Success Diary - My Steps to Success

Everyone has their own story about why they work from home. What’s mine? It’s not that I dislike office jobs. I could probably tolerate it if I needed to. I just don’t love it. As annoying as it is when I need to stay up late to work on a project because I chose to [...]

Do you use sites like Bukisa and eHow to make extra writing income? Well, don’t underestimate the importance of community when using them. Sure, if you just post your articles and leave the site alone, you will eventually make money there. But commenting an articles and posting in the forums gives your articles even more [...]

I am in a situation where the household could use my extra income. So, I am going to get back to my roots and do some pure freelance writing for a while, until the income comes in. Then, I’ll go back to focusing on my internet marketing effots. This is what I’ll do:

Post bids at [...]

It has been over a month since I last posted here on this blog. It seems like eons - but I haven’t been away from the computer. On the contrary, I’ve been here, typing away, working on my niche blogs and squidoo lenses and building up my internet properties with a vengeance. So, I’ll give [...]

My business model is always changing and evolving. When I first started writing, I stuck to mainly print and some online magazines. I moved on  to writing for clients and starting my own blogs. Then Squidoo came into the picture and I started creating lenses like mad.
Now, the face of my business looks much different. [...]

My husband is now a student. That means he needs to write papers and do a lot of reading - his program is intensive with both of these things. Because I am a writer and an editor, I figured I’d help him out. But first, I needed to read the article.
And that’s where the problems [...]

I know, it is important to build up traffic over the long term. But sometimes I just want to send a quick surge of traffic to my posts to give things a jump start. This traffic doesn’t often return, but some of them may like my site, bookmark it, and return. But what are the [...]

Although writing is a highly creative pursuit, I find that when I write all the time without any interaction to the world and my hobbies, I simply dry up. When this happens, the last thing I want to do is write more. Some people call this “writer’s block”. Me? I see it as a sign [...]

So, you’re probably wondering - how do I do it? How do I make money writing? Well, there is no easy way to answer that. I do a little bit of everything. But since you may be a beginner, and you may feel frustrated in that you’ve been working hard and not saying any payout, [...]

When I was in the process of moving cross-country, it became clear that I needed more ongoing assignments. Pretty much the only thing I managed to keep up with was my monthly obligations as the Herbal Medicine Expert at eHow.com. Those tasks were already part of my routine so taking care of it on the [...]

I sometimes take time off from my writing. It happens to all of us - we often have something in our lives we need to do and working takes a back seat. I know I could find some time to do a little work when this happens. But my intentions don’t always translate to reality.
When [...]

I’ve known for a while that updating my squidoo lenses is an important part of driving traffic to them and making them worth my time. But I know how it is, you ignore your lenses because there’s just so much going on… well I learn this lesson over and over again - it really is [...]

There are certain businesses where hiring employees is unnecessary. If you operate a business at home, chances are you do pretty much everything yourself. If you have a small business such as a shop or a restaurant, however, you will find that you need some help. But there are some businesses that are not as [...]

If you are like most people, you probably want to make some extra money by monetizing your blog. There are so many choices! Affiliate ads, Adsense and other Pay Per Click programs are only just a few of your choices. So are things like Text Link Ads, Kontera, asking for donations, and finding independent advertisers. [...]

So, you’ve decided to start a home based business. With the convenience of the internet, there are a lot of things that you can do. What’s even better is that you can do it from anywhere. Home business owners enjoy a level of flexibility that is unprecedented. To get started all you need is a [...]

I posted a while ago about making $1,000,000 in five years. I am not quite sure that I actually WANT to make that much money. The concept of it seems cool but beyond that, it seems like a lot of work. I am not going to rule it out, but I am also not going [...]

My schedule has been hectic and I’ve still been able to find some time to work. Granted, I prefer to spend 6-8 hours a day doing work related tasks. However, I’ve learned that’s not exactly possible the way things have been for me lately. But I can still get some things done. Here are some [...]

f you have any knowledge of search engine optimization at all you will know that link building is an important part of any strategy to build traffic and raise your PageRank. Not only do more links mean that more people can find your website, it also helps the search engines to see that your site [...]

I don’t know about you but I often ignore things like eating meals and going to the gym in favor of a deadline or a project I’m in the middle of. But, my chosen profession as a freelance writer demands that my mind is always sharp. When I don’t eat, my mind feels sluggish. When [...]

Are you wondering how to start a profitable business online? That was my main concern a few years ago. I had spent a year or two working primarily offline as a freelance writer - sending queries to publications and waiting for them to accept my story.
Although fun and satisfying in its own right, that kind [...]

I was browsing on the Warrior Forum a while ago. Someone asked if there is a market for a product that will help people turn their hobbies into income. Not sure about that - testing a market can be a complex thing. But that got me thinking - what hobbies do I have in my [...]

I wasn’t sure where to place this step because I sort of format as I go along. I have a template that I use all the time and it’s just easier to write the ebook according to that format. However, even after all of the text is finalized, there is still a lot of work [...]

The next step to writing an ebook is to finalize all of the content, or write the final draft. For me, this can happen several ways:

If I am pressed for time, I’ll just read it through to make sure the content sounds good

If I have plenty of time, I’d take the time to expand or [...]

By now you should have a solid idea for your ebook, the table of contents (or outline if you want to call it that), and the research all completed. The next step is to actually start writing. Depending on the situation, I ue two basic approaches. The one I choose will depend on how long [...]

Yes, I know this may look out of order. Shouldn’t this come before writing the table of contents? Not for me. I like to have the topic list in front of me so I can know what to look for. The final table of contents will probably look much different than the one I scratched [...]