October Recap: Nothing Scary Here!

I am seeing a common trend on some blogs these days — a post is added that highlights or recaps some of the articles for the past month. I like this idea because there are times when weeks will go by before I return to that blog — why not help your readers find your “best of” articles by putting them all in one place?

7 Articles You May Have Missed

Thanks to Google Analytics, I can tell which articles have received the most traffic and which ones could use a boost. Instead of highlighting the Top 7, I’ll share with you some personal favorites of mine:

Grammar Gremlins — There is nothing more scary than reading a final copy of an article posted for all of the world to see and finding grammar mistakes that should have been caught prior to publishing. A pet peeve of mine is loose v. lose.� Aaack!

PageRank Penalty — Yuck, not another article about PageRank! Actually, I wrote three of them this month, but I’m only highlighting my warning article. Unfortunately, I believe that Google already had the penalties in place so if you took action back when I posted this article on October 9th it probably did you no good for their most recent update.

About.Com — Several readers were intrigued by what I shared regarding About.Com and their writing guide positions. I still haven’t heard back from them and have since learned that this is a long, drawn out process.

Work Smarter — I like to offer words of encouragement without sounding too instructive. I hope that this article helped somebody to begin working smarter.

Thankless Blogging? — Blogging can be tremendously rewarding or absolutely thankless. I think most bloggers have experienced both sentiments over the course of time.

The Blog Police — This one was just for laughs, but I know some people took my words seriously. Then again, do you flout conventional blog rules? Hmmm?

Your Blog: R.I.P. — All right, I confess — this post was written on September 28th, but it got a lot of traffic well into October. Since it is Halloween, it could offer the inspiration you need to boost your blog or at least find a really cool outfit for trick or treating!

The Best of the Rest

There are a handful of other articles I would have mentioned, but time and space is working against me. Feel free to visit my October 2007 section to find the best of the rest!

The Writing Habits of Effective Freelancers

I’ve been deriving the lion’s share of my income over the past two years from the writing I do for various clients. Currently, I have paid positions as a blogger, a web content provider/article writer and as a magazine columnist. In addition, there are the occasional press releases, resumes, and other writing projects that come up from time to time.

Most of My Income Comes From Writing Projects

I still derive income from ads and certain non-writing sources, but freelance writing is at least 85% of my monthly income. This pales in comparison to three years ago when managing web sites, forums, and relying heavily on ad income held my business up. I’m glad that I’m writing more than ever before because this is what I prefer to do with my time.

I’m saying all of this as I just visited Anne Wayman’s blog where she posted the question, “What’s Your Writing Routine?” and I responded with my answer which you can read over there.

Personal Writing Followed By Client Work

Although I do have a writing routine, it isn’t set in stone. There are times when I have my blog posts prepared in advance and have them set up to appear shortly after 3 a.m. local time and there are other times when I either skip blogging or add something later in the day.

As far as work for clients goes, I start my client work a few hours into my day. The reason? Because that is when I am the sharpest — my creative juices are flowing and I’m ready to rock ‘n roll!

Hitting My Writing Stride

Yes, I can write at odd times of the day (odd for me, that is) but I know that my best work takes place between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The house is quiet, the kids are in school, and I’ve put behind me the day’s personal marketing and blogging tasks.

Oh, there are days when I do not write for clients at all. I don’t normally work those days into my schedule, rather I know that my work is better saved for yet another day.

There are some advantages to working as a freelance writer — flexibility of schedule is one of them.