You guys. I’m so excited I could puke. Last night, my (darling, beloved, uber-talented, handsome) husband put the finishing touches on my new web platform, and then set it to go live. Ever since then, I’ve been gazing at it lovingly, clicking between the different tabs and feeling giddy.

I tasked my husband with this project back in the fall, when I first entered my career coaching certification program. My professional site was feeling a bit out of date, and I wanted a more comprehensive platform that would present me as a writer, editor, and coach in a fairly seamless manner. Voila. Would you like the grand tour?

My home page is fairly simple.

Michelle Rafter recently wrote a post on designing your brand, in which she stressed the importance of consistency across various platforms. I agree, which is why, on this page, I used the photo of myself that I use on all of my social media accounts. My site’s header also appears on my new business cards. Eventually, once I start collecting testimonials from my practicum clients and other writing and editing clients, those will also appear on the home page.

Next is an About page, which is also pretty straightforward.

After that (and this I love), I had Michael create separate writing and editing portfolio pages, in which I linked to just a selection of the articles and projects I’ve worked on in the past. I decided to scrap my resume entirely. If someone wants a copy of my most recent resume, they can request it. As a freelancer, though, the traditional resume seems to be becoming less and less relevant.

Next (and this also makes me so excited I want to pee my pants) is the page for Career Coaching for Word Nerds. I had Michael install Google Checkout so that people could pay for my coaching services — or pre-order my e-book (available in June 2010) — directly through the site. I’ll eventually throw up a sample excerpt of Job Hopping for Word Nerds, and Michael is working on a Word Nerd Community. Pretty rad, right?

After this, I have a blog page. Freelancedom feeds through to this, but I also plan on writing other career- and coaching-related posts over there…mostly so you’re not inundated with content you might have no interest in.

Finally, I have a Contact page, with a simple contact form (though apparently not the simplest thing in the world to build :)

Am I a happy customer? Dude. I love love love my new site. What do you think? Is there anything you think I’m missing?

Next up: Michael does some much-needed spring cleaning on this blog.

Related: How To Market Yourself: Strengthening Your Web Presence

Hey there guys — I need your help. Here’s the story: I’m working on an ebook. It’s called Job Hopping for Word Nerds, and I’m writing it with the intention of creating a go-to resource for those interested in finding work within the publishing industry…anywhere in the publishing industry. I plan on including descriptions of the positions available in book publishing, magazines, newspapers, etc. More importantly, I want to create a monster resource manual, filled with links to professional organizations, databases, job sites, blogs, powerful tweeps, and more. In short: I have a vision. :) The resource appendices of self-help books have typically been my favorite part of said books, and that’s what I want to focus on here.

Still, I don’t want to lose sight of the big picture here: You. I want to give you what you most want and need.

So tell me:

• What do you most want to know about finding work in the midst of an industry in flux?
• What information has been lacking in the how-to content you’ve read?
• Which questions have you had trouble finding the answers to?
• What would be included in your ideal resource manual?

I’m writing this for you. Please help me get it right! :)

[Photo via]

You guys! Two weeks ago, I announced the launch of my career coaching practice, Career Coaching for Word Nerds. To kick things off, I held a contest here on my blog, so that two lucky readers could win a month’s worth of career coaching, completely gratis.

The feedback made me giddy. Many of you sent a lot of love my way, wishing me luck and congratulating me on the start of my new venture. Still more of you entered the contest, leading me to believe that I had made the right decision in going for my coaching certification: There is a market for this, and a lot of people are floundering, for a number of reasons.

I’m ridiculously excited to start coaching. I want others to be as gung-ho about their careers as I’ve been lately. So I hope you’ll excuse me for throwing more virtual confetti around as I announce the winners of my contest:

Kat Hasenauer of …On Being a Sports Girl, and

Maggie Marton

Hurrah!

For those still interested in career coaching, do check out the packages available on my website. I plan on adding another package for those interested solely in cover/query letter help, so feel free to use the form on that page if you’d like more information.

Okay. Commence with the confetti-throwing.

Related: Contest: Career Coaching for Word Nerds

Once again, I’m posting on behalf of YourTango.com, a web magazine with a focus on love and relationships. I happen to work there three days a week, as their Assistant Editor, and I’m pretty darn happy there. Not even the NJ-NY commute gets me down. Much.

So of course, I want all of you to work there with me as well. So it’s pretty fortuitous that we happen to be hiring:

Breaking News Bloggers:

YourTango, a website for women about love and relationships, is hiring 1-2 breaking news bloggers, who will submit 5-10 300-word posts/month to our celebrity and news & trends blogs. Topics include breaking news about dating, marriage, sex, divorce, celebrity breakups & divorces, juicy celeb sex rumors, celebs who are dating each other, etc.

This position is about gaining maximum web exposure for YourTango; if you’re our blogger, you already know what this entails.

Requirements:

• You should be a web junkie who has an RSS reader full of love and relationship news that you’re constantly refreshing so you can easily find and break relevant relationship news on the web.
• You should have a firmly established presence on the web, including online clips, blogs and social media accounts including Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.
• You should understand SEO and how people find and search for things on the web.
• Bloggers do their own production so you MUST be savvy with a CMS, photo editing and basic HTML.
• You need to be able to write quickly and professionally in YourTango’s voice: smart, playful and real. We are supportive, not snarky.

Payment is commensurate with experience.

Interested candidates should send resume, links to clips and cover letter to genevieve@yourtango.com.

Social Media Intern:

YourTango is hiring a social media intern to help mange and grow our presence on the web via social network and bookmarking sites.

Candidates must have strong writing and communication skills, a background in English or Journalism and experience in online media (basic HTML, CMS experience and knowledge of SEO). The social media intern will work directly with the Director of Strategy & Operations, so will have the opportunity to learn many tips and tricks of the trade.

The position is part-time for 4 months. A small stipend or college credit is available.

If you’re interested, please e-mail your resume and cover letter to Assistant Editor Steph Auteri (steph@yourtango.com).

Also! I wouldn’t mind hiring one more on-site editorial intern!

The other day, I wrote a post on mentors, and where you can find them. I wrote it as part of a round table Holly Hoffman was putting together on her blog, WorkLoveLife. Well, the round table is finally up! Head on over to read 21 other posts about mentors. Among my favorites:

• Renewabelle’s Of Mentors and Countrypeople…
• The Blisscipline’s Mentors: How Important Are They To Your Success?
• To Undertake To Express’s My Mentor
• Restless Like Me’s Give Me Failure, or Give Me Death

Related: 6 Ways To Find Your Next Mentor

For quite some time now, I’ve been working toward opening my own private career coaching practice. The idea sprouted after about two years of full-time freelancing — due to all the e-mails I was receiving from young up-and-comers looking for advice — and, when the economy eventually went south, it just seemed like common sense to figure out new and interesting ways to diversify. The publishing landscape was changing, and it was time to look to the future, and to figure out how I might fit into an industry that was in flux.

Now, with exams and teleclasses behind me, and with seemingly more and more people floundering every day — wanting a change and not knowing what change to make, or how to go about making it — it seems about time to get this party started.

I’m excited (like, giddy-excited) to announce Career Coaching for Word Nerds, a coaching practice centered on the publishing industry. ::throws confetti::

What is career coaching, and what can it (and me) do for you? Well, the coaching process is basically a collaborative effort between coach and client to map out a path to career (and, by extension, life) fulfillment. It is my belief that, by using pointed questions, motivating you to vocalize your goals, and challenging your beliefs about both yourself and your abilities, I can help you map out a career path that will satisfy your life purpose, and be aligned with your values, motivations, and needs.

Also? I can help you out with queries, market research, and all that other good stuff.

To kick off Operation Steph Is A Coach, I wanted to run a contest. The prize? For two lucky people, one month (four half-hour sessions) of career coaching, gratis.

My only request is that you be willing to share your (brutally honest) feedback once the month has ended.

You can enter this contest by:

- leaving a comment below that explains what you hope to gain from the career coaching process.

- and then tweeting: I want @stephauteri to #careercoach the heck outta me: http://ow.ly/1aCjv

Winners will be chosen at random and announced on Friday, March 12

Of course, I invite you to visit my career coaching site and consider a more steady relationship. :)

Hey guys! In my new role as Assistant Editor at YourTango.com, I am responsible for hiring editorial interns, and it’s about time for me to seek the next batch. Interested?

YourTango is a fast-growing online media company/web mag that provides content devoted to love and relationships. We’re seeking a motivated editorial intern to join the YourTango team. Responsibilities include:

- writing for our news/trends/celebrity blogs
- contributing content ideas for video, features, photo galleries, etc.
- photo research and editing
- social media marketing
- and content production.

Requirements:

—Excellent writing skills
—Photoshop experience
—Familiarity with online media (basic HTML, CMS experience, knowledge of SEO)
—Ability to commit to a part-time 4-month–or full-time 3-month–internship

A small stipend or college credit is available.

If you’re interested, you should e-mail me with your resume, cover letter, and a sample blog post (previously published blog posts are also accepted).

Well come on, guys! Send along those writing samples! And if you know someone else who might be interested, pass it along!

[Illustration by Deanna Staffo, via TONY]

Hey there you guys. I thought I’d just quickly indulge in a little bit of shameless self-promotion by linking to my latest two published pieces.

Last week, an essay of mine about finding love in the Lincoln Tunnel ran in New York Press. I tweeted a link, but didn’t mention it here on the blog. Though it had been awhile since I’d sent anything to the alternative weekly, I got the idea to submit something to their Flavor of the Week column after reading through mediabistro’s series on personal essay markets. It was fun concentrating on the personal essay again, after so much time focusing on short-form blogging. Once upon a time, they were all I wanted to write. The only problem with that idea? Though some editors will express interest in an essay before seeing the finished product, most editors prefer that you submit them whole. A time-consuming proposition when you consider the fact that there’s no guarantee of acceptance.

This week, my third piece for Time Out New York went live — Sex Play for Prudes. It’s a resource piece for the sexually shy, (obviously) based in NYC. It was a good deal of fun to research, and also very important for me to write. If you’ve read my piece on getting my nude portrait done up, you know that I have my own share of sexual dysfunctions. (I am also amused by how much the guy in the illustration above reminds me of my husband, all tall, scrawny, and with geek-chic glasses.)

Looking at the pieces I have coming out — and the ones I’m working on — makes me wonder if I need to specialize a little bit more (where does wine fit in with sex and dating…or career content, for that matter?). But, much in the same way that I love receiving a patchwork paycheck, I also love mixing things up when I write. I hope you enjoy my latest!

Quite some time ago, I signed up for Brazen Careerist, a network for young professionals that allowed me to share my blog feed and connect with other awesome people like myself. (You may have noticed the little bookmarklet at the bottom righthand corner of my blog.)

Today, Brazen Careerist has launched itself in a whole new way.

A career management tool, Brazen Careerist is now focused on the sharing of ideas, and the furthering of careers collaboratively rather than independently. Looking back on how those I’ve met online have helped me out in terms of advice, contacts, etc., it makes sense. The overwhelming generosity of my peers continues to blow me away just about every day, making it clearer and clearer that these people are my community…not my competitors.

If you end up joining the Brazen community, you’ll find it easy to follow the inner workings your growing network…

…share your own content and ideas…

…and search for other like-minded individuals looking to make a connection.

I definitely suggest signing up, if only to make my own network even more unstoppable. :)

Related: Finding Someone to Drag You to the Finish Line

I’ve been a bit distracted for the past month, so I thought I’d share why.

The other month, Nerve.com (the site I do most of my work for) got itself a new CEO, and he immediately set about brainstorming how to whip things into shape.

Changes were discussed, and I lived in a state of high anxiety for weeks, unsure whether or not my main source of income would eventually be kaput. Finally, I was tasked with telling my bloggers that soon, the Modern Materialist (Nerve’s products blog) would be no more.

Happy ending: I’m now leading a new blog: Tools of Attraction. This blog is a sort of rebirth of the Modern Materialist as something far more focused. While it remains a products blog, the products we feature are meant to aid readers in their enduring quest for love (and sex!). I’m hoping that this new focus — which is far more aligned with Nerve’s general editorial direction — will eventually lead to a much more successful blog.

So for the love of god, wish me luck!

P.S. Along with the launch of Tools of Attraction, Nerve has also rolled out a new, beautifully designed home page, thanks to the design chops of the fabulous Charles Yesuwan. Please bow before his greatness.

P.P.S. If anyone has any ideas or requests for products you’d like to see Tools of Attractions cover or try out, you should totally let me know!