single person - who has never in their life hit the wrong key on a keyboard and failed to notice it.

And yes, I know that's what proofreading is for. But as most writers will tell you, when you've written something yourself, it can be hard to spot the mistakes in it. You see what you THINK is there, and sometimes errors go undetected. Or undetected by you, anyway. Here's one of the big drawbacks of writing online, you see: for every typo you ever make, there will be at least five people ready to jump on it and crow over it. The line, "You call yourself a professional writer, but..." will be used at least once. It's not a good scene, trust me.

Undoubtedly, some of these people are genuinely trying to be helpful. You should be grateful to these people. They're the ones who politely tell us when we've typed something wrong (and tell us by email, too, rather than pointing out the mistake in public and drawing further attention to it), and allow us to correct it without trying to make us feel like idiots for making it in the first place.

Then there are the rest.

Ask Writing World: Is it possible to make money at home by proofreading?

 

Is it possible to make money working from home as a proofreader?

This is one of the questions I get asked most often, and the short answer is: yes.  It is.

I happen to think most things are possible if you work hard enough, though, so perhaps a better question here would be: is it EASY to make a living working from home as a proofreader?

Actually, I suspect this is what most people who ask the first question really wanted to know anyway, and the short answer to that one is: no. It most definitely isn't.

Setting Some Blogging Targets

  Well, after my declaration of a whole new start for me, including more posts here at Writing World (thanks for the encouragement on that post, by the way, everyone - it's much appreciated!) I managed to fall at the first hurdle, and didn't update here at all. D'oh.

I have no real reason for this, other than that it was just One of Those Weeks. On Monday I had my first migraine in nine months, and the after-effects didn't really clear until Thursday or so, leaving me struggling to keep up with my posts, and playing catch-up by the end of the week. This is one of the perils of being your own boss, of course, and the main reason why it's always good to have some posts up your sleeve, and saved as drafts, to prepare for just such an eventuality. If only I'd take my own advice, eh?

Anyway, things are now back on track (well, sort of...) and as I tend to be fairly goal-driven, I thought I'd try setting down a couple of goals for myself, to see if I can try and meet them in my first year of blogging full-time.