KLF Writing Services

This is a fairly common question among new writers. Finding clients isn't always easy, and it does take some thinking outside the box. If you want to write online and make a good living out of it, writing for private clients is most definitely the way to go. First, you have to find them.

 
Scour the Web

Your first inclination is going to be to type in terms like "jobs for writers" and you are going to get a lot of hits that involve writers talking about their work or trying to find work. What you need to do is consider what an ad might say and then type in terms that reflect what a client is looking for. A few examples are below.

"academic writers wanted"
"copywriter wanted"
"writing position"

As you can see in the first example, you even narrow down the venue you want to work in. Some other examples are below.

"fashion writers wanted"
"write about _____________" (Fill in the blank with your niche.)

Hopefully, you get the idea. What you are doing is using the search engine's method of ranking keywords to find the exact positions you are looking for. If you're still getting too many hits that don't reflect what you are looking for, narrow it down more.

"Telecommute academic writers wanted"
"urban fashion writers wanted"

Use Craigslist

Some writers have had horrible experiences with Craigslist. Personally, almost all of my experiences with them have been positive. However, I use specific methods to make sure they are positive, or at least aren't a waste of my time.

If you shop on Craigslist now, you probably look in your own area. Unless you're looking for an in-house position, that's not how you want to approach Craigslist for a writing job. Instead, use the All of Craigslist feature. Here, you can search everything Craigslist has to offer, whether it's in your area or not. Just type your search terms in the text box and revise them as needed.

Sign Up On Job Boards

There are plenty of places where you can find clients looking for writers. Consider joining job boards like eLance. oDesk, and others. I don't personally use them, but I know writers who have had great success with them.

Network with Other Writers

When I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew how to write, but I didn't know how to write for an online audience or where to find work. The best decision I have ever made in my writing career was to join the Accentuate Writers Forum. I highly recommend it as a fantastic resource for writing leads, peer editing, tips, and just all around great writing advice. Network with the writers there and put in some real effort, and you are almost guaranteed success as a writer.

The new year is a great time to start thinking about how you are going to step up your writing career. The Success in Writing Series is meant to provide you with helpful tips on how you can get more clients, narrow your niche, and write about the things you want to write about. Let's start with your resume.

Review the Resume
How long has it been since you even looked at your resume? I confess, it's been over a year since I looked at mine, but I intend to rectify that situation immediately. If you happen to have a crippling fear of writing your own resume, don't be afraid to seek out some help. Personally, I write my own and then have one of my friends look it over because that's her niche.

Chronological or Topic?
For most writers, a chronological resume may not be feasible. If you worked on an awesome project that was done in two months, you don't necessarily want to put those dates down. For you and your client, it might mean that you kicked ass on it. For those reading your resume, it might mean that you only stuck around for two months. Consider a topic heavy resume instead and maybe even make more than one resume to fit your purposes.

• Make sure your contact information is up to date and check your email signature to make sure it's up to date as well.
• Make a resume by topic so that if you do SEO work, but you really want to only do health and beauty work, you have a resume for each one.
• Offer references and samples as needed. You don't need to include them on the resume, but you do need to indicate that they are available.
• Use headings and subheadings. They make your resume look more professional and they also make it easy for potential clients to focus on what's important to them.
• Keep topic-specific samples handy so you don't have to write a sample for every client you pitch.
• Write a pitch. You get paid to write, so don't waste your time re-writing a pitch for every client you want to approach. Write one pith and then modify it for each client.

There is nothing to put the writing community in a panic like the loss of a major site or the reduction in work from a major site. You'll hear a lot about having other eggs and lots of other financial advice from people working in the same place that you are. The truth is that you may have to think outside of the box (like writers aren't already).

You can make money from your blog, selling your articles, getting private clients, and all the other ways that online writers already know about, but might not use. And yet, there are ways that you haven't even thought of.

Raise Money for Someone Else

It's not like you don't know how to market or write to an Internet audience already. Now put that to use in another area. If nothing else, soon enough it will dawn on you that if you can market for someone else, surely you can do it for yourself.

Look to sites like For the Schools, where you can earn cash back for schools, but you can also earn some for yourself. In fact, you can literally dictate how much you earn because you get to decide how many people you invite. In turn, you get a bonus every time someone signs up. You can donate it to the school or keep it for yourself. What would I suggest? Charge a nominal fee (maybe 10%) to set up the account and then give everything else to the school. You'll be able to help the community, make a bit of money, and endear yourself to the school and local businesses, who might just need a marketing professional.

Mystery Shop

Believe it or not, you can make some decent money as a mystery shopper. How does your writing come into play? Reports and headaches, that's how.

Every report you write goes back to the mystery shopping company. They have to be able to read the report and pass it along to their client. When push comes to shove and bonuses are available, is that company going to look to you-- someone who provides well written reports that don't have to be completely rewritten before going to the client, or someone who may or may not turn in a legible report every now and then?

There are other things you can do. Edit, tutor, sell items online, create copy for friends who want to sell items online, charge a fee to teach other people how to make a living online, and lots more. You're a writer. Do what you do best and get creative!

I've been debating this issue for a little while now. I'm a very frugal person, so the idea of hiring someone to fill out paperwork or something similar is just about beyond my scope. However, I've learned that everyone should have access to a lawyer and certainly every business should have access to one. Frugal or not, sometimes it's cheaper to let someone else handle the legalities. Let me just share an example or two of why this is so.

I have very little problems with payments from clients. Every now and then I may have to send a reminder. Every now and then I have to send multiple emails. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does I probably waste more time trying to get paid for the work I did than actually doing the work. Even though I'm not spending cash out of pocket, it still costs me because it wastes my time.

And then there are the completely non-paying clients. I've only had one of those. I stopped writing until I got payment, which means I pretty much stopped writing for her altogether. Apparently she was doing the same thing to other writers, who lost untold amounts of cash. How much energy do you have to waste getting payments?

Sometimes you are better off to hire a lawyer than to waste your time. You see, a lawyer has the time to do the research and learn that someone like this has scammed plenty of writers. What's next? Because the lawyer had time, the issue got presented with a lot more merit. I mean there is a huge difference between one person taking you to court for a bill and mulitple people getting involved in a class action lawsuit.

And then there are issues with insurance, and in my case, things like real estate. I don't know the first thing about transferring a deed. But my lawyer does. See, I could spend days working on that stuff to make sure I do it right. But if I charge $20 an hour and my lawyer charges $100, it's worth it to let my lawyer spend 2 hours working on something he is familiar with instead of me spending all week trying to make sure I've got it right.

Let's get the full disclosure thing out of the way first. This book was a gift to me from James Strauss, but not for the price of a review. James happened to get on a roll one day and was amazed by the price The Boy: The Mastodons-Book 1 goes for on Amazon, so he decided to give away a few signed copies. I was one of the lucky recipients. Now on to the actual review.

Honestly, The Boy: The Mastodons-Book 1 is everything you would expect from James Strauss. I had been interested in reading this book for a while, but the last time I paid over $70 for a book was in college and it was never worth it. I'm too frugal to do it for pleasure.

If you, like I did, wonder if this is going to be a similar read as The Clan of Cave Bear series is, let me clue you in. They are similar in that they are both realistic historical fiction and they both offer a potential glimpse into the life of an individual who dares to step outside the bounds of approved societal behavior for the time the story is set in. However, the similarities end there.

You won't find so much in the way of healing herbs as you will in human behavior and the difference one person straying from the path can make. This book is about the entrapment of how the codes of a society that originally meant to protect a community, can ultimately be the downfall of one.

When loneliness and fear are your only companions, and internal ones at that, you will seek outside solace as The Boy does. Separated from his tribe by disaster, The Boy makes an unusual friend and is soon lost in isolation that leads to discovery. The book delves into the human mind and includes not so pleasant thoughts of the main character, so that you get a glimpse of real human nature, how it can be flawed, and how it can be changed.

While The Boy: The Mastadons-Book 1 is rich in detail and description, it is also the gateway to understanding the destruction of conformity and the assumptions that are made because of it. If you enjoy (pre)historical fiction, you will enjoy this tale for the sake of the tale. If you enjoy reflecting on the fallacies of societal behavior, you are going to wonder why this book is not required reading for any parent, teacher, or leader of any kind.

Since Google announced the release of the new Hummingbird algorithm, writers have been in a panic about what this means for them. It can't be stressed enough that it means the same thing any new algorithm means; create quality content or don't create at all.

With every new algorithm that Google rolls out n an effort to better match search term results with what people are actually looking for, the Internet community goes into a panic, thinking all their hard work is for naught. Unless you are still keyword stuffing and relying completely on meta tags and black hat techniques,you have nothing to worry about. People don't generally search for things using search tools that Internet writers use. Instead, they use conversational terms that they might use with a friend. The aim of the search engines is to interpret these terms to return useful results. So what can you do to make Hummingbird work for you? Use some of the techniques below in your writing.

• Create searchable titles. Generally it is understood that Google looks at the first five words of a title, so you want to be sure to get your search terms in there and make a title that is Internet friendly. For example, "Getting it Together" might be a creative title for a book on dating with a picture of a couple on the front, but in terms of search engines, it doesn't mean anything. Something better suited to an article on getting together with a new romantic partner might be "Find New Love" or "Meet Your Soul Mate".
• SEO is still worthwhile. As long as you are using SEO the right way, it still works. That means you need to use it in limited amounts with related terms.
• Let go of the pronouns. I have said it before and I will say it again; pronouns drag you down. Yes, pronouns can be useful and used sporadically, but if you are writing a parenting blog and you keep referring to your son as "he" or "him" instead of "son", "child", and so forth, you aren't letting the search engines know that you are talking about your child. A good rule of thumb is to write like you are writing to a stranger. When you say "him" to a stranger, they don't know who you are talking about. Instead, use terms that identify him as your son.
• Keep things current. For instance, this blog is not about Panda and it is not about generic things in the writing word. Keep your blog focused and current so that you can rank in current results on an ongoing basis.
• Write about things that people want to read. Whether you are doing copy writing, sharing recipes, or any other number of things, offer people something they actually want to read. It works best if you make it entertaining and informative at the same time.

Michelle Devon does an excellent job of bringing characters to life in a somewhat twisted tale that has character Kyle McCroy questioning his own sense of reality. A man who is already unsure of his own sanity and life he finds himself in is faced with a new element when he meets Celeste.

This is a tale that most people can relate to on some level. It takes the reader through a journey that makes you ask yourself how many times your reality has seemed to put you in a questionable state of mind. This is one of those tales that draws you in and won't let you go. Michelle Devon uses her storytelling skills to dive into one my favorite topics; the human psyche.

Thumbs up Ms. Devon for giving readers a reminder of all that is not as it seems.

I recently joined Empire Avenue, a unique kind of social networking game where the players can buy and sell stock in each other.

Of course, no discussion about social media would be complete without adding my own profile. If you want to connect with me on Empire Avenue, just go to my Empire Avenue profile and leave me a "shout out". Make sure to mention "Kathy Foust Writing Services" in the shout out and I'll "invest" in your profile as thanks. Since I just started out here, I don't have a wealth of tips for using Empire Avenue, but I do have a few for you.

Invest in "new" people. Their stock is going to rise quickly, and with it your dividends. Several people have said not to invest in profiles that have less than 5 social media connection listed, but we all know it might take a day or two to set up a profile when you're just starting out somewhere.

Do Missions! Simply click on the "mission" tab at the top and see what there is to do. You can quickly earn "money" and make new social connections. Here's another tip: If you want to establish a presence on the Internet, try to do missions that relate to your current work. Google notices what you do.

Use the chat feature. The chats at the bottom of your window are a great way to start making real time connections with people. You can trade "likes" and swap promotions. If you're trying to get a blog endorsed, this is a great tool to use!

If you're wondering about the strange code at the top of this post, it's just a code that I have to keep there for 24 hours to verify my blog. I know it's hideous, but it's only temporary. Happy writing and I hope to see you on Empire Avenue!

Financial books aren't normally anything I enjoy reading. If I'm going to sit down and read a book, it's going to be for pleasure. I have to say that pleasure is just what I got from this book.

I was expecting to be bored to tears, but glean some useful financial information from Piggy Banks to Paychecks by Angie Mohr. To be fair, I did get an education and found the glossary in the back to be an especially useful tool, but I was also entertained. She somehow turned finances into something I could stand to read about because she included her own voice and real life situations.

Piggy Banks to Paychecks is a sort of guide to help parents educate their children in the world of finances. It does just that, but does it in such a way that the parent isn't wishing they were watching a good movie instead of reading the book.

Angie Mohr has packed this book with more information that a first year Econ class. It's written in the voice of a parent rather than a dry accounting perspective. Well organized and easy to read, Piggy Banks to Paychecks may just be the best financial book I've read yet. A huge thumbs up to Angie Mohr for a job well done!

Tax season is here and that means you're either cringing or celebrating. Either way, I thought I would try to make things a bit easier by sharing some tax resources that can make your 2011 tax preparation a bit easier.

Do not go to HR Block. You'll pay hundreds of dollars for someone else to prepare your taxes and you won't get them any sooner than you will if you do them at home. As a freelance writer you are obviously capable of your own data entry and have access to the Internet. Use it wisely.

Learn from a seasoned CA (equivalent of a CPA) and freelance writer. In fact, read this book
before you even start your taxes so you have an idea of what you're working with. Angie Leamen Mohr shows you how to save on your taxes by letting you know about deductions and rules you may not be aware of. Seriously...self-employment tax isn't cheap so use very advantage you can get!

File for free. The government does have some mercy on us during tax season, or maybe they just wanted to make everything easier on themselves. Either way, they've created a list of places where you can file your taxes for free. It's called FreeFile and you have a wide variety of options to choose from. The government doesn't generally offer up a lot of free things, so take it while you can!

Keep an eye on your taxes. The IRS refund schedule makes it easy to find out when you can expect your refund back. Again, please note that HR Block no longer has refund anticipation loans, so there is absolutely no reason to spend your money there. As you can see, you can get your refund back all on our own within 1-2 weeks.

If you're an online freelance writer, you've more than likely had to write some articles that had to have SEO work into them. Sometimes the phrase seems almost impossible to incorporate into a normal sentence, but knowing how Google reads text can be a big help.

Google doesn't currently recognize punctuation or capitalization. Big deal, right? Actually, it is kind of a big deal when you consider how you can use this to your advantage. Let's take a look at a phrase that might be used when writing for SEO.

"south beach diet how"

Just try and fit that in one sentence and see if any native English readers will return to see what else you've written. But, since Google doesn't look at capitalization or punctuation this one is fairly easy to get into content that makes sense. Using that information you can write sentences like the ones below and actually look like you know something about the English language.

"You're going to live in South Beach? Diet how you want to but know that you're going to be scrutinized!"

"So, you want to try the South Beach diet. How do you know what to eat?"

As you can see, the keyword phrase exists in just the right order and the sentences actually make sense!

Being a work at home mom isn't for everyone. But, if you're going to do it, you're going to have to take a few steps to make sure that you do it well. Below are some work at home tips that work well for me.

Create an office space. You might think that working at home means you can sit with your laptop o your couch in front of the television. That might work for some, but for most of us, work has to be separated from the rest of life's events. Even if you don't have a separate room for your office, try to make an area in your house that is devoted just to your work.

Set a schedule. One of the great things about working at home is that you get to set your own schedule. You need to take that schedule seriously if you expect others to take it seriously. After all, if you don't respect your work time, why would anyone else?

Break your work down into manageable time slots. Recognize that part of working at home means you have to do it all. You'll be the accountant, the public relations and even the labor force. Don't forget to schedule time slots for all of these functions. Whether you do a bit every day or have specific days for each function, scheduling them in time chunks means that you can get into a routine, which leads to better performance and higher levels of organization.

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