Writing Diva

Magazine Writing for Freelancers

Back in the days before I discovered I could be paid to write for online sites, I used to write for a variety of print publications. By print publications I mean magazines, newsletters and books.

Some of the print publications I have had articles published in include Jewelry Crafts, Lapidary Journal, Beadwork, The Herb Quarterly, The Farmer's Almanac and BackHome Magazine.

I've also had a variety of articles published in various Llewellyn Worldwide publications including their yearly Herbal Almanac, Magical Almanac, Witches' Datebook and Witches' Calendar.

In future posts I will detail my experiences writing freelance articles for some of these publications.

In the meantime, check out the Magazine Guidelines Database over on the Freelance Writing website. This database contains writer's guidelines and contact information for over 750 magazines.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Freelance Writing Website

The Freelance Writing website is a terrific resource for freelance writer's to check out. This site focuses on writing jobs and articles for freelance writers. The main topics covered include writing contests, writing events, freelance writing jobs and discussion forums.

They keep a current list of freelance writing jobs posted from a variety of sites including elance, jobboard, ifreelance, writing career, simply hired, craiglist, get-a-freelancer, scriptlance and more. I appreciate this feature as I visit the site almost daily. Instead of having to check out 10 or more seperate websites, I can just visit this one site to see the current listing of freelance jobs.

There is also an entire section of writer's guidelines for over 750 print magazines. I appreciate this feature as I started my freelance career writing for print publications and have only been writing online for a few months. The print media news sections includes news on new magazine launches and editorial staff changes.

The articles for writers section includes how-to articles on creative writing, non-fiction writing, fiction writing, book writing, business writing, and freelancing.

I could spend hours on the Freelance Writing website checking out all the links and reading a variety of interesting articles. I have this site added to my bookmarks so I can check it out on a regular basis.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Work for Suite101

I've been a contributing writer on Suite101 since October 16th, 2007. I was contacted towards the beginning of November, 2007 asking if I would like to become a feature writer, after having 13 articles published.

Page View Payments
Suite101 pays writers based on the number of page views each of their articles receives. Suite earns revenue through Google Adsense and shares a portion of that revenue with their writers. All accepted writers start out as a Contributing Writer. Contributing writers must write a minimum of 10 articles during every three month period in order to keep their accounts active.

You have the option to apply for a Feature Writer position in one of their open topics after you have written a minimum of 10 articles. Feature Writers earn an additional 20% page view bonus. Feature Writers must write a minimum of 1 article and 1 blog on their featured topic each week as well as adding and monitoring discussions and polls on their topic. Featured Writers can continue to write articles on other topics but most of their time should be spent on writing for and promoting their topic.

Positive Feedback
Suite is one of the few onlines sites that actually gives you feedback. During the first few weeks of writing for Suite I was contacted a number of times by the Associate Editor and Food & Drink Editor on how to improve my article keywords, article titles and properly format my articles according to Suite standards etc. After my 13th article was published I received a 3 page in-depth email from the Associate Editor saying that after implementing various suggestions as outlined in the email that I could apply to be a feature writer.

Feature Writer
The Associate Editor mentioned that Suite101 was revamping some of their topics and said that they would be adding a Herbs & Spices topic to the Food & Drink section (I mostly write about herbs). But the editor also said she would consider me for Organic Gardening or Vegetable Gardening, both of which were open topics under the Home & Garden section. On November 28th I made my formal request to be promoted to the Herbs & Spices Feature Writer and the very next day I received an email approving my application.

Of the articles I had published prior to becoming a feature writer they were in all different categories. But many of them were cooking related so the Food & Drink editor emailed to say she would support my feature writer application if I ever decided to apply for any of the open Food & Drink topics.

Although Suite101 doesn't offer upfront payments for articles I am getting much higher page views over there than on any of my other online sites. And I'm hoping being able to add Suite101 Herbs & Spices Feature Writer to my resume will help me land future writing gigs with other sites/publications.

I'm not making tons of money yet but my PV's keep increasing. I posted up my 100th article on April 20, 2009. Feature writer's receive an additional 10% bonus after they reach 100 articles. So now I'm getting a 30% bonus on top of my regular share of ad revenue.

When I first started writing for Suite101, I was only making a dollar or two per month. Now I am making between $50 and $75 per month. I will continue to make money with Suite101 even if I don't publish any additional articles on the site. But the more articles you publish, the higher your page views and the higher your revenue.

Promoting Your Articles
In order to receive a high number of page views and thus earn more money you must spend quite a bit of time linking your articles to other sites and adding keywords for maximum SEO (search engine optimization). Being fairly new to online writing this took a bit of time for me to learn. But now adding appropriate keywords and linking my articles to various social bookmarking sites is pretty easy.

I mostly use Facebook and Twitter to promote my Suite101 articles. I also post a link to my articles on my personal blog: lynnsmythe.blogspot.com.

For additional information on writing for Suite101 visit their Writer’s Guidelines page. Suite101 currently receives between 8 and 12 million unique visitors every month.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Write for Know More Media

Here's a business based website that is looking for more writers to write for their blog network.

Write for Know More Media
Know More Media invites you to become a contributing author to our blog network specializing in business information and news. We seek topical experts who are also savvy at blogging and building online readership; you must be committed to growing the blog's traffic and understand how to network online. We want people who can write with a clear, strong, competent, and honest voice. If you have a passion, knowledge, or expertise in a certain business topic or industry, you may be an ideal candidate to become a Know More Media Author.

Get paid to write from anywhere you can find an Internet connection. Authors typically earn from $150 - $1000 per month, receiving a combined compensation for each article/blog post, blog traffic, and other earnings opportunities. All authors are expected to publish at least one post a day, 5 days a week, as well as perform the blog promotion and networking necessary for blog traffic growth and the success of online media.

Why become a Know More Media Author?
Make money writing!
Get instantly published.
Work from home or any location where you can connect to the Internet.
Establish your reputation as an expert in a field.
Expand your expertise on a topic.
Write what you want without supervisory editing
Increase promotion for your personal business endeavors
Hone and improve your writing and research skills through daily usage.
Take part in the future of online publishing and media—blogging.
Join a leading network of business experts.

What We Look for in an Author
Passion. You must love the topic—possess a passion for it. You must have a passion to succeed and grow your blog's readership and traffic. You’ll be writing on it extensively; if you don’t have a love for it, you will never endure. Plus, this passion will shine through in your writing; it will be infectious.

Business Expertise
You must be a personal expert in your topic or field. Know More Media is a place where information seekers come to find new information, new advice, and original opinions. If you can only re-hash what everyone else is saying on the topic, sorry, but you’re not a fit for us. We want expertise from its source—you.

Writing Ability
Superior blogging is both what you say and how you say it. Great writing is the ability to transform your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge into the written word in a lucid, concise, and entertaining manner. Can you edit out your own typos? Do you use proper grammar? Can you express yourself clearly? We don’t edit your content for you—you must be able to do it yourself.

A Voice
As we like to say, “It’s all about the voice.” Plain, boring, dry toast, just-tell-the-facts writing is not what we want. We want personality; we want uniqueness; we want you to have a singular, identifiable voice that people want to listen to.

Further Information
Visit the writer's guidelines page on the Know More Media website to find out more information including the blogging topics that are currently available.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Blog Universe

Blog Universe is a free directory submission site. You can add a free link to your blog as long as you put a reciprocal link to Blog Universe on your site. Once you have added the link to your site, go back to the Blog Universe site to fill out their submission form. They will ping your site to verify that the link code is present.

From the Blog Universe website:
"BlogUniverse is a project to gather all bloggers at one place and to categorize them so as it will be easy to search required blogs of various niche's easily.

Kindly support Us by submitting Blogs that you find interesting and good to read . All the bloggers will get get a quality linkback from us and that too for free."

Small Site
Right now there are only around 196 blogs listed in the directory. But a basic listing is free, and who doesn't want more traffic for their blog? They have a regular listing (no reciprocal linkback required) available for $5 and a featured link submission available for $10. Not a lot of money, but as there aren't very many blogs currently using this site, I don't see any benefit of paying for a featured link.

There also aren't a lot of categories currently available to submit your site to. Maybe once the site has been around awhile longer they will be adding additional categories.

A free link is a good link so check out Blog Universe and submit your blog to their directory.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Visit Writing.com

Writing.Com is the online community for writers and readers of all interests and skill levels. Whether you're an enthusiastic, creative writer looking for the perfect place to store and display your writing online or a casual reader searching for a good story, Writing.Com is the website for you!

With 711,044 members and 1,465,854 literary items created since inception, this community is bursting with activities, inspiration and creativity.

Free memberships are available to everyone. Each membership includes an online writing portfolio, numerous writing tools, email services and the chance to meet and bond with fresh creative minds, just like you! No other website services the Writing world better than we do.

Visit the Writing.com website to learn more, or to sign up for your own account.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Writing Diva's Personal Blog

ABOVE: Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

My Writing Website
I used to have my own domain name setup for my personal webpage. I could never really figure out the ftp file uploading and always struggled to keep the site updated. I decided to setup a free site on Blogger to keep track of all my writing projects.

The site is located at: Freelance Writer Lynn Smythe.

RSS Feeds
I write for quite a few online sites, so I placed RSS feeds of the 5 latest articles for most of the sites on the main page. I still need to setup a page with my resume of print publication articles.

More Links
I don't think I'm going to keep a resume of all my online publications on the site. They currently number in the hundreds - information overload. Guess I should add links for each site I've had articles published on: Suite101, Examiner.com, Charity Mile, Bike Diva and Run Diva are the main ones.

Your Site
Do you have a personal website setup to keep track of all your online and print publications? Please share the link to your site and I'll check it out when I get a chance.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Blogburst Social Networking Site

BLOG BURST
Anyone that has a blog should consider registering it with the Blog Burst site. It is free to list as many blogs as you would like. Your blog has to be setup for full RSS feeds, not just a summary of each post you make to your blog.

I have my Bike Diva and Run Diva blogs, both are which are setup on Typepad, registered with the Blog Burst site. I have been getting a good amount of traffic to Bike Diva coming through my link with Blog Burst.

Temporary Hold
Blogburst places any blogs submitted to their site on hold for the first three months. There are so many blogs that come and go, that they decided to implement the hold policy. I guess the theory is, if you're blog is still around after 3 months, that you must be serious about blogging. Once the 3 month period has passed, your blog will become active on the Blogburst site.

MEDIA EXPOSURE FOR YOUR BLOG
BlogBurst places blogs on nearly 100 top-tier news and media sites including Reuters, USA Today, Gannett, McGraw-Hill, Fox News and more.

I just checked my Bike Diva stats on the Blog Burst site earlier today. Here are a few of my Bike Diva posts that have been picked up in the last few weeks by other sites:

Reuters - Bike Diva Future
Chicago Sun Times - Bike Diva Biking Articles
Computer Shopper - Go Pro Digital Cameras
Livestrong - Century Ride Tips for New Cyclists

If you have a blog, list at Blog Burst, and see an increase in traffic to your site. It's also cool to brag to your friends that Reuters, and other popular online sites, have picked up your news feed!

Take care,
Lynn AKA the Writing Diva

Twitter Social Networking Site

TWITTER
Is anyone else signed up with Twitter? Twitter is yet another social networking site. I didn't really know too much about Twitter until I started getting emails from a few friends and writing contacts that mentioned they use Twitter all the time.

ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE
Initially I was a bit reluctant to sign up for Twitter. I already belong to a TON of social networking sites and I don't even have enough time to keep up with all of them. So I didn't really see the need to sign up for yet another site that I would hardly ever use.

In addition to being a freelance writer, I am also a cycling nut. The latest company to sponsor me is Freestyle Watches. They said I had to sign up for a Twitter account so we could keep in touch with each other. So I went ahead and signed up for a Twitter account - twitter.com/thebikediva.

LET'S TRADE TWITTER LINKS
If you have a Twitter account, add your link to your Twitter page and I'll check it out. My Twitter page is located at twitter.com/thebikediva.

Multiple Personalities
I originally began with one Twitter account. But now that I have recently started my Horror Diva blog, decided to setup another Twitter account: twitter.com/thehorrordiva. I didn't think the people that were following my Twitter updates, which are mostly about running, cycling and general fitness, would also want to hear about my pagan, horror themed information. I use Hootsuite to manage both my Twitter profiles.

Let the Twittering begin!!!

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Always Looking for Freelance Opportunities

I have become a total gear head and have been spending all my time cycling, running, training, racing and writing about running, cycling, nutrition and fitness issues.

Freelance Opportunities Everywhere
This post is not about a specific freelance writing opportunity, rather a possible way to find freelance writing opportunities. I belong to many cycling, running and fitness sites. I'm always searching for new sites. If it's a site I really like, I'll blog about it, on one of the many websites I write for, and I'll probably also join the site to become a member of their online community.

Charity Mile
Many websites are continually looking for new writers, so I always look to see if the websites are currently accepting resumes. Back in August I became a member of the Charity Mile site. They also have a companion blog for the site - the Charity Mile Blog. I saw that they were looking to hire a few bloggers for their blog, so I sent in my application.

Approximately 3 weeks after I sent in my application I received an email saying they were interested in hiring me to be the cycling blogger for the Charity Mile Blog. On September 9th I submitted my first official blog post to the Charity Mile blog.

Although I can't discuss the specific details of my writing contract, I am expected to blog a minimum of 2-3 times per week, with a maximum of 20 blog posts per month. I keep a file of future topics to blog about, so hopefully I will never run out of ideas.

The next time you are visiting your favorite website, do a little research, and find out if they are looking to hire writers. You never know where you will find your next freelance writing opportunity.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva