SISTER WISDOM

build a better life. start today.

How to Spiff Up Your Website 1

Filed under work
Written by Annie on 3rd Feb -09

Because everybody wants to be a spiffy like Wonder Dog, even if no one actually uses the word spiffy anymore.

  1. Update your photo and bio.

    If your bio ends with your current status ten or five years or even six months ago, bring it up to the present. While you are updating, get a photo that looks professional: a closer, well-focused head shot with a neutral, non-busy background will look more professional than that half of your face from the 1999 family Christmas picture. You can use a photo you already have and do a little editing. Blur out the background; maybe convert the picture to black and white. You might also check into prices on getting a professional head shot.

  2. Add screen shots of the sites for which you write on your own website.

    . This saves visitors the trouble of having to click to all your links, and it also saves you the risk of getting them so interested in a different site that they forget to come back to yours. If you’re not sure what a screen shot even is, go read this explanation from Wikipedia. Basically, you are taking a picture of what is on the screen, saving it as an image file, and then putting it on your website as a picture. You could put it into a writing sample of what you’ve done on that particular website, so visitors can read your work and see where it’s published all without leaving your site.

  3. Provide a downloadable .pdf of your portfolio, resume, and/or writing samples.

    You have a potential client who is browsing your website while waiting for a flight. It’s just time to board when they start reading your writing samples. They notice that little “Download as PDF” button, click it, and now they have a copy they can read in flight. Providing options makes it easier for your clients to remember you and hire you.
    Most office programs provide a way to convert a document to a .pdf file, or there are several online options you can look into. Make sure the option is easy to see for your website visitors.

  4. Document your areas of expertise with specific samples or clips.

    First, of course, you’ll have to list your areas of expertise. As you build up samples and clips in each area, provide links right next to the listed topic on which you are (becoming) an expert. This makes it easy for clients who want writing on a particular subject to go straight to your relevant writing samples, rather than browsing through your entire portfolio.

  5. Have a professional header and logo made.

    If you got some graphic designing skill, make it yourself. Think simple and streamlined. Do a little internet searching if, like me, your graphic design skills are at a negative level. I have found several very affordable options and have been very pleased with the results. Having a uniform header and logo for your website makes you look professional, and it also makes it easy for others to link to your site in an aesthetically pleasing way.

  6. Make your design/theme simple with muted or neutral colors.

    I give this advice with a big caveat: some very professional themes and designs incorporate brighter colors and more complex color schemes. But if you’re not sure what you are doing, of if your aesthetic sense is somewhat, uh, underdeveloped, err on the side of caution. A classic black and white theme promotes your writing skill, whereas a complicated, multi-color scheme might just prove distracting to potential clients. Obviously personal taste is involved, and the kind of clients you are pursuing matter, so take this advice with a big grain of salt. Sea salt. White sea salt.

  7. Provide a table or spreadsheet with your rates.

    Make this downloadable as well, so clients can have it as a reference. It doesn’t have to be a complicated table, just a simple spread of the services you offered lined up with what you charge. If you have pricing options (by project, by hour, by page), then lay those out clearly as well.

  8. Use your sidebar for shameless self-promotion, but in a classy way.

    If you have a sidebar, that is… Gather a collection of quotes from your satisfied clients, positive reviews, and a few of the best lines you have written. Convert part of your CV and areas of expertise into little factoids, then load up all those goodies into a rotating quote collection or other display format. It’s like a little snack bar of how talented you are.

  9. Record an audio or video introduction of yourself and what you do.

    A caveat with this one as well: only do this if you can do it well. If you are a work at home freelancer and can’t find a quiet time or place to record, skip it. If, however, you have a friend who is handy with YouTube videos or podcasts and you can come up with a brief, smart script and a good place to record, do it. This could be the first thing visitors see when they come to your website, and a little click on the play button will let them “meet” you. It might be the extra effort that makes you stand out from the other freelance writers out there.

  10. Offer a contact form, not just a mailto: command.

    This is a pet peeve of mine. I’m not always on the same computer, and when I want to contact someone who offers only a mailto: option, I have to copy the email address from the command line, open up my own mail server, and send the email. Offer a contact form option so that visitors only have to take one step to get in touch with you. If they are using a public computer or don’t have a default mail server set up on their own, clicking a mailto: command is far more annoying than it is useful.

I originally wrote this post for Writers Unbound, several months ago. Editing it to post on this website has added a few significant items to my list of updates for my portfolio website. Time to get to tweaking…

Incorporating Your Freelance/WAH Job: The Basic Options Comments Off

Filed under work
Written by Annie on 3rd Feb -09

If you make over $400 per year in “additional income,” you better plan to pay tax on it. You can not plan to, but you’ll still be paying the taxes anyway. And yes, you could also decide not to report what you make from freelancing; for multiple reasons, not reporting is a very bad idea. So you know you’re going to make some amount of money from your writing, and whether that’s moonlighting it or as a full-time writer, the tax structures are about the same. Here is a little breakdown to help you decide how to deal with your freelance income and the resulting taxes.

  • The first, and most obvious option, is simply to report as self-employed. You don’t have to set up a business structure; it’s the simplest option. Another way to say it is that you work as an Independent Contractor. This means that “the person for whom you perform services has only the right to control or direct the result of your work, not what will be done or how it will be done,” according to the IRS. You need your social security number, good records of the income you have received, and a little time to fill out some additional forms at tax time. The federal self-employment tax rate is 15.3%, and you will have to make estimated tax payments since your taxes are not automatically withheld.
  • A Limited Liability Corporation is the next simplest option. It’s not that complicated to set one up; About.com’s guide predicts 1 – 4 hours. Basically, you have three items on your list: the Articles of Organization, the business name, and the Operating Agreement. The simpler your company is, the simpler these documents will be. If you’re one person, the sole owner of the LLC, you’re looking at a fairly quick set-up. Unless you have more than one member, the federal tax rate is basically the same as it is for self-employed income. The IRS treats a sole-owner LLC as a “non-entity” and taxes it according to sole proprietorship (self-employed) tax laws. So what’s the benefit of forming an LLC if the tax rate is the same? Purportedly, an LLC offers what its name indicates: you can’t be held personally liable if the business fails. So if your business took on debt to support itself, couldn’t pay, and went bankrupt, you wouldn’t lose your personal assets (house, car, savings) to pay that debt.
    I’ve heard from different sources that 1) it’s a good idea to have an LLC because you need the liability protection and 2) the LLC is really just a false front that doesn’t offer any real protection. I suggest doing some independent research there, like talking to someone who actually runs an LLC or chatting with an IRS representative, your accountant, or your lawyer. However, all that said, I don’t really see the point of an LLC structure for a freelance writing business. There is basically no overhead to work from your home as a freelance writer. If you get into setting up an office outside of your home or buying a new laptop every month, you can acquire some debt, sure. But generally, freelance writers are able to keep their expenses very, very low. So setting up a structure to provide liability protection for a company that doesn’t really have liability seems rather redundant. The only other scenario would be the possibility of a lawsuit that could result in large bills. So don’t write anything rude about people…
  • Finally we come to the corporate structures, the S Corp and the C Corp. The C Corp is how the big businesses are set up. The S Corp is an option for businesses that don’t want to offer public stock options, and it allows pass-through taxation, which basically means that the corporation doesn’t pay taxes, only the “employees” do on their actual income.
    Neither one is very hard to set up, but you want to pay attention to tax documents, annual reports, and other required forms and filings. As with an LLC, however, a corporation seems rather over the top for a sole proprieter(freelance writer) except that it offers liability protection and, in some scenarios, a savings on taxes.

Now the disclaimer, and I mean it: I am NOT a lawyer or an accountant, and what I’ve said should in no way be treated as legal or professional tax advice. I am a freelance writer, like you. The research I’ve done has been for the purpose of understanding tax options and making decisions for my own income. I have simplified and shared what I know, which isn’t much. The point is to get you started thinking about the best route, so you don’t just wake up in April and realize you have no idea what to do. Whatever you do, be sure you keep accurate records, report honestly, and set your business up legally.

How to Use a Credit Card to Your Advantage 3

Filed under work
Written by Annie on 22nd Jan -09

I’ve seen a lot of talk about the evils of credit cards; I put this hand-in-hand with the general “money is evil” and/or “money is the root of all evil” arguments. None of these assertions are true.

A Usage Issue, Not a Moral Dilemma

Image by Andres Rueda

Image by Andres Rueda

. Money isn’t evil, neither is it the root of all evil (don’t believe me? read it yourself); money is simply a tool which can be used well or badly. Credit cards fall into the same category. Use them responsibly, and you can accomplish good things with them. Use them unwisely and irresponsibly, and you’ll get yourself in a lot of trouble. (As it turns out, guns fall into the same “tools” category; what you do with them determines whether they produce good or bad results.)

A credit card can be a great financial tool. It can help you increase your credit score, simplify your bill-paying, and get some free perks. It can also get you in a lot of trouble, so the key is to treat your credit card like cash; don’t use it for purchases if you can’t go to the bank and withdraw the cash to make the same purchase.

Increase Your Credit Score

Pay Off Your Debt

If you need to get your credit score up a bit, credit cards can help. You need to pay off any outstanding credit card debt, first; you’ll actually get a larger credit score increase from paying off a credit card than from completing car or mortgage payments. So be sure you’re on a good route to paying off your credit card debt. Use a debt reduction calculator to figure out how long it will take you, and pay faithfully. If you get some extra money or a raise, try to pay more on your credit cards.

Keep Old Accounts, and Not Many of Them

Don’t keep a lot of open credit cards. Open lines of credit, even if unused, affect your credit score negatively and can also discourage lenders from approving your loan for a car or a house. So keep only a couple of open credit cards; the older, the better.

Pay Your Monthly Bills with a Credit Card

Choose one credit cards as your monthly bill-paying card. You’ll need to have online banking set up to make this work out best; most banks offer online banking at no charge now. If your bank doesn’t, ask them, or switch banks to one that does. Set up automatic monthly bill payments with your credit card, and then use your online account to pay off the balance on your credit card once or twice a month. Your credit score increases as you bring that balance down at 0.
Key: Don’t use the credit card for anything other than monthly bills, and always pay the balance off in full. Otherwise you’ll just be accumulating more credit card debt, and that doesn’t help your credit score at all.

Simplify Your Finances

Use Balance Transfers

Image by Fosforix

Image by Fosforix

If you have multiple credit cards that need to be paid off, then search for a good deal on balance transfers and low or no interest on those transfers. Open up a card and transfer all your credit card balances to that card, then continue to pay as much as you were previously (or more, if you can) on the total amount. If you can get a good deal on the interest, and avoid balance transfer fees, you might end up saving money you would have lost to higher interest rates; plus it will be much simpler to pay one credit card bill rather than several.

Consolidate Your Bill Paying

As mentioned above, if you use a credit card to pay your monthly bills, you can then simply go in and pay off that credit card balance once or twice a month. The key is setting up automatic payments for your bills from your credit cards; if the payments are automatically taken from your card, you don’t have to worry about being late on them. All you have to remember to do is pay off the credit card balance each month.

Get Free Perks and Buying Power

Gain Rewards/Incentives

Most major credit cards offer perks – rewards, points, cash-back incentives – to get people to buy more. Don’t buy more, just keep using your credit card as your main bill-paying mechanism, and you can still gain those rewards. You can rack up free gift cards, gas cards, and other goodies if you use one credit card consistently. If you want to gain more rewards, you could use a rewards card for your current cash purchases, like food, gas, and entertainment. You’ll need to be sure, though, that you don’t go over your normal cash budget, and then you transfer that cash from your checking account to pay off the purchases made on your credit card.
Key: Staying within your budget and treating the credit just like it is cash.

Make Larger Purchases at 0% Interest

This isn’t something that’s good to do often, because it’s how people get into debt-trouble. Too much debt. But say your water heater or washing machine breaks down, you can’t realistically live without one for the six months it will take you to save up for one; the store offers a payment plan but charges interest. Here’s what you do instead; you open a credit card that’s offering 0% interest for the first six months (or eight, or ten, or four; be sure you know the terms. Then you put the large item on your new credit card and proceed to pay off the amount you would have saved every month until you were able to purchase it.
Key: Be sure that the purchase will be completely paid for before the interest-free period ends; if you go over by a day, you’ll likely be paying interest for the entire purchase.

Negatives of Credit Card Use

Easy to Lose Sight of What You’ve Spent

Yeah, something about the feel of that last twenty dollar bill leaving your hands tends to make your feel it. It’s not the same when you swipe a card. If you don’t have self-control or find it impossible to remember how much you’ve purchased, then don’t use a credit card for purchases just to gain rewards. It’s only worthwhile if you stay within your cash budget and pay off your balance, in full, every month. If you can’t do that, skip the credit card and stick to the cash.

Finance Charges, Late Fees, and the Like

If you use a credit card well and pay the balance off regularly, you won’t have to worry about late fees. You’ll probably still be hit with the occasional finance charge, however; if using a credit card isn’t helping you by increasing your credit score, simplifying your life, or giving your rewards, then the finance charge isn’t worth it.

Confusing Terms/Increasing Interest Rates

Beware the increasing interest rate! Never, never, never use the cash advance your credit card company will offer you. You will pay for it many times over. And don’t make a balance transfer without getting clear on the fees and the interest rate. Using a credit card requires the ability to read through some fine print and sort it all out.

Bottom Line

Credit cards are tools. If you have knowledge and vigilance to use them for your financial benefit, they can help you in many ways. Keep it simple and set up a system – which you use diligently – to know your balance, stay within your budget, and pay off your credit balance regularly. Don’t make large purchases you can’t pay off quickly. Don’t use credit cards as spending cash. Use them as tools, which, like many other tools, can be dangerous if used improperly. If used wisely, they can help you meet your financial goals.

Freelance Writing Report: A $500 Week Comments Off

Filed under work
Written by Annie on 12th Dec -08

Report 1. December 12, 2008.

First “Successful” Week as a Freelance Writer

I made $590 this week doing freelance writing work online.

I consider that a raging success. My goal is to pull in $600/week regularly; this is the first time I’ve gotten close. I’ve been working at this steadily since January of 2008, and I’ve made some good money, but not this much in one week. It’s been much further between, I’ve made lots of mistakes, wasted time, and am still building up clients. I still spend a lot of time scouring job boards, searching online for new sites, submitting, applying, querying… (lather, rinse, repeat). I want to get enough regular clients lined up to meet my weekly salary goal without having to scramble on the job boards and fight another 1000 hungry writers for the promising positions. That’s every freelance writers dream, I guess, and more competition can make success more difficult.
Or it can make you more creative.

Statistics

Hours worked: 18
Hourly pay rate: $32.70/hour

Articles/Posts written: 41
Avg. Article length: 350 – 500 words, with 3 closer to 1000 words
Article pay rate: $14.40/article average

Clients: 4 (with bulk of work from 2 clients)
Client 1: Interesting topics in my expertise, but short, repetitive format and shallow research gets tedious.
Client 2: More specialized, and greater freedom to develop my own content, but lower pay rate and a few more details to attend to in the formatting/publishing process.
Client 3: Ad revenue only; a nice site, but smaller. I’m not expecting much here, but the requirement is minimal (1-2 articles per week, whatever I want to write on the topic), I enjoy the work, and it’s nice to add to my resume/clips.
Client 4: A blog I’m building up; possible future revenue, but nothing to speak of right now.

I’m not going to name my clients (some have non-disclosure agreements, etc.) though if you do a little digging on my professional website you can probably figure out who’s who.

One of my main clients this week was simply a large article database; the other main client was simply a smaller, more specialized article database. I had many articles, in topics I know, to write for the first client, so the work went quickly (overall) and I was able to produce enough to make a good hourly rate. That doesn’t always happen here.
For the second database, I was finishing up a series and producing 2-3 articles a day in order to do so before the deadline. The pay per article is a little less, but there is also an ad revenue aspect in place that I don’t have with the first client. So I decided, for the type and the content, it’s a worthwhile gig with the possibility of continued future earnings.

Problems

I’m still dependent on two sources of income which are non-guaranteed, bulk work at best. If the articles in my topics aren’t there, I’m stuck. If I have to write articles on topics I don’t really know, which requires more research, my pay rate goes down drastically.

Goals

Secure weekly blog/columnist positions for better per article rates. (I’d really like to get to $20/$30 per article/post instead of $10/$15. And if anyone mentions writing for $2 or $3 per article… No. Not worth it. I can spend my time being frugal at home and selling my basement stuff online and save/more money than I can writing $2 articles.)

Build up individual website-based businesses. I have four in progress right now (this site is one of them).

Look into additional ad-revenue based writing possibilities. Thus far my experience with ad-rev share is that I end up making about $1/hour. I’m uncertain, though, if this is the general experience or if I just failed to promote, write regularly, hit the right keywords, etc. However, if I spent the additional time promoting, writing, researching keywords, then my payrate would have ended up being about $0.25/hour. Maybe the ad revenue would have increased enough to justify the additional time, but my conclusion on ad-rev, blogging positions is this: it’s a long-term investment, not an immediate source of income. And at this point, I’m not sure if the long-term investment gives a return that’s worth it.

Secure some offline, print columnist/writing positions. Not sure how to go about getting my foot in the door on this one. I’m talking local/regional publications, small circulars, local businesses that need flyers, brochures, other content. I’m not interested in entering the ultra-competitive national magazine market; it’s another matter of lots of time trying with little guarantee of result. I need steady work for steady pay.

“Discipline does not mean suppression and control, nor is it adjustment to a pattern or ideology. It means the mind sees “what is” and learns from “what is.” – J. Krishnamurti

Reading

Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Lifeby David Allen

Herbs (RD Home Handbooks) edited by Lesley Bremness

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Productive Changes

Dropped some ridiculous blogging jobs that had resulted in about $25 total for about 5 months of work (4-6 hours/week).
Quit reading so many blogs.
Began scheduling specific articles to complete on specific days.
Began tracking hours worked and money made on a daily basis. (Also tracked miles walked but that’s really off topic.)
Changed my working hours to a regular afternoon “shift.”
Checked job boards and applied daily, but quickly.

If I can do it, you can too!

Getting Rich Too Fast 2

Filed under work
Written by Annie on 9th Dec -08

Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, let us be content.

But they that will deliberately and desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful cravings, which cause them to sink down into total ruin.

For the LOVE of money is a root of all kinds of wrong thinking: when people have given themselves up to the love of money, they have strayed from the faith, and end up torturing themselves with consuming grief.

But thou, O Woman of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness.

from 1 Timothy 6

It doesn’t seem like a bad thing to want money.

I want money. I need to pay bills, pay off debt, buy a new car, buy food, diapers, clothes, stuff. I don’t want fancy stuff. I don’t want to shop on Rodeo Drive, don’t care if I wear name brands, don’t consider myself materialistic. I like bargains, thrift stores, good deals, reusing, and frugality.

And I like having money.

It’s a slippery thing, money. It’s not meant to be more than a tool which we use, but it becomes a goal. Then it becomes a god. It consumes our attention, then our affection, and then our lives.

I’m thinking about this because lately I’ve had more success in freelance writing. I’m actually making money in order to help with our regular bills and expenses. That’s a good thing, but I caught myself last week, after reaching my target amount for the week, desperately scrambling to make more. Why? Why did I need more?

I didn’t need more.

It was just so much fun to make money and have money that I wanted more. It’s a little addictive. Maybe it’s a lot addictive. Have you ever noticed that the more money you make, the more needs you have?

We were making it without my “extra” money; but as soon as I started bringing in some cash, suddenly we needed more and more and more. I have to step back and remind myself that we can survive without my contributions. It’s great to have the additional money. We really do need it, but we can survive without it. Making money isn’t my life goal. I can’t let it become that.

When money becomes the goal, morality becomes uncertain.

An example from my own freelance writing work: I heard of another pay-per-article site that had good rates and regular work. I applied. They don’t tell you much about the type of content until you are accepted. I got accepted, and since one of my other regular work sources was kind of drying up, I was happy. I went to the site, logged in, and started browsing the available projects. Lots of them. Fairly good rates. Interesting topics… very interesting. In fact, all of them appear to be academic topics. Student paper-type topics. I read a few project descriptions. This company had hired me to write papers for high school and college students.

And that’s when the money vs. morality came into the picture.

Cheating is wrong. Plagiarism is wrong. I’ve never turned in a paper I didn’t write myself. I never let my friends copy my work when I was a student. And now, here is a website offering my $40 to write an essay for a high school student who doesn’t want to do the work. It’s an obvious wrong choice for me, but I still had to “think about it.”

The lure of money is tempting enough to make me want to justify doing that type of work.

I didn’t do it. In fact, this morning I resigned my membership in the site. Now it’s not an option, so it won’t be a temptation. If it were still available to me, I could get drawn in. I could justify. Lots of people do this sort of thing. I’m not the one cheating; I’m just writing the paper. I don’t really know what it’s for. And that’s one step closer to giving myself up for the love of money.

Really, that’s not a good bargain. I think I’ll pass.

Uses wordpress plugins developed by www.wpdevelop.com