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Attend FinCon18 without leaving home.

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Every year I attend (and speak at) the Financial Blogger Conference (aka FinCon). It isn’t just for personal finance writers and devotees, though, because it touches on topics important to bloggers, vloggers and freelance writers of all stripes.

Topics such as good writing, effective interviewing (the topic of the panel I chaired), writing and publishing books, creating a niche brand, how to check a source’s credentials, social media, creating top-drawer YouTube videos, affiliate marketing and financial independence.

The conference took place in late September in Orlando, Florida. If you wanted to go but couldn’t, here’s another shot: The FinCon18 Virtual Pass.

You won’t get the in-person networking, the Freelancer Marketplace (which was great – kind of like speed dating for self-employed writers) or the chance to sit in the 16-foot inflatable flamingo. But here’s what you will get:

 

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Give your audience what it needs.

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This year’s Financial Blogger Conference was the biggest yet: 2,000 attendees, including vendors. (Speaking of which: The FinCon18 box of swag giveaway is up on my personal website until Oct. 15. Some really fun stuff in there.)

Someone on the FinCon Facebook page asked other members to name their favorite takeaway(s) from the conference. Here’s the one that got my attention:

 

“Stop trying to be clever and serve your audience’s needs.”

 

That is one solid-gold reminder.

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You’ve been given a gift.

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(Happy Throwback Thursday! This article was originally published on May 3, 2016, but its sentiments remain fresh.)

Ever question why you need to write? Not want, need. According to Gary Garrison, it’s because you have “The Gift.”

That’s the name of a short essay that Garrison sent out to fellow members of the Dramatists Guild of America. A friend sent it to me because she found it inspiring and, well, true.

Although Garrison was referring to playwriting, his words apply to bloggers, short-story writers, novelists and others of that ilk. All of them “have the ability to create whole, intricate, dimensional worlds and to people them with infinitely interesting, complex beings.”

Wait…Bloggers create worlds?

 

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Freelancers: Jury duty can cost you

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Earlier this week I spent six hours at the courthouse, listening to multiple potential jurors be dismissed and anticipating every moment that the next name called would be my own. Jury duty seemed inevitable.

Fortunately, it wasn’t – and as a freelancer, I was mightily relieved.

To be clear: I know how important jury duty is in a democracy and I do take it seriously. It would never occur to me to try and weasel out, e.g., to make up a story about how I didn’t trust lawyers and could therefore never be impartial. I’ve been called for jury duty several times and actually served once, in a robbery trial.

But the very words “jury duty” make even conventionally employed people flinch. They grouse about the hassle of parking, the boredom of waiting, the bad coffee in the jury pool room. (That is, if there even is coffee.) A much bigger potential problem, though, is the potential loss of income.

If you’re lucky, your employer will keep paying you even if you spend a day or two (or a week or two) serving on a jury. I got called in the late 1980s, when I worked at a newspaper, and my pay was not docked.

Freelancers don’t have that option. Back in 2010, when I got called to a Seattle jury pool, I sent a letter explaining my situation: How could I do interviews and research if I were in a downtown courtroom all day?

They ordered me to report anyway. And when I got there, I found people who were a lot worse off than me.

 

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Major proofreading fail.

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A while back I offered to proofread a book by a former co-worker. It was for a regional publisher that has its own in-house copyeditor for proofreading, but my friend wanted to go the extra mile.

In fact, he hired yet another former co-worker – who’d spent many years on a newspaper’s copy desk – for a third set of eyes.

A total of five pairs of peepers (including those of the author and the publisher) pored over that manuscript. After finding a handful of typos and misspells, we congratulated ourselves on making the book as clean as it could be.

You can guess what happened in the finished product.

 

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A free peek at “The Complete Writer.”

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If you’re a freelance writer, a homeschooling parent or even just a word nerd, listen up: Week by week, Dr. Victoria Hay has been making chapters of her upcoming book available for free.

“The Complete Writer: The Ultimate Guide to Writing, Publishing and Living the Writer’s Life” is based on Hay’s considerable knowledge of the written word. For decades she has been making a living as a writer and editor, and also taught writing at Arizona State University.

Every Friday she posts a new work-in-progress chapter on her writing blog, Plain & Simple Press (“Independent fiction and nonfiction”). Currently she’s up to Chapter 9.

Here’s some of what you’ll be getting:

 

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The flexibility of the freelance life.

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Sometimes the freelance life is frustrating: isolation, long hours, dry spells between assignments, no paid time off.

Sometimes, though, the freedom to order your own days makes it all worthwhile.

A few days ago I was just about to tackle a current deadline when my teen-aged nephew, M, called from the school counselor’s office. He’d just learned that a friend had committed suicide, and was too shaken to finish out the day.

His mom had okayed his leaving but could not break away from work (she’s a teacher) to come get him. Was there any way that I could?

You bet there was.

 

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Writing career tips from a veteran.

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A former editor recently received recognition from his state’s press club. It was sort of a “lifetime achievement” award, although that’s not what it was called.

The guy’s writing career stretched for half a century and across multiple media. His words have appeared on radio and television, in newspapers and magazines, and more recently books and online articles.

A young reporter at the banquet asked for career tips. The editor offered some, and gave me permission to reproduce any that I wanted. The trio I chose may not all apply to your genre, but all three are food for thought.

 

Never turn down any assignment.

 

This is particularly true for freelancers, who may experience long dry spells until they develop their abilities at pitching stories and getting themselves known.

 

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Slang: It’s not the bee’s knees.

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In a recent Washington Post article about John McPhee’s new book*, writer Michael Dirda recounts a talk that McPhee gave to his granddaughter’s senior-high English class.

McPhee read a list of things mentioned in one of his articles and asked the teens to raise their hands whenever they recognized something.

The entire class knew “Woody Allen.” Only five students knew who Norman Rockwell and Truman Capote were. None of them knew recognized Sophia Loren, Bob Woodward or Samuel Johnson.

The idea was not to embarrass the youths, but rather “to emphasize the brief shelf life of cultural references,” Dirda writes.

 

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Writing: You can ALWAYS improve.

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Think you’re already at the pinnacle of your profession? You’re fooling yourself. Even if you’ve been writing for years and years (and years), improvement is always possible.

Recently someone who’d heard about the Write A Blog People Will Read course contacted me about a coupon special* that I was running. The woman, whom I’ll call “Mary” because it’s nowhere close to her real name), told me she’s been writing for a long time. (Hint: She has a kid in college.)

Mostly her work has been in public relations. Lately she’s maintained a blog and is doing guest posts for others.

Mary has taken some other courses, so she wasn’t sure that she needed WABPWR. Given the depth of her experience, I wasn’t sure either.

And then I read her blog.

 

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