Professional Writing
By Sara QuestLesson 1: Basics of Writing Professionally
Professional writers today benefit from having their own websites. A writer's website should contain services you wish to offer clients, along with a sample list of personal works. You will be creating a writer's website.
You will be learning about copyrights and "use rights." This way you won't unwittingly sell your prized Shakespearean equivalent to one measly publication. After learning your rights, you'll instead sell it to fifty or one hundred high-paying ones.
You will also examine professional resources, markets, and pay rates. Online resources, like Writer's Weekly, will serve to inform you of the professional markets and rates in today's industry. In examining such publications, you will learn to distinguish professional markets from unprofessional ones.
In order to be hired, you need to know where public interest lies. Articles written by professionals contain details designed to steer you in the right direction.
For example, Writers Digest contains a "Market Watch" column to keep today's writers abreast of trends. The magazine also contains monthly advice from career writers. Examples of advice include everything from capturing an editor's attention to ways to prolong a career.
The reason it is necessary for you, the writer, to have a website, know your rights, and keep track of the markets is to have a platform where you will develop a career, gain instinct for how rights will work for you, and gain ideas for writing pieces that will be in-demand.
Create a Writer's Website
As mentioned, your writer's website will contain services you wish to offer clients, along with personal works for viewing.
The website will serve as an easy platform for directing potential clients to your writing credentials (don't worry, everyone has skills that dub for credentials). It will also serve as a fun tool for updating and marketing your list of works published, and for using as a cover letter guide when submitting writing.
Let's begin the lesson by investigating the website of a professional writer: mine! My website is located at http://www.authorsden.com/sarawebbquest You may use my information and writing samples as sources of inspiration. My site's format and style can guide you in the following assignment.
"Authorsden," a service you will use to develop your own website, is very user-friendly. Its functions are easy to manipulate and your page will contain no irritating banners for visitors and clients.
Using your search engine, type in - or click - this url: http://www.authorsden.com/ In the upper-right corner, click "Click Here to Join AuthorsDen" to begin your free author's website! You'll be brought to a description of what your personal site will offer. Read through, then click on "Sign-up Today," and follow instructions from there.
Complete the "Bio" page, also by using site instructions. Although inserting your photo is optional, a smile is worth a thousand clients. A photo of yourself - a headshot of you in your best demeanor - is of enormous benefit to clients who will be thankful they can link a face to the words. Your choice of photo should be as error-free as your writing: it should be a sharp image of yourself wearing your best presentation.
You should complete any writing pages where you can post samples of what you consider to be your finest work (articles, published works, poetry etc). Keep in mind it is helpful if the samples you post reflect the services you wish to offer on your "Bio" page. For example, beneath "Background Information," you might have written "Freelance Writer/Editor (10/99 - present): Writing and editing of newsletters and literary journal content. Education: B.A. in English, Bridgewater State College, 1995." According to this information, you would post samples that reflect your newsletter and literary journal content. This way, prospective clients perusing your website will be alerted to your interests.
To answer the inevitable question about advertising your service over the den:
You can do so via the following link I found by clicking "Company" at the bottom of www.authorsden.com: http://www.authorsden.com/village/join.a...
The result will be that your service will show up within the "Village" (linked from Authorsden homepage) specialties!
You should also know you can freely announce your events and news - whenever you do so for your website, the information automatically appears in the site's community "Events" and "News."
Also, the authorsden newsletter tool has been my amazing tool for gaining clients. First I noticed many students popping into this course from there. Second, recently I announced some quotes from "clients" in the newsletter (that is, tutoring-student quotes and local editor comments about writing I had done for them) -- in addition to announcing my authorsden to be my official writing business site. The owner of J.M.H. Creative Solutions, an online book-promoting business, asked if I would like to edit manuscripts. Pay is high at about 40 dollars per hour, so I accepted.
Another free, professionally-formatted website you may want to play with is located at http://writernetwork.com/signup.htm
* Additionally, http://www.suite101.com/links.cfm/18321 will take you to my "Parents Addicted to Writing" page with a Website Development Resources link that will take you to a great source of free (and pro) graphics.
Happy designing!
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