"Free" Clients for Your Writing Business

Lately, I've been getting what I like to call "free" clients. These are clients that you don't have to look for. They just fall into your lap. No cold calling. No emails. Nadda.

So how did I get these clients?

My website. These clients found my website and from the information on it, and nothing else, they wanted to hire me. That's the power of a great writer's website. Want to know my secrets to a great site that draws in free clients?

No ads. If your website has ads, that's a sure sign you're a novice because you can't afford to buy a domain name and a proper site. Google Sites offer free hosting and low-cost domain names, so there's no excuses! Make sure your site has content. It shouldn't just have a couple sentences about what you can do and your email. Fill that sucker up with your resume, quotes from happy customers and plenty of information on why a client should hire you. Search engines need words to figure out what your site is about so it can present it to people who are searching. No words, no visitors. I like to offer a range of services. I know some will tell you to find a niche and stick to it. That's not my bag and it works for me. I offer business owners text and image content services and I offer writers editing and critique services. My point is, don't be afraid to present all of the services you're qualified to offer. Keep your site clean and organized to make it easy for potential clients to find the information they need quickly and easily. Don't bunch all your information together on one page. I break my site up into sections for easy navigation. There's a Hire Me page, a page for my resume, a page for my editing and critique service, a page for my clips and a page for my illustrations. Add a photo of yourself. This helps you come across as a real person and not just some faceless entity that wants money on the web. Make it a professional looking image. No selfies! 

Need a visual? Feel free to visit my site to get a feel for what I'm talking about.

Tips for Making More Money as a Writer

The other day, I was visiting one of my favorite forums and found a post by a writer that is down in the dumps because he can't seem to make more than a few dollars per article. All he does is do work for content mills. I gave him some tips on how to make more money, and it occurred to me that some of my readers may like to read the tips, too. Here they are.

Apply, Apply, Apply!

What I do to make more than a few bucks per article is to apply to writing jobs. Gathering real life clients will earn you much more than writing for content mills.

Set aside one day per week and apply to as many writing jobs as you can find that fit the type of writing you do well. I've found many repeat clients doing this.

Here are three lists of writing job sites and other places that pay writers: 

30+ Sites that Pay Writers for Articles

15 Places Where You Can Find Freelance Writing Jobs

20 High Paying Magazines Looking for Pitches

.

The jobs listed on these sites often pay much more than $5 per article.

How to Apply

Applying for writing jobs is easy. All you do is write yourself a good resume listing your experience and send it along with links to your clips.

Even articles on your own blog are good clips if you don't have anything else. It's always good to show potential clients

something

.

James Martins Secret Shopper Scam

I know many of my readers are also secret shoppers, so I thought it would be good to alert you to a scam that is going around. You sign up as a secret shopper, the guy, James Martins, sends you a check using express mail and the email, below.

Of course, the check bounces and your account gets in the hole, but he gets the money scott-free. I didn't cash the check he sent me, so don't worry. I knew it was a scam, and even if I didn't, If you look very closely at these checks you will see the words "Void" printed across it. See in the scan?

Attn Esteemed Shopper:

Thanks for the Heads Up; we have prepared your first payment for the mystery shopping assignment and it will be delivered to you through USPS courier Service TODAY Tuesday,July 30, 2013,Please confirm to me with the delivery ASAP.Once you receive the payment ( TAKE IT TO YOUR BANK AND HAVE IT CASHED).If you can't get the funds instantly at your Bank, you are require to make a special deposit for it and wait till tomorrow for availability of the funds to complete the assignment.

Note**You are require to evaluate a Wal-mart store and Western Union outlet in your City today as soon as you receive the package today. The payment you received covers all expenditures including evaluation, shopping, transport and your compensation for these surveys. You are to make a purchase of any electronic item worth $50, at any Wal-mart store close to you and also you will be using Western Union services to send the balance to another Mystery shopper to carry out another Assignment,we want to observe all the services of western union around the world and also the Wal-mart shopping.

PLEASE NOTE** IF YOU ARE ABLE TO COMPLETE THE FIRST ASSIGNMENT TODAY,IT WILL ATTRACT $50 EXTRA BONUS FOR YOUR SECOND ASSIGNMENT.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT.

Below is the breakdown of how the payment will be spent and you are to take note of the following activities.

You are to deduct $200 survey fees from the total payment received which is $1950, after completion of first assignment.You are to make a purchase of any electronic item worth $50 (to be kept by you) at any Wal-mart store close to you and also you will be using Western Union services to send the balance to another Mystery shopper to carry out his own Assignment.

As a secret shopper, you should go there and study how to send money and memorize all you see at the outlet. We want you to report back to us with the following information:

GUIDELINES FOR BOTH ASSIGNMENT

-How long it took you to get services.

-Ambiance/Outlook of the Shop/Outlet

-Smartness of the attendant

-Customer service professionalism

-Sometimes you might be required to upset the attendant, to see how they react to clients why they get tensed.

-Reaction of personnel under pressure

-Information that you think would be helpful

-Your comments and impressions.

Below is the expenditures breakdown:-

Money Received ....$1950

Salary .................$200

Wal-mart ................$50

Required fund to be sent through Western Union to the next shopper..............$1700

Note :Send Money to be available in Minutes and the western union transfer charges should be deducted from the funds you are sending not from your commission.

As a secret shopper your job is to observe any thing useful going on in the outlet. Make sure you observe everything you see in there because you would be asked some other questions when you return. So then you would go ahead and make a western union money transfer to another mystery shopper for another assignment.

We want you to deduct your weekly payment of $200 and have the remaining funds (minus the western union charges and also $50 for whatever you will be buying at Walmart) sent to the information below for proper preparation of our next Mystery Shopper.

TRANSFER THE REST OF THE FUNDS THROUGH WESTERN UNION TO ANOTHER SURVEY AGENT (Mr Leo Powe )WHICH INFORMATION IS BELOW.

RECEIVER'S NAME.: Leo Powe

RECEIVERS ADDRESS:605 PARKER AVE

RODEO, CA 94572

Our Finance department has just established a new system which you might have never heard of and it is called Alert pay. And this service is been Privately owned and established under our management since 2007 With many competitors we have a very low rating and few customers and we want to develop and upgrade our service to the best and fullest. So we only need the report you provide so we can work on our service.Please try as much to be discrete when doing your work as a mystery shopper, just observe all you see and report back when you get back home.

Also to finalize this Assignment, you have to get back to us with the Necessary report of Walmarts and also with the below western union transfer information for the money you sent to the other mystery shopper:

MTCN CONTROL #

SENDERS NAME AND ADDRESS

RECEIVERS NAME AND ADDRESS

TOTAL AMOUNT SENT

WESTERN UNION SERVICE CHARGE .

This project shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours to execute and the time limit matters to us, with that we can also determine your efficiency and the commitment you show towards working with us. Do get back to me with the Reports and Transfer information.

Looking forward to work with you on this project .And remember to pretend to be a client who wants to Shop and send money so they wont detect you are a secret shopper.

Your Second assignment commences as soon as you complete your first assignment depending on your efficiency.

We hope to have a long lasting business relationship with you.

Get back to me with a reply to show that you are in Receipt of this message.

Yours sincerely,

James Martins.

Secret Shopper®

7736093168

Easy Ways to Make Money Online

Today I'm going to take a break from freelance writing and share a few sites that you can make money on. These are great breaks when you get burnt with your regular clients.

There are a lot of online scams out there on the web, but there are also legitimate, easy ways to make money online.

These free ways to make money online are companies that usually have the user perform small tasks for predetermined amounts of money. This money gradually adds up and is deposited into a PayPal account or bank account. Here is a list of sites that are legitimate ways to make money online.

MTurk.com Has Free Ways to Make Money Online

MTurk stands for Amazon Mechanical Turk and is run by the Amazon.com.  It is a website that provides HITs or Human Intelligence Tasks for users to do for money. Examples of the types of tasks that are listed on MTurk are:

Categorizing products Finding sentences with proper grammar Finding information on websites Each task takes a few seconds and then the user can move on to the next task.

For the inside scoop on MTurk from MTurk members, lurk the Turker's Nation forum.

Make Money with Art and Photographs with Zazzle.com

People who love to draw, paint or take photographs will enjoy Zazzle for making money online.

At Zazzle, users upload their art and photography and place it on shirts, cards, hats, shoes, umbrellas and more. Each item that the user makes is placed in a customized online store. When items sell from the user’s store, Zazzle gets a cut and the user gets royalties. The user can predetermine how much of a percentage of royalties each sell will bring.

Student of Fortune.com Pays for Answers

The Student of Fortune website offers a place for students to ask questions and get answers. If a user answers a question, they get paid. Users can make around $.25 to over $100 per question.

Here’s how the site works:

A student posts a question to be answered. Users create answers and provide prices for their answers. The student chooses the best answer that fits within his price range and the person who gave the winning answer earns the money.

Mahalo Answers Rewards Good Information

Mahalo Answers is another site that pays for answering questions. On this site, users ask questions and other users answer the questions. The user that asked the question then picks the best answer. Questions can have rewards or “tips” attached to them that are awarded to the user who gave the best answer. This can be a good way to make money online for those that love sites like Yahoo Answers.

With these sites, a person can make some quick cash from home. 

Spatan Kelvin Scammer

Watch out for a scammer named Spatan Kelvin, aka melissawci@gmail.com, aka spatan03@gmail.com, if you use Craigslist. I was just contacted by him. Here is the email:

Hello

Thanks for getting back to me.. and I am sorry for getting back to you
so late.. My name is Sharon Kelvin I'm 25 yrs old.(FEMALE). I Am a
Native of Usa...Born Delaware. I'm fun loving,clean, caring and a
respective of others.

am very okay with the description as stated in your advert, i am a working
class, i work as an evaluator for one of our local recruiting organization,
So I Will Like To Be Your roomie Throughout My evaluation work.

I wil love to let you know my duration but,Now the company never told
me yet.They only told me to find a

suitable room for myself.But i Know it will be a Long term commitment.
Please let me know the total payment For the first month + the
security Fee, So I can inform them i got a

room and you will be paid instantly today with, via US cashier,Usps
Money Order or certified check from a reputable bank, the secretary of
the recruiting organization will mail out the payment for the rented
room via Fedex courier Next day Air service.It will take Within 24

hours For the payment to redeem into your bank account.
So Kindly get Back With The Below To Facilitate The Mailing Of
Payment To you Asap.

Full Name:---------
physical mailing address:--------------
City:-------------------
State:--------------
Zip Code:----------------
Cell Phone Number:--------------
Home Phone Number:------------------
Total Amount for the deposit or charges:------------

If you have any AGREEMENT FORM for me to fill out,i will do that
on my arrival to your house because i don't want to fill any form online
For my physical signature will appear,But you can send it for
my review and i will get it filled physically on my arrival.

Note:.. The secretary to the organization will issue out the payment
for the deposit today as soon as you can get back with the above
info, So that i can be rest assured i got the

room..And Please Remove the Advert Because You i Am Renting the room.

Thanks. Cant Wait To Meet You.

Sharon.

Titan Escrow Group Inc. Scam

Here is another scam

you all should be aware of. I got an email this morning offering me a job and I decided to do a little research on it before I replied.

Turns out, many people have gotten this email and at least one person has been the victim of fraud. According to the person on this forum, she handed over copies of her identification and the scammers used it.

Now, there

is

a legit company named Titan Escrow Group Inc., but they have nothing to do with this scam as far as I can tell. They are located in California and the "job offer" is for a Canadian office, which doesn't exist.

Before you answer any email for a job offer, make sure that you check the email address. This email was sent from BernettsyaGaobstejelum@hotmail.com. The fact that it was sent from a Hotmail account and not a company account is a dead giveaway. Someone named Olivia Wilson is also sending out these fake job offers. Here's what the original email looks like: "Greetings from Titan Escrow Group Inc. !

Hirer: "Titan Escrow Group" Titan Escrow Group is conventional escrow. Our reputation as one of the world's advanced escrow agents has been accrued by convinced group, which can provide your deals close accurately.

Job appointment: Receiving Clerk Position area: Canada Job information: $700/week for 20 hours/week.

Your responsibilities Will consist of: - Check and keep reporting on incoming and outgoing shipments. - Check receipt of shipments against bills of lading, invoices or other record. - To keep the record of our Clients and Sellers - Guide Clients

You should acquire the following skills: - Self-starter - Have good communication skills - Have good organizational skills - Basic computer skills Word, Excel/Social)

We're looking forward to your answer. We'll contact you as soon as possible. Sincerely, "Titan Escrow Group" HR office"

Freelance Writing Jobs: Gravytrain Isn't a Gravy Train

I stumbled upon a forum post over at WAHM.com about a site that hires writers called Gravytrain. This lead me to a disturbing article at BCBusiness about the site. It seems that any writing ethics are thrown clean out the window, at least that's what the owners fessed up to.

Not only that, but do you get paid well for all of this debauchery? Nope. It looks like they named themselves in a misleading fashion because a gravy train it is not. They claim you make around $25 to $40 per hour. You get around $12 per 500 word article according to research by BCBusiness.

Don't lower yourself. Find work elsewhere! 

Grab a Writer Does Have Jobs

Since I wrote my blog on

Grab a Writer

a few days ago, I've seen many writers claim that Grab a Writer is a scam and doesn't have any actual jobs. Well, I beg to differ. Today I was emailed a job opportunity for one of their clients. Here's what the job looked like:

Take a look at that price for 10 articles! I would get a whopping $2.50! Wow, somebody catch me because I'm about to faint at my good fortune.

As a writer, you can click on the magnifying glass to see the details of the project:

Sorry, I'm going to need to pass this up. Decline! Hopefully not all of Grab a Writer's projects are like these.

11/29/12 ETA: Yup, my rate was wrong in my profile. They want a rate per 100 words, not per word. I changed it just now. Click on the link at the top of this blog post to go to my original post about Grab a Writer and look in the comments. There is a post from a writer that got ripped off because of this.

November Suite 101 Scores and Earnings Posted

Well, Suite 101 got around to posting scores and earnings for November. My score has gone up to 48, even though I haven't done anything, really. My channel hasn't launched yet because I haven't written a new article for it.

According to my stats, a score of 48 gets you an estimated $40. I have a buddy that has a score of around 100, and she will make around $100 this month. So, for each point, it looks like you earn a little less than $1. Take a look at my dashboard:

Freelance Job Site: Grab a Writer

I just heard of a brand new freelance job site for writers named Grab a Writer. From what I can tell, they have some active clients hiring freelance writers. The site is a lot like Elance, except there is no bidding. People search the writers' profiles until they find the person they want, then hire them through the Grab a Writer system.

I think the part I like best about the site is that the writer gets to set their price, the amount of hours they are willing to work and their turn-around time. This helps insure that you don't get somebody hounding you to do 2000 words for $5.

The part I don't like about this site is that they try to sell the writer packages. For example, to extend the turn-around time on a project you must purchase a $10 24-Hr. Extension Package that lasts 1 year. Is this how they make their real money? Time will tell. I'll update when I learn more about this site.

Here is an update on my dealings with Grab a Writer.

Publishing Articles on the New Suite 101

Some of my fellow Suite 101 writers are confused about the new publishing process, so I agreed to write a post on it, complete with pictures. Here's what the publishing dashboard looks like:

Like with WordPress or other blogging platforms, you type in your title, an intro and your article body into the spaces given. You add images by pressing the little button that looks like mountains.

This is a big upgrade from the old photo system, which wouldn't let you put the photos anywhere but at the top and bottom of the article. This new process lets you put them where ever you click your mouse in the article body. Plus, you can add captions and credits easily. I found that the uploading process was quick and easy. The photo will save in your online files on the site, too, so you can retrieve it later for another article.

The problem is that you can't cancel a photo upload until after you fill out all of the mandatory name and caption slots with information.

Once you have your article ready, you can add it to channels you've already created using the option on the left side of the screen.

This area also shows you your article status and it gives you an area to leave notes for your editor.

After you are done, you can mark the article for copy editing and save it. When your article is posted, people can comment on it or follow you by pressing the Follow button.

That's all there is to publishing on Suite 101. Let me know if you have any questions!

Suite 101 Back in Action?

Way back in early 2010, Suite 101 was hit with the Google Panda smackdown. Many writers lost vast amounts of income through the site. Since then, the site has been revamped and many writers are wondering if they should give it a try.

During my six years with Suite, I amassed 314 articles, mostly about fine art, and thousands of dollars worth of income. The last time I checked, my income from the residual income site was around $10,000. That means that I've earned around $31 for each article on the site. Most of the articles took me around 30 minutes to write, so not too bad a payment. (Not to mention I've received tons of job offers due to my writing on Suite.) Since Panda hit, I've been getting a payment of $50 to $80 per month. I haven't written an article for Suite 101 since June of 2011, meaning those payments are purely residual.

After a lot of thinking, I decided to give the new site try.

Instead of paying using page views or ad clicks, like they used to, they are now paying using an activity score. The higher you score, the more you get paid. My score, without doing anything, is 46 out of a score of 100. Many people who have actively written for Suite for the past year have a score of zero, so how these scores are collected is a mystery.

Any articles you write on Suite, or have already written, can be gathered into what are called "Channels." These channels are basically groups of articles of a particular subject. Visitors can comment on the channels and you can ask other writers to add their articles to your channel. Here is an example of a channel by Bonnye Good.

From what I understand, each channel must be approved by an editor before it goes live. I created one and it is listed as New/Unpublished. The process for making a channel is easy. All you do is decide what you channel topic will be, create a description for it and then go through your list of articles and click on the ones you would like to add to the channel. Creating my channel took about 10 minutes.

So far so good. I'll keep you updated on changes and earnings to come!

Have you tried the new Suite or do you have any questions?

Event Management Software?

I'm thinking about doing a writing event in my area. Maybe a write-a-thon type thing or a meet local authors type thing. I don't have the budget to hire an event planner and I'm not sure I can hack it by myself. I mean, I've thrown small parties and I planned my wedding, but this is different. Have any of my readers ever used event management software? If so, how does it work? I was unaware that it even existed until today. Apparently there are companies that create this type of software and customize the software to your specific event. It sounds intriguing.

What is OverBlog?

The other day, one of my writing friends recommended OverBlog.  This site takes all of your social media posts and gathers them on one site. All you need to do is allow the site to link to your social media posts from Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Youtube, Flickr and Facebook. You can also create blogs on the site.Then, the site pays you for page views, or at least that's how I understand it. It looks like they are in a flux right now. You could add your Adsense code...now I can't find it and others say changes are being made. It's in Beta mode, so I'm not surprised.

So, I gave it a try.

Not. A. Single. Person. Has. Looked. At. My. Page.

Oh, well. I can see how it would be a great way to show potential clients your social media skills, since everything is grouped in one place. I'll keep trying this site and update later with more details.

Disposable Wedding Cameras or a Cannon Rebel: How Important is Photos When You're a Freelance Writer?

My daughter holding one of my first cameras.

Up until recently, I had a Cannon Rebel EOS camera to take pictures for all of my freelance articles. Now, let's just say I don't have it any more. All I have is the camera on my smartphone. This got me to thinking, just how important is the type of camera you use for photos?

Way back at the beginning of my freelancing career, I used a SLR camera, until it broke. Then I moved on to using disposable wedding cameras. Yep, you read that right. My husband took pity on me and bought me a nice digital camera and now I'm using my smartphone.

Through the evolution of my camera ownership, one thing has stayed the same: I have always been able to use the photos I take for paid freelancing work. It turns out the camera type didn't make a difference. What made the difference was my determination to get a good shot, no matter how long it took.

Even with this realization, I still want to upgrade to a smartphone with a flash, just to make things easier.

What type of camera do you use?

Blog Distributor Review: Make Money With Your Blog

I signed up with Blog Distributor years ago and then forgot all about it. A week ago, I started getting emails from them with blogging offers. I scoffed at first, but then I decided to give them a try. Here's how the site works:

You sign up your blog(s). The site checks you blog to make sure that it is high quality. I saw a review about Blog Distributor on another blog. The blogger was ranting that she got turned down because she didn't have a firm grasp of the English language...so I guess there is proof they have standards. They send you offers to write content on certain subjects. In the content you link to one of their client's sites. The content only has to be around 100 words and must contain a certain keyword phrase at least once. If you're post is approved, you earn $4 for a blog that has a page rank rating of 1 and $8 for a blog that has a page rating of 2. Of course, the higher your blog's page rating, the higher your payment.

I think the pay is pretty good for a post that could take you five minutes to write. Plus, you are producing fresh content for your blog. I give this site a thumbs up.

Pro tip: Write what you would normally write about on your blog, but use the keyword as a writing prompt to fuel the subject of the post. This keeps you from being spammy.

Writting for ContentCurrent

I was alerted to ContentCurrent by a fellow writer in a Facebook group I'm a member of, so I checked it out. According to their site, "As a Content Current writer you will be able to pick the writing tasks that you like and submit them through our easy-to-use interface. There are thousands of writing tasks waiting to be completed on ContentCurrent right now."

Before you can write those articles, though, you must write a 500 word "test article." My test article is about "Hartford Technical College." I'm not sure if I'll write it. The test article is graded by editors and you are given a writing level. The higher your level, the more money you will make per article.

Once you are approved to write for the site, you are allowed to claim six articles from their list of open jobs. You write the article, submit it, the client looks it over and either approves it or sends it back for rewrites.

Common pay for articles is $5.50 for 260 words. Another writer reports seeing $7 offered for 500 word articles. This is really low pay, but if you can bang out an article in a few minutes on a subject you're an expert in, then go for it.

Here is a review of the site by No Job for Mom.

Update on Interact Media

A while back I made posted about Interact Media, asking anyone if they had used the site before. Well, I decided to give it a shot.

Interact Media offers writing work that pays $.007 to $.16 per word. On the high-end of the scale, the pay isn't bad, but these jobs are few and are only offered to writers with a five-star rating. I figured this out because I started with a four-star rating and moved up to a five-star rating.

The site is a lot less user-friendly than some of IM's competitors and the site is a bit old-fashioned. Otherwise, I like this company a lot and recommend you give it a try when you are needing a little extra income when your client list slows down.

Getting Paid Tips? This is New to Me!

Something unusual just happened to me, and I had to share. I completed an article for a client a few days ago. Today, I got an email stating that they liked my work so much they are going to tip me an extra $11.

I've never worked as a waitress or delivery person before, so I'm pretty stoked about my first tip.

Have you ever gotten a tip for your writing or editing services? 

Beware of eHow Spark

Demand Studios has been known to copy ideas before, and their latest idea, eHow Spark, is no different.

Spark works a lot like Pinterest. You can pin photos and text to your boards and share them with others using an app or a "clipping" tool.

The catch is, while Pinterest says in their Terms of Agreement that they have no claim to what is pinned on their site, eHow claims everything:

Click on it to make it larger.

I think this is a clear warning to content producers to stay clear of this site. If you want to keep other people from using your content on eHow Spark, head on over to Crunchy Data to get some code to block the clipping tool.