write4money

Okay, some of you may be wondering what should be included in a freelance writer’s contract. Here are some of the details necessary in such a contract.

1) Job Description
The job description would include the title of the article, number of article and the number of words per article. If there are any other specifications required by the employer, it should also be included. For example, they may want interviews, statistics or pictures included in the articles.

2) Start and Completion Date
The completion date is more important that the start date, of course. The date both parties signed the contract can be considered the start date of the writing job. The due date is important so that there is no dispute as to when the job is to be delivered.

3) Compensation
Compensation can be in the lump sum payment or according to the percentage of job completed. For a lump sum payment, the both of you may have agreed upon a fixed price for the articles once they are delivered and accepted. If the project is a large one, you may want to negotiate for compensation after the completion of specific milestones in the project. If this is the case, there is a need to clarify what is the deliverables at each milestone of the project, based on what has been completed.

4) Copyright Issues
Do you want to retain the rights to the articles or do you want to relinquish your rights? It does depends on what you and the employer wants. Some writers would want to retain all rights to their writing, while others do not mind being a ghostwriter. To me, it is not an issue, as long as the compensation is appropriate.

Look for samples of freelance writer’s contracts on the net to emulate. All the best in your negotiation process!

Yesterday, I wrote about how anxious I am that there is no contract drawn out for the three sample articles the government organisation is requesting. But the question is - Is it really necessary? Do you need a freelance writer’s contract? I feel that it all depends on a few factors.

1) Is it a large or small assignment?
If I have been assigned to do 100 or more 500-word articles over a year, then a contract should be draw up to avoid any disputes later on. If the task is to produce one-off one 500-word article, then a freelance writer’s contract is not necessary. I would not bother with it.

2) Do you trust the individual, company or organisation?
As for me, since the freelance writing job that I’m getting this time around involves a government organisation, I’m not too worried about the fact that they might not be a scam and not pay me after the completion of the assignment. If it is an unknown individual or company you are working for, then a freelance writer’s contract may be an important thing to draw up between the both of you.

3) What are you Comfortable with?
It is also a matter of your gut feeling. Do you feel comfortable taking the freelance writing job without a formal agreement? If you are not comfortable, maybe you could suggest to your client that you’d like a contract drawn up. You may want to suggest a sample freelance writer’s contract if they don’t have one. To me, if the company I work for initiates signing a contract, I would definitely do so after reviewing the terms and conditions in it. It benefits both parties to have a contract, if a dispute arises.

I was looking for any local freelance writing opportunity. I came across Freelance Zone a couple of months back, but it just started then and there weren’t much writing opportunities.

But when I revisited the site lately, there were more jobs available. There was even one web article writing job for a government website. They were asking for business-related articles. I hesitated to apply for the freelance writing job. Deep down inside, a voice tells me that I’m not qualified to do it. I do not have any entrepreneurial experience to impart to readers. There’s also another voice that tells me to go for it. What’s the worse that can happen?

The worse that could happen after I apply for it is that I don’t get the job. So what? I shall have to move on to look for other freelance writing job opportunities. Then why am I hesitating? Blame it on my low self-esteem, lack of confidence, whatever you call it. I must “seize the day”! When will I ever be a high-earning freelance writer if I continue to have such attitudes and behaviour.

I have decided to apply for the job. In fact, I have already sent in my application. Whether I get it is truly another story. I must overcome my fear of making that first step to earn more money, whether online or offline. Do you have fears of trying out for a freelance writing job? Do you sometimes feel that you are not suited for it because of what you have or don’t have? Come and share your thoughts and fears.

I don’t have a writing schedule and maybe that is one of the reasons why I have not been very consistent with my writing. Recently a discussion at my favorite forum, myLot, jolted me into the importance of having a writing schedule.

I would define a writing schedule as a designated time for writing on a regular basis. I have decided to create one for myself. I believe that I’m most productive in the morning. As such, I will wake up early in the morning in order to do some writing. Another important time in the day would be when my daughter takes her afternoon nap. It used to be that she naps for three hours, but now it’s getting shorter. So I need to split the time between household chores and writing and a little rest for myself. At night after she has gone to bed, I would have to check my energy level. If I’m up to it, I can do a little writing before I go to bed.

But I think I need to further break down the time in the day for different types of writing. I generally have blog posts, my writing assignment, articles and reviews, and mylotting. I have five writing types and only 2-3 different opportunities to write in a day. I think I shall spend my mornings doing my writing assignment until it is completed by the middle of this month. Afternoons should be spent writing articles or reviews, evenings should be spent on writing blog posts.

In this case, I’m going to have no time to forum at myLot. What am I going to do? I just have to cut down the time I spend on mylot. It is not the best way to earn money anyway, since it does take a long time to reach payout. If I can keep to my writing schedule, I should see an increase in my online earnings. Do you have a writing schedule?

That is the term I use to describe myself when I feel very lazy and not up to any writing task. There are some things you can do to encourage yourself to get rid of writer’s procrastination.

1) Warning! Low Earnings Ahead!
Well, you can tell yourself that if you continue to be in this lazy, procrastination mode, you will not be earning as much as you would like that month or the folowing month when the earnings are due. What I will do is to check my earnings in my writing sites to scare myself that I’d probably not reach any targets that month, if I don’t get off my butt and start writing. It does work sometimes.

2) Warning! Deadline Ahead!
If you are writing on a freelance basis online, you may want to scare yourself by marking with bright, bold, red letters the deadline for the assignment you are currently doing. At this moment, I have one deadline looming ahead and I’m heading nowhere with it. So, I’m telling myself that I must complete it within a certain number of days. The best is to set yourself shorter deadlines. I hate long deadlines. I take longer to complete them.

3) Do what you have to do!
There are times when I tell myself that I will write once I have completed scrubbing the floor of this toilet, or once I have cleared my desk of clutter. I used to have such thoughts when I was in school when I was procrastinating about studying for major exams. I told myself that I will start studying when I finish tidying up my room. But it worked! Once I cleaned my room and rearranged my notes neatly, I was doing better at keeping to my study schedule. Same goes for my writing! Sometimes you just need to do what you have to do to overcome this procrastination.

Just to remind myself about writer’s procrastination: I’m now off to complete my freelance writing assignment since it’s deadline is very close or I will not get paid by them!

I want to publish a book next year. There are two ways this is possibly going to happen. First of all, my friend is getting me to write a book with him. It may or may not materialize. It all depends on whether these people have the time to write one, considering the fact that they are working on a full-time basis.

I may be doing freelance writing, but still I have very limited time for writing. I can only write when my daughter is asleep at night or taking a nap in the afternoon. She is very active and as such, there were many days this month that I have abandoned the thought of staying up to write, as I was so tired from taking care of her. It is especially stressful these days when my hubby and I are trying to toilet train her. She just doesn’t seem to get it. I’m sure many full-time mothers will be able to empathise my situation, especially those who are also trying to earn some money on the side.

The second way for me to write a book would be to publish one that I have been working on. There are a few things that need to be done with this piece of writing though. It needs to be rewritten, to be given a new twist and I would need an illustrator for the entire book. I wonder how much that would cost me to get done. I’m thinking of hiring someone from Elance to do it.

But I must think in the long run, it is going to mean residual income for me and my family. Have you though of writing a book to increase your income? Publishing a book now is so easy. You can even publish it on your own, even if no other publisher would want to do it. You can also arrange for the book to be printed on demand. I think that this is a great new technology that writers need to embark on to make more money with the talent they have been blessed with.

I think that one of the fastest way to write would be to write in a conversational style. If you do not knwo what this means, it means that you write as if you are taking to your audience. However, I did not normally write articles and blogs in this manner. It used to be that I was writing in an authoritative manner. But nowadays, as I become more relaxed when writing my pieces, I just let all the things in my head flow out into my writing.

It’s just so wonderful. Okay, I can’t type as fast as my thoughts, but it does help to keep mental block at bay. By writing as fast as my thoughts, I’m able to come up with more blog posts and articles in teh same time if I were to write in any other styles.

Here’s how you can write in a conversational style. Use the pronoun “I” frequently thoughout your blog posts. It will give a more personal feeling to your blog or article writing. It would also mean that you are forced to give your own opinions and thoughts about things, and this comes naturally as you think about what to write in your blog.

Second tip is to write as fast as you can. Just type whatever words that comes to your mind, even though you may not know how your sentence is going to end. I’m using this method everytime I write a blog post. I think it helps me develop my creativity in writing different sentence structures as I go along, and I avoid using the common starting words in a sentence such as “The…” or “There is …” My English teacher used to say that these are boring ways to start a sentence. She advocates variation in our writing.

Third tip is to pretend that you are actually talking or discussing this issue with a partner, a friend or your readers. I think it is a great way to feel that you have someone listening to you when you talk. When I first started blogging, I was not very comfortable writing in this style, but this is the only way to get my writing going on and on…

How often do you sit down and write your blog posts? Initially when I started blogging I was writing a few blog posts during the weekend and log in every day to publish each one on the net. That was when Blogger did not have this feature of scheduling the blog posts. It would mean that I might miss a day’s blog post if I don’t have the time to log in that particular day.

But nowadays I write all my blog posts for the week in one sitting and schedule them all throughout the week. In this way, it is possible for me to post at a regular time every day. My regular readers will be able to anticipate my next blog post at around the same time every day.

Scheduling my blog posts becomes a very important thing for me. I save time logging in and out of a blogging platform in order to publish a single post. Now I can do them all at one time. There were days when I have to be away for a period of time, let’s say, for a holiday or a course, and would not have access to the internet for days. It would mean that my blog will continue to be updated. I love this automation feature.

I know that there are some people who have written blog posts months in advance. It is possible if your blog is not time-sensitive. If yours is this type of blog, then there is a need for you to log in everyday, to post. As for now, I have written 5 blog posts, well, not really in one sitting. But at least I don’t have to write one for the next five days. I can now concentrate on other things like writing my reviews and articles.

I’m trying to write a blog post as quickly as I can. As a matter of fact, I’m actually timing this blog post to see how fast I can write a 200 to 300-word blog post.  I am trying to see if I can write this in under 15 minutes, or 10 minutes if that is possible at all.

Some people say that if you are taking an hour to write a blog post, you are taking too long. But you also need to include other things like grammar and spell check when writing a blog post. You will also need to add pictures wherever necessary or add links to certain websites within your post to guide your readers. As such, it may actually take a longer time.

So far, I have taken about 4 minutes to write the first two paragraphs. All in all, it would mean that I can actually write a blog post within 10 minutes. But is it wise to do so? Here’s what I think. I think that if you have planned what you intend to write before hand, taking that amount of time is reasonable, depending on how fast you can type, without making mistakes.

As for me, if the topic is very interesting to me and I have a lot of things to say or share with my readers, there is a better chance that I can write a blog post in the shortest amount of time possible. But if you are the kind of person who is a perfectionist, you will find that writing a blog post in record time will just stress you out, since you woul dneed to craft your words very carefully, to make sure that everything is prim and proper. I’m not a perfectionist, but I do believe that I do write well.

To conclude, I took 9 minutes to write this piece. Great work!

It is almost the end of the year and it’s time for new year resolutions again. Let’s forget about the past year, if you have not been doing too well. It’s focus on the future and hope to make things better.

There are a couple of things I would love to do this year. And if I do complete all of them, it would definitely mean more income from writing.

1) Writing SEO articles

My very first goal is simple to achieve, but I have just been putting it off for a very long time.  I had wanted to learn to write SEO articles. I have read a couple of articles on this and would like to try it all the time next year.

2) Publish a book

It’s a great ambition to be a published writer. Well, not just an online writer, but a physical one. I have compiled a couple of pieces together. It needs to be reworked and have them illustrated. I have to invest a little bit of money for the illustration bit, unless my hubby is willing to draw them for me. He just have too much on his hands right now.

3) Get Paid from Blogging

I have started this blog here at Today.com in the hope of earning more money for the year 2009. I have my own blog, which I have been having trouble keepign up after going on short trips this month. I have been very disorganized with my writing and as such need to get back on track.

So, what are some of your goals related to writing for 2009?