Five Reasons Why Every Writer Needs A Website

Every writer should have a website listing their publications. Here are five reasons why:

1.) Stay in touch with your readers. Whether your readers are people you know or not, a website opens the way for you to share your writing with more readers. Just the other day, a guy I'd never met before commented positively on my writing. I loved it!

The more opportunities I have to create support for my work, the better. And let's face it. We write in order to share our stories and/or articles. The more we do this, the better.

2.) The list of your publications gives great insight into what's important to you as a writer. When I was creating my website, I didn't include every bit of writing in my online portfolio. I cut a few stories out; I also didn't include my poetry.

I realized that these pieces didn't reflect me. This gave me insight as to what I wanted to present creatively to the world; it also showed me the direction where I wanted to go.

3.) Establish yourself as a professional. When I first created my website, I was announcing not only to the world, but to myself: I am a writer and I'm proud of my work. I knew I took my writing seriously. Plus, a website looks great on my resume.

Since I teach there's always an option that my future employer will check out my writing. They can see not only what kind of writing I do, but that I'm serious, committed, and talented.

4.) Avoid the annoying question at dinner parties: "So what do you write about?" This may sound funny, but I'm being serious. Haven't you been cornered by some stranger who's dying to know where you've been published, what you write, and what you write about?

A quick and easy solution-after your 30 second pitch on behalf of your wonderful writing-is simply to say, "Check out my website." In my experience, most of these information mongers never go to the site. But for that five percent who are truly sincere, they can discover for themselves where your work has been published, what you write, and what you write about. Definitely a win-win situation.

5.) Publicize those great magazines that published you. Why not? They've given you some great attention, it's fun to shine the light on them too. If, like me, you've been published in online journals, then a good magazine is just a click away for an interested reader. How easy is that?

Now, if you're thinking it's too expensive or time consuming to create a website, think again. I created a blogsite with the help of a professional for less than three hundred dollars. I update it myself. There are no monthly charges. The joy it brings me is tremendous. Believe me, creating a website for your writing is
well worth it. Now go for it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Mills Kerr has been writing fiction and memoir for over 11 years. She aims to inspire, support, and connect with other writers online. Read her published work at her website jennifermillskerr.com

Freelance Writing Fees - Charge What You're Worth!

Ah yes ... we work for money, don't we?

And we should. After all, you wouldn't choose to spend your afternoon writing a press release announcing ACME Balloon Rental's new vice president of inflation instead of working on your novel, would you? Nor would you pop out of bed in the morning thinking, "Finally, today I get to write a brochure about widgets instead of finishing my screenplay!"

The fact is, as freelance writers, we work to eat, and to eat, we must charge for our work. But there's the rub: What should we charge?

Let's cut to the chase. I currently base my fees on $75 per hour for anything clients ask me to do, whether it's writing, ghostwriting or editing. It doesn't matter whether it's for a brochure, Web site, book, press release or what. It's $75 per hour. (That rate is higher than some writers charge and less than others charge. The geographical market has a lot to do with it.)

My fees are almost never discussed when I work with repeat clients. They know what to expect and seem to be okay with it. If it looks like a project is going to cost more than the client is used to, I bring this up for approval. The last thing I want is to give a good client an unpleasant surprise when he or she opens my bill.

My fees are always discussed with new clients. I usually don't tell them what I charge per hour. That really tells them little, because it's only half of the equation. One writer might take five hours to do the project while another would take 10 hours. So simply saying "I charge $75 per hour" means nothing. That's why with new clients I estimate what I would charge for a project, based on all the information I have been given. I also let the client know to expect changes in the estimate if the project's parameters change midstream. An up-front estimate eliminates sticker shock when the client receives the invoice. (By the way, you could call it a "bid," but I like "estimate" because it seems a bit more pliable.)

Ultimately, of course, you can only charge what the market will bear, but the fee structure I've just described has worked for me for years. I have, of course, periodically raised my rate.

Don't be afraid to turn down clients who aren't willing to pay you what you're worth. If you keep saying yes to these people, you will get locked into a low-level of clientele and will always be underpaid. Believe me, there are companies and individuals out there who are willing to pay the price for a good writer. If you are a good writer, you just have to find them. But you won't find them if you're swamped with jobs that keep you perpetually unpaid and overworked.

I have a pet peeve: writers who low-ball their rates just to get work. They make life difficult for other hardworking, professional freelancers, and ultimately they cut their own throats. I recently went online to check out what writers were charging and being offered for online articles and content. I was appalled and frankly infuriated to read that some online publishers were offering 1/10th of one cent per word! Once cent per word was fairly standard. That sort of compensation is a slap in the face to serious writers, and any writer who accepts it is doing real damage to the profession as a whole.

Let's put things in perspective: Yesterday a garage door repairman charged me $89 to fix one of our garage door openers. He spent - I'm not exaggerating - less than five minutes! The day before, my sister paid a plumber $180 to fix a leaking connection. He spend just over 30 minutes on the job. And they're asking writers to work for maybe $2 per hour? And some writers will do it? I can't think about this without wanting to break something.

One last thought. Some writers wonder whether to charge on a per-word basis. This may work for magazine articles and the like, but is lunacy for most types of projects. It doesn't take into account the time you might spend on research and in meetings, or the approval process and other variables.

I once spent three days in meetings and creative time to come up with a small college's three-word billboard headline. Had I charged per word, I would have had to charge over $400 per word. Had I told the client that I would charge $400 per word, I wouldn't have landed the job. But telling them that I would charge about $1200 for three days of work seemed reasonable to them. And it was. In fact, it was a steal. They used the headline for years in all their marketing materials.

In my dreams, I regularly get $400 per word for 2,000-word travel articles ... in my dreams

About the author: Steve Osborne is author of "Writing Tips for the Real World," a blog at http://www.thewritersbag.com . He is an award-winning freelance writer and writing instructor. His blog teaches writing tips, techniques and strategies designed to help people from all walks of life turn the written word into a powerful success tool in their careers and personal lives.

Onion Spirit - New Lease of Life

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