After some deep and meaningful soul-searching, I’ve decided to hone my writing career a little bit better and shed some of the side-projects. That includes this website. I’m moving most of my freelance writing articles to HubPages, so feel free to check out my pages there. Some of my more popular pieces are:

• Should you write for free?
• Writing for About.com
• Watch for online writing scams
• Pictures are worth a thousand words
• Finding writing jobs on Craigslist

This site will be coming down in a few weeks, so feel free to bookmark me on HubPages to keep up with any new freelance writing articles that I post.

And if you happen to be interested in the www.become-an-online-writer.com domain name, drop me a line.

I posted some time ago about the freelance bidding site, Elance and that post was mainly about the type of work you’ll find there and some of my personal gripes about the site. I did mention that they were changing their pricing and fee structure, so I didn’t go into any detail on that at the time. So that’s what I’m talking about today. As some of my other gigs have died down somewhat, I have returned to Elance in search of some new online writing work. After a few weeks, I’ve gotten familiar with the new pricing system, and here are the details.

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That’s not to say that everyone’s favorite writing tool isn’t a wonderful thing. Because it is and we all know it. I just want to remind everyone that it is not perfect and won’t necessarily turn sloppy writing into a work of literary art.

I am working with a friend of mine, and he has one particular weakness in his writing. Homonyms.  His spelling is fine (more or less) but he gets hung up on all the similar-sounding words that plague our language. He’ll write “there” instead of “their”, or “to” instead of “too” with surprising consistency. In a recent article, he referred to “weary customers” rather than his intended “wary customers”. So it’s not just annoying to look at, it can really change the meaning of what you write with a simple error. … Keep reading »

It’s way too easy to get caught up in a great inflow of work. Makes you feel successful and professional. Until you sit down and realize that you are going to have to find an extra 4 hours in each day in order to actually make the deadlines. You learn the hard way that its hard to write after only 3 hours of sleep each night. Be forewarned that this is an actual problem that freelance writers face. … Keep reading »

This is a good rule no matter what business you’re in, but a crucial one if you are a freelance writer. It may not be as easy to put into practice as you might think. The literal meaning is simply that you shouldn’t rely on only one client or job as an online freelance writer, because you just never know when the work could stop. The Internet can be horribly capricious. If you already have another job besides freelance writing, then it’s not quite as big a deal. If your career is anything like mine, you’re juggling your income from several different sources. And that’s how it should be (more or less). … Keep reading »

As I mentioned a few posts ago (Basics of Freelance Bidding Sites), I have joined Elance and thought it was time to post what I’ve noticed about the service. They are changing their fees and bidding structure next month, so things may be different in the near future but I’m pretty sure some of the issues I’ve had will still be issues. … Keep reading »

A booming form of online writing is the “keyword article”, also known as “SEO writing” or “SEO articles”. The idea is that people with websites on whatever topics (and usually selling whatever product) are always looking for ways to improve their search engine rankings. Everyone wants to be at the top of the list on Google or Yahoo!. But websites filled with products aren’t usually that successful. Because they lack content. You need lots of words and text for search engines to really sink their teeth into, so product-sellers are always on the lookout for articles that they can add to their sites with minimal effort.

And that is where you, the online writer comes in.

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And yes, I’m writing this from personal experience. There are days when writer’s block is looming over the horizon, and my brain is looking for a way to not deal with it. Those days, I find myself poring over every category on Craiglist, and hitting every freelance job board I can find. And once I’ve checked all the usual places, I start wondering if something new has been posted in the past hour, and start the whole cycle over again. Next thing I know, the afternoon is gone.

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If you are planning on launching your own website, once you decide what the heck you are going to put on it, you’ll need to get a domain name. This article is on how to buy a domain only. Trying to choose a good one is another matter altogether.

Firstly, if you are a complete and utter newbie when it comes to the creation of a website, you might not even know what I am talking about. A domain is the “label” for your website, the way it is identified in a browser and makes up the URL that people use to link to it. The www is NOT part of the domain name, though. So some domain names would be google.com or yahoo.com. For this site, the domain name is become-an-online-writer.com. Yes, I know it’s too long.

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A content network, as I use the term, refers to one of the many large sites that are broken down into topics/categories/channels or what have you. They maintain collections of articles and other content organized within these topics. About.com is a widely-known example of a content network.

Most (but not all) content networks hire on freelance writers to produce articles, based on a single topic. You are responsible for continually managing that one topic.

… Keep reading »