Protecting Your Content and Your Reputation — A Response
I want to respond to Kristi Hines’ post entitled ‘Protecting Your Content and Your Reputation’. While she does bring up a number of very valid points, I do have a number of points to add. After all, we’ve all had different experiences, learned a variety of different things, and I think we can all learn from it.
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Having Submitted Work Edited
In a recent post giving advice to site owners on hosting guest posts, I recommend site owners make writers aware of what they’re editing. Unfortunately, many of them don’t follow this advice. Now, as a writer, I have to admit it annoys the heck out of me to have work edited and cut for no reason. From a site owner’s perspective, however, I really dislike a writer freaking out when I edit their content.
Why do I do it? Several reasons, aside from spelling and grammar, there are space constraints, optimum length for my readers, to fit in with my site theme and focus, etc. It also depends if it’s my site or not. If it isn’t mine, I tend to edit out extremely controversial points for the sake of my client. Bottom line, editing is a fact of life for a writer, so if it’s vital that the content remain exactly the same, sharing content may not be for you.
Policies and Income Generation
I personally have a big beef with this one, and not Kristi’s points either. Terms and conditions are nasty if you fail to check these out before sending in work. However, there are a number of assumed laws to be aware of. For example, Australian writers hold the rights to their work even if they’ve sold it. In other countries, the rights change hands as soon as the money does. (I cover this in my contract.) You need to be just as cautious of the ‘understood’ rules as you do the printed ones. On the same hand, never assume anything. I’ve learned the hard way to always get everything in writing.
Posting your work on sites that use ad revenue are a waste of any serious writer’s time. Trust me. I’ve tried it and I’ve yet to find a method that works well with these sites save for one: mass produce a creepload of content and spread it everywhere. You’re far better off spending the time to write decent content and using it to directly market yourself via a website or blog.
So long as you’re getting something of what you consider to be equal value in return for your content, you aren’t exactly losing it. For example, links, traffic, and money are common currency in a writer’s world, and as far as I get what I agree on initially, I’m happy with that. The important thing is to make sure the tradeoff is worth it to you and that you get it in writing! Many times, I’ve traded copy for something else and not gotten it in the end. Protect yourself.
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Reputation Leakage and Image
This is a huge one in some respects, but not so much in others. You are definitely judged by the company you keep. Without a doubt! However, this works in both ways. Use your access to high-end sites to your advantage, but don’t fall into the common trap of marketing to your peers either.
You gain and lose authority according to your clients, not necessarily from your peers. They pay you, and what they care about is what kind of a job you can do for them, not how many invitations you get to the next major conference or who you sit with while you’re there. Don’t underestimate the importance of complementary businesses either. These can potentially generate a large amount of profits if you play your cards right.
And while I wouldn’t get into the habit of appearing on low grade sites, I think people put a little too much emphasis on negative PR. I’ve learned there really is no such thing as bad PR so long as you deal with it the right way. The short-term damage is often far worse than the long term.
In short, treat your online business as you would a brick and mortar store. If you conduct yourself in the same way, you’ll do fine and have nothing to worry about.
For the Writer | No comments
Writing for Free — How to Avoid ‘Copy Crooks’ and Get What You Deserve
There has been a particularly heavy run of scammers praying on writers these days. Some in particular have been extremely convincing. For example, ’send in a resume and a requested writing sample and we’ll pay you big bucks to write for us.’
Unfortunately, this has sucked in a good number of newbie and experienced freelance writers. Don’t to fall for it!
Providing Writing Samples
Lots of clients and companies request a specific sample related to their industry. When you submit this sample, the idea is that the client will see how you write in their industry and what kind of knowledge you have about it. Unfortunately, those who are crooked will take the sample and just never bother to contact you. Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever submit a writing sample.
Don’t fear however, there are ways around this little hiccup to satisfy both the client and the writer.
Send links to work you have done previously, or a link to your online portfolio. Whatever you use for this should be diverse enough that the client can see what you’re capable of.
If it is something you want so badly and you have no other choice but to submit a sample, consider writing the piece and adding little tidbits of hidden text. It can’t be just any kind of hidden text, however. Add a standard phrase such as ‘Angie Haggstrom‘ and add it to the end of a paragraph in the middle of the sample. Once you’ve done that, set up a Google Alert specifically for the ’security phrase’. When they attempt to use it, you’ll be instantly notified.
I’ve found that generally works brilliantly. After all, if the scum bag is too lazy to write his or her own piece and too lazy to pay anyone to do it, they are most likely too lazy to read through the entire article. You might also want to consider including these pieces in places such as CopySentry. (The cost is deductible in many instances 
)
Writing ‘On Spec’
Writing ‘on spec’ means you write up the piece according to the instructions given by the client. Submit it to them to the client for their inspection. If they like it, you get paid. If they don’t, you have to rewrite it or the client moves on to another writer.
While this might sound like a fair practice, this is the number one way writers often get screwed out of their money and their work. How? You submit your best piece of writing and the client ‘rejects’ it. However, two weeks later, you’ll either find it plastered all over the Internet with a different by-line, or they will have someone rewrite your piece for a dollar or two and make thousands with it.
Granted, not all clients will do this, but it happens all too often to try it.
Require all clients to give 50% of the project up front. This way, if they take your draft copy (or original piece) and fail to come back with the rest, at least you’ll have something to cover your efforts. Also, this is a good way to get rid of the scammers right off the top. On larger writing projects, I will even ask for 50% up front, 30% halfway through, and the remaining 20% at the end. The client demonstrates a small bit of faith in me, and I demonstrate a certain amount of trust in them.
Writers hate asking, clients hate handing it over, but you only have to get cheated out of a pay check once to get over it.
When Is It Ok to Write for Free?
I don’t generally write anything for free, but like anything, there are exceptions to the rule. In some instances, the exposure is an equal trade off for the money. In some instances, the opportunity to write about the topic is more than enough to peak my interest.
My article for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, my guest post at Search Engine People, and even SEO Scoop are great examples of this. These were all opportunities that I rather quite enjoyed doing and don’t often get the opportunity to cover in my daily work. Combine that with the great exposure, and I was more than compensated for my efforts.
So I guess the moral of the story is, unless you are sure you get something from it for 100% sure, don’t give your work away for free! If that person wanted you to write it, your stuff is obviously worth the compensation!
For the Writer | 3 comments
The Single Biggest Way Professionals, Businesses and Freelancers Hinder Their Success
No one goes into business, or starts a career with the goal of failing. Everyone starts with the best of intentions, works hard, and does the best they can possibly do. But, you need to also remember that nothing ever stays the same. Everyone is always looking for a better/faster/more efficient way of doing things. Failing to keep up with these changes, as well as what’s going on in your industry, can literally degrade the quality of work you do as well as the service you provide.
Don’t see it? Take SEO, or search engine optimization, for example. Say Google changes its algorithm, which determines how it organizes and presents search results. If you don’t keep up on what these changes are, you can’t adapt your methodologies and techniques accordingly. This means you are unable to do your job, and may even cause your clients to suffer terrible penalties by the search engines.
As a writer who provides a large amount of SEO copy and articles for marketing, I am passionate about the SEO industry and associated news. However, I also need to keep up on what’s going on in the writing industry as well as the areas my clients are involved in.
Is this time consuming and take a lot of work? You bet it does, but it I owe it to my clients. I wouldn’t feel right about doing my job and having others pay me otherwise.
You can find the latest news and information just about anywhere. Belonging to the right groups is often a good start. For me, I find Twitter keeps me up on all the important news bits and information in terms of writing and SEO. I am a huge user of Google Alerts and Social Media searches and monitoring. Lastly, I have an extensive RSS reader that pulls feeds from some of the most influential blogs and bloggers in these industries.
Of course, there’s other benefits to this as well. I’ve become well-versed in many different areas, which satisfies my information obsession. The amount of unexpected things I’ve learned and had the pleasure to do has been amazing. It is these things that really make this ‘job’ the absolute best I’ve ever had.
It has also allowed me to get in contact with and become great friends with great people from all industries and walks of life. There is always a good conversation or debate somewhere. When I’m having a down day, or an extremely stressful moment, or am having one of those ‘OMG what am I doing moments’, I always have support and the backing I need to succeed. I hope that I can do as much for them.
If you are not keeping up with your industry, you are doing yourself and your career just as much of a disservice as you are your clients.
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An In-Depth Look At Morals, Values and Business
I had originally planned to write a post on the single biggest mistake anyone in business makes, but I had a very pleasant surprise yesterday. A fellow Twitterpeep and a passionate SEOer known as Suthnautr (David Curtis in the real world) posted a response to my post “Do Morals and Values Affect Your Writing?”
He took it quite a bit further than I did, and frankly, did an excellent job. I fully agree with his points and wanted to share that with you as well. In reality, I think this is something that everyone should consider whether you get a paperroute or are starting with a fortune 500 company. Without further delay, his guest post/response:
Having studied philosophy, morals and ethics a bit I believe that I owe it to people to tell them the truth.
There is more than one way to tell the truth, however. If a little girl’s cat runs away and gets run over (and I know because I have seen it get run over) I won’t tell her the truth – I’ll tell her that most cats that run away get found by nice families and are given a new place to live. Technology needs its own truth – if I were explaining technology to a tribe living in a jungle led by a medicine man with rattles and a string of animal claws who didn’t understand it, the truth I would describe would be something quite different from how I’d word it on my Web site meant for more technically experienced and educated people. I have taught basic computer to people for years – and I know for a fact that these same people often can’t figure out how to set the clocks on their microwaves, VCR’s, etc – you know the old joke from www.internethelpdesk.com (no longer around, I’m afraid), where the tech refers to them all as just “Serious 12 O’Clock Blinkers”.
There are PLENTY of them around – a whole LOT of them around – and a whole LOAD of them are business owners and executives. Special considerations have to be made explaining things to them, because someone told them once (and they will NOT let it go) that there is just one thing and one thing alone that’s important – (when it’s not and hasn’t been for ten years) and if you don’t agree with that, then you’re, well, just no “good”. So if they can’t be educated, you still owe it to them to help them because they’re so ignorant and mis-informed that for their own good you have to take them on as clients because if you don’t, they are going to get ripped off big time.
Morality and ethics are a bit different from “truth” – and maybe more akin to philosophy – where perceptions of reality are shifted based upon whichever philosophy you adhere to (Whether you know it or not – we all view the world through the veil of some kind of philosophy or another). Sometimes I have to help shift someone’s philosophy slightly to let them see an advantage in something I’m proposing.
In general a lot of Web copywriting in the past has relied on print advertising scenarios and solutions (fear tactics, keep up with the Jones’, jump on the bandwagon, be the first in the neighborhood etc. etc.) or whatever else made sales happen as expected. More recently the “Imagine that…” scenario seems to have worked well… but now the Web copywriting model is more of a “dialogue with the people, and do it genuinely, they’ll find you out if you don’t” (with which I agree). But the fact is that in all I do, I personally believe in my true heart of hearts that what I do now, right now, is the right thing or I wouldn’t be doing it. Tomorrow I may learn differently and change – but keeping up with what works today is the best way to do things.
As far as (finite) money goes, making money is a game of musical chairs (visit my site http://www.buildingcapital.us ) to see why someone MUST lose even if everyone did everything exactly right – and everyone was a CPA keeping every rule and doing everything by the book. My job is to get the money that’s out there. Someone has got to get it, I do my job better than most, and I owe it to my family, my wife and my kids to get it first – by convincing those who will get ripped off if they hire someone else that I’m the right man for the job, even if I have to say I agree with his idea that we must do something I know no longer works.
The economy is full of artful and successful con-artists and rip-offs who truly do not care whom they hurt. The economy is such that some will always make it and some will always go bankrupt – and my job, my number one job, my obligation and moral duty, is to do whatever it takes to make sure that the guy living in the tribe in the jungle (whether it be filled with trees or tall office buildings, whether that non-technical guy has a title like chief or CEO, CFO or is just some citizen operating a small to medium family owned business) is to make sure he doesn’t do worse (out of ignorance) by hiring someone not as good as me at performing the services I perform or by hiring someone who is promising the world and is going to rip him or her off for quadruple what I would charge. It is also my duty to lead him in the right direction if the job is beyond me and he needs someone better. I will NOT screw him up just to make money.
My personal morality and ethics play a major role in writing, all the time.
(Image provided by MacieKlew)
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Do Your Morals And Values Affect Your Writing?
Ghostwriting -- Is it morally right? If so, when is it and when isn't it?
Celebrities such as 50Cent, Barak Obama, and Britney Spears recently revealed they hired writers and others to add content to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Guy Kawasaki furthered this debate when he spoke at a conference about having other employees update his Twitter account as well as using Twitterhawk and CoTweet to promote Alltop.
Twitterhawk brings up the issue of spamming. In my opinion, having someone else run your account for you is no different. I can understand that these people are busy. I can even see them avoiding these types of platforms purely for safety reasons. After all, you never realize what you have revealed to the public until it’s too late. However, I honestly feel that if you are going to brand these things as personal rather than as a general business thing, having someone else do all the work defeats the purpose.
Ghostwriting is not a new idea. It’s a popular form of writing that happens all the time, and it has been around for years. I would estimate that 95% of all the writing I do is under someone else’s name.
Is it morally wrong? No, but it depends on several variables. What image is that person projecting? What points are they trying to make? Today’s world is all about transparency and honesty, and if you haven’t got that, you are going to be left behind..
If someone offered the right amount of money, would I write content for a celebrity to send out on Twitter or Facebook?
I would like to say no, but I’m not sure. It would really depend on how the material was being presented. If it was no secret that writers were supplying the information or if there were a few personal posts or tweets in between and others knew. I could live with that.
When would I refuse a writing project?
Adult content pays a lot of money. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot more than any other topic, generally speaking of course. Would I take these projects? Anyone who looks at my copywriting services page knows I won’t take adult content. I also won’t take anything that could wind me up in jail.
I’m no prude and I even enjoy the odd romance novel (ok, ok, more than just the odd one…Ok, fine, pretty much any of them that gives an image of Fabio on the cover. If he’s wearing chainmail and swinging a sword, all the better.) I just would never feel right about writing them myself. Also, in my opinion, there is a big difference between a romance novel and all-out porn.
I have nothing against the porn industry. I mean, if you are involved either in the production or on the buying side, that’s fine. It’s completely your choice. It just isn’t something I choose to be involved in.
For me, it’s all about morals and respect. Think about this: you’re in the middle of writing some smutty article and you look up to see your kid standing right there…yeah. It just isn’t going to happen.
I had trouble writing for a women’s lingerie company. Still not something I write with my kid around, but my opinion on lingerie is that it’s all about building self-confidence in the women who wear it; it has nothing to do with guys.
What about you? Do your morals and values enter into your writing? Does it dictate what you write about something, or what subjects you take on?
(image for today’s post taken by striatic)
For the Writer | 4 comments
