Most business books on the market cover the gamut of how to make more money, gain fame, grow, get work done, and manage people. But few talk about business from the perspective of “family first” like Marc Warnke’s book “ONO, Options Not Obligations.” Many web workers love what they do, especially those who work virtually, because it allows them to spend more time with their families or live fulfilling lives outside of their careers.
Warnke says that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Warehouse Club Founder Sam Walton’s last words were, “I blew it.” How could one of the richest people in the world think this? According to the author, Walton wasn’t reflecting on his massive wealth and business successes, but rather on missing family time. Read the rest of this entry »
Photo by: borman818
As a freelance online community consultant, I spend a lot of time thinking about ways to stabilize my income to reduce the ups and downs that come with having my own business. The most obvious solution is to manage your pipeline to make sure that you have new projects to replace the ones that are completing, but it’s also a good idea to have alternative income streams to complement your main client work and fill in any gaps.
In an ideal world, you finish one project on Friday with your next project ready to start on Monday; however, we don’t live in an ideal world, and even our best planning efforts occasionally go awry. While my client base has been fairly steady, I’m always concerned that I might have gaps. I would rather have plans to fill those gaps rather than being caught off guard and unprepared, so recently, I have been experimenting with alternative income streams that will generate regular revenue without relying entirely on client work.
This isn’t a new topic on WebWorkerDaily. Georgina recently wrote a great post with some of her recession avoidance techniques: saving more, managing debt and spending, and strategies for finding new work and staying motivated, while Anne Zelenka wrote a great post with 10 new ways to make money online, and Mike and Aliza followed up with 10 more new ways to make money online. However, I wanted to write about my personal experiences with alternative income streams. Read the rest of this entry »
Despite my best efforts, I can easily get lost on the web. And in doing so, I let some things fall into neglect, like social network identities that I should tend to, or blog content that I should update. It would be really great if I could keep everything in one place. There are sites that try to aggregate these kinds of things for you so that you don’t lose track of them, but I haven’t yet found one that was comprehensive and simple enough to prove useful on a continuing basis. Chi.mp is a new identity management service that looks like it will provide a solution.
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There’s a new Web publishing tool on the block that seeks to deliver on the convergence promise between “blogging, social networking, and…American Idol!” So says Sue Heilbronner, president of WEbook that makes its debut today. I spoke with Heilbronner and Melissa Jones, the site’s content manager, and I asked questions from the point of view of someone who has written and published seven books to-date.
So what is WEbook, really?
From what I understood so far, it is a collaborative tool for writing books. You can create a book project, invite anyone to co-author with you – including an open invitation to the entire WEBook community – invite feedback from others including the community, and then submit for consideration to be published by WEBook in either print-on-demand, e-books, audiobooks or all of the above. The community votes on a submitted manuscript (the American Idol portion of the site) through a 1-5 rating system.
The first published book from WEBook’s Alpha phase is titled Pandora, an international terrorism thriller composed by 17 writers.
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
