Six Figure Writing

Hi from SueC here at Six Figure Writing! As a new reader, be sure to subscribe to my email list, and my RSS feed to get the most out of SFW. Thanks for stopping by!

I sent a post to the SixFigureWriting mailing list a couple weeks ago, offering to give a web site review for selected readers who might be interested.  My review consists of offering ideas for (1) making the site more traffic-friendly, and (2) features to add to attract long-term visitors and add-on business.

Out of several dozen submissions, I chose three that I think show how different writers approach using the web, and each site is in a slightly different phase of development, from fairly basic to significant content.

For each site, I’ll be suggesting changes, and the site owners will select three to implement and track.  I’ll be posting all the details and progress here on SixFigureWriting, including videos and screen capture so you can follow right along with my analysis.  I’d be itnerested to hear reader’s comments too, things you’d have suggested instead, or questions that you think of when you see what I recommend.

Stay tuned!

written by SueC \\ tags: Search engine optimization, site enhancements, Site Management, Web Design and Development, website traffic

Freelance writers are, by definition, flexible, and that is going to be a very important trait indeed as we head into a rocky economic downturn.

I just read a truly wonderful post at Escape From Cubicle Nation, about how to be creative in your business during a downturn.  How can writers survive and even capitalize on rough economic times?  here are a few ideas:

• Try branching out into topics you haven’t tried before.  if you are a fiction writer, try a few nonfiction topics (they can help pay the bills).
• Expand your marketing into arenas you haven’t tried before - or just expand your marketing!  Tweak your blog (I’ll be demonstrating some ideas in a future post using sites my readers have volunteered).  Do a massive post across the web of press releases, articles or content about your topic, or your self, or your publications.  Automate this so you have consistent, and constant, PR  exposure.
• Find new audiences for your work: Are there discussion forums you haven’t yet joined? A new venue where you can advertise? A potential partner you haven’t yet approached?  Network more.
• Find ways to improve your efficiency, and increase your output. Can you outsource the drab tasks of paperwork and accounting or what have you, and use those hours to send out or rite more material?
• Education is always a good investment - so take a class about something you haven’t tried before, and don’t just learn the material but use the class to network with other writers.
• Find ways to connect with others to enhance ways to learn of new opportunities or good product ideas.

What are you doing to protect your business in a tough time, and take advantage of opportunities?

written by SueC

Here are a couple things I’ve run across recently and am starting to have trouble living without:

• Jott. This is FREE. You set it up so you can call and leave yourself or anyone else a message, and you get a text and/or email reminder. I’m on the road a lot so I can’t always put a post-it on my desk. I can also Jott my virtual admin, partners, anyone else - Addictive!
• CrazyEgg: creates a “heatmap” of visitors to your site. Are they looking at the book covers and leaving? Are they going to the audio link first? Free limited access.
• FreeMind mind mapping software. This freeware lets you create “mind maps” or concept maps, which can be incredibly helpful in putting your ideas on paper in a (more) coherent way. Or the graphics are just fun to play with. I plan to post a video here soon showing how to use this, I use it for sites, books, articles, great for storyboarding too.
• Joe’s Goals. If you don’t already have something you use to goal-set, this might help. I liked it for the tag cloud too - a little insight into what people are obsessing about today!
• Twitter. OK it seems idiotic at first. Why not just use RSS? Because even THAT can be time consuming. Twitter lets you read quick hits from people you follow, or send out your own. Just fun to read sometimes if you read everything being posted at once… I’ve been using it a while and still trying to decide if it’s useful, fun, or just a waste of time.  Send me a tweet at 6figurewriting and let me know what you think.

What apps are you using we need to have right away?

written by SueC \\ tags: business tools, cool tools, freeware, goal setting, mind mapping, writing tools

I’m reading Seth Godin’s excellent book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out Of Synch?, and it describes the ways some businesses are attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the new tools and services on the Internet but are not quite “getting it”. They’re trying to just layer the latest thing onto their business-as-usual product/marketing/advertising models, and guess what? It doesn’t work.

There are plenty of warnings too - some for freelance writers even. I keep asking the same questions here: Why oh why do writers not take advantage of what the Internet means for communication?? - after all, isn’t communicating our business? - and then complain and moan about how they have to choose between money and writing, between what they love and a living. Hogwash. They are just lazy about breaking out of their comfort zone, and want to stick to the dreams they dreamt years ago (seeing their name on the cover of XYZ magazine? In the window of Barnes and Noble? On Hoprah?) - while the world is changing around them. Yes, the game has changed. Publishers mostly haven’t. Neither have so many writers, I read about dozens and dozens of them on the forums. Here’s a quote (apologies to Mr. Godin for the lengthy selection), he’s talking about Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew who published a book on the Beatles - and made $300K doing it:

“What’s noteworthy about Recording The Beatles Is what the authors didn’t do. They didn’t give the rights to a traditional publisher. They didn’t fight hard for retail shelf space. They didn’t buy co-op ads with big book chains, and they didn’t try to get on Oprah..Instead, [they] managed to sell every single copy of their book (three thousand were printed) at the very profitable price of one hundred dollars per copy. And they did it by embracing the tactics of the New Marketing…

“By self-publishing, the authors were able to accomplish several things. First, they removed a substantial ‘tax’ (85 percent of the cover price) that a publisher charges to handle thing like retail distribution, advertising, printing risk and staffing…More important, self-publishing took them out of a meatball factory mindset. Instead of publishing yet another book, a book for an anonymous, unseen group of consumers who would somehow find the book they didn’t know they wanted, the authors found a book for the readers they already knew about…Recording the Beatles has generated more revenue than 97 percent of all books ever published. And unlike other books, most of this revenue goes to the authors.”

This book is an awesome read if you’re at all concerned about making a splash or even a ripple with your writing. Isn’t that WHY you are writing? To be read? To be heard? Well, now you can, where in the old-school ways of gatekeepers, it was pretty damn tough. I’m guilty of meatball thinking too, but it’s going to be a real fun ride making all the changes.

Let me know what you’re doing - or not doing - still waiting for that publisher/agent/magazine to call? Or are you growing beyond that?

written by SueC \\ tags: freelance, godin, new marketing, web 2.0, Writing Links