Join My Quasi-Secret Word Nerd Facebook Group Maybe?

Hey guys. This totally doesn’t count as this week’s actual blog post, but I just wanted to let y’all know that I’ve created a quasi-secret Facebook group for word nerds.

Basically, it’s an invite-only Facebook group I’m using as a testing ground for features that will eventually appear on the still-being-developed Word Nerd Networking site.

I’m also hoping it will become a fun, virtual hangout for all my fellow word nerds, where we can chat about what we’re working on, share project leads, show off our home offices, post about freelance resources, and more.

I’d love to invite all of you — as you’re the most fantastic writers I know — but I can only invite people with whom I’m already Facebook friends. So if you’re interested in joining the party, connect with me here, and then shoot me a message that mentions you’re itching to get into the Word Nerd Networking Facebook group. Include a link to your online profile, so I can confirm you’re a working writer. I’ve previously kept my word nerdy life separate from my Facebook life, but THE WALLS MUST COME DOWN.

Once you’ve gained entrance to the group, you can feel free to post about any ol’ word nerdy thing you can think of, or even upload photos of your home office and/or other word nerdy product. (You’ll see I already have a pic up there of me with my “reading is sexy” mug.)

And… that’s that! You may carry on with your tweeting and your Spider Solitaire-ing now. 🙂

Related: How I Learned to Live and Write with Intention

Will An Editor Judge You If You Don’t Have An Online Platform?

Yes. She is quietly judging you.

 

As a writer, do you need to have a website or blog?

It’s a question I’m asked pretty regularly by coaching clients, blog readers, and other freelance writers.

My response? Well, I can’t speak for all editors out there but, during my time fielding intern and blogger applications, and freelance queries, I always did the same thing.

If a website, blog, or Twitter URL did not appear as part of the writer’s email signature, I immediately googled their name so as to find it myself.

And if I didn’t find it?

I immediately questioned the abilities of the writer.

[Read more…]

PSA: A Facebook Fan Page and Guest Posts Galore

It’s been a bit quiet here at Freelancedom, aside from the occasional service piece, and a handful of biz-related announcements. Why? I’ve been preparing for my 5 Weeks to Freelance Awesome e-course: pitching guest posts, drawing up the lesson plans, building up the platform. I’m on the home stretch with an e-book I’ve been working on with Ian Kerner since last year. I’ve been looking at houses and trying to make babies. And dude. I have been all over this here Internet.

If you’ve been dying for a fix of Steph Auteri awesomeness (and of course you have), here are a few new places where you can get it.

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How To Avoid Social Media Fatigue in 5 Easy Steps

[Image via]

Oh my god, you guys. The other week, I asked for suggestions on what I should include in my Job Hopping for Word Nerds e-book. Heather of CraftLit provided me with a goldmine of great suggestions, some of which I deemed outside the scope of my book. Still, I thought they would make for some great blog post fodder. So today, I decided to address this one:

How can I use social media without being swallowed by it?

So I opened up my Freelancedom dashboard, typed in the title of this post, aaand… then proceeded to spend the next four hours on Twitter.

Oy.

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4 Ways To Find Sources

As a writer who has focused primarily on short-form blogging and personal essays, hunting down sources has never been a huge part of the work that I do. A portfolio that relies solely upon the self, however, can become an echo chamber. At some point in your writing career, It’s important to bring in new and differing perspectives.

Where to turn when you need an expert, and fast?

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How To Market Yourself: Strengthening Your Web Presence

resume shirt

When I left my full-time job about a year ago, I was lucky in that I didn’t need to actively seek out work. My one regular proofing gig was snagged through a job ad forwarded to me by a former classmate. And all my other work came to me similarly, through friends and former co-workers who were aware that I was forging ahead on my own.

Such passivity only works up to a point, though and, recently, I found that I had hit a wall. If I wanted to grow my business, I had to bust my ass a bit more. This terrified me. I’m a shy gal, and had probably ended up as a writer/proofreader because of the quiet reclusiveness it afforded me. Thankfully, it’s possible to cover a lot of ground marketing-wise on the web alone:

[Read more…]