KLF Writing Services

I've heard rumors that Google is stepping up their game again. They've been trying to drill it home that they are looking for quality content, while writers have been trying to learn how Google defines quality content. How does Google know if you're an expert in your field? As far as I can tell, they know the same way your friends do.

Imagine if Google could look in your window. Would your life show them that you're an expert in your field? For instance, if you run a daycare, it's obvious that you're an expert in your field if you maintain an educational atmosphere and are on a constant search to step up your game. People come to you with questions about child rearing and preschool education. You fairly breathe daycare language. You are an expert in your field.

Well, Google IS looking in your window (figuratively at least). It seems that what they're looking for now is social media optimization (SMO). What you do in Facebook and Twitter have an impact on how Google views you. So, those who write daycare articles but only post in Twitter and FB about their late night drinking crusades, well let's just say that if they ever saw the first page rankings before, they won't be there for long.

I'm not a math person. I'm not one of those search engine marketing experts who can sit down and tell you exactly how many of which keywords you need to use to get consistent page views. I write for several companies and they all have their own formula. I'm a writer. That's what I do. I try to keep my name on things that are relevant to me in real life. I will naturally have some leverage with Google using SMO because of the way I live. But, I'm going to have to step up my game when it comes to getting the numbers right.

For that reason, I'm considering hiring a search engine marketing firm. Writing is my speciality and search engine marketing is their specialty. If I hire a firm like this, I can focus on the things I'm good at and they can help me let the rest of the world know that I am the expert in my field. When it comes to being an online success, you have to create an online presence. Word of mouth is still the best advertisement. But, times have changed. You don't call your neighbor for advice anymore. You ask your Facebook friends. Social media marketing is the window that Google looks through to judge your level of expertise.

Jerry's Kid Side

Today we're talking with Jerry Foust about education and the arts. Recent cutbacks to funding in education have resulted in the decrease of the involvement of arts in education. For some, this could mean a complete lack of interest in academics as the arts help us to develop some core skills like critical thinking, decoding and the ability to generally relate unknown material to previous knowledge, experience or interests. Let's see what Jerry has to say about this.

KF(Kathy Foust): You've used your degrees in a somewhat nontraditional manner. What degrees do you hold?
JF(Jerry Foust): "Bachelor's in Music Education (all grades) from Butler University; Master's in Postsecondary Educational Leadership from San Diego State University. Currently finishing a second Master's in Music Education at Stephen F. Austin State University."

KF: You do quite a bit of work with children. Recent changes within the educational system have limited the involvement of the arts in public schools. How do you think this is going to impact future generations of students and educators?
JF: "California's education system was always the model for the world, but now very few schools have formal arts programs. As a music educator, I feel very strongly that music is its own individual, unique intelligence. And that kids (and adults, for that matter) get something out of music - performing, listening, understanding - that they can't get anywhere else. It makes me sad that, even though the Arts are considered a core subject in No Child Left Behind, music and the Arts continue to get short-changed.

In my current position, we serve about 1,500 kids a year with outreach programs. They get to come - some of them for the very first time - to our theater and see our professional shows. We see them fall in love with music and theatre and dance and technical theatre arts for the first time. It's pretty powerful."

KF: Since you do often work closely with children, you're able to see how music might influence them. What are the benefits that children might take away from their experience in your programs or from music in education in general?

As part of my series on creative people from Starke County, Indiana, I interviewed my cousin, Jerry Foust. I wanted to first give some background for my readers. Jerry was born and raised in Starke County, IN. This county is a rural community whose major industry is, you guessed it, corn. It's not really what you would consider the most conducive area for those with the arts in mind as they pursue their career goals. Jerry happens to be one of the people who went against the grain and turned his interest in music into something more than a hobby. As a personal side note, I'd like to add that I may be a bit overly impressed by this due to the fact that I have no musical talent at all and have great admiration for those that do. But, I can type. That counts for something, right? And...on with the first part of the interview.

KF (Kathy Foust): Jerry, thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview. Let's start off by giving the readers some basics. What is your current position?
JF (Jerry Foust): "I am the Executive Director and Director of Education at Berkeley Playhouse, the resident company of the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. I've also served as lead producer, and have directed shows and taught adult workshops in music, theatre, and audition skills at the same organization."

KF: What degrees do you hold?
JF: "Bachelor's in Music Education (all grades) from Butler University; Master's in Postsecondary Educational Leadership from San Diego State University. Currently finishing a second Master's in Music Education at Stephen F. Austin State University."

KF: I've heard that you'll be moving soon. What will your position be then and what do you hope to accomplish in this position?
JF: "I don't know yet!!! Unlike me, I decided I wanted to move, regardless of having a job in place. I'm moving back to Chicago to be closer to my family, and enjoy those frigid temps and piles of snow (ha). I'm a finalist in two fantastic jobs where I get to keep being creative and working to grow programs, but I don't want to jinx it, so I'll keep you in suspense for another week or two until I know for sure."

KF: Many families follow along a traditional career path and tend to keep in a similar trade. How hard was it for you to make the decision to break away and follow a completely different career path than those before you?
JF: "For me, there was never any doubt about 1 - going to college, and 2 - leaving the small town I grew up in. I knew from the days you and I were playing school together in elementary school that I wanted to be a teacher. In high school, I fell in love with band, and so I decided to pursue music teaching. That's after I had decided to be a funeral director and a corporate communications specialist. I was accepted at Butler as a communications major, then in July 1989, decided to audition for music school. 

I could never have followed in my dad's footsteps - to be honest, I don't have the nerve, strength, or stamina to do what he does. I respect it more and more all the time. Building houses - literally from the ground up - is his profession. I am grateful to both my parents for working hard to provide for us, and allowing me to do what I dreamed."

One of the lowest paying writing jobs I've had was also one of the most educational for one very important reason. It taught me about positive marketing. If you happen to read my Student of Motherhood blog, you'll see that I am on a perpetual journey to increase the positive elements in my life. As such, and since I have such a fascination with psychology and how the brain works, I did some reading on positive thinking.

One of the things I learned is that the brain processes negative expressions in kind of a backward way. For instance, if I tell myself that I don't want a cigarette, my brain first understand that as I do want a cigarette, then kind of has to loop around to understand that I was trying to talk myself out of it. By the time that happens, I've probably already lit up.

Marketing is all about psychology and this is where the low paying site I worked for comes in. One of their main rules was to avoid negative expressions in any way. That's actually pretty hard to do sometimes. For instance, notice that I said "avoid negative expressions" instead of "not write negative things". One statement guides you toward what to do which your brain can process easily. The other makes your brain backtrack. Get it?

When you're doing your marketing, think as if you are the one being marketed to. That means thinking about everything, from color, to text, to how the brain processes information. For instance, the color red is commonly known for danger. Yes, it gets attention, but is that the signal you want to send? Positive experiences lead to repeat experiences. Hence the site that wanted me to only use positive wording. Their logic was that the brain would interpret positive messages and the idea of coming back to the site would stimulate positive memories, even if they are subconscious ones.

This post was actually brought about by a Facebook question asking how people felt when they read an author's statement of "Buy my book". As a reader, when you read that, it tells you to buy your own book. You interpret it the way it was meant, but the original impression on your brain is that you should buy your own book, which completely takes away from the idea of buying anyone else's book. Now, if you read "Buy <title>", then you just put a message into your brain that gives you clear directions. If you extend this by relating the phrase to a positive experience, like "<title> is the best <genre> work this year!", you're reading (or writing) a very powerful statement that makes a correlation between a specific title and a interest you have. Below is a kind of formula you might use to create such a positive flow.

"<positive action message><title><positive experience>"

Used in a message to sell a book, this formula might translate into something like this:

Read "How Men Can Survive PMS" for relationship survival tips and good laughs!

Note how there are actually 2 positive experience phrases. It's also a tight sentence, with no fluff; exactly what Internet readers are looking for. (That particular article also happens to be one that I had a blast writing.)

Remember that you can create a positive experience for the reader from beginning to end. That's a key point to remember when you're trying to create a fan base and at the same time, avoid annoying your Facebook friends.

Poorly scanned copy of a drawing Scott did of my son from a wallet size photo.

The first in my series on creative people from Starke County Indiana is my tattoo artist brother, Scott Foust. On a personal level, Scott is my favorite sibling not only because he gets me and has the highest level of loyalty I've ever seen in a person, but because he's not afraid of work. The world has kicked him around and he just keeps getting right back up. He wasn't pampered through a college degree or congratulated on his every small achievement. Rather, he has made his own way on his own merit, something more people should take a lesson from.

Scott is a natural artist and some of his best work coincides with who he is as a person who places high value on family and children. My favorite work of his is what he does for families. See, there's been a trend for parents to have their children's face or name (sometimes in black light ink) tattooed on them somewhere --something not just anyone can do because first, you have to draw the picture. Then, you turn it into a tattoo. My father passed the skill of drawing down to my brother and I, but while I can only do things like portraits, Scott can literally draw anything at all. The tattoo pictured here was done based on a picture he received via Facebook.

Scott travels throughout the Chicagoland area to do tattoos. His prices are more than reasonable and he always throws some kind of bonus to the person hosting the tattoo party. In other words, he does great work and appreciates the people that he does the work for. You can contact him via his Facebook page or leave a comment here and I'll make sure he gets it.

A while back a friend of mine introduced me to the work of L.A. Banks. I was so impressed with her work that I had to contact her for an interview.

Let me just say that this is a woman that I would have had in my home. When I contacted her, she replied by explaining that normally, all interviews went through her publicist. But, she happened to like my tone and could imagine herself having coffee with me in her kitchen. Hence, she agreed to do the interview.

Before I could turn the phone interview into text, my hard drive crashed. Since then I've been trying to catch up on things. It seems that I will have to put those things aside and get that interview down now so that her fans that didn't know her can have a chance to see what kind of a person she was.

In the interview, we discuss her vampire books. And, maybe you wouldn't think that someone who wrote about vampires was very spiritual, but authors like Leslie Banks and Anne Rice would tend to disagree with you.

L.A. Banks wrote about vampires because she saw them all around her. I don't mean that she saw people with fangs who were afraid of sunlight. What I mean is that in her interview she expressed how there were "vampires" all around, sucking off of the lives of people with their manipulations and offerings of drugs. If you've read her books you can see that she didn't judge those people so much as see how they could better put their skills to use for a higher purpose.

Leslie Banks wasn't just a great writer of fiction. She was a writer who was shocked by her success. She was a woman who stopped in the middle of an interview to say hello to my young son when she heard him come in from school. She laughed at life and herself.

My condolences to the friends and family of Leslie Ann Banks. She will be missed.

Photo credit: Taken from L.A. Banks' Facebook page

Writers are a pretty close knit group. As a member of that group, I sometimes have to share information on sites that are not what they seem to be. In the past, I've written about Mahalo and what they did to their writers. It wasn't a pleasant task, but it needed to be done. After all, Mahalo was pretty lucrative for some writers (including myself) for a decent period of time.

Every now and then writers in search of work will come across relatively new writing sites that look like a promising venture. The problem is that sometimes these sites and their owners get greedy or completely mismanage the site and the fall of them is heard throughout the online writing community. That's because they don't fall soon enough to prevent writers from being taken advantage of. Sadly, WritingbyCyndi.com is a site that currently takes advantage of select writers because of poor management practices and the presence of greed.

When I first started working for this site, the payments came as promised. Then, within a couple of weeks, payments were spotty or nonexistent. The reasons declared were that Paypal lost invoices, the site hadn't been paid yet or, when all else failed, the writing was rejected. Email correspondence from the owner was emotional and filled with name calling and confusion. Paypal reminders were met with hostility and confusion over which project the invoice concerned, though every invoice contained the details of the individual articles.

At this point, I was prepared to quit, but since invoices existed (and months later still do) that were not paid, I was afraid that I would never receive payment. I was chastised for questioning my "employer's" integrity. I was told to stop harassing her, yet my only initiation of correspondence was through Paypal reminders and every single invoice reminder I sent was met with childish multitudes of emails and threats of litigation with closing remarks in the form of questions on how I would like to proceed.

How I would like to proceed is how every writer would like to proceed. I'd like to get paid for work that was already published. Period.

This is just another reminder of why writers need to do research on sites before working for them. Happy writing to you all!

When I talk about scam writing sites, I use the term "scam" loosely. It means that yes, your work might get published. You might even get paid. But, somewhere along the line the site will lose integrity and you as the writer will feel the effect of it. Below are some red flags that a site may not be all that you expect it to be.

No TOS or Contract: Most freelance writing sites have a Terms of Service (TOS) that you agree to or a contract. These are the places where your rights are spelled out as far as copyright retainment, reprint rights and so forth are listed. If you find a site that doesn't have one of these, that's a good indication that it isn't a professional site. For instance, one poorly run site that offered no TOS or even a loosely formatted contract was WritingbyCyndi.com. On the upside, that means that every article sold to the site can now be sold for reprints. The downside is that writers and clients alike can expect that lack of professionalism to cause problems down the road. (Hint: Google isn't all that fond of complete reprints.)

Lack of Writer Reviews: When you look into working for a new site, be sure to Google it and learn about the experiences of other writers. A lack of reviews can mean that the site is too new to have any reviews yet, so tread carefully. You don't want your finances wrapped up in a fly-by-night sort of site.

Avoidance of Direct Answers: Lots of sites are too busy to answer every email. But, if you have a question about payment or the details of the writing and your email is ignored or responded to without actually answering the question, there are one of two things happening. Either the owner is avoiding the question or they don't even know the answer. I'm not really sure which is worse.

Payment Under Different Names: Again, WritingbyCyndi.com comes to mind. On that particular site, the payment comes from the owner's boyfriend rather than the owner or the site name. There are two things to consider here. What happens if the other person decides to take the money and run? You have no contract with them. Why doesn't the owner have their own account or the site itself have one for that matter?

Late Payment: There are some sites I write for that don't always pay on the exact day they are due. Sometimes this is because of a holiday or even a backlog. If payment comes within a day or two of when it's expected, this isn't always a big deal. After all, we've all had deadlines that were stretched because of a power outage or other technical difficulty. The problem is when it becomes a habit for the site to pay late or emails regarding payment are met with hostility. Unprofessional sites like this always go under. It's simply a matter of time.

Call Themselves Your "Employer": When a writing site starts taking out taxes and paying unemployment insurace, they are free to call themselves your employer. Until then, you are a freelance writer contracted to do specific tasks.

In short, it's always a good idea to get some background on online writing sites before you put too much effort into them. Unless you enjoy writing for free, do your homework to avoid online writing sites that are really just scams. Below is a list of places that is updated as I receive information about sites that offer insight into online writing site scams. Remember that a site that is listed even once as a scam has burnt at least one writer. Don't let your own name be the next one to get burnt.

Accentuate Writers Forum
Writers Beware

The Birth of Jaiden by Jennifer Malone Wright is a fiction work that leaves the reader to ponder the depth of the impact that our histories can have on us and how the world is shaped by even a minute part of an individual.

Mrs. Wright brings the reader into the heart of a creature that is historically considered evil and leaves you to wonder if the fate of a spirit can be decided that easily. Her characters will leave you with an urge to know them in-depth while the story itself begs to be written through to the very end.

The main character, Alex give you insight into the concept of putting things behind you and moving forward, while the group as a whole reminds us that blood ties aren't the only thing that makes a family. Jaiden, a newborn and very powerful natural witch-even from the cradle is responsive in such a way as to make one wonder if true evil is something that one is born to or if it is something that needs to be cultivated.

Among the many elements of the development of the human (and immortal) character traits, one is led to question nature versus nurture and the idea that evil and good are marked by the milestones of our lives. Can something that is supposed to be inherently evil really bring the blossom of light from a human spirit?

Can a creature whose soul is doomed to hell not only learn to love again, but teach it as well? This reader is anxious to find out in Jennifer's up and coming book The Rise of Jaiden.

Before I review this series, I have to confess that my neighbor introduced me to them as a result of some lengthy conversations about spirituality. She and I discuss positive energy a lot. We talk about the concepts of light and dark and so forth. Of course, I had no idea why she thought I would like these books since I had never expressed an interest in vampires. Once I read the books, I understood. These books aren't about vampires. They're not even really about vampire hunting. What they are really about is the concept of light and dark.

L.A. Banks has created a master collection that literally leaves the reader feeling as if they have just taken a "white bath". Her characters are vibrant and sexy, yet suffer from the same flaws of humanity that the rest of us do.

You won't find codependent teenagers that sparkle in the sunlight in this series. Nor is it a collection of historical romances. What you will find is yourself, questioning everything you ever knew about the black and white lines that define right and wrong.

L.A. Banks doesn't just tell a great story, she motivates her characters to become acutely aware of their senses even as her stories bring the reader in touch with their own. It's impossible for the reader to not be able to relate to at least one character and to feel compelled to search their own concept of good and evil and how they are sometimes intertwined.

Whether you read just one book or the entire series, you'll be able to imagine the characters come to life as you feel the hot breath of a leathery wingspan or the heat of passion that makes one want to "drop fang". If this series isn't made into an epic movie series soon, I'll have to wonder if Hollywood has given up on the idea of blockbuster profits!

In fact, I was so impressed with this series that I had to interview the author herself. Look for the interview with L.A. Banks to be published here in the near future so you can get a glimpse of the woman who so masterfully developed such intricate characters in the Vampire Huntress series and created some new ones in her latest book, Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books).

I happen to be privileged enough to have some very talented writer colleagues that I'm proud to call my friends. I have to admit that I even have a special amount of respect for my friends who write fiction because it's something that I haven't quite had the guts to tackle. It's the great unknown to me.
Today I wanted to share some of the fruits of labor from some of those friends. It's my version of showing pride in them and promoting their efforts. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never before have I worked with such a creative and caring group of people-which brings me to the other reason for this post.

Writer Rissa Watkins has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia. Rissa happens to be one of those people with such a warped sense of humor that she can make you laugh 'til you cry even on the worst of days. If you know her then you know how much she loves her family and what a blessing it is to have her as your friend. If you don't know her, then just think of that friend you have who you can call up in the middle of the night because you know that she can put a smile on your face.

Since we writers tend to band together during times of need, when you purchase any of the books below, you will be helping out Rissa Watkins. Twin Trinity is giving a portion of the proceeds from their sales to help Rissa cover medical costs. If you buy through the links here, I'll get a referral fee which will be donated to Rissa. Other authors featured here are donating as they can, so when you buy one of their books you'll be indirectly helping them to help Rissa. That means you get some great reading material and get to help someone out at the same time. What could be better?

Dark Christmas: A collection of tales by the Circle 8 Writers group including Angle Sharum, Theresa Lashmann, Lucinda Gunnin, Robert L. Arend, Amy Browne, Laurie Darroch-Meekis, Stephen Thor Gunnin and Tamara L. Waters. These authors offer a glimpse into the dark side of Christmas. You won't be reading this one to your children on Christmas Eve! Creatures of the night and revenge come together for a whole new perspective on Christmas.


Consequences: A Short Story Anthology: Another collection from the Circle 8 Writers group, these tales feature characters that attempt to control their own fate and the consequences that follow.


Elements of Time: Published by Twin Trinity, this collection of 15 short stories and 10 poems offers a variety of views on the past, present and future. This is perfect reading for those that get gripped by a tale and don't have the time to get through an entire book before they end the suspense!


Elements of the Soul: Another Accentuate Writers anthology published by Twin Trinity Media, this collection of tales and poems gives the reader a glimpse into the elements of life that can change a soul. Take a ride on the roller coaster of love or to the depths of the seventh circle of hell with stories that unabashedly show elements of humanity that we don't always talk about in polite society.