Showing posts with label online business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online business. Show all posts

Friday, May 25, 2012

Us Writers Deserve To Get Paid

My recent experiences with trying to build up The Prancing Laggard Pub have caused me to butt up against a long-standing frustration I've had with the online writing business. You see, my main goal for the publication is to pay my writers a living wage.

"Oh, that's so noble of you," you might say to yourself as you clasp your hands and flutter your eyelashes, with or without a heavy dose of sarcasm.

No, it's not noble of me. If I was in the habit of cursing online, I'd do it here, but as I try not to do that too much I'll just say this - it's freaking my duty as a person in this industry to make sure that people get paid what their work is worth.

Now, my writer friends, repeat after me:

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Freelance Writer Vs. Online Entrepreneur: What's the Difference?

Source: Emma Larkins
I often describe myself as both a freelance writer and an online entrepreneur. In some ways, the difference between these two types of employment are greater than you might think; in other ways, they're actually pretty similar, and involve a lot of related skills, techniques, and abilities. If you're interested in trying either one, it helps to know exactly what they each entail.

Freelance Writing

The main identifying factors when it comes to being a freelance writer are writing for other people and (almost) always getting paid a set amount. In general, you work for one or more clients. The clients specify the type of work they are looking for, and the amount of money they're willing to pay (although sometimes there is negotiating involved). The writer provides this work, and in return receives the agreed-upon payment. In order to increase income, freelance writers search for new clients and new writing markets.

There are a variety of different ways you can get paid as a freelance writer. You can write articles for online or offline newspapers and magazines, either as one-shot deals or as a regular contributor (at some point you might end up becoming a staff writer). You can write copy for marketing purposes, to be included in advertisements, brochures, websites, or other mediums. You can ghostwrite fiction or non-fiction pieces.

One thing remains the same: you are guaranteed to receive payment for your work, and that amount is almost always agreed upon before the work is completed.

Online Entrepreneurship

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Exploring Niche Markets In Online Business: Best Kinect Games

In my post about my May goals, I mentioned that one of my goals was to explore online niche markets such as the niche of the best kinect games.

To do this, I'm creating a bunch of mini-websites on a couple of different publishing platforms, then linking them together to form a network of related sites. For example, here are some of the Squidoo sites (aka "lenses") that I've created:

Games Compatible With Kinect
Best Kinect Fitness Games
Best Kinect Dancing Games

And here are some of the HubPages sites (aka "hubs") that I've created:

Should I Get a Kinect?
Xbox Motion Sensor Controller
Xbox Kinect Requirements

The two sites are slightly different, so I use them to target slightly different types of keyword phrases. For example, HubPages is more article-based, so I use it to create sites that require mostly text. Squidoo is more module-based, so I use it to create sites in which I want to spotlight various items.

Going forward, I will continue to create sites on both Squidoo and HubPages, and perhaps branch out to other platforms. And I hope to see a return on my investment of time!