Emily Post said a lady should always walk with her head up and her eyes forward. Ms. Post clearly never navigated her way along crowded, pitted, buckling city sidewalks covered in slippery wet leaves. Just sayin’. Read Full Story

It’s that time of the year again, folks - time to deprive yourselves of sleep and sanity, to be replaced with copious amounts of coffee. It’s time for the National Novel Writing Month- NaNoWriMo. I have taken part in NaNo every year since 2004, but only ever met the challenge that first year. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. Founded by Chris Baty in 1999 in San Francisco, the challenge has grown from regional to national to international. People around the... Read Full Story

Controlling Google is like bossing God around – it’s an arrogant thing to think you can do, and it won’t work anyway. It’s like Al Gore telling us we can control the weather. Seriously, you don’t actually believe that, do you?  Google – like God – is all-powerful and more than a little scary to us mortals. (If Al Gore commanded that kind of respect, maybe we’d believe him.)   I’ve mentioned the basics of SEO Marketing in the past, and these are great tips to adhere to. But like in life, there... Read Full Story

Sorry to scare you, but it is. Which means you’re going to need extra money for all those annoying holiday incidentals. And if you freelance, times will be lean from mid-December to mid-January, as clients are focusing on their own holiday events. Have you ever thought about writing an e-book? No, not fiction. They don’t sell well in ebook format. But an information product? Whatever your skill is, thereare probably people out there who need to learn it. From actuaries to zoologis... Read Full Story

Ugh. I fell ill last week. Really, really, hospital ill. And that sucks for me, but it also sucks for my clients. Being the sole proprietor of a freelance writing business means there’s no partner or secretary who can grab my address book while I’m being rushed away by ambulance, and give my clients a heads up. So now I’m in a place where I’m feeling a little better, a little stronger, ready to work - and I have to apologize to my clients for dropping the ball. It̵... Read Full Story

Interesting story from Silicon Angle, about the Washington Posts’s new policy for social media use by staffers. Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online. Post jo... Read Full Story

I’ve blogged about Ali Hale’s great Staff Blogging Course in the past. Three of the last four blogging gigs I picked up were thanks to the tips in her inexpensive, downloadable course. For some reason though, she wasn’t in my Google Reader. Odd, considering I have about 120 writing and marketing blogs in there. Anyhow, I’ve finally added Aliventures to my daily reading list. I’m liking it - she’s smart, makes sure to take time for herself, works to live and... Read Full Story

The change of the season from Summer to Fall always gets the creative juices flowing for me. Something about the chill and freshness of the air. So different from Summer’s stagnant humidity. Autumn air is alive. It is rich with possibility. Part of it is the back-to-school thing. It makes me crave clean notebooks and the smell of heavy hardcover books to read. (Seriously, you’d think I would have stayed in school longer, wouldn’t you?) Fall is also a time of warm liquids on... Read Full Story

A couple of my friends have used print to order services like LuLu and done pretty good - mostly from ebook sales. The idea being, of course, that people are more willing to take a chance and a previously unknown author if they don’t have to pay tons of overhead or shipping just to read them. Putting together, marketing and selling an ebook or a print on demand book can be tough, because you’re the only employee in the publishing house. You don’t have PR professionals at you... Read Full Story

I know that there’s a certain cosmopolitan excitement that comes from living in a big city with millions of people, thousands of great coffee bars and hundreds of high-end shoe stores. However, I must point out to my fellow female urban dwellers a very harsh fact that I don’t think they realize: Sex and the City was filmed on a closed set. That’s right. No baby prams, no uneven pavements, no construction debris, no homeless people and their assorted pity pets. The foursome o... Read Full Story