Famous Advice on Writing: The Collected Wisdom of Great Writers By Maria Popova By popular demand, I’ve put together a periodically updated reading list of all the famous advice on writing presented here over the years, featuring words of wisdom from such masters of the craft as Kurt Vonnegut, Susan Sontag, Henry Miller, Stephen King, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Susan Orlean, Ernest Hemingway, Zadie Smith, and more. Please enjoy. Jennifer Egan on Writing, the Trap of Approval, and the Most Important Discipline for Aspiring Writers “You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly… Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.”
The Creative Penn Blog: Helping you write, publish and market your book The last few days at London Book Fair have been mind-blowing for me. I feel this is a tipping point in my own author journey, and in this post I share with you what I have learned. (1) Ambitious authors can achieve 7 figure success as indies This week I experienced the Indie Bestseller group of authors, made up of Bella Andre, Hugh Howey, Jasinda Wilder, Barbara Freethy, Liliana Hart, Candice Hern and Stephanie Bond, all of whom are incredibly successful as indie authors, both in terms of hitting the big lists, satisfying readers, and making a very good living. I say ‘experienced’ because they are all forces of nature, working incredibly hard to express their creative selves, please readers and run international businesses. I love to write and to create for its own sake, but I am also unashamedly a business-woman and entrepreneur. We all have different definitions of success, but I would not have given up my day job in 2011 if I hadn’t seen that being an author could be a viable business.
O guia completo para trabalhar como escritor freelancer Como começar a trabalhar numa área é a primeira dúvida que surge para quem está a iniciar um negócio. Deixar o seu emprego e arriscar o próprio negócio exige que você dê passos no desconhecido e que percorra uma caminho que é totalmente novo para você. Isso acontece com qualquer área do freelancing. Contudo, existe uma que carece de informação na internet: a de escritor freelancer. Com o desenvolvimento da tecnologia, o blogueiro ou jornalista pode escrever o seu texto em qualquer local do mundo, tornando esta profissão cada vez mais motivadora. Apesar de os passos serem simples, existem inúmeras questões que devem ser pensadas antes de iniciar a carreira de escritor freelancer. Para começar a sua carreira de escritor freelancer, o primeiro passo é sem dúvida encontrar a sua paixão. É certo que a sua paixão pode já estar mais que explorada na internet. Então, o que deveria fazer um jornalista para conseguir se destacar na área dos esportes? Como é óbvio, cada caso é um caso.
Quanto o escritor/redator deve cobrar pelos seus textos? Com o crescimento dos blogs e dos sites o aumento da procura por redatores freelancers para escreverem textos tem sido enorme. O nosso Centro de empregos para freelas tem sido a prova disso mesmo: praticamente todos os dias aparecem propostas para a escrita de artigos em blogs. Os preços e as áreas de atuação são as mais variadas, mas mercado não parece faltar neste momento. Paralelo a este crescimento tem sido o aumento de dúvidas por parte dos freelancers de quanto cobrar por cada post/artigo. “Qual o valor mais justo?” ou “Devo cobrar por palavra?” Mas antes de dar alguns conselhos de como fazer nestas situações, gostaria de partilhar com vocês um fator que tem influenciado muito este mercado nos últimos anos. Antes de avançar para os próximos posts, considere dar uma olhada nestes: Antes de pensar em preços para um artigo é necessário que o freelancer pense na sua qualidade enquanto profissional. Existem mais alguns pontos mas estes são os que eu considero primordiais.
12 Facebook Groups for Writers You Don't Want to Miss Whether you’re a freelancer, a blogger, a fiction writer or anything in between, we could all use a little company on the sometimes lonely road known as the writing life. Maybe you just got your first offer to ghostwrite a book and have no idea what to charge. Maybe your characters refuse to do what you want them to do (isn’t that just like them?), and you could use someone to commiserate with. Maybe it’s after midnight and you’re still up trying to wrestle the words into submission, and you dearly need to be talked down off the ledge. Whatever the reason, Facebook groups can be a fantastic way for writers to connect, trade advice, swap war stories and find new opportunities. So we polled writers to find out which Facebook groups they personally could not live without. Free groups 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Note: Dana has since rebranded and relaunched her site as DIY Writing and started an equally valuable Facebook group of the same name, so be sure to check it out as well at DIY Writing.
Como ganhar dinheiro escrevendo como freelancer | Escrevemos.com O boom da Internet abriu inúmeras portas para o escritor freelancer: se por um lado existem novos meios de comunicação que necessitam de alguém especializado na escrita; por outro lado, a ligação online permite que um redator freelancer trabalhe para qualquer meio – online ou offline – a partir de qualquer parte do mundo. Se a escrita é a sua paixão, torne-a rentável e aprenda como ganhar dinheiro escrevendo como freelancer. Preparação prévia Mais importante do que o seu currículo, um redator freelancer necessita de ter um bom portfólio com diferentes exemplos de textos/artigos já escritos e/ou publicados, de preferência com indicação da referida publicação e data. A potencialidade de um blog Formas de ganhar dinheiro a escrever offline Desde jornais locais ou semanários, passando por revistas generalistas e revistas especializadas, existem inúmeras formas de ganhar dinheiro a escrever offline. Formas de ganhar dinheiro a escrever online Escrever.com
Audiobooks and the Return of Storytelling Photo STANFORD, Calif. — THE ferns under my oak trees evoke moments from “The Great Gatsby” for me. I read the book many years ago, but I listened to it last summer while planting 50 polypodium californicas and 50 festuca idahoensis in the dappled light beneath my oaks. Now, when I look at them, I think about that last awful accident, the yellow Rolls-Royce screaming past the repair shop, and what F. Scott Fitzgerald’s narrator called Gatsby’s extraordinary gift for hope. The sale of audiobooks has skyrocketed in recent years. We tend to regard reading with our eyes as more serious, more highbrow, than hearing a book read out loud. The great linguist Ferdinand de Saussure thought we treated writing as more important than speaking because writing is visual. But so it is. But for most of human history literature has been spoken out loud. Even after narratives were written down, they were more often heard than read. What happens when you hear a text rather than read it?
Chronicles of an English Grad | You Don't Have to Be a Teacher What is SEO and Why are English Graduates Perfect for the Job? | Chronicles of an English Grad By: Derek Hobson What is SEO? – Literally Speaking – SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, so an SEO’s job is to make a website “optimized” so that it will appear in the “Search Engine” when someone types in a relevant Keyword. What is a Search Engine? A Search Engine is usually your home page, i.e. When you type a word or phrase into the search bar, then your Search Engine will populate a list of sites that it deems relevant. It’s why when you type in “hamster,” you’ll get a grab-bag of different sites; you’ll get the Wikipedia page, PetSmart, the humane society’s stance, and a bunch of cute photos. A “short-tail” keyword. It’s also why when you type in “buy a hamster,” you’ve refined your search and now you’re looking at pet shop sites. The words and phrases you type in are the Keywords and companies fight over them to rank on the front page of Search Engines — after all, who clicks past the third search page; for that matter, who clicks past the first? What is SEO? So… How Do You Do SEO?
Great resources - Laura E. Kelly These resources were originally collected for writers, but apply to anyone looking for social media help. Look for below to see the latest great resources. Why to get on the Social Media bandwagon • Maintaining Your Writing Career (cuz if you don’t do it, who will?) by Andrew Zack, President, The Zack Company, Inc., and Author Coach • Why every author needs a powerful online presence • For Publishers, Who Should Be the Gatekeepers of Social Media? Building a Following • Author Websites — How to Get Search Engine Traffic For all those wondering how best to get people to know about you and your books, The Book Marketing Maven, Dana Lynn Smith, shares how to make your author website more search-engine friendly—some easy tips mixed in with some technical advice. • 7 Tips to Building an Online Following by Nathan Bransford, author and former literary agent now working in the tech industry, and a wealth of information for authors. • 5 Tips for Managing Your Online Reputation Creating a Plan Blogging Google