Ninety-nine percent of authors don’t make money on their book projects, 99 percent of publishers lose money and 1,500 books are published every day, reports Clint Greenleaf. With those stats, why does anyone consider a career as a writer or editor?
Because even with those stats, it is possible to make a good living. Especially now, as the growing number of online publications means there are many writing and editing opportunities that go beyond traditional books, newspaper and magazines.
Could you consider writing or editing as a career? Read the rest of this entry »
Although I haven’t kept a close eye on Elance, my impression has been that it was a basic job “bid” site for freelancer programmers. The site description summarizes their main focus as “outsourcing to freelance programmers, web and logo designers, copywriters, illustrators and consultants.” People with the jobs are the employers or “buyers” and the Web workers with the skills are the “providers” on Elance.
Since launching in 1999, the company has worked to expand their offerings, integrating some features to create more than just a job site and more of a work tool. What interested me beyond the job marketplace is Elance’s concept of a Remote Work System with the goal of creating a remote workspace for freelance workers to provide them with additional incentive to continue using the site after the job match has been made. The features are meant to help service providers manage a part of their work through Elance and give buyer and service provider more ways to connect and transact business.
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Last week, I took a look at what I called “Brain Tickler Tools” – Notefish and Instapaper – tools that went beyond bookmarking but actually helped me create some kind of writer’s tickler file where I could return anytime and browse over content to get ideas for articles and blog posts. I promised to check out a few more recommended by the WWD community.
I have to say that my experience with two other apps – Evernote (still in limited beta) and Google Notebook – was quite different from the first two I tried. They didn’t work as well for me. Hey, I’ve got to be honest here but also should clarify my criteria for what “works well for me” means.
- This is just my opinion.
- I need things to be very intuitive.
- Because I don’t read instructions.
- Because my brain would explode if I did and starts to smoke when I try.
So in the name of saving my brain, I jump right into using an application and then see how often I use it. Does it become second nature to me? Or am I constantly having to think about using it and how to use it properly?
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The online office applications market has been heating up lately. The gorilla in the room, Google Docs/Spreadsheets/Presentations, has made a lot of splashes. However Zoho, another strong contender, has recently added new features to their Writer application that are pretty intriguing.
Thesaurus: For 10 languages, Zoho Writer offers a Thesaurus option. For those of us who do a high volume of online writing, this means no more having to have a Firefox tab with Thesaurus.com loaded. Currently the Thesaurus supports English, Czech, German, Greek, French, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Slovak; with plans to add new languages in the future.
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Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
