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Win a ticket to FinCon17.

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The Rockstar Finance site is giving away a free ticket to the 2017 Financial Blogger Conference, which will take place Oct. 25-28 in Dallas.

Someone has to win. Why shouldn’t it be you?

Note: You don’t have to be a personal finance writer to enjoy FinCon17! In fact, you don’t even have to be a writer at all. Some people go because they’re interested in topics like FIRE (financial independence/retire early), paying down student loans, conquering consumer debt, video production, podcasting and awards travel.

But if you are a writer, or planning to be one, you’ll learn plenty about that, too.

 

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No. 1 on top-jobs list? Writing.

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Each year the Freelancer.com website puts together a list of the 10 most in-demand services. Derived from the 10 million job opportunities posted on the freelancing/crowdsourcing website, the list is designed to give entrepreneurs a heads-up on what’s needed the most.

The top job opp? Writing and content.

Let me say that I really don’t like the word “content.” In fact, one entire chapter of the Write A Blog People Will Read course is titled, “Stop calling it ‘content’!” Fact is, that’s what lots of people call it – and if you’re a writer then this list should encourage you.

 

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Freelancers: Prepare to get sick.

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Two days ago I had cataract surgery on my left eye. Although the outpatient process is fairly simple, it has affected my ability to work.

This reminded me, once again, that freelancers should always be ready to deal with illness or injury.

Independent contractors don’t get sick days. If we don’t work, we don’t get paid. That’s just one more thing to think about if you’re planning to go freelance.

As someone who hasn’t had a square job since 2002, I have a year-round readiness plan in place. If you, too, are your own boss then you need a plan of your own.

 

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A blogging success story.

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Sometimes a blog can become a full-time job, as people like Holly Johnson or Steve Chou can attest. Or a personal website could get you nationally known, e.g., Chris Hardwick.

Today I’m going to talk about a guy whose personal blog turned into his dream job – a gig that was not running a blog.

As the Alaska Dispatch News headline puts it, “Anchorage man turns hobby into NBA front office job.”

Seth Partnow, 39, told the newspaper that his job “feels, to some degree, almost like a fantasy camp.”

Not bad for a guy who started blogging about basketball because he was a total stats nerd.

 

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Don’t let Facebook run your life.

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The November election certainly stirred things up. Even if your preferred candidates won you’ve likely felt some upheaval thanks to relentless Internet uproar, which in some cases led to un-friending – and even un-familying – over political differences.

And if your candidates didn’t prevail? The temptation might be to dig a hole, crawl in and pull it in after you – after you get done un-friending your Facebook buds and cutting yourself off from relatives.

Don’t do that. Instead, take some advice from online course expert David Siteman Garland.

“Your social media is your social media. If you want to talk politics on there all day, that’s your right,” he said in an e-newsletter.

“However…there are better ways to spend your time.”

 

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How to be a better writer. (Hint: It takes work.)

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thAs a writing coach and creator of the Write A Blog People Will Read course, here’s a phrase I hear regularly: I want to be a better writer.

Most of us want the same thing – and those of you who don’t, i.e., those who think your writing is already perfect, are probably kidding yourselves.

Earlier this year I wound up offering advice to someone I encountered someone on a writing website. Specifically, I offered to give feedback on a couple of her articles. She was delighted and sent me several short essays.

Well.

 

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What’s the point of blogging?

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th(I’ve decided to re-publish articles now and again in honor of what the kids call Throwback Thursday. Enjoy.)

Some days writing feels more “like digging ditches than casting spells,” as author Chuck Wendig puts it. Today is one of those days.

A note I’d scribbled earlier saved me: “It’s amazing how the information that I read seems to come to me when I really need it most.”

That sentence came from a reader e-mail, and I wrote it on a scrap of paper because I knew it would come in handy.

It has.

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What I learned from writing ‘Your Playbook For Tough Times.’

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YourPlaybookForToughTimes3DFirst it was five months of researching, writing, self-editing, having friends read the manuscript and paying a professional proofreader. Next came weeks of tech glitches and waiting, waiting, waiting for review blurbs. But my long-simmering project is finally done.

“Your Playbook For Tough Times: Living Large On Small Change, For The Short Term Or The Long Haul” ate up a ton of my time, most of it in hurry-up-and-wait mode. By the time I hit “publish” I was nearly snatching myself bald-headed with frustration.

Oh, and then I had to un-publish temporarily. More on that in a minute.

But you know what? I’m going to do it all over again, probably within a few months. Knowing what might go wrong during self-publishing will, I think, make it easier the next time.

 

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A blogging anniversary giveaway.

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th3This is a post that could both inspire and reward you. My virtual buddy Revanche (love that name) has been blogging for 10 years.

A decade. How many people quit after six months?

What makes her persistence even more remarkable is the fact that during these 10 years of blogging she finished her education, supported her parents and a brother, paid off her family’s debts, built a career, got married and had a baby – all while enduring serious pain from a chronic illness.

Typical of the writer, she’s using her 10th anniversary as a chance not to brag on herself but to thank her readers – and to give away some pretty skookum prizes, including gift cards and a handful of resources that writers need.

 

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Some essential writing advice.

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th-1Kim Ann Curtin had writer’s block. Big deal, right? Anyone who’s ever called himself/herself a writer has likely had days when the creative well ran dry.

Except that Curtin had a deadline.

More to the point, she had a contract to write a book she’d researched extensively – and one for which she’d dialed back on her job as an executive coach. Every day she didn’t write was a day she wasn’t earning money at all.

In a post called “Why women need to stop asking themselves, ‘Who do I think I am?’,” Forbes writer Denise Restauri details Curtin’s biggest issue: She didn’t believe in herself.

 

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