Facebook Privacy Dependent on Facebook Friends

Freelance writers who use Facebook and other social media to promote themselves and their work usually have a lot of friends whom they've never met except online. We indiscriminately seek out and accept new friends who may read our work, confident that because we've educated ourselves on internet privacy, any information we've allowed on our Facebook pages is safe. We often post pictures of our cars, home exteriors and children to share with friends and to promote our work, never thinking about how much information we're sharing that someone can put together if they want to find us or  even get back at us because of our opinions.

According to a recent article I read, we may have a problem. Read More

All written content ©2010 Patrice Campbell unless otherwise noted.

An Epiphany...Don't Roll your Eyes at Me!

Yes, I've had an epiphany. I chose the word carefully because I was afraid you'd just roll your eyes and move on to something else, but there is not other way to describe it.


It's not only changed my freelance writing schedule, but it seems to have started a trend of improved finances and has eliminated a whole lot of stress from my working days, which as you all know seems to be seven days a week.


It's all about self imposed deadlines. We were all told years ago that the successful person, no matter what they do for a living, set goals and impose deadlines and stick to them. Although I don't usually consider myself a sheep, I admit I said "baahhhh" and followed the herd.


I know I'm taking a big risk sharing this with only 2 weeks worth of results, but the whole thing just seems logical now that I see it with fresh eyes and have put aside decades of habit.


Each evening, more so as the end of the week approached, I'd look at those deadlines and get worried that I wouldn't be able to meet them. Then, I'd get a vulnerable feeling that I would fail in all of my goals,  tighten my jaw in determination to get through the daily schedule and grind my teeth until I got a headache and had to give up in frustration.


Guess how much sleep I'd get in the few hours left of those nights.


So.....on to the epiphany. I took a look at my schedule and highlighted deadlines that were imposed by clients. Then, I highlighted deadlines that were set for work with upfront payments I needed to pay my bills. Then, with a different color highlighter, I highlighted self imposed deadlines that I had set for p/v sites so they always had updated articles or because I had committed to so many articles a month.


So my three top priorities were all highlighted and what hadn't been accomplished was squeezed into the planner for the next day, filling it up. I went back and discovered that the items I couldn't find time for were my blogs, website and fiction. With no time scheduled away from the computer!


Duh. Snap.  What's the word of the day?


Isn't the whole idea of struggling to be a freelancer the goal of working for yourself?
It was time for some self examination. What did I really expect to gain from this whole freelance writing world I had committed myself too?

1. To be able to set my own deadlines.
2. The freedom to change my own schedule to meet my needs.
3. The freedom to just be able to write.
4. To be able to support myself doing something I enjoyed.

Duh. Snap. What's the word of the day?


It's epiphany.


I rearranged my list to read:

1. To be able to support myself doing something I enjoyed.
2. The freedom to just be able to write.
3. The freedom to change my own schedule to meet my needs.
4. To be able to set my own deadlines.

You see, number 4 on the list was getting in the way of what now is, and should have been number 1 all along, but somehow lost ranking along the way. Just like my blogs, website and fiction fell to the bottom of the priority list every day because of my self imposed deadlines.


But, deadlines are deadlines, and I'm supposed to set deadlines. My mind was fighting with my gut. Luckily my gut won out.


My private clients and upfront payment work all had strict deadlines and so did the due date on the bills that work paid for.


My blogs, website and fiction had self imposed deadlines, but were both urgent and important in my long term goal of getting paid for what I enjoyed. Change it to a strict deadline.


The work I did for p/v sites all had self imposed deadlines. Sure, they have the possibility of paying off really well in the long run with attention and luck. There is the risk of the site still being in business down the road. The numerous streams of income is really nice, even though it's a trickle, together they may someday merge into a river. But push come to shove, it's still working for someone else for just a bit of money when I really need to devote the time to other priorities. They have to stay on the list, and they stay with self imposed deadlines.


So, in a moment of absolute brilliance I changed my meaning of the term self imposed deadline to mean reminder.


Not only do I have a lot less stress, at the end of the day I've accomplished my set in-stone deadlines even when I've had to be flexible.


To top it all off, the stats on my blogs and website continue to trend upward.


The best part of all is that I've been sleeping at night and not dreaming that I was still on the computer.

All written content ©2010 Patrice Campbell unless otherwise noted.

Self Promotion for the Freelance Writer

Freelance writers soon learn that self promotion is the only way they’ll turn their writing into money. You can write 30 articles a day and publish them on popular sites, but if no one is aware that you’ve written them, no one is going to read them unless you’re lucky enough to gain rank on the search engine result page.

The most popular social media sites for self promotion are Facebook and Twitter. Both of these sites offer seemingly limitless opportunities to meet and communicate with strangers who share common interests.

The need for Facebook friends and Twitter followers is obvious. You’re looking for people who are interested in you and the work you do. These are the people who may just click on your link and read your article. If they like what they read, they might start following your work. They may even recommend your article to their friends.

If you’re lucky, you may even discover people who’ll become your mentors. I’ve found many fellow writers on Facebook who have not only clicked on my links and commented, but shared my articles with their friends.

The same is true with Twitter. As followers learn to recognize the value of your Tweets and links, they will retweet your tweets to their followers, greatly increasing the chances that someone will click.

When looking for Facebook friends and Twitter followers, be careful that you don’t limit your possibilities. You may have already identified friends and followers in the writing site forums where you publish. These contacts are very valuable as business contacts, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually interested in your subject matter.

You want to add Twitter followers and Facebook friends who are interested in the article that you write. If you write about history, you want to identify people who read about history. Check out history groups on Facebook and join them. Friend other group members. These are the people who are your intended audience, after all.

The same is true with Twitter. Use the hashtag (#) and run a search of history topics. Follow the Tweeters who tweet on the subject. They might just follow you back and each time you post a link, they will have the opportunity to follow it.

Grow your online social community, continue to write valuable content, self promote at every opportunity, and you may just be lucky enough to become one of the successful freelance writers on the internet.

Writing Site Forums

Forums on writing sites can he wonderfully enlightening or nightmarishly dismal tunnels of hopelessness. When a new writer is accepted at a site, they often spend a lot of time reading the articles already posted on the site to get the feel of it, and then venture into the writers forum.

This is where a lot of writers hang out. 

The Site Forum

As a freelance writer who writes for many content sites, I often go to the forums in search of answers to site specific questions. More and more, I escape without answers and with lower moral.

When did it get to be this way? When I first started freelance writing online, I was lucky enough to write for a site with a community of wonderful writers who shared their experiences and tips. I still follow these people who I consider mentors, and promote their work whenever I can.

As I've spread my wings and branched out, I've been dismayed at how much the forums have changed.

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