WordCount/by Michelle Vranizan Rafter

Starting tomorrow, May 1, I’ll be embarking on a month-long blogathon that I’m calling A Post A Day for the Month of May.

I have a big birthday in May, and to celebrate I’ll be writing a post every day of the month. I’m also trying to write much shorter, more spontaneous blog posts and this will be good practice. I’ll still be blogging about freelance writing, but with 31 days to fill, who knows what could happen.

If anyone wants to join me, let me know in this space. I’d love to link to other freelance writers and bloggers who feel inspired to do this.

Long-time freelancers approach writing as a business, and they market it that way too. Not all freelancers do the same kind of marketing. Some have Websites. Some have blogs. Some belong to writers’ groups and regularly attend conferences to meet with other writers and editors.

There are so many ways to promote yourself it’d be easy to get carried away and have no time left to write. So have a plan. If you’re new to the business, take baby steps, like starting to use an email signature. If you already have a Website, blog and newsletter, consider adding a podcast or planning to attend a convention. There’s no right way to market yourself, just the way that works for you.

Here are 10 ways freelance writers can market themselves:

1. Use your email signature. In addition to listing basic contact information, an email signature can point people to your Website, blog, newest book and anything else you want them to know about you. Learn more in this post about using an email signature.

2. Create a Website. Use a Website to display your resume, clips, bio and any other selling points you think might be important. Include a picture so editors can match a face with a name. Some freelancers pay to have Websites hosted and designed for them. But you can find cheap or free Websites at places that cater to writers, such as Mediabistro, or general business sites such as LinkedIn.

3. Start a blog. Writers use blogs to market themselves in different ways. Some blog as a way to keep their writing skills sharp. Others blog about a particular subject they’re interested in. On his WriterBiz blog, Erik Sherman regularly reviews freelance contracts. Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell uses her blog, K.C.’s Write for You to interview authors. Still others have blogs to create a platform for books they’ve written or are writing.

4. Create an e-newsletter. Like blogs, freelancers use e-newsletters to different ends. Some writers’ newsletters play up their expertise in a certain area, such as Marcia Layton Turner’s newsletter on writing, Become a Six-Figure Writer, and Sandy Beckwith’s newsletter for authors, Build Book Buzz. Other writers use e-newsletters to keep sources, editors, friends and family in on what’s going on in their work life.

5. Start a podcast. I wrote a story about podcasting recently, and learned that if you stick to the basics, they’re not that hard to do. If you’re interested in learning more, listen to this podcast interview I did with Peter Brusso, an Orange County, Calif., consultant who produces podcasts for sole practitioners and other small-businesspeople. It’s a 25-minute Q&A that covers things like the equipment you’ll need, how to come up with topics, where to host a podcast and how to drum up publicity.

6. Network. These days freelancers can network online or in the real world. Online, you can join professional networks such as LinkedIn to cultivate sources, keep in touch with current and former colleagues and redefine how you present yourself to the world. In the read world, you can attend writer-only networking events like the all-media parties that Mediabistro holds around the country, or similar events sponsored by business groups in your area.

7. Join writer’s groups. Sometimes freelancing feels like solitary confinement, so it’s great to hook up with other writers, whether in person or online. My favorite isn’t really a group at all. It’s Freelance Success, a subscription-based Website and newsletter with a very active discussion forum. There are scads of groups for writers, including American Society of Journalists and Authors, Online News Association, American Society of Business Publication Editors, Society of Environmental Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the list goes on and on.

8. Attend conferences. Go to writers’ conferences to meet other freelancers and editors: it’s a great way to showcase what you do, and come back feeling reinvigorated about work. Many writer’s groups mentioned above have annual meetings, and Freelance Success is cooking up its first annual gather, which will take place later in 2008. If you cover a certain topic or field, there’s no better way to meet sources and promote yourself than attending a professional conference or industry convention. The work’s hard, the crowds are brutal and your feet will hurt by the end of the week, but your bank of new contacts and story ideas with runth over.

9. Visit editors. Since I just started writing again after a long hiatus, it’s on my personal to-do list this year to visit editors I write for regularly. I’d have to fly, so this would be a big unreimbursed business expense. But it’d be worth it if face time with my existing clients led to more work, and if I could set up meetings with new-to-me publications while I’m in the area.

10. Be the best at what you do. Be the go-to writer editors love working with. Stick to word counts. Double check grammar and spelling. Write your own headlines; even if you know they won’t be used, it shows you’re thinking. Turn in stories on time. Turn in the story the editor was expecting, or if you run into trouble, let them know well in advance, not the day it’s due. Be willing to do the little extras that editors appreciate, like getting a source to email photos.

Ultimately, you could do all kinds of marketing, but for any of it to work, you’ve got to back it up with your writing.

Freelancers often shy away from marketing. Unless you’re a copyrighter or do corporate work, it can seem like foreign territory. But marketing is basically communicating to other people about yourself, and who communicates better than a writer?

If the idea of a full-on marketing program is too scary, start small. A great launch pad is your email signature, the tag line you set up in your email software to add to the bottom of outgoing messages. It still surprises me that more writers - and lots of other people, really - don’t take advantage of this simple tool, which is built into Microsoft Outlook and most other email programs.

An email signature can include anything you want it to: your name, contact information, credentials, book you’re promoting, affiliations with writers’ groups, and on and on.

My default email signature includes my contact information and links to my blog and LinkedIn profile:

MICHELLE V. RAFTER | Contributing Writer
Office (503) 452-XXXX |Cell (503) 318-XXXX
Email: michellerafter@XXXXXX.XXX
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellerafter
Website & Blog: WordCount, http://michellerafter.wordpress.com

I’ve customized my basic email sig for some of the magazines I write for on a regular basis. For example, I’m a contributing editor at an HR industry magazine, so when I’m contacting sources or editors for stories for that magazine, I promote my special standing at the publication by using this signature:

MICHELLE V. RAFTER | Contributing Editor
Workforce Management | www.workforce.com
Office (503) 452-XXXX | Cell (503) 318-XXXX
Email: michellerafter@XXXXXXX.net
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellerafter
Website & Blog: WordCount, http://michellerafter.wordpress.com

For non-work email, I use a plain Jane signature with my name and contact information. I have a separate signature for a volunteer organization I belong to, and another for my duties as a 1st grade room parent. When I send an email, I right click on the default signature and it brings up the whole signature list so I can choose the one that’s appropriate for that message.

Some freelancers are masters of the email signature. Rachel Weingarten is one. Weingarten a writer and public relations specialist and it shows. She definitely knows how to work an email sig:

Rachel Weingarten, Style is my business
*****
Shiny New Launch:
Shout Out PR - www.shoutoutpr.com
******
Creative Brand Consultant & Strategist - www.gtkgroup.com & www.gtkontap.com
Noted & Quoted Style & Marketing Maven/ Dynamic Public Speaker/Entertaining Author (I know. I’m exhausted!)
[e] rachel@XXXXXXXX.com [p] 718.787.XXXX [c] 917.287.XXXX
[B.logs] www.rachel-w.com/blogs.html
*****[BOOKS]******
CAREER AND CORPORATE COOL™ - One of Entrepreneur magazine’s five “page turners” for women entrepreneurs and a CareerBuilder pick for most interesting career book of ‘07 www.careerandcorporatecool.com
Hello Gorgeous! - A NY Public Library pick for ‘07 www.hellogorgeousguide.com
********************
Faux legal notice: If this email wasn’t addressed to you-
you really shouldn’t read it or forward it to a friend
or evil colleague- it’s bad business and worse karma…
In fact, you should immediately delete it and we’ll call it a day.

Even if you haven’t ever met her, you know a lot about Rachel Weingarten - and her sparkling personality and wit - just from reading her email sig. More importantly, you know a lot about her business.

That’s the beauty of an email signature. It promotes you and your business - and all you have to do is hit the “Send” button.

The June 2008 issue of Writer’s Digest features the magazine’s annual listing of 101 best Websites for writers. It’s interesting reading, as much for what it doesn’t include as for what it does.

The listing is broken into research and reference Websites such as Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and Wikipedia, resources on publishers, agents and the book business, freelance job listings, online communities, marketing tools, and lots of genre-specific sites.

It’s a good list, but some areas are a little thin, at least to this freelancer’s eye. There’s not much about the mechanics of writing. Newer genres, such as writing for the Web, blogging for pay and search engine optimization (SEO) writing are left out completely. So is Freelance Success, the subscription newsletter and Website that caters mainly to experienced magazine writers and one of the best resources for freelancers out there.

I chalk up the omissions to Writer’s Digest’s mission to be all things to all writers - you can’t spread yourself that thin without doing a disservice to something or somebody.

Still, it’s worth investigating.

And if you’re a writer with a Website or blog about writing, you’ll be interested in a contest Writer’s Digest is running. The magazine is soliciting entries for a contest to name the top 10 personal Websites or blogs from writers about writers. According to the magazine, sites will be judged on presentation, ease of use and marketing effectiveness. WD’s editors will judge the sites and a list of the winners will appear in the magazine’s October 2008 issue, e-newsletter and online. The prize is modest: a year’s subscription to WD and Writersmarket.com. Submissions are due by June 10. Nominate yourself by sending an email with a link to your Website or blog to writersdig@fwpubs.com with “Best Writer’s Site” in the subject line.

If you haven’t discovered it before, you can read my list of best blogs for writers here.

These days freelance writers have to keep up with the times - the New York Times, that is, and the LA Times, the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor. Why? The fortunes of newspapers are changing and it’s changing what they want - or don’t want - from freelancers. Shrinking newspapers advertising means shrinking news holes, and that means fewer opportunities for freelancers to sell features, essays and other pieces to papers.

Opportunities haven’t dried up completely, you just have to know where to look. For example, a freelance writer I know just landed a deal to write a regular adventure travel column for a major daily newspaper. Other papers are upping their spending for online and multimedia projects, a potential boon for freelancers who are as good with a camcorder as they are with a keyboard.

The same holds for magazines. While some consumer magazines are getting thinner by the month, others are holding steady, and some publishers are even launching new publications. The same thing’s happening in the trades. While many b-to-b or trade magazines have seen drops in ad pages or revenue or both from this time last year, business magazines in some industries are doing OK, and some are showing strong improvements from 2007.

A smart freelancer needs to keep tabs on all that. But how?

Actually, that’s easy. Thanks to some ambitious news hounds, you can read a couple blogs on a regular basis and keep tabs on who’s out, who’s in, what’s launched, what’s died, what’s hot, what’s not - the zeitgeist of the whole media business. My favorites:

Romenesko - Far and away, the most comprehensive blog for capturing the daily drama that is the U.S. newspaper business. Yes, you can go to Poynter Online and read it, but it’s even better to subscribe and find it, like a little gem hiding in your otherwise boring email inbox.

Mr. Magazine - What Romenesko is to newspapers, Samir Husni, aka “Mr. Magazine” is to magazine. Husni is the chair of the University of Mississippi Journalism Department. He’s also the brains behind the annual listing of most notable magazine launches, which he writes about in his Mr. Magazine blog. His pick for most notable launch in 2007: Conde Nast Portfolio.

Mediabistro’s Revolving Door - Mediabistro, the online support system for journalists (job listings, classes, forums, etc.), delivers this tasty dish of industry comings and goings twice a week. Read it at the Website, or register - it’s free- and have it delivered.

Magazine Health Watch - If numbers are your thing, this is your kind of place. This database of information on ad pages and revenue in consumer and business publications is updated daily by Inquiry Management Systems, a publishing service company. The interactive database lets you slice and dice listings any number of ways, handy if you’re interested in finding out which magazine categories are on the rise. Did you know that ad pages for sales management magazines (there are 11) rose 21 percent in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the same period the previous year?

Got your own favorite Website or blog for keeping tabs on the news business? Leave it in a comment and I’ll post it here.

Last night I went to my first media party hosted by mediabistro.com, the New York company that provides classes, job listings and networking events for freelancers. About 30 of us sipped wine and shared business cards at Vino Paradiso in the Pearl District. Some highlights:

Stacey Wilson, associate editor at Portland Monthly and mediabistro’s Portland party hostess, is looking for pitches. She complained about the quality of pitches the city lifestyle magazine gets, saying many are not focused and sound like the writer doesn’t know the publication or the area. Study the magazine then send pitches to freelance@portland-monthly.com. I do not know what they pay.

Portland Monthly is looking for an editor in chief. If you know an EIC type who’s in the area or would love to be here, tell them to send in their resume. The magazine’s also looking for a food and drink editor. You can see both job listings on mediabistro’s Website here.

According to Wilson, since it was founded 5 years ago, Portland Monthly’s parent company - recently renamed Saga City Media - has started Seattle Metropolitan, Seattle Metropolitan Bride & Groom, Portland Bride & Groom, Spaces and an insert, NW Golf. The company has a custom publishing division that produces Travel Portland (formerly Portland Oregon Visitors Association) and Washington State Hotel and Lodging annual guides, plus other projects. John Patrick Pullen is senior editor of the custom publishing division. Puller says he assigns stories v. taking queries, but is always looking for new-to-him writers for projects.

Lots of people at the party expressed interest in taking mediabistro.com writing classes, which haven’t been offered in the city before. Let’s hope Wilson can talk the company into offering some. If the size of last night’s gathering is any indication, the freelance community here is big enough to warrant them and the interest is definitely there.

I write blog posts a couple different ways. Some days it’s the spur of the moment, when an idea strikes or I’m inspired by the day’s news. Other times I hatch an idea, dash something off in a hurry, then let it simmer half-written for days or weeks before finishing it off. Or I’ll have an idea but I’ll need to poll a bunch of people or do more research, so the finished post reads and feels more like a reported story.

Since I’m still a relative novice blogger, I wondered if this was normal. So I asked around. More than two dozen freelance writers and bloggers responded to a question I posted on LinkedIn asking how they handled writing blog posts. I guess that means this particular item falls into the category of researched post.

What I learned: when it comes to writing blog posts, anything goes. Here are some top blog writing styles:

1. Wing it. A lot of freelance writers who keep blogs as a sideline to their main jobs are shoot-from-the-hip bloggers. “That’s what makes it blogging rather than journalism,” writes Jackie Cohen, a San Francisco communications consultant, blogger and former colleague of mine at the Industry Standard. “I think of it as the writing equivalent of how athletes run sprints daily to get their blood flowing. For us, blogging frees up our voices so we stay in top writing shape. Then we can more expertly approach paid writing opportunities.”

2. Get organized. It’s more common for a paid blogger to have an organized system for tracking posts as they move from idea to publication. Jonathan Northwood, a professional blogger who writes for Weblogs Inc., focuses on blogging about breaking news first, then determines what other posts he can schedule in advance and shuffles his research and writing accordingly.

3. Do a little of each. Some writers with both personal and professional blogs use different tactics for different blogs. Jen Nipps, an Oklahoma writer, publishes a schedule of upcoming posts for Confessions of a Fat Chick, a blog that she’s turning into a non-fiction book, and another blog, The Idea Pocket. “Some posts have sources quoted, some don’t,” Nipps says. “Some were very easy to write and post and took very little time. Some have taken up to two weeks, depending.” For a third blog, Creatif, Nipps tried and failed to keep to a strict posting schedule. “It doesn’t work out for me on that one,” she says. Note: My hat’s off to anybody who can maintain three blogs at a time.

4. Change as your blog changes. When psychologist Barbara DeShong began her blog, Mysteryshrink.com, in January, she intended to be very organized about how she wrote posts, which she planned to use for teaching or manuscript development. “The result was that I was way too wordy and complicated,” she says. Then she started tracking which posts got the most page views and wrote accordingly. “As a result, I’ve gone to shorter, specific topic entries,” she says.

The most important thing isn’t really how you write, it’s sticking to the stated subject, having an authentic voice and getting posts up as often as you can. “Don´t worry about it too much as long as you can keep your blog interesting and attract visitors,” says Catharina Bethlehem, a Dutch software developer. “More important: make them come back and interact with you on your posts.”

You can read all the comments on the LinkedIn thread here.

I’m taking a cue from public companies and issuing a quarterly report on this blog. I started WordCount as a New Year’s resolution, so the end of March marked the end of my first quarter as a blogger. Here are some highlights:

Readership - More people are discovering the blog. Page views grew exponentially over the quarter, hitting 2,000 in March, up from 300 in January. A good trend, but still pretty measly numbers. I have a lot to learn about marketing my blog - that’s on my to-do list for Q2.

Top posts - Since WordCount is a blog for freelance writers, it follows that the most popular posts have been on topics writers are interested in. Hands down the most popular post I’ve done to date is a list of the best blogs for writers. Here’s a list of my top 3 posts based on number of page views:

1. Best Blogs for Writers, 635 page views

2. What Freelance Writers Need to Know about SEO, 320 page views

3. 10 Basic Web Tools for Freelancers, 215 page views

I’m tracking these things as a way to helping me decide what to write about.

Reader Interaction - I can still remember the day I got my first reader comment - from my mom. I love my mom and she’s a faithful reader - just as I’m a faithful reader of my daughter’s blog from college. But talk about a reality check. Since then I’ve heard from lots of freelancers and other random readers. I’m working hard to make WordCount more interactive, keep the conversation going and be a reciprocal commenter.

What I need to work on - Regularity. I’m trying to post three times a week, but in reality when I’m on deadline or things at home swirl out of control, my blog posts drop to twice a week. I’m trying to write more spur-of-the-moment posts and not as many on pre-planned subjects, though the latter - like the best blogs for writers post - appear to attract the most readers. For the foreseeable future, expect to see the same mix of insta-posts and more deliberate, researched items.

I also need to work on some updates. During the next quarter I’ll be updating the links on my front page and overhauling my Clips page. My LinkedIn profile is due for an update too, to reflect some new work I’m doing.

If there’s something you think the world of freelance writer blogs is missing, let me know and I try to cover it here.

I’d planned to write about something else today, but it can wait. The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes came out yesterday, the newspaper industry’s highest honors. The Washington Post won six, a record for the paper, including the esteemed Public Service award for its reports on sub-par treatment of war veterans at Walter Reed Hospital. The paper also won awards for its coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, private security contractors in Iraq and Dick Cheney’s influence on vice presidency.

It’s times like these I’m proud to be a reporter. I don’t work in a newsroom and haven’t for years. But I’m still a news person at heart. I’m proud of my profession and the work it produces. It’s been a rough year for reporters. Newsrooms jobs are disappearing faster than melting winter snow. Ad revenue has taken a nose dive. The ownership of some of the country’s biggest, most prestigious papers has changed hands - the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times - and nobody really knows what will happen because of it. This year’s Pulitzers show that, despite it all, newspapers continue to produce thought-provoking, important work, that they still play an important role in our society and in our lives.

A confession. In years past, the first Monday in April, the day the Pulitzer awards are announced, hasn’t been a good one for me. As I read stories about former colleagues such as James Grimaldi, Tracy Weber and Michele Nicolosi who earned Pulitzers for their accomplishments, it drove home the reality of the career path I’ve chosen as an independent writer. Freelancing has given me many things, including the flexibility to be my own boss, work where and when I want on projects of my own choosing, and more than anything, allowed me to have a family and a career on my own terms. I don’t regret my decision. But there’s been that twinge, that little “If only…,” that curiosity about what could have been if I’d chosen differently.

As the newsrooms of yesterday disintegrate, the time is approaching when many other former staff writers could join the freelance world. Some already have, and used the opportunity to start blogs or online news organizations to pursue good old-fashioned investigative journalism, the kind recognized by Pulitzers and journalism’s other honors. As I watch this unfold, I am excited for what it could mean for the future of the profession and the future of online news.

So today I am not sad, I am proud. Proud to call myself a reporter.

Maybe I should be pitching stories to the Columbia Journalism Review. CJR, the venerable bimonthly covering the news industry that Columbia University’s Journalism School publishes, just filed this story about the demise of the daily newspaper standalone business section. I wrote about this back in February, when the Denver Post announced it was folding its daily business section into the Metro section most days of the week, soon after the Orange County Register had announced similar plans.

My thoughts: Even though daily papers’ business sections are shrinking, the need for local business news isn’t. If anything it’s stronger than ever given the effect the bad economy is having on so many different types of businesses.

Who’s picking up the slack? In some areas it’s business weeklies, in others it’s bloggers. Some regional business magazines are holding their own. Maybe all people really need is a good RSS reader. Or maybe there are opportunities to be had for Web-savvy reporters who could build a company around a local business news aggregator site.