How to Deal with Negative Comments

As a freelance writer some times you will have to deal with negative comments. Negative comments may come from your readers an editor or friends and family. You need to learn how to deal with these negative comments or your freelance writing will suffer or fail.

Reader Comments:
Comments on your freelance articles can seem to be harsher than they were meant. Writing online makes it hard to convey emotions and your commenter may have left you a little joke.

Editor Comments:
Negative comments and rejections made by an editor may have been intended to be constructive criticism. Sometimes constructive criticism is difficult to take and so is rejection for that matter. Most editors know what they are talking about, so try not to take it too personally.

Peer Comments:
In some writing circles other unscrupulous freelance writers will attempt to gang up on new writers so they will become discouraged and leave. These old timers don’t want any new freelancers to steal a piece of their pie.

You can ignore their comments or address them and post a reply in your comments. If you have negative comments that can be removed from your work by all means remove them. If you choose to combat those negative comments be positive and be the bigger person. If you fight fire with fire you will just add fuel to their fire and they could stalk you and may eventually ruin your online presence.

If one writing site is terribly bad and you cannot escape the negative comments you will need to go elsewhere. Just don’t let those trolls and naysayers stop you from writing.

How to Deal:
Negative comments can come from anywhere including a parent, your best friend or spouse and they can end a writing career before it has even begun. You can’t stop people from voicing their opinions but you get to decide whether or not to listen to them. So try to let those negative comments slide right off and keep writing.

Find 101 Niches for Freelance Writing on Squidoo

Another new freelance lens over at Squidoo.  This new Squidoo lens can help you find your new Niche for freelance writing if you haven't chosen one yet.  Niche writing is very profitable in the freelance world; take a look at the article to find a Niche that you like and can freelance write about.

101 Niches for Freelance Writing
So you want to find a freelance writing niche. There are so many niches to write about and you will find 101 Freelance Writing Niches to consider below. Discovering the right niche area for you can be difficult. Because there are so many niche category's...

Got Writers Burnout? Try Freelance Writing Prompts

Freelance Writing Prompts:

Sometimes Freelance Writers get burnout or writers block.  There are many ways to combat not knowing what to write about or not being able to continue writing.  One of the ways to fight writers block is to use a writing prompt.

Word of the Day - Writing Prompt
You can subscribe to the Dictionary.com sites word of the day or another sites word of the day.  Today's word is Vitiate.  See if you can write 100 words using the word of the day three times.

Picture Writing Prompt
You have heard the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well, you do not need to write a thousand words but try writing 300 words based on the photo above.  You can write a freelance article on snow, trees, and the perfect vacation or whatever you happen to see in the picture.

Writing Prompt - Write About Anything
If you are having a writing block just starting to write can get your creative juices flowing.  So write about anything you want for 10 minutes.  If you can think of something to write about then write about French Fries.  Then if after 10 minutes you still are in the writing mood write a freelance article or at least get one started.

The above writing prompts will get you started on your way to writing again.  Writers block or writers burn out does not have to stall your freelance writing career, you can move past this.

Freelance Writing - Get Your Name Known

If you are new to freelance writing and you need to get your author name known I will give you some tips to get your name out there.

Even if you have been freelancing for a while you may want to know how to get your name on the web so that potential clients can find you easier and contact you for writing assignments.


I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

Get Social:

• Sign up for a Twitter Account.
• Sign up on Facebook.
  
• Social Bookmark your best articles which include your byline.

 Put Your Writing on Content Sites: Great for showing samples of your work.

• EzineArticles - these articles could end up going viral.
• Associated Content
  
• EHow - the to do experts.
• Helium
  
• Bukisa
  

Blog about your favorite topics.

You can quickly get your author's name all over the web in a matter of a few days.  You only need to write one or two articles or posts at each place and include your name to get your name in lights.  Then you can do the all important Googling of your Name and you should pop up all over!

Should Freelance Writer's take Ghost Writing Jobs?

 Are Ghost Writing Jobs Worth It?

Ghost writing jobs for freelance writers can be worth their time or not.  You will need to step back from the ghost writing job opportunity for a moment and evaluate it and ask yourself a few questions.

Do you care if every piece of writing that you take the time to write has your name as the author?  If it is important to you to see your name in the byline every time you write a freelance article then you should not take ghost writing jobs.

Can you make more money by ghost writing or by taking on the project yourself?  If the ghost writing job is to write blog posts about foreclosed homes and you have extensive knowledge in this area, can you make more money if you self publish a blog on foreclosed houses?  If you know how to market a blog and think you can get more money for yourself then you should not take the ghost writing job opportunity.  On the other hand if you don't know how to publish a blog and get ads to generate the revenue you would want to ghost write in this situation.  

Can you make more money by selling the writing to someone else other than the ghost writing client?   Sometimes the clients who put jobs up for ghostwriters seriously undervalue the cost of the work they want done.  If you see a ghost writing job assignment but know you can sell the work to another publisher for more money then don't take the ghost writing assignment.  If you know you cannot make more money on your own then by all means take the ghost writing job.

Do you need ghost writing jobs to make money and pay the bills?  Freelance income is not a steady income like going to work and getting a paycheck every week.  So sometimes freelancers must do what it takes to get the bills paid and will take any job opportunity that comes their way.  If you need money sooner rather than later then you will want to take some ghost writing gigs.

As you can see there are both Pro's and Con's to the world of freelance ghost writing.  You will just need to step back and identify your needs at the time to decide if ghost writing is a good fit for you.

The Importance of Goal Setting for Freelance Writers

What is the Importance of Goal Setting for Freelance Writers?

As a freelance writer you must set goals for your writing. Freelance writers have the luxury of being in charge of their own careers. While freelancing gives you freedom you must also have schedules, goals and responsibility.

Goal setting is important for freelance writing so that you can work on different client projects at the same time and be able to turn them all in on schedule and make your clients. If you set goals and get your articles turned in on time then those clients will be more likely to come back to you in the future because they know you are reliable.

Setting Goals for freelance writing should be done for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.

Here are some example goals that a freelance writer might make:

•  Daily - get those daily tasks done. (research, articles written, query's written, network with other online freelance writers)

•  Weekly - how many articles will you write in a week? How many page views do you want to have? Were weekly monetary goals met?

•  Monthly - find new clients, work on your book or ebook and take a writing course to improve your writing.

•  Yearly - finish that book, make yearly salary goals, and work on taxes.  Set new goals.

When people set goals they are more likely to reach their goals and accomplish more than the freelance writer who just does things here and there when they feel like writing.  By setting goals you will realize where you want to be in a week, a month, a year.

Be sure to set realistic goals so that you don't get frustrated and give up.  It is good to reevaluate your goals periodically to make sure that they are attainable and realistic.  Just don't make your freelance writing goals to easy otherwise you will not push yourself further to attain your ultimate goals.

Set your freelance writing goals and reach for the stars!

Find 101 Freelance Writing Jobs on Squidoo

I have written more over at Squidoo.  My new lens can help you find new freelance writing jobs if you are looking for more writing opportunity's then you might just find something at the link below.

101 Freelance Writing Jobs
Looking for Freelance Writing Jobs? Below you will find a great list of 101 Freelance Writing Opportunities. Freelance writing can be great for SAHM's and others who wish to make additional income writing from home. If you are just starting out freelance writing...

How to Write a How to Article

How to Article Writing

As a freelance writer you should know that how to articles can be very lucrative to write. Just putting How to ... in your title will not get you the page views that you are looking for though.

In order to make more money from your how to articles it must actually tell someone how to do the task step by step. One of the best places online to put your freelance how to articles is on Ehow.com If you freelance write at ehow then you already are familiar with thier simple set up.

Freelance Writing How to Articles at Ehow:
Ehow has everything set up for you in terms of writing a great how to article. They have slots for many pictures to add to your article for those visual people. I am one of those visual people who will gain much more from a picture than from a paragraph of instructions.

Ehow also has the step by step ease of a how to article. Writing freelance how to articles for ehow you should have an introductory paragraph or two and then go into the steps of how to complete the project, craft, DIY or other type of how to article. While I like pictures it is not necessary to have a picture for every step in your how to a few sprinkled around will do.

People know ehow and they trust them to find out how to do exactly what they were looking for. They can find your how to articles and then if they follow your directions they should come up with a completed project. You also have space for tips at the end of the how to article to tell them exactly how to get the best results.

Here is one of my Ehow articles:  How to Make Money Online Freelance Writing

How to Niche Articles
There are already how to articles on just about anything that is major or popular. So the best thing for you as a freelance writer to do is to narrow down that topic. Don't write: How to Lose Weight, but instead write: How to Lose Weight After 40. Just by adding a few words and narrowing down your category you have a more valuable article than just the general ones out there that are a dime a dozen. Which means your niche how to article has more of a chance of being seen by more people, and getting picked up by other websites.