AN ACCUMULATION OF SMALL THINGS

500 words for $2 and a smack in the teeth

2012-02-09T13:41:00.003Z

I know I keep going on and on and on and on and ON about it but I'm sick of seeing these "write 500 words for $2 and we will reward you with regular visceral flayings and hang you upside down by your ankles over a vat of boiling vomit until you reduce your fees even further, to like, $0.35 per 1,000 and we can't say fairer than that."

Look, I KNOW. It's a global thing. People can write cheap if their costs of living are cheap. In comparison to ours, that is.

And yes. I know. Avoid those cheapskates as you would a collection of festering buboes. Don't even go there. And I don't, unless it's to marvel at the scintillating people skills some of these buyers have. "You must have expertise! We want expert copy! No grammer [sic] errers! [sic]. NO PLAGRISM! [sic] It must pass Copyscape or we will come round to ur house and rip ur ears off and eat them and then roast ur children alive and eat them too!"

You just know that these vermin are going to bitch about your copy, question every invoice, refuse to pay you for your work (while keeping your articles for uploading elsewhere) and turn your life into a pit of writhing, venomous snakes with anger issues.

Every time I see one these loathsome things on somewhere like PPH or Elance I'm amazed by the number of people in the UK, the States, and Europe bidding for the damn jobs. They're paying the buyers, really they are. Factor in the costs of writing - even if you're doing it to make a few squiddlies here and there - electricity, heating, wear and tear on your computer ... Even if you live somewhere cheaper, you're intending to work for people who think you're one genetic leap down from a bucket of three-weeks-old mouldering giblets.

I blame Al Gore, since he claimed once to have invented the internet. The modes of supply, demand and delivery have forever changed the way writers find markets and buyers find commercial copy. Now we're all in the same wrestling ring and the only winning strategies are to either stick to print magazines and journals who haven't yet reduced their own rates to bowls of gruel every Friday, or find online buyers who appreciate a fine turn of phrase and rain cash down upon you in return for your glittering creative skills. Anything else is just a dentist's appointment waiting to happen.

Image: http://www.hasslefreeclipart.com

jeez .. $77 for a free list of writing sites?

2010-09-21T19:10:00.003+01:00

So there I was, skipping round the web, updating my FB and making rude comments, and landed on this advert for freelance writing.

First flag o'danger? "No experience necessary". Yeaaaaright.

Second flag o'danger? $77 membership per month. What the .. surely there is some marvellous new opportunity here of which we knew nothing. But no ...

Third flag o'danger: "Start Getting Paid To Write Today!" Today? You get paid today? You start writing today? You start thinking about writing today? You think about writing and start getting paid today? No, no, no, no, and errrr no.

See, what they're doing is suggesting that if you pay them $4.95 as an introductory fee, you will immediately begin a freelance writing career with no experience. Imagine that! What it actually is, is a resource list of websites where you apply and bid and take your chances, and if you're lucky and you can write, you can make money. So they get your money, and you get ..... nothing, particularly if you have no experience, apart from a list of sites that you can pick up anywhere free as air. (Check out my list further down the page on the right.)

To elaborate: in their Top Jobs of the Month they list Suite 101 as a possible source. Now, at Suite, you need to apply and be accepted before you can start writing. They have a strict vetting process and not everyone gets in, so that idea falls flat on its back, out cold, and doesn't get up before the count.

So, let us return to the drawing board. What's this? "Get paid to write at eHow". Well, since Demand Studios owns eHow and supplies all the material, you're going to have to apply to Demand Studios. See above for Suite applications and add "ditto".

Rinse, and repeat.

If I was a really, really cynical person I might suggest that these guys are fleecing people who are desperate to earn money in the middle of a recession, by acting as a conduit to riches despite the fact that they're encouraging people with no writing experience. But I'm not, so I won't. That wasn't really me being cynical and wishing outfits like this weren't able to get their ads accepted so that people will get all excited about nothing and lose money in the hope that they will be instantly successful despite the clever little caveats on the site.I

If it was that easy, don't you think everyone would be doing it?

The Queen, Marmite, and the Face of Hate

2010-07-23T00:11:00.001+01:00

Well whodathunk. Nick Griffin, Head Hoodlum of the BNP, has been denied access to Her Maj's garden party because guess what. He went round the meeja crowing about the fact he'd been invited. Her Maj's advisers decided that having the Head Hoodlum near the spoons and the other guests might prove to be a big issue. Not to mention, they say, that any guest who turned their invitation into a political event would feel an equerry's boot up their backside and be banned from the bunfight. So Griffin got all dressed up in his freshly ironed soup and fish for nothing. Awww.

Oh! And just to add a little kick to the occasion, there's a little aside in that article which reveals that Unilever, who manufacture Marmite, and who were righteously displeased when Griffin used their product on his party political broadcasts, have successfully sued the BNP for £170,000. Griffin denies this of course. Well he would wouldn't he.

At least Her Maj and her guests can cluster round the cucumber sandwiches and scones without coming face to face with the Face of Hate. It could quite put you off your Darjeeling.

easy as falling off a horse

2010-06-29T00:10:00.002+01:00

Is that the time? Doesn't life flash past when you're trying to deal with it .. ho hum.

Anyway. After listening to the budget, and then yesterday watching England play marbles (badly) at Bloemfontein, there needs to be only one more thing to complete the hat trick to make it a truly flamin' June for the UK. Then July will be simply spiffing.

Been on the sick list for a while and am slowly crawling back into the saddle again. I may need to tie myself on just to be sure - just for a while - but these Fingers of Fun are limbering up ready to hammer out words of various lengths interspersed with carefully selected punctuation and drizzled with just the right amount of pith and moment. Time I started earning again after a few months of near inactivity.

This is a lovely quiet area. I have a lovely quiet flat. There are no crazymakers around (fans of The Artist's Way will know exactly what I mean). Library up the road, shop around the corner.

What is so odd is that writing is the only thing I ever want to do and yet - after this gap - I can barely put an article together. It's only temporary. Fear probably. That fleabitten, sadistic old hag of an internal editor making the most of the fallow period. However. I have plans for her. As well as some strong duct tape and a gag.

stop press! cameron grasps age-old concept of elections

2010-04-30T13:04:00.003+01:00

"If we don't deliver our side of the bargain, vote us out in five years' time."

Thus is good old Dave attempting to win the trust and votes of a swathe of householders being targeted by the Tory Party in a last ditch rush to secure the comfy chairs in No. 10. Such is his utter faith in his ability to get real and grasp the fundamentals of what the populace really want, he has persuaded himself that his "contract" with the electorate, i.e. that they can vote the Tories out in five years if they don't get things right, is nothing short of groundbreaking. Actually it's nothing short of the bleedin' obvious.

Photo credit: Christian Guthier
CC Att.

They probably don't teach this sort of thing where he went to school, but here's the thing. That's the whole point of elections. To vote out the fools who've made a mess of things, to make way for a (hopefully) better shower of blighters. You don't get in and stay in by some kind of droit de seigneur.

It's that entitlement thing coming out, isn't it. That whole thing about the Conservatives being the only ones who know how to run a country (perhaps whilst leaning over a crenellation, declaiming to the peasants). Old Dave may not yet realise this yet, but privileged backgrounds do not a natural leader make, and if he thinks he's offering those householders something brand new and squeaky clean, he's either completely solid between the ears or he thinks they are.

Those of us who grew up the normal way, i.e. without using cutlery polished to a high shine by the butler, know what a democracy is supposed to be about, how it works, and how you get rid of the people who are making a complete pig's ear of running the country. That is, of course, unless the party you're trying to drag out of the front door is shored up by big business, millionaires, the banks, the aristocracy, and anyone else in whose interests it is to keep their collective feet on the necks of the lowest paid and least privileged, and to keep their own purses fat. Look how long it took to shift Thatcher.

Look at the legacy she left - and it will be more of the same but with different labels if old Dave gets the keys. Shudder.

BNP smears Marmite - shock horror probe

2010-04-22T14:00:00.003+01:00

The party of hate has had its collective chin well and truly smacked. The BNP having commandeered Marmite, the love-or-hate-it yeast spread beloved of and reviled by swathes of Brits, and slapped it on their election videos as a sort of pathetic attempt at humour (don't give up the day jobs, guys), Marmite has got up on its hind legs and has said categorically that it is not aligned to any political party and the BNP should take it off their campaigning materials forthwith. Immediately even. If not sooner. And how dare they.

Not only that but Unilever are considering taking out an injunction against Griffin and his little racists.

I'd like to say Griffin's little mob is toast because a joke is there somewhere .. smear? something to do with smearing Marmite's good name? oh never mind. But yes, if Unilever could see their way clear to slapping on costs for defamation or character assassination by association or loss of business because of negative publicity that would be fine by me.

write like someone's life depended on it ..

2010-04-21T13:36:00.002+01:00

Writers, artists, bank managers, secretaries, gardeners, social workers, shop assistants, doctors, everyone. Seize your keyboards and get the Amnesty Vid WORDS up to the top of the Webby Award hit parade. Oh and watch it too. Write a letter. Write six.

Vote on the Amnesty site.

dib dib dib

2010-04-21T11:58:00.000+01:00

Olafur Grimsson, Iceland's President, has spelt it out. Katla is likely to erupt within six months given its historical patterm over the centuries.

Here's my question. Now that European business is forewarened and forearmed, are they going to put measures in place so that when when and if Katla erupts, the poor bloody taxpayers (us) aren't footing the bill for the airlines losing money - again?

Howzabout we plan ahead. Have a Plan A, B, C and D, rather than no plan at all and relying on the whim of the moment. Might help.

Me, I can never understand why governments aren't ready with alternative plans when they've had notice - sometimes years ahead - that crisis is going to happen. Look at the recent snows we've had in Scotland. Not enough grit. Not enough salt. We're a northern European country and winters are likely to have ..... (gasp) ..... SNOW. If there aren't enough storage facilities above ground to make sure we have enough next time we have a pretty average fall of snow, then either build them underground - a hole in the ground will do, or negotiate better and quicker transport deals so that we're not caight short - again - and having to pay over the odds - again - for fresh supplies and transport costs.

Is it too much to ask that as well as all these management gurus and consultants we invest some time as a group of countries into risk management? Who in their right minds thought that air travel wouldn't need to adapt to climatic changes over time. Given that a jet airliner's engines clogged up with molten glass 18 years ago after flying through volcanic ash, and that there have been many, many less publicised and similar events since then, wouldn't you think they'd have assessed the future risks and incorporated some kind of filter to protect the engines? Or is it a case of "someone else will pay 'cos we're not investing in better technology otherwise it will affect our yearly dividends".

A letter to the hopeful MPs round the country would be in order to see where they stand on bailing out the airline companies, because no doubt they will try to blame the government, NATS, God, and anyone else they think they can squeeze for a handout.

baying for bailouts

2010-04-19T14:07:00.004+01:00

At 08:42 on Monday 19 April 2010, the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston alerts us all to the following: "Ministers are telling me that a Europe-wide financial support scheme for the airline industry - funded by taxpayers - is a very live issue." More coverage here on the BBC website

Pardonnez-moi, first it was the banks we were bailing out and now it's the airlines? What do they think we are, cashpoints?

"Oh this pesky no-fly thing. We've run out of money! Hang on we'll just run round the corner and squeeze some cash out of the gullible electorates in a range of European countries and stiff them with the bill. Back in a sec. Mine's a G&T."

No. Hear that? No.

Guess what! The airlines thought that if they jumped up and down and threw their toys out of their prams, like the banks, that they could get the same bailout deal too. Why should the people of Europe stump up the cash? Why should we be used to set a precedent for bailing out every damn company that loses money in a crisis. Perhaps the airlines should claim insurance - but oh wait, wait, the insurance companies say this is an Act of God so no payouts.

By happy accident we're having a general election shortly in the UK. I can feel another election question coming on and we'll soon see who's strong enough to stand up for the citizens of the UK against the airlines who didn't have enough oil stored for their lamps.

ash or cheque will do fine

2010-04-19T02:30:00.010+01:00

And there was Gordon Brown demanding that Iceland repay the vast sums lost in the Icelandic bank crash and using anti-terrorism clauses in the Crime and Security Act 2001 as a bludgeon. Perhaps Gordon didn't realise there's no 'c' in the Icelandic alphabet ..

Irony apart, maybe this is something we'd better get used to. According to National Geographic of 16 April 2010 the ash plume is likely to be hanging around for a while and may continue to be produced by Eyjafjallajökullover over the coming weeks or months. We just have to hope, for safety's sake of the Icelanders, if not for northern Europe and beyond, that Katla doesn't blow too, though if it's gonna blow it's gonna blow and it's gonna happen sooner or later. Floods, decimation of Iceland's communities, vast ash clouds. Doesn't bear thinking about, but hey. That's Nature for you. However important we think we are, we're squashable by geophysical activity at any time whether or not we're wearing Armani suits, negotiating trade deals or watching our kids play in the sun and there's not a lot we can do about it apart from value the time we have.

Talking of which, have you noticed the strange and beautiful cloud patterns of recent days? Now that we don't have airliners slicing through the sky and carving them up, we're getting some particularly beautiful shapes and sculptures that look like feathers or artfully designed chalk marks. This is the first time in - how many decades? - that we're seeing the skies as they should look and not as they have been courtesy of the airline industry. You really don't know what you've got til it's gone.

You've noticed of course how the airline giants are getting restive and peevish and rattling their piggy banks and taking their planes up for a spin to check the extent of damage if they do so. That's it boys, way to go, profit before passenger safety. The reports of one airline pilot whoseThat plane nearly ditched in 1982 after flying through volcanic ash and all four engines shutting down seem to be falling on deaf ears, as, interestingly, do the latest details from NATO (19 April 2010 12:07) who say that a fighter jet's engines have been damaged while flying through volcanic ash. The only airline not suffering financially appears to be Easyjet, who have millions in fallback funds and can continue to exist even with a six month drop in business.

In another National Geographic article, this time of 23 March 2010, it's suggested that it is the thinness of the troposphere that has contributed to the volcanic ash rising so high in Iceland. This explains why aircraft are not so badly affected elsewhere in the world because the ash plumes do not rise as high and invade airspace where jetliners cruise, and why the possibility of further eruptions in Iceland are likely to have further devastating effects on air travel in the northern hemisphere. My sympathies lie with the Icelandic people though, whose existence and livelihoods are likely to suffer horribly if there are further eruptions from Eyjafjallajökullover, triggering an eruption in Katla - or perhaps Hekla.

Ironic that it takes a volcanic eruption to do what years of campaigning and green research has failed to do - put a halt on air travel - and it will be fascinating to see what data comes out of this, although it's likely to be compromised by the polluting effects of the ash plume.

Off to watch the clouds and listen to the birdsong.

let them eat quails' eggs and caviar

2010-04-16T00:38:00.008+01:00

(Brilliant) Image credit: Mongo

There will have come a time in David Cameron's day today when he wished he'd stayed home to quell the serfs. Limping away from the podium at the first ever national televised political debate between the LibDem, Labour and Tory party leaders, the only possible comforting solace for him, deriving from his warm, cosy memories of Eton, might have lain in his having been soundly thrashed.

Eager to present himself as a man fit for Number 10, his accounts of meeting this person, and that person, and yet another person trying to get away before being used as a convenient soundbyte, seemed as though delivered by a freshly-moisturised-baby's-bum-faced boy sent to the headmaster's study eager to secure a prefect's badge and snitch on Carruthers Minor.

He reminded us eight times of his children in case anyone doubted his ability to do anything vaguely similar to the average human being in Britain, and spoke with breathless surprise of having met a black man in Portsmouth. This man, he reported with astonishment - "even he" (Cameron's italics) thought the immigration situation in Britain was out of control. You can see why Cameron would have been so agog, having been raised in the rarefied atmosphere of the aristocracy and finding himself talking face to face with a man who surely must have been an immigrant, what with having black skin and all and yet pronouncing on Britain's border controls. Imagine.

All was not lost however, despite what you might think. Having been trounced by the other blighters on stage, he was bolstered by the ministrations and support of the blue rinsed, the chinless and the squeakily and cleanly scrubbed acolytes who received him into their collective bosom. Valiantly they tweeted to a yawning void how well he did, how he won, how he came first in the debate. Later they retired to read of unicorns and a flat earth and a moon made of cheese.

Ding ding. Round two ....

get your grubby mitts off my article

2010-04-14T20:34:00.009+01:00

Gif from Free Clip Art

Plagiarism is theft. Those of us who write our own articles, research them carefully, spend time getting them just so, making sure they're accurate, with references given and sources cited, do not take kindly to finding chunks of our articles - or complete articles - sitting on someone else's website under someone else's name.

It happens a lot of course, and there are many good ways of finding those sites where one's articles are pinned up without permission, and often all you need do is point out the copyright violation and it's down within the day. Sometimes people really don't know what they can and can't do and will put things right lickity-split, and it's usually the case that your name is also there so they're not actually claiming ownership.

The problem arises when they're getting affiliate advertising income from your article, and thereby reducing the income that you should be getting. Not to mention that taking the whole thing is rather sticking their tongue out at your notice saying that republication online or in print requires written permission.

The most recent find was a cobbling together of someone's bits of information together with large verbatim chunks from one of my articles. After leaving a couple of comments over a couple of days, each one disappearing from view the next day, and my resorting to pointing out that Wordpress, their blog host, takes a very dim view of copyright theft, it transpires that the "writer" was this guy's "employee". Looks like the threat of a DMCA letter made the point where a polite comment didn't, but I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt first.

Hopefully the "employee" (ahem) will be treading a little more carefully in future. Meanwhile I continue to keep an eye on my online work and protect my affiliate income.

There are some decent plagiarism checkers out there - the main one being Copyscape. There's also Article Checker, Google Alerts, Plagiarism Checker, and Plagiarism Detect. Many more of course but a regular check with two or three of these will keep the bloodhounds sniffing out the less scrupulous websites out there and rescuing your stolen articles.

Oh and I found the perfect dawg toon .. thank you Jeff Bucchino, "The Wizard of Draws"!!

wrecking balls and sledgehammers

2010-04-13T19:14:00.003+01:00

For the first time since my personal website saw the light of day a few years ago, it's being dragged through a hedge forwards. Time it got spruced up, overhauled, rewritten and revamped. So, no more static images and short story samples. No more dust. A bit of Googlejuice needed to keep its Google rank slipping further down - I was a 2 and now it's slid to 1 for Pete's sake! because I don't keep feeding Google's giant maw with new material.

So. New site will be three pages including the home page. No pictures, no lists of creative outpourings. I'm sort of dragging my feet a bit because this a bit like selling the family pile and buying a caravan, and maybe there does need to be a space for that poetry and fiction and some photographs. Or not. OK yes. No! Oh God.

Perhaps I'll stick on an awning.

Keep you posted.

Image of Roald Dahl's caravan: George Mahoney under CC License

tories dance to whatever tune is played

2010-04-13T18:26:00.005+01:00

David Cameron under CC licence

You could be forgiven for thinking that David Cameron has discovered a new seam of inspiration and social conscience since he first began shouting at the country to vote for him and trashing everyone else. After an initial burst on the economy and a desire to rein in the deficit, he has now started going on about people government. He quotes Kennedy. He echoes Martin Luther King. He goes on about a new kind of politics which is different to what's been served up in the past.

Now, let me just think. Tories kept out of power for thirteen years. Check. Tories desperate to use any tactics that might appeal to a worn down and jaded population, no matter what they'll change after the election. Check. Suggesting change. Check. Community action. Check.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so blatant. Cameron is transparent in trying to cash in on the success of a far greater politician who, in complete contrast, is passionate about doing the right thing and has been walking the talk for far longer than Cameron has even noticed.

President Obama under CC License

Yes, we knew we'd heard those messages about change and community action before, delivered to a country that was desperate for change, for respect, for leadership that worked on behalf of the nation and not for its own selfish interests. We've all heard Mr Obama making those election pledges to a nation desperate to hear them. We've all seen the pedigree of Mr Obama and his almost lifelong dedication to working on behalf of those who don't have a voice or any political clout.

Cameron just doesn't have that credibility. Not a whiff of it. Changing tack, altering political direction, adjusting message and mission several times throughout the campaign, so that you no longer have a clear idea of what the Tories stand for or if they will even stay with what they promise. Slagging off the opposition so as to make every speech he makes almost too irritating to hear - and that goes for all of them of course.

We're sick to the molars of political rhetoric that relies on bashing everyone else, right wing politicians altering their shape like changelings to try to fit what they think the public will be tricked into accepting, and forever forgetting the folk at the bottom of the pile. As for asking everyone to become part of at least one community action, that might sound vaguely noble if Cameron had spent much of his life spending his time helping the disadvantaged, the poor, the homeless. But he hasn't. He hasn't lifted a finger to champion the underprivileged.

He might be interested to learn, by the way, that vast armies of people already volunteer their services and make communities tick. As for suggesting neighbourhoods could buy up post offices threatened with closure - expect more post office closures under a Tory government. And maybe he doesn't realise that community initiatives take more than a couple of meetings and a plate of sausage rolls - they take years to implement because it's not community apathy but government intransigence that leads people to take action to make things happen.

Really, does the man have the smallest clue about life in this country?

Obama, in distinct contrast, has every idea how his country works and what it needs. That's why he was successful in winning the Presidency, because he walked the talk, never trashed the opposition, and gave his life experience in the communities as an example to others to make his country a better place.

Cameron is such a poor shadow of someone he wishes to emulate in the hope that no-one will notice.

no toffs, no Tories, no chinless twits

2010-04-04T21:46:00.007+01:00

Cameron must be doing the face palm thing round about now. Just when you're trying to frighten the country by saying a hung parliament will be the ruin and death of us all, and the thought of winning the coming election is making your voice sound cracked and desperate (please! please please! vote for me! I really really really want to be PM!), along comes Chris Grayling and ruins the political image you've been cultivating so carefully.

Grayling thinks it's perfectly acceptable for people with"genuinely held religious beliefs" to refuse B&B facilities to gay couples. When did we last see something like this? Oh yes. No blacks, no Irish. And what's a "genuinely held" religious belief when it's at home. Would a B&B owner have to provide written confirmation that they are indeed of the faith which underpins their smallmindedness? If I was gay I could have fun with that. "I don't believe you're a Christian at all. You'll have to prove it." Wheel in the Archbishop of Canterbury as moderator and then see them sweat.

Image: rafanandra under CC license

Anyway, back to Grinning Grayling and his gang. Tories appear to have about as much in common with the common man and woman as a pig does with a bar of Fairy soap. What with , nepotism and the vast private incomes of some of this crowd you can guarantee that their focus will be on them and their needs, and not on the majority of people in the country who can barely make ends meet any more, let alone provide luxury pieds-a-terre for families of ducks at the taxpayers' expense.

It's these little slips - like the Grayling gaffe - that give them away at inopportune moments and reveal them to be who they truly are. We can only be grateful for the galloping gob of the Shadow Home Secretary for reminding us what they stand for. Their own interests, and their own small minded bigotry.

That's not to say the other parties have much to say for themselves. The Labour Party is spinning on its own axis, and the Liberal Democrats are refusing all dangerous liaisons and will probably end up third again. Anybody else hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of making it half way along the racetrack let alone crossing the finish line.

However, none of the other parties are presenting themselves as something that they're not, and what you see is pretty much what you get. I'd rather that any day, than risk the prospect of even a single day under the self serving residents of Smith Square.

don't let the door hit you on your way out

2010-04-04T12:23:00.003+01:00

Image: Anton Raath under CC Licence

Eugene Terre'Blanche, white supremacist and passionate campaigner against rights, reason and human decency, met his end on 3 April 2010.

St Peter, warned in advance of Terre'Blanche's application for admittance, has spoken frankly. "Are you nuts?" he said. "The last thing we need is Mr Congeniality shooting the place up. Although, I'm rather looking forward to staring this guy in the face. Seeing as I'm black."

When asked if Hell might be a more suitable place for Terre'Blanche, who allegedly became a born again Christian in prison several years beforehand and yet continued to beat and harass members of the black community, St Peter was not hopeful. "We've had talks with the Lower Reaches. The draft administrative details of his particular eternal damnation are going to put serious strain on the availability of fire and brimstone." He added, "however, there's always the option of doubling him up with Hitler."

spring is sprung, the grass is ..... buried under a foot of snow

2010-03-30T07:34:00.008+01:00

Look, this is supposed the be the the 30th day of March with spring flowers bursting into colour and birdies building nests and tweeting sweetly. Up and about early this morning and opened the back door to let some air in .... WTF!!! freezing blasts of cold air, and thick snow. These pics were taken at 6.30 ack emma under hazardous conditions (i.e. no socks on). OK to be fair we were warned. But I forgot. Anyway here are the pictures I risked frostbite for.

See what I mean? I know for a fact that Chaucer's pilgrims didn't have to worry about a thick fall of snow on their way to Canterbury, not with Chaucer chirping on about April and her showers and green shoots shooting.

I gather most of Scotland has had snow dumped on it overnight, so that'll be fun. This is nothing new though - I remember several decades ago it was snowing in May in London - not much, grant you, but enough for me to plan snowmen and beg to be let out. I might just as well have kept my mouth shut but there you go.

I was expecting someone to visit me today about some council stuff but I've sent her an email to say don't drive in this - 20 miles to get to me and no fun if you get stuck in a snowdrift, because some of the open country between me and them will be wind- and snow-swept. There really is no point in driving if you don't have to, so take note and stay indoors if you can.

So toodlus pippus. I'm in need of a strong cup of tea.

sum picks

2010-03-17T22:34:00.002Z

that's it - I'm switching off

2010-03-13T17:18:00.005Z

... on 27 March 2010 from 8.30 - 9.30 p.m. I'm one of the biggest cynics around but I think this little action is worth it, if only to make more people aware of the issues behind it. Millions can make a difference. Just look at how many countries are involved, and what's being done.

"92 countries and regions around the world have now made the pledge for Earth Hour to show the world what can be done to fight climate change, with Honduras the latest nation to have official Earth Hour recognition. Last year 88 countries got involved in the lights out event. "

"With confirmation that the Tokyo Tower in Tokyo and Brandenburg Gate in Berlin will both turn off their lights for Earth Hour, all members of the G20 are now taking part in the event.

Countries and regions involved for the first time include the remote island nation of Madagascar, Kosovo, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Paraguay, Ecuador and the US Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands in the Pacific Ocean amongst others."

more? MORE?

2010-03-09T22:14:00.002Z

If one site attracting good writers wasn't enough, along comes another one. Introducing The Wittery, where writers with serious wit are encouraged to sign up and sell their seriously witty words to the world.

Again, this is a site that doesn't just accept every shambling tramp who bursts through the doors. Applications from writers are vetted, and portfolios scrutinised for marketing know-how, wit, verve and experience.

A minimum provider's fee is being introduced so as to discourage those shady characters we all know and despise, who demand work at a rate of three fistfuls of elephant dung per 1000 words. They are politely shown the door. Only bona fide buyers with verifiable email addresses are allowed in to the executive lounge for a refreshing glass of Scotch and a cigar and a read through the papers. There will be a buyer's membership fee too, although currently the site is moving through from beta stage to offering a free membership trial for a short period to buyers seeking witty work.

The potential is staggering. Now that Google is about to thrash sites that don't have regularly updated content, the market is going to fill up with requests for copy, and the word on the wire is that wit is the perky new trend on the block. The Wittery may be about wit and comedy but has extremely serious ambitions for cornering the market in the wittiest marketing copy around.

constant work and content writers

2010-03-09T21:28:00.006Z

Image: Suzanne Bosworth

Finding a site that looks after its writers and encourages them to charge the going rate for their work is like finding a frozen lemon sorbet in the middle of the Mojave Desert on a hot day.

Constant Content is not for the faint hearted. The vetting process is tough and the editor's red pen is in more use than some new writers may be used to. Many and loud, and sometimes high pitched, are the posts in the forum from writers whose work has been rejected, and who have been politely told that their work needs to improve before they can have their articles accepted. Grammar, spelling, clarity: the whole caboodle is top priority here and buyers pay for exceptional work. Those whose standards just aren't up to the job don't get to reapply.

Every single article submitted for sale is checked by the editor, and not every article gets through. It may be something as simple as a mix up in punctuation, or it may be something harder for someone to find and correct, such as incorrect use of language or even a single word, but proofreading is up to the writer and copy must be ready for publication when it hits the editor's desk.

The benefits of the site, however, are worth every drop of blood let in the writing of an article. Regular sales to buyers who recognise and value good writing, depending of course on the kind of subject areas you tackle. If you post it they will come, whether it's within the next two minutes or the next two months, or perhaps within twelve, so the idea is to amass a good library of your own articles ready for browsing by buyers looking for exceptional content. There is of course the steady stream of buyers posting their requests for work. No bidding. I'll repeat that. NO BIDDING.

If you have excellent writing skills and you're looking for online writing gigs, Constant Content could be just the place for you. Come on. Come and have a look.

robin hood's very merry bankers

2010-02-28T12:51:00.009Z

Image: jere-me under CC license

What does everyone think about this Robin Hood tax. Call me a cynical sceptic, but if this tax is made law, I can expect just about every bank to find a loophole, transfer all their trading arms overseas and put two fingers up to their customers and the government.

Given their reluctance to forego their vast bonuses for a job incredibly badly done and not even turn a well coiffeured forelock at the thought, how likely is it that they're going to become saintly philanthropists overnight? Not a chance. It is not those filthy rich rats who will be paying this tax, it'll be you and me who are going to end up paying it via megahiked charges, that's who.

It works well in theory. Banks pay a 0.05% tax on all their business transactions so as to raise (by the latest calculations) over £100bn pounds annually to further finance the NHS, education, global warming initiatives, and overseas aid.

Oh I can definitely see that happening. Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

The saving grace of the campaign, by my standards at least, is the casting of Bill Nighy as the banker in the campaign video. That at least takes my focus away from my lack of trust in the banking system for about three and a half minutes.

"infamy! infamy! they've all ..

2010-02-23T17:03:00.007Z

... got it in for me!" Thus might Ms Pratt muse upon her swift decline from the dizzy heights of anti-bullying charity status, her Trustees swarming off the boat like rats off a proverbial.

Personally I have no reservations about her having stood up for herself in the past against people who thought they could push her around. It's not a stick to beat someone with, that they have done so; many in the Conservative party (oh and the Daily Mail - yawn - surprise) appear to think it's not OK to do it more than once. Surely the fact that she had to resort to making official complaints suggest that workplaces are not ideal and that bullying, racism, sexism and everything equally unacceptable still goes on despite efforts to eradicate them.

No, my gripe is her opening her big mouth and chewing up the people who sought help with bullying in the workplace, and who phoned her charity because they trusted the charity not to go public with the information. Opening her big mouth made the situation even more difficult for those employees - they went to her charity because clearly they weren't being helped at work. Opening her big mouth sabotaged the efforts of other anti-bullying charities, because now people are wondering if their worries will be made public too. Opening her big mouth showed she was prepared to put her own interests above those of the people who trusted her - thrown to the wolves is I think how the cliche goes. She betrayed people's trust and added to their existing problems. Then complains that Number 10 is bullying her.

If that wasn't bad enough, what's even worse is that she is going to release confidential emails (on the unpaid advice of Max Clifford) to prove what she's been saying. Nice work, Ms Pratt. Never mind the dread and the worry of those who confided in you, you're going to splash their names all over the press.

Nice work, if you're a Tory out to nail the Prime Minister. Oh come on, course she is - or at least, a Tory gopher.

I wonder if she is laying herself open to legal action, you know, breach of confidentiality and all that, and Max Clifford could represent them once he's tied up the loose ends with Ms Pratt. What an interesting thought.

Anyway, here's a nice little tome for Ms Pratt should she find herself without anything to read on the bus. The section on confidentiality will be completely new to her of course, but I always say you're never too much of an expert to take on new concepts and to stretch your horizons. If she just takes that section slowly, one word at a time, she could grasp the basic fundamentals.

As for the Trustees who have skipped off the boat, they might have done so a lot earlier had those emails about improper practices and capitalising on people's distress been acted on sooner. The employees who sought Ms Pratt's services might not now be chewing their nails and believing they can't trust anyone any more.

One dreads to think what kind of pressures they're going to be put under now at Number 10 from Human Resources, who should have been more "robust" (I planned to use that word at least once in this post .. ROBUST) in how they dealt with day to day pressures among staff. Disciplining managers ain't enough. You need to instill a working atmosphere that allows open communication and nip things in the bud before managers start bawling out their staff. Just a hint.

Photo: Laverrue under CC Att Licence

fresh squid

2010-02-14T05:50:00.001Z

It seems apt to have a pic of a butter dish, since I am about to talk about the site currently hosting my How to Make Great Bread piece, because they pay. That's not strictly accurate - you earn residuals as you do on Suite, but here it's on PVs on an equal share with Da Management.

The great thing about Squidoo is that you can write in first or second person whereas Suite and the usual traditional print markets are third only with very occasional exceptions, and of course you can write about absolutely anything you like.

You can write about your new shoes, or make a Christmas wish list, or wax lyrical about baseball, but the main thing is to write well, get those keywords working their backsides off for you, and promote.

Being a Twitter virgin I'm only now dipping in a small toe, but get the subject and the marketing strategy right and this Squidoo thang could push its tentacles quite a way.

another star bows out - alexander mcqueen

2010-02-11T21:52:00.002Z

It's a tough way to go. Who knows how things were. People don't last forever do they, and we all go at some point, whether by our own hand or courtesy of the old ticker that finally does its last tock.

People like McQueen add colour and vibrancy and inspiration if we have minds open enough to acknowledge it. He added spectacle, dash and in your face extravagence and he paid attention to the people he saw in the street and showcased them on the catwalks with his outrageous clothes. None of this fake mystique. He just grabbed ideas with both fists and flung them out for us all to revel in.

Wherever you are now, Mr McQueen, I hope they've got the antlers ready. Their gain. Our loss.

Just to remind ourselves of the man's creative genius and vision, here's a replay of the famous Kate Moss hologram from 2006.

who is writing college essays for money

2010-02-07T01:30:00.001Z

What's with this growing trend for college students to pay freelance writers to write their college essays for them?

Why do some writers think it's OK to help someone cheat though their college course, deprive a student of the chance to learn or to deal with their coursework load or to get their college certificate or degree honestly?

Just recently there was someone asking for exactly this service on one of those freelance writing sites. Not only was this person a medical student but he had been caught out for plagiarism in his first effort at this essay and was now desperate to get someone to rewrite it for him so that it would pass TurnItIn. The onus, incidentally, was on the writer to access TurnItIn via the student's personal code, and check themselves that it passed 100%.

There are two issues here. The first is the ethics of the thing - cheating, lying and barefaced deception are being provided as a gift-wrapped service by someone calling themselves a professional writer. Professional? I don't think so. "Professional" means more than the fact that you earn your money writing. It also means a professional attitude towards the profession: following personal policies of honesty and integrity in one's writing, avoiding plagiarism like .. well, the plague, respecting the work of other writers by acknowledging sources.

The second issue is that clearly colleges are not keeping up to date with the students - why are students resorting to cheating? Is it that easy to hand in work written by someone else?

Are the students overworked? Are they trying to keep two or three jobs on the go as well as studying? Are they just plain lazy and want an easy way through their course?

Option three seemed to be that student's motivation. Given all the alternatives to cheating, i.e. talking to his tutor, asking for an extension, talking to the college counsellor, or writing the damn thing anyway, he said it was his choice to spend his money how he pleased and he wasn't bothered about doing the work as long as he could turn in an essay that would pass TurnItIn. This student, may I just remind you, is training to become a doctor.

Maybe colleges and universities need to check a little more thoroughly to make sure that an essay has actually been written by the student who handed it in. Isn't that rather easy, if you just ask a student about his sources and references?

ghostwriters ghostbusted

2010-01-03T17:34:00.002Z

Just shows that when you're doing dodgy work that you're getting paid well for but you think no-one will ever find out about, they will. Here's an interesting piece on the Public Library of Science website: Ghostwriting: the Dirty Little Secret of Medical Publishing That Just Got Bigger that exposes the grubby work of medical ghostwriters hired to write biased material based on the diktats of pharmaceutical companies. To quote, it was material "written by unacknowledged professional medical writers in which the message, tone, and content had been determined by the company but the paper was subsequently nominally “authored” by respected academics—in sum a coordinated and carefully monitored campaign of ghostwriting."

Nobody really expects squeaky clean ethics throughout the world and as for a moral imperative guiding all of us as a cohesive global community to bigger and better things for the good of humanity, it ain't gonna happen.

But come on. Somewhere along the line, medical writers gained some practical background and experience in a medical field in order for them to find work as medical writers. This may seem like a frivolous point to them, but surely there would have been an expectation that they adhered to codes of ethics in those medical employments? What happened to those ethics in their transition from doctor or nurse or allied health professional into a medical ghostwriter who for thirty pieces of silver will cheerfully write lies for pharmaceutical companies.

Well yeah, apart from naked greed.

crackers at christmas

2009-12-22T19:39:00.005Z

It's nearly here and I almost didn't notice. The New Year, I mean, not Christmas. I only hope that 2010 is going to be good one, not just for me but for everyone else.

What? New Year Resolutions? Swim to France. Write a book on cars. ~~Marry Gerard Depardieu~~ (Update: sorry Gerard - you blew it by not talking to LeCRAN). That gets me off the hook for not keeping them because they were going to be impossible anyway.

However. Next year needs to be a turning point. Money is usually a word that makes me grip things hard and go white at the knuckles, and to tell the truth I'm tarrrrd of feeling that way. Worn out. On my knees. So for all you people who are also sick of the white-knuckle-ride through yet another year, and for me to have a good old stab at cracking the secret code of fluffy happiness, I've started on some articles about money and why we haven't got any.

No, not the "just save £500 a month, cut back to two crates of Krug a month and everything will be fine" or "speak to your financial advisers about stocks and shares and invest heavily in gold and rare dust from Mars" kinda stuff. Oh, and none of the "make a chart and work out your outgoings and while you're at it do a rhumba with the Easter bunny" guff, either. That comes later.

No, what comes first is working out why people have a blind spot about money and why they've always struggled. I always have, have never known how not to, and it's only at this advanced age (over 50 and that's all you're getting) that I'm beginning to understand why, so with a little help from here and there I'm wanting to end 2010 solvent, out of debt and with a little heap of cash mounting up in the bank.

That gives me twelve months, with some time at the beginning to unpick some of that old destructive conditioning.

This is no mean feat, by the way. Like many others in the same rowboat, I get a physical, very visceral feeling of dread when it comes to dealing with money issues. Sometimes it's fear, as though I'm in a dark, closed room and somewhere in there is someone or something waiting to physically damage me.

I can track it all back. I know where it comes from and why, but the how - the prospect of unpicking it - feels about as easy as it might be to unpick all the red threads in the Bayeux Tapestry without ruining the pictures. It's not about assigning blame, either. This is about changing the way I deal with money so that I'm not affected or driven by what's gone on in the past. It's about time I drove the bus.

Phew. So that's my 2010. How's yours looking like from your end? About as much fun? Keep in touch.

Here's the link to the first article I prepared earlier. It'll answer some of those burning questions like "why do I feel like I'm being dragged over sharp gravel when the bills come in?" and "financial psychology. Isn't that when those "sell your gold" adverts come on and you laugh at the prices they're offering?". Well really. Who are they kidding.

cats rule

2009-11-30T21:33:00.000Z

support amnesty international this december

2009-11-23T15:36:00.004Z

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi by KET

OK writers, keep some time free in December and prepare for an Amnesty International Urgent Action Letter Writing Campaign.

Letters really do help. They tell governments and dictators that people around the world are watching and listening.They tell governments and dictators that it's the people of the world who want change, not governments who may or may not have been fairly elected and who might drag their feet in political change.

Here's what you can do - well in fact I'll simply post the body of Amnesty's email so you can see fer yerselves.

The military rulers of Myanmar have jailed thousands in their efforts to crush all dissent – including prisoner of conscience and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. But the pressure on Myanmar's leaders is building to release Suu Kyi.

Help free Suu Kyi and other high profile human rights defenders during Amnesty International's Global Write-a-thon, the world's largest letter writing event, December 5-13th.

The more letters we send, the better chance we have at setting Aung San Suu Kyi free. Please pledge to write a letter on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi:

Yes, I will write a letter!

In the days surrounding International Human Rights Day – December 10 – Amnesty's global network of activists will send a tidal wave of letters and postcards on behalf of individuals in danger of severe human rights abuse.

We want to make this the best Write-a-thon ever! During last year's Global Write-a-thon, more than 7,000 people in the U.S. pledged to write 200,000 letters in support of our cases. Every year, this worldwide event gets bigger and bigger -- and we expect to top all records this time around.

We've seen prisoners freed and lives spared because your letters make things happen! Just last year, Ma Khin Khin Leh, a school teacher in Myanmar and Hana Abdi, a women's rights advocate in Iran, were both released from prison after Write-a-thon letters overwhelmed their respective government offices.

Together, we can bring justice and human rights back to people who need it. Join the Global Write-a-thon today and show the world that when you stand up for human rights, you never stand alone.

recognising a pig in a poke when you see it

2009-11-01T07:43:00.003Z

Image Hans S

There comes a time in every freelance writer's life when you know that staying on a particular freelance writer site is as sensible as crawling naked on all fours down the fast lane of the M4 in heavy fog, hoping to reach London alive.

There also comes a point when you know that posting up a particular URL on one's blog for other freelance writers who might find it useful is just unkind. Worse - it's downright cruel.

So anyway, and on a completely different subject entirely, iFreelance appears to be having a few administrative problems and isn't able to answer emails making complaints about racism in buyer projects. It seems that whether you post on this subject to the site itself or to the people who manage the site, no answers will be forthcoming, and so I can only imagine that their servers must be down, having coped with the massive influx of new buyers posting new projects.

These buyers are a new and vibrant breed, cutting to the very bone of finance and offering such challenging rates as $0.20 per 500 words. One can only applaud their marketing strategies and look forward to the truly mangled and nonsensical prose which will result from this pact and which will probably end up on one of these article mill sites adding to the general dross and fluff clogging up the imtertubes.

Personally I am lost for words at seeing iFreelance's change in standards, and I am particularly drawn to remark upon iFreelance's fiendishly clever subscription scheme which helps to pad their profit margin. Buyers don't have to subscribe of course, so for them it can be completely free. However - and this is the clever bit - writers pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of helping buyers see what the general market rate is, after which the buyers go away and fill the post somewhere else.

Now that's what I call inspired! Treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen. That's the way to keep writers in their places. Jumped up little squirts who think writing is a craft and have the audacity to charge more than the cost of a pint of milk for a page of researched writing! Whatever next!! Everyone knows that all you need to write an article are the following ingredients:

1. Someone else's article thieved from some random site,

2. Article-spinning software,

3. Five minutes' spare time whilst waiting for the dog to throw up in the garden,

4. The ability to drag the resulting bunch of words through Copyscape before submission.

In fact, iFreelance have managed to adapt their standards to the extent that they can hardly be told apart from GAF!! Amazing!! That's what I call standardisation ...

freelance writing rates and outsourcing

2009-10-27T13:02:00.008Z

Illustration by John Leech

Well look at what we have here. Un petit billet-doux which explains (partly) why freelance writers are treated like so many cattle on bid sites. A little fluttering of printed cambric of the finest denier called the Outsource Report.

Now what's this on page 6 - "How to take advantage of other people to DO ALL THE WORK FOR YOU" .. well yeah 'taking advantage of' can simply mean making use of their resources .. but wait .. 'also, how to pay them a fraction of what you'd normally pay for online projects.' (My emphasis).

See, bidders ( those people in business) will tell you (another person in business) that they have no money (so they want YOU to subsidise THEM) and play on your heart strings and try to make you feel sorry for them (playing the victim, in other words).

Look, if you want a really nice dress you see in the window, you do not go in and say to the salespeople 'Hey, I want that dress but I only have $5. It's not worth any more than that anyway so just hand it over and don't argue.'

Or

'Hey that dress in the window is lovely. I'd really like it but I only have $5. I'm sorry, I just don't have any more money but you'd like to help make me look nice, wouldn't you?'

Or

'Here's $5. I'd like $200 worth of dress please.'

No, none of that works. It doesn't work because if you want something good, you pay for it. You don't try to bully people into accepting less and no-one should be selling their writing for less than it's worth, or devaluing their own skill. Fair enough there are some people around saying they're writers but then you have to go and look at their portfolios and make up your own mind, and I dare them to demand professional rates.

I've even seen a freelance site saying you only need to be able to string a sentence together. And the rates they offer for different standards of work? One of the categories is "legible". I kid you not.

The sooner we can make sure that there are more sites where you can find decent writing, professional writers, and clients who respect the value of a job done professionally, the less chance there will be for these charlatan Scrooges to bully freelancers into working for tuppence a feature.

freelance rates on Odesk

2009-10-22T02:12:00.005+01:00

Image by Scarab

Rates on iFreelance have hit a new low today with one buyer offering $0.20 per 400 word article. Yes that's right. $0.20. They want 25 articles a week at that price, leaving a writer with the total massive sum of $5.

Per week.

Now, that might be acceptable in a country where living costs are so low as to make $5 look like a fortune. I get that. But this buyer isn't even apologising for the low rates and is dangling this $5 a week as though it's a prize: come on, bid if you're tough enough to handle the work.

*eyeroll*

But what's this? An urgent communication from Odesk who are keen to recruit more writers to the fold, and have recently made some big changes in the fee policies for buyers. What? Yes! A rise in the minimum rate for a complete project, and also a rise in the minimum for a max price!

Higher minimum rates? Great stuff! I love it when a site stands up for its writers and requests that buyers pay a fair wage. Makes you want to go and work with them, and feel valu ....

Uhhhh .. wait.

We've made a few small tweaks to job posts. (A) The budget for fixed-price jobs must be at least $5, and (B) the max hourly rate can't be less than $3.

Sigh.

racial discrimination, ifreelance

2009-10-15T01:42:00.008+01:00

Image: Karora

So there you are, sauntering through the offers being hung out of windows by buyers eager to attract the services of passing writers, and you find one buyer who is keen only to attract native speakers of English and refuses to entertain the idea of receiving bids from anyone from India or China.

Huh?

Let me read that again. Oh, OK. He says he will not "except" people from India or China. Oh! That's alright then. He won't exclude them after all (but why bother saying it ... ). Anyhoo ..

But wait another second! In the public discussion that follows, when the subject is brought up, he justifies racial discrimination in the ad by saying that it was approved by the website before it was uploaded. Oh, so he did mean to exclude anyone from India and China. And it's not his fault but iFreelance's fault for letting it through.

Riiiiiiight.

So. We are now waiting for a reply to an email sent to iFreelance, asking when this breach of US, UK and Canadian legislation will be dealt with, either by the buyer removing the offending sentence, or removing the offer altogether.

You can see why the poor dear is so confused about who can and who cannot speak English proper, like, innit. He can't even speak it himself.

nanowrimo 2009 - start the countdown

2009-10-10T21:27:00.008+01:00

Here it is again. Almost.

November. A month when social life, sleep, eating and daylight become things of the dim and distant past. Until December, when we crawl blinking into the light of the new dawn, pale, exhausted, thin as rakes (or fat as beasts because of all the chocolate), sucking our limp, gnawed, blistered fingers to get the feeling back.

All over the world, people are limbering up, polishing their keyboards, saying goodbye to loved ones and preparing for a month writing a novel of at least 50,000 words.

Yes, it's NANOWRIMO - the National Novel Writing Month. Each year NaNoWriMo raises money for a different cause, to which all scribblers can donate in the form of hard cash, buying snazzy gear, getting sponsored and generally picking up everyone they know, turning them upside down and shaking until all the money falls out of pockets. This year the money goes to the young and adult writer programmes and every shirt button helps!

So. November. What will the novel be about this year. I don't know til I start as I never make a plan for NaNoWriMo.Not nev v v ahhhh. That's half the fun, seeing what crawls out of one's brain onto the screen with no editing, no corrections, no crossings out or deletions. Not til you've finished, anyway. Then you can unlock the cupboard and let that ghastly Internal Editor out again. If you must.

even white rabbits have good manners

2009-10-08T02:05:00.001+01:00

When you're a freelance writer you want enough work coming in to keep you in water and gruel, but not so much that you end up working 30 hours a day, 9 days a week. That is no fun and defeats the object of going freelance in the first place - i.e. to enjoy life again.

So, there you are on these bid sites and you're bidding on projects, planning your schedule, hedging your bets, keeping time free for this - and that - juggling ... and then - NOTHING. The buyers don't award the projects and don't even have the good manners to end the project.

Even an imaginary white rabbit has a sense of urgency in meeting deadlines and arriving somewhere on time.

Maybe buyers don't realise when we bid, that unless we're a team of writers, we're making sure that whatever we bid for is factored in to a draft schedule so that we're not ever going to be overloaded. The end dates of the bids are important because that's part of our draft schedule.

The buyer, however, might have scattered the project round several freelance sites and found a writer somewhere else, but they don't bother to come back and let people know it's been awarded. Not a peep. Not a single solitary sausage of a hint.

Writers just want to know if the project has been awarded! So we can get on with our lives! And bid for other projects, knowing that the buyer isn't going to suddenly appear after one, or two, or even six weeks (this has actually happened) and say, "you know that project you bid on six weeks ago? You're hired."

It just ain't gonna work like that, because by then we have a different schedule in place, with new clients and new deadlines. We were ready six weeks ago to dive into your project, or find new clients, but you didn't show!

And if that white rabbit is hiring, I'm open. I like his commitment to deadlines.

plagiarism, plundering and profit

2009-09-18T16:03:00.006+01:00

Like most writers I'm very fierce about plagiarism. I don't do it and I despise people who do. Editors and buyers quite rightly get very sniffy about writers who turn in copy that contains work lifted shamelessly from other articles, but their reasons are about hard cash and reputation - plus Google rankings if you're an online purveyor of information. Not for nothing does Stephen Ambrose turn up as a keyword in an adsense search for plagiarism terms.

Just recently I followed up the work of someone who had done an article for a buyer and had used it in their showcase portfolio of work. The piece seemed stilted somehow, as though it had been hard to write, although the subject was easy to cover. It didn't flow, ideas were repeated, and there didn't seem to be the confident voice of a professional writer behind it. So I called up Google and did a search for the title. Up came some links and I visited the first one. Well guess what. This writer's article had been lifted and rejigged from another article, even including some comments that revealed the other writer's personality. It was so obvious this was a quick rehash done in what - 5 minutes? And clumsily.

The article may well have passed Copyscaping for sentence content and structure but the words were just in a different, mangled order. And yet - and yet!! - she had received good feedback for this article.

Does this kind of plagiarism and plundering matter in commercial writing? If you're up at the coal face, churning out articles for buyers who are trying to fill off-the-peg adsense websites with copy, then the buyer will get penalised by Google for duplicate copy and you as the writer will lose a client and probably not get paid. It's just a dumb thing to do.

Plagiarism certainly matters when you're working on long distance writing. This is the stuff you're sweating over, working long hours to pull off, hoping that this will be the next big novel or the last word in geophysical research or the dog's danglies in deconstructive criticism. Sticks in the craw when you discover that some smartass has lifted paragraphs from your blood-soaked manuscript and claimed it as his or her own.

So don't do it.

Image credit: PDClipArt

Where copywriting is concerned, there is a big divide between professional writers who do their own research, credit sources and write the whole damn thing themselves, and those who plunder, use article-spinning software, and turn out a load of horse manure. Maybe that's why many buyers on bid sites are not prepared to pay a decent rate. They're too used to horse manure and they know it's not worth much. Thank heaven for those buyers who know good writing when they see it.

writing articles and marketing

2009-09-16T19:41:00.009+01:00

If you're a freelancer, one of the most important skills you need to have is marketing. You can have the most gripping work, the most exciting writing cv and the most creative brain on the planet, but if no-one knows you exist you may as well knit socks and stare at the wall.

Marketing yourself needs to be added in to your weekly schedule so that you spend some time finding new outlets for your work, getting yourself noticed, and learning how to stand out from the crowd. There are x million writers out there and you are number x million +1. What makes you different? What makes your work better than someone else's?

Best not to rubbish the professional competition though or that will come back to bite you where it hurts. Competition is what makes you keen and hungry and competition raises standards. Competition is what sorts out the article-spinners from those writers who research everything and write each piece to the highest possible standard they can and deserve to be paid a decent fee for it.

I've already mentioned having a website but that's got to reach people otherwise your website will have no other visitors than the occasional friend and the webcrawlers.

Here are some ideas for putting yourself out there and finding new online clients:

Trawl the freelancer bid sites that have clients paying a decent whack for your work. Set up a good portfolio and profile for yourself on each one, and link to it from your website or put a link on your email signature.
Start a blog about something that really interests you and consider using adsense. Link to it from your website or your email sig.
Join freelance support networks and join in on the forum.
Link in to places like LinkedIn that will hold details of you and your experience.
Trawl web developers and contact them with a note about yourself, your rates, and some samples of what you've written.
Trawl websites that you feel could do with some spruced up or extra copy and contact the webmaster with your written samples.
Trawl print magazines and journals that cover an area of your expertise and contact them with a query letter.

When you put your profiles together, really sell yourself. I've seen a lot of portfolios that are hesitant and self-abasing because the writers aren't yet sure of their skills or their abilities. It doesn't matter how much or how little you've done in the past - a client wants to feel reassured that you're confident, able to do the job, won't mess them about and that you have a good writing style, so don't go apologising for not having a track record in freelance writing. Instead, hoik up some work in your portfolio that shows the kind of writing you can do, even if it's personal stuff that hasn't yet been published. Let that light shine, baby! Strut that stuff.

Image credit: PDClipArt

The other thing is that you cannot be precious about your work when you are finding markets for it and selling for hard cash. This is no different to selling beercan widgets or corn flakes or catfood - you are creating a commodity that people want to buy and that's it. You have to know whether your work will fit in with their business strategy too - no point trying to sell round plastic dongles to a company whose customers only buy square glass cubes. If that's the case you simply have to find a company who sells square glass cubes or you start making round plastic dongles as well. It's that simple.

The bottom line is confidence - you're a writer. Writing is what you do. Tenacity - don't give up. Adaptability - you really can write about a lot of stuff because it's all out there when you research it.

Put yourself out there, and enjoy the ride. Again and again.

article writing

2009-09-13T01:24:00.005+01:00

Here's a whizzy little Google tool for brainstorming ideas for articles and series of articles. Just stick something in the Google searchbar, and then when it comes up with all the links, click on "more options" and scroll down to the wonderwheel. A bit like Tony Buzan's mind mapping, this magical bit of techno-tweakery will spark off so many more ideas if you simply click on one of the arms of mind map and then continue exploring.

Warning. This is hellishly addictive. Before you know it, you're digging so far down and so deep you've forgotten what the original series was about. A bit like reading the dictionary.

better pay for freelance writers

2009-09-11T04:19:00.016+01:00

I think I need a lie-down in a darkened room with the blinds drawn. Is it me, or are there some freelance sites emerging which attract buyers prepared to pay the going rate? I've just been having a squint at Freelancer and knock me down with a cross-eyed duck but buyers are considering paying decent fees for a decent day's work without even flinching. None of this "£1.50 for 500 words" nonsense. Nosirree. Writers there are setting out their stalls with their range of hourly / daily / monthly / project fees and buyers aren't thundering into the hills or whacking all the writers with baseball bats studded with rusty nails.

The formula seems to be this: that you set out your minimum fees in your profile. You value your writing from the word go and you stick to it without being encouraged to bid ludicrously tiny amounts so as to be the lowest bid. Your fee is your bid. The buyers can have a look at your application letter, your profile and your body of work to see the standard at which you write, look at the fee, compare your application with the others who are also quoting their own going rates, and make their own decisions.

Finally, we have a place where providers can be judged on their professional writing skills. It had to come. There had to be a solution to the problem of buyers waving laughably miniscule budgets about and expecting professional writers to jump through hoops. Maybe the whole sordid business was a rite of passage for the concept of the freelance bid site to see what worked and what didn't, although we really could have done without the baseball bats. It comes down to this: pay professional writer fees and you get professional writers. Buyers had to learn the hard way that if you pay peanuts, only a handful of the vast numbers of monkeys on typewriters will write Shakespeare. The rest will groom each other, eat fleas and use article-spinning software.

Photo credit: Nicolas Raymond
Morguefile

toggl-ing for fun and profit

2009-09-10T16:37:00.010+01:00

And there I was, trawling the dusty internet hinterlands, and guess what I found for us luvverly people who do stuff freelance-stylee and need to keep a tab on the hours we clock up. This charmingly attractive little doobrie, the Toggl, gives you the perfect way to clock up your time for one, two, five, heck - ten clients at a time! And it's free! So that's nice.

You can shell out some silver for the premium version too, so the choice is your oyster, as they don't say. But anything that takes the nuts and bolts of admin away from the actual task of getting words down on a page and making your squillions has to be worth a look. It's so easy to use, too. I still wrestle with videorecorders so I know what I'm talking about.

freelance writing and the business relationship

2009-08-20T22:03:00.013+01:00

I love my buyers. Croon. I think if I've put a good freelance portfolio together and presented my self well and have done my best to attract a great client, not only do I deserve to have a great client relationship with them but they deserve to have a terrific business relationship with me. So I look after them and cosset them and stroke their feathe .. OK I just look after them.

Here are some great ways for managing client relationships to keep those nice people cheery and fluffy and smiling and wanting to come back to you again. This is basic stuff but it needs doing:

Thank them for the project they've given / awarded you.
Start right away on keeping to your agreed brief.
Email them at least once a day to keep them updated on what you're doing and where you're at. Don't leave them wondering what the heck's going on.
Don't send work with typos, grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes or any other bloopers. Not. Even. In. Drafts.
Get the work done before deadline so you have time for any last minute emergencies.
When they pay you, thank them. Not just "ta, pal". Just a paragraph to thank them for the pleasure of working with them and for paying so promptly and that you hope you'll be able to do business again and earn more squiddlies.
If they're happy for you to keep in touch, include them in a monthly / bimonthly email or blog or letter update on your business and make it interesting and fun to read. Don't send unless you've asked them or they might get irritated and dump it in the spam bucket.

Here are some more general ones to keep you freelance writers speeding along in the fast lane of your clients' goodwill and general cheeriness so that they start telling their friends about you and begging you for your time:

Original image credit: Morguefile

Prepare for emergencies. We all have our PC blow up or malfunction or freeze at some point. That's a given. Laptops and PCs are eeee-villll psychotic machines when the mood takes them. Foresee this and have an alternative plan in place so you're not having to write to your client with "I can't deliver on time because my monitor blew up." Library, friend, neighbour, local business, extra PC/laptop, whatever. Know where you will go ahead of time.

Don't just plan ahead for the daylight hours, either. One of these nights you will be feverishly banging away at a sudden emergency deadline for 3 a.m. and your machine will explode in a shower of pretty fireworks or one of your children will come downstairs and spill Ribena all over your keyboard in their wish to cuddle up or a mouse will chew through a wire. Bam.

Save as you go. Set your machine to fast save documents frequently (go to Tools, Options, Save) although remember fast saves only work if the document is being saved to the directory you're working in. Control +S will do the job too but better not to have to think about it every five minutes, or you'll forget. Then you avoid the "I can't deliver until next Thursday because my computer ate my work" or "my motherboard fried and took my articles down with it."

When you've finished what you're working on, then save it manually with Ctrl +S or going to the file menu. Check it's where you intended to save it. That's not obsessive - it just saves you that ghastly sicky green feeling when you look in the directory and the file's not there.
Back up as you go. Thwart your machine's eeeee-villlll plans by backing your system up on a weekly basis or more frequently if you're generating truckloads of data every day. You can do this to a suitably sized external hard drive or to a swanky back up system - the choice is yours as is your budget, but BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM as a disaster recovery strategy.

When your machine explodes / roasts in a house fire / is stolen / is abducted by critters in green suits, you then haven't lost all your important data including all your freelance records and your spreadsheet for the Tax Vampire. Plus machines don't last for ever and at some point they're going to think "you know what? I've had enough. Goodbye cruel world."

freelance writer fees

2009-08-18T13:37:00.010+01:00

Up until recently it has been fairly easy to find lucrative online writing gigs by going to bid sites with good reputations for quality work and finding buyers who pay a good rate for good writing and who appreciate what you do.

Then the peanut merchants started sniffing around. People who offer work at below the market rate and dictate terms rudely and officiously in their project descriptions. They want professionally written articles, free of all grammatical and spelling errors, 100% original and packed with researched information. "Don't bother arguing about the fee," they snarl. "It's non-negotiable. $1 per 500 words. Take it or leave it and shut up about it."

Image: The Simpsons

Gee, thanks. Does that come with or without a poke in the eye with a burnt stick.

And still people bid for work with them. What's happening to the self respect that writers have for themselves, and the pride they have in their writing? Since when did $8 a day / $40 a week, if you manage to write 8 x 500-word articles a day, ever pay the bills unless you live in a tent in a field (in which case how are you paying your internet bill ..).

Just the other day a buyer posted a project on iFreelance.com, the wording for which was confrontational and rude. In the discussion that followed he insulted a professional writer. I believe a few people wrote an email of complaint to iFreelance and to the company that runs them - he's still on site of course.

As long as these charlatans continue to post their projects, as long as bid sites accept the projects, and as long as a few providers queue up like slugs at a beer trap for the privilege of being slapped round the face, more buyers will believe that this is all we're worth and the quality of the writing on these bid sites will deteriorate. Pretty soon we will see a decline in the calibre of writers on bid sites and instead the sites will be heaving with article-spinners giving the impression that all you need for an article is a few words and a bit of software. Eventually, those bid sites will go out of business because they will have lost all credibility.

Can we please see bid sites being picky about the projects they allow buyers to post? Can we please see some form of standard to which buyers must adhere in terms of pennies per word?

Or are they too cynical to bother?

english vocabulary

2009-08-17T23:23:00.014+01:00

There is nothing lovelier, when reading a piece of writing, than finding that the writer has a vast and varied vocabulary. Ideas, colours, sounds and feeling leap off the page and drag you right in there and don't let go until the end of the last paragraph - and sometimes they still hang on like dogs to a bone.

When a writer uses vocabulary like an artist's palette, amazing things happen. The reader (you) is engaged and hooked. You stick with it. You follow that writer's thread to the very end because you're interested. You're seduced by the language.

All writers read, or at least, we need to read. We need to read everything. Adverts. Newspapers. Novels. Journals. Online websites. Reference books. We read because we want to know things, we want to expand what we know, we want to increase our fund of words. We need to be reading every day and immersing ourselves in whatever we can find - it's the best way there is of honing our language and using exactly the right words to say what we mean.

Image: Morguefile

The more we read the better we are at deciding what works and what doesn't. What makes a piece of writing leap off the page and what doesn't. And we'll know when we're writing whether we're just being lazy and using cliches and stock phrases, or whether we're making every word earn its keep on the page.

We don't have to spring about and do handstands and show how clever we are (Oh look at me! I used a long word! Go me!) or use the most obscure words we can find to describe the simplest of things. But we can use a different shade of meaning and give the reader a richer experience of what it is we're saying.

That doesn't mean either that we get a big jar of adjectives and adverbs and tip them all into the pot. That's as pointless as using long words and about as effective as eating garden peas with a ditch digger. What are you, some kind of crazy person?

Would you rather your readers were satisfied after a full meal and looking forward to the next one - or gnawing on half a crust of dry bread and looking round for a better menu ..

alert! alert! deadline approaching!

2009-08-16T13:58:00.008+01:00

What do you do when you have treacle for brains and you grind to a halt in the middle of a commission.

There are plenty of creative writing exercises which can fire your blasters up again and masses of writers' prompts to spark off new ideas. Tony Buzan's mind mapping for example, or using Julia Cameron's guides to discovering or recovering your creativity.

But cripes. The deadline is next day or tonight or in two hours' time. Deadlines! You don't miss deadlines. Not ever. Not unless you don't want clients.

First, don't panic!

Get things into perspective. Yes, you have a deadline, but be kind to yourself. As a dear friend of mine says, does anyone need a bandage? Is anyone bleeding? It's simply an arrangement between you and your client that you will have some writing ready for them. That's easier to manage than sitting there frozen in front of the computer and watching the clock as though Jaws is booked to chew your leg off.

It's a piece of writing. Start breaking it down into bite-sized - errrr - ! no, paragraphs. How many words does this need to be - break that wordcount into introduction, body and conclusion. Three main points for the body? Four? Write them down.

Now start anywhere but at the beginning. You can write the beginning last otherwise you will stare at it and be back where you were before, sweating.

Develop the main points and do whatever research you need for each one.

Put everything else out of your mind and imagine this is a piece of work to save a mate's life. No, really! It works, simply because your focus and impetus are temporarily motivated by an imagined urgency. It's important. It's not about you and your writing, it's about them.

Once you've got the middle and the end done, work on the beginning. And that's a piece of banana cream pie because you've just written what the piece is about so all you have to do is introduce it.

If you've got time, leave it to sit for a while so you can go back and look at it with a critical eye. If it's due any minute now, then still give it the once over for bloops and typos but remember right now that sense of calm you had writing the piece. All because you managed to distance yourself from your own worries.

Deadlines need a different name, anyhow. I call them work dates. Much more fun :-)

get your own website why don't you

2009-08-15T13:10:00.010+01:00

Until that day when the globe's electrical systems snap and solar power no longer works, we're an online planet. Snailing c.v.s and tear sheets to clients takes far too long and by the time a freelancer's chewed up envelope hits the editor's desk someone else is likely to have snaffled that opening.

This is particularly relevant in the world of freelancing when you're looking for jobs on bid sites. Some of these sites give you a decent sized portfolio and you can upload everything from images to e-books, but there's one thing these portfolios won't display.

You.

Image: CatsHome

Having your own website means you can show who you are, what your style is like as a person, what you read and what you write. It's the difference between going to a networking meeting and making a pretty good impression (your portfolio) and inviting a bunch of new people round to dinner at your place (your website). It means they can get a better idea of the person behind the bright, self-confident writer buttonholing buyers and touting for business.

Have a good website design. Good presentation. Good navigation. You know the kind of website where you click on a link and you find yourself stranded and the back button doesn't work? Don't go there.

Build it yourself with templates or hire a website designer, but make it look delicious, make it look interesting, and make it WORK.

* Check all the links, backwards and forwards.
* Have great copy.
* Update your site frequently.
* Show samples of your writing.
* Use images.
* Have a contact link.
* Use Google Adwords keyword tool.
* Get a good logo design that you can also use on other portfolios.
* Use a reliable website hosting service.

Use it to crow about your achievements and post feedback from happy clients. Even better if you can use their business names and link to their sites.

This is as much of a marketing tool as your uploads on a bid site's portfolio, so use it well and invite people along to see it. Link to it where you're able and put the address on your email signature.

Flaunt it.

freelance writing for hard cash

2009-08-15T01:29:00.009+01:00

It's addictive, this freelance writing thing. Perhaps you've come to it having written print articles under your own name or you might decide that since you have a flair for the written word you'll change your career direction and get out from under.

No more commuting. No more being stuck in a queue of crazed drivers or standing nose to neck in the public transport system. No more shovelling the car out of a snowdrift at 6 a.m.

Instead you can lope to your laptop, turn on the radio, and get to the end of the day NOT feeling like a bag of last week's laundry.

There's such a toe-tingling sense of freedom that comes with taking on freelance copywriter jobs. You can find assignments that have you scribbling excitedly for hours, or they lead you to learn more than you ever thought possible about spitoons, and you can write all day and every day from your kitchen table parked right next to the fridge. Hooray!

All you need now is a full fridge. So just be careful about the jobs you pick. Not everyone out there understands that writing is a craft that you hone and that it deserves as much recognition as any other job that takes skill and effort. Don't sell yourself for half a shirt button.

On bid sites you may have to lower your hourly fees in contrast to those freelance writing jobs in the real world, but don't go rock bottom just to try and win the assignment unless you really are honestly wanting entry level writing jobs to practice on.

Some buyers will offer something like $1.00 (about £0.50) for 500-700 word articles that they expect to be well researched, professionally written and 100% error free. Pardonnez-moi. Unless your personal cost of living is practically zero that's not going to keep bread on the table let alone cookie dough ice cream in the fridge. The standards they're demanding are professional standards ('cos it does say 'professionally written!) and as such the writer deserves a fair whack in the form of a decent amount of hard cash.

OK as a newbie to the game you might do one or two of those jobs to gain experience and to get some positive feedback, but once you have, move on up. Expect and ask for more. Have a bit of belief in yourself and your writing skills. Sell yourself for half a shirt button and you'll soon end up tired, disillusioned and cynical about the whole business, and you'll have lost that go-getting, ass-kicking attitude as well as having to sell your shirt to stay alive and breathing.

You're a damn fine freelance writer. Tell yourself that every day and expect more than loose change.

20 January 2009

2009-01-05T17:26:00.005Z