The Writing Base

Every freelance is the new fish in the pond at some point. We all go through the first few rocky months and confusions of setting our rates, how to deal with clients, and the worst - getting paid.

This week I'm posting a few excellent resources for the two. In the coming weeks I'll be doing a post on freelancers who are pure gold in terms of helping other freelancers out.

Freelance Switch has done an overview of How To Set Your Freelance Rates.

My favourite trio who fell in love with a girl and broke their pact to each other, posted The Last Ditch Letter That Might Help You Get Paid. The men have used it twice themselves and according to them, they got paid both times!

They also discuss The Big Secret No One Talks About. Yeah, you guessed it. Freelancer rates.

Chris Bibey of Freelance Writing talks about  Managing Invoices and Payments as a Freelance Writer.

Before you accept a Freelance Writing Job, its important to do these four things to save you future problems.

Got any posts you came across related to setting your rates and getting paid? Do share!

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Since I've just completed a series on Twitter, it is only logical to do a round up of twitter related blog posts I found useful. Or not.

• The Best Article Everyday is a site that updates everyday with an article it deems best of the day. They chose PC Mag's post "Top 10 Twitter Tips For Beginners" a few days ago. On a side note, Best Article Every Day is using the new WordPress theme released by Smashing Magazine a few days ago. Looks neat!

• Confident Writing stays true to its theme and talks about "How Twitter Can Help You Write With Confidence".

• There are manners to be minded and etiquettes to be followed in any social setting. Twitter is no different. Beyond the Rhetoric lists the "Top 10 Rules of Twitter Etiquette". How many of these do you follow? BTR only lists 5 rules. Find the rest of rules at Design is Philosophy.

• Word Count comes to the rescue of all twitter newbies (and the not so newbies) and lets them know that "There is No Such Thing as a Dumb Twitter Question". Phew! That's good to know!

• All Freelance Writing wonders, "Is Immediacy (Re twitter and Blogging) a Good Thing for Writers?"

• While we're still learning the ropes of Twitter, Problogger is telling the Secret to Writing Posts That Go Viral on Twitter. Which is why he's the guru and we're the minions.

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If you've read even a single article on how to increase blog traffic or make a post search engine friendly, then you must know how every one says blog posts with lists are one great way to do it.

Every one does them. Me too, only I'm obviously doing something wrong. Because even though my search engine results have spiked, blog participation is a bit fat zero. This week, it's time to share the love with list posts.

1. 49 Tips to Become a Better Blogger
2. Zen Blogging - 5 Benefits to Getting Started
3. Top 100 Books for Freelance Writers
4. The Top 30 Blogs on Writing
5. 3 Easy Ways to Write With Style
6. 100 Freelancer Writers You Can Outsource Your Blog Content To - I'm at number 26! (muhaha! =P)

And keeping tune with this week's theme, I've numbered the links too!

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Another week is at an end and it's been excellent so far. Somebody decided to give The Base a boost by stumbling a post :D Thank you, whoever you are.

This week I'll be posting links to better customize your blogger blog through widgets and other ways.

• 'What Would Seth Godin Do' is a great WordPress plug in. What's even more great about it is that there is a blogger version of WWSGD too - which I installed today. What does it do? WWSGD monitors your cookies and lets you put up a welcome message. And not just a welcome message, it lets you set up separate welcome messages for new and returning users. How cool is that?

• On my WordPress blog, I use the Sociofluid plug-in for social bookmarking options on every post. Even though it has a blogger version, I couldn't figure out how to put the icons in every post. The widget was putting the icons on my blog but not in separate posts. So a search led me to Blogger Plug-ins where I found my perfect answer.

• The past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about removing adsense ads from the blog (homepage) and adding them to my posts. Since I'm a novice in all things designing and customizing, I had no idea how to do it. Even though I haven't yet made the decision of adding ads in my posts, I found my answer in How to add Adsense inside single posts only. It's not a widget but it's definitely worth knowing.

• A lot of WordPress blogs have tabbed navigation in their blogs. It saves sidebar space, makes for easy navigation and looks very professional. Blogger Buster has a tutorial on how to add tabbed sidebar navigation in your blogger blog.

• While it's easy to optimise WordPress blogs for SEO through plug-ins, Blogger blogs have no such widgets to help. Reading SEO Tricks in Blogger Blogs and Blogspot and SEO takes care of this drawback to a great extent.

If you have a Blogger blog, and keep thinking that it's very limiting, you might want to reconsider that after reading these. I know I am! Hope this week's themed links help you as much as they have helped me!

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Clients are on everyone's minds these days. Or maybe they're just on mine. For this week's link love, I'll be highlighting blog posts that cover various aspects of our work's lifeblood: Clients.

Freelance Folder had an excellent open thread post. Mason asked 'Where Do You Get Your Clients?' He narrowed it down to three questions that his readers answered in the comments. If you're looking for ways to find new clients, the comments on this post is a good place to look.

Freelance Switch posted '6 Ways to Follow-up With Prospects Without Being Creepy'. If you're wondering when or how to contact a client you had initial talks with but haven't heard back from, this post is your answer.

The Wealthy Freelancer listed '4 Simple Rules for Getting More Repeat Business & Referrals'. Returning clients or recommendations are the best way to grow your business. A testimonial from one client is worth more than payments from five when you're looking to expand your work.

Chrisblogging has a trio of blog posts related to clients that I found helpful.

• Three Times to Ask Clients for More Work
• Don't Shy Away From Small Clients
• How to Rid of a Freelance Writing Clients

Cedric from Your Article Resource shares (not so secret) Secrets to Keep Your Freelance Clients Happy.

To wrap up the topic of clients, Jennifer Mattern from All Freelance Writing shares a client-from-hell story. Reading 'Dealing With Abuse as a Freelance Writer' is important for every freelancer. While some of us are lucky to have great clients, it is only a matter of time before we come across a bad client.

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This week's links are all about writing - without the writing part in it.

• WordCount has a great post on writing rooms. Now if only there were some in the UAE...
• Freelance Switch has a outlined FAQ's for freelancer to have on their blog or website. It's in a ready to use format and all you need to do is make a few changes.
• Linda Formichelli of The Renegade Writer's blog, has calculated the numbers for freelancers working for cheap. Give it a read and decide if your current rates are too low.
• The Blood Red Pencil has a very useful posts about selling your rights. Its been divided in two parts. Part one and two.
• B J over at Enriched by Words is collaborating for the first time. She explores the idea of collaboration and co-writing. Both are excellent ideas that I plan on trying out sometime in the future.

Found any links that you'll be going back to again and again for reference?

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As time goes by, I keep thinking Sunday Link Overdose has got to be the ugliest titles ever to be given to a weekly post. So I've decided to group together links into themes whenever I can and categorize them into SLOD.

This week has been filled with new projects. I'm working on setting up a new blog. Domain, hosting, WordPress - the works.

I found the following links useful in my search to put together a blog that works from the beginning. After all, the amount of information available, its tough to sort through the ones that are actually useful.

• I've linked to this before but I keep going back to 170+ must have tools for the Beginning Blogger. I've used it as a reference extensively.

• The Docs page of WordPress.org is a haven of information and has a reference on all things WordPress. Excellent for beginners like me.

• Problogger's 10 Useful Plug-ins for New Blogs was extremely helpful. So was Andy Beal's list of 21 of the Best WordPress Plug-ins that he's used. Both these articles helped me decide which plug-ins to install for my blog.

• Want to monetize your blog by putting up ads? Read Blogging for Ads is Dead before carving out an monetising plan for your blog. It's no longer enough to put up blocks of ads to earn money.

• Once your blog's set up - you need to start thinking about RSS. Smashing Magazines 10 Useful RSS Tricks and Hacks for WordPress will put you well ahead of the curve. A lot of big blogs haven't paid much attention to how their RSS feeds look in a reader.

Setting up a blog on WordPress can be very intimidating for a first timer. Even their famous '5 minute installation' can take hours if you don't know what you're doing. I'll forever be grateful for the automatic installation option provided by hosting companies.

Hopefully these links will better prepare you for setting up your blog the way you want.

Good luck!

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It's that time of the week again. I came across a few gems!

1. First up is Write to Done's '10 Free Resources Every Writer Needs'. While most of the resources don't apply to me or interest me. This post made the top of the list because I found a link to a free copy of Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
2. Freelance Switch listed '9 Tips for Brand New Freelancers'. One, five and seven are areas I need to concentrate on.
3. Do you know how many Google Apps there are? Neither do I. But here are 50 Useful Google Apps for Writers. Some of these I know and use, others came as a surprise! I'm going to have fun trying them!
4. Robust Writing hands us a very effective 'Key to Concise Writing'.
5. Scribbizy had an excellent post on productivity. Since I have a real problem with focus these days, this post about 'Ten Minute Online Productivity Strategies' is a god send. If you're doubting the strategies - don't. I successfully implemented them. My productivity in those 10 minutes was more than it would have been in 2 hours had I been left on my own.

There we have it. The five posts I found useful this week. I hope you do too. I'd love to hear about your favourite links of the week.

Till next week!

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Nothing like a weekly post to tell you how fast a week goes by. I've recovered from the flu which saw me sleeping for 10-12 hours a day, thanks to all the flu meds that seem to have so much sedatives in them. All that's past me now and I'd much sooner forget being weak as a babe. This week saw me reading and loving the following posts.

1. The Renegade Writer's Blog has an excellent post about distracted writers. It was like Linda was inside my head when writing the post. Of course, I was no where near as constructive about my lack of focus as Linda. Must learn.
2. Robust Writing tackles the problems of overstatements in writing.
3. Thinking of starting a freelance business? Freelance Folder has an excellent post that covers the basics of starting a freelance business.
4. I've been curious about e-books for a while. So it was a joy to read Confident Writing's guide to compiling a free e-book. Joanna offers great resources that got her started. I'm thinking it will make for a great fun project!
5. This one's my favourite. I love books and can never have enough of them! Allena Tapia has an excellent list compiled about writing books. Check out her top ten books to get your freelance writer for Christmas.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! And with these gems SLOD takes your leave. Till next Sunday! Before then watch out for a post about a certain stubborn muse I know.

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Not the best of names but I'm drowning in cough syrup. Why do they have sedatives in them anyway? I also have a killer flu and I do not have the energy to post anything that would take more effort than this.

When I did a post on '5 things I'm doing wrong at the base', one of the things I acknowledged I wasn't doing was a weekly round up of links I loved. I've decided to remedy that. Therefore, every Sunday, I'll be featuring (not necessarily) five links that I've found helpful.

Therefore, presenting you with my very first SLOD.

1. Blogger dad talks about going from a blogging newbie to pro in three months - A tongue in cheek post it may be, but he just described what I do as a blog reader perfectly. Well, except for the pictures bit. I never have any time to look at them.
2. You have to check out Rachael's Words on Writing. She has excellent posts about Ten proofreading tips and 16 proof reading errors our brain doesn't want us to see. I missed out quite a few all the errors except one! Be sure to check the comments. There were a few more mistakes that Rachael pointed out in them.
3. As a new freelancer, Davina's post about fear closing in struck a chord. Right now, I'm scared of so many things regarding my freelancing that its making me mad!
4. Blogging without a blog has an interesting post about the unseen benefits of commenting. I hadn't thought of commenting in quite that way but it's certainly motivation to comment more!
5. A blog to read daily and over and over again is Daily Writing Tips. For some unexplainable reason...every time I comment on that blog my English goes out the window - literally! Want an example? Check out my two comments at DWT's latest post about irregular verbs. Then come back and find the faults in the sentence I corrected. "Correction: I refuse to even imagine a time where such (bad) grammar was a norm." Go on, don't spare my feelings.

On a closing note, I added the word link to the title because the abbreviation of Sunday Overdose was SOD which might not be funny, but in my current state, I'm very amused by it!

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