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mbaljeetsingh · 5 years

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5 Smart Ways to Get Your Clients to Pay Your Rates

If you’re a freelancer, you are probably getting paid much less than you’re worth for the following reasons.

One, you are influenced by what your competitors are charging – why charge $1500 for that web design project that everybody else is charging $600 for? Two, you are afraid clients won’t pay your rates. Three, you are competing with a sea of "professionals" who will happily charge one-tenth of what you’re supposed to charge.

Good news is, no matter your reasons for charging low, you could be getting paid double, triple, or more. Here are some tips to help you.

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1. Upgrade Your Belief in Yourself

If you find it difficult to convince yourself that your service is worth a premium, nothing can be done to help you get paid what you are worth.

This first step is often the most difficult and everything else becomes easy once you get it right: make sure you believe strongly in the value you’re offering to your clients.

If you are a freelance designer, start thinking about how your client will benefit from your design for the next 1-2 years; your design will probably help your client make back 50 to 100 times what they are paying you. If that is the case, why not double your rates?

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You should also look at the top people in your field to see what they are doing right as well as how confidently they are charging what they’re worth; you will be surprised that they are easily charging 10 to 50 times more than what you are charging.

Motivating yourself by studying these people and their experiences will surely go a long way to help you solidify your belief in yourself.

2. Have a Clear Unique Selling Point

If you are "just another web designer" or "a top WordPress designer," then, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, no one will pay what you deserve. Almost everybody is "just another web designer" or a "top WordPress designer," so it will be very difficult to convince your clients to pay you a premium if that’s how you position yourself.

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Have a clear unique selling point (USP) that helps your client realize that they are getting a service that they can’t get anywhere else. Your USP could be about your approach, the kind of clients you work with, the kind of clients you actively send away, the niche you work in, etc.

Having a USP will send some clients away, and that’s a good thing; you are carefully repelling the clients you don’t want, who probably won’t pay what you are worth so that you can get clients that will value what you have to offer.

For a detailed guide on finding your USP, this article is a must-read.

3. Values in Premium Service

When it comes to selling your services, there are two kinds of value you can offer to a client. They are:

Inherent value: the main value in your offer; what will result in long-term results for your clients (essentially the quality and effectiveness of your work).

Perceived value: the value your client believes/feels they will be getting; the reason for hiring you

Perceived value is not necessarily inherent value but it is often just as important. No client will hire you without feeling strongly about the perceived value of your product. Besides making sure your service can stand the test of time, you also need to make sure your client is convinced they will be getting a premium service (perceived value), otherwise, you would have little luck closing deals with clients.

No matter how great the value of your services, if your client won’t feel like they’re getting a deal, it would be difficult to get them to work with you.

Tips to Increase Perceived Value

#1. Increase your prices: double it, triple it, whatever. Just increase it. Increasing the price of a product or service has been psychologically proven to increase its perceived value.

In a study where subjects were asked to taste the same wine but were made to believe that one is worth $5 and the other is worth $45, they reported more satisfaction after tasting the $45 wine. It had nothing really to do with the quality of the wine; they just felt that they were getting premium wine.

So, want to make clients feel that you offer a premium service? Charge a premium rate!

#2. Offer exceptional support: This will make a client feel that they’re not just buying your service but they also feel that they’re buying you.

Offering exceptional support even before you close a deal with a client can go a long way to convince the client that your service is worth a premium.

#3. Use Social Proof: When potential clients see that a lot of people are using your services, they feel it is worth a premium.

You could use just one of the above 3 principles and still get great results. However, if you can combine all 3 you’ll be surprised at the results you’ll get.

4. Attract Your Clients the Right Way

When you are bidding for clients on sites like oDesk or Elance, where the average hourly rate for writers and designers is around $10, you can’t expect to get away with charging $80 per hour no matter what you do.

It will simply be difficult to convince your client that you are offering more value than the 20 other writers who want to charge a fraction of your rates.

This is why you should be careful with how you get clients; if you are getting them on bidding sites or by competing with dozens of other freelancers, they already have lots of potential candidates to choose from, it will be difficult convincing them to choose you and pay your "heavy" rates.

Alternative Attractions

Instead, take charge of how you attract your clients. I favor an approach where I get a client to come to me instead of having to seek out the client.

Basically, this can involve having a website or blog and then advertising your services in one way or the other – it could be via social media, PPC, or by appearing regularly on authoritative blogs in your niche.

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My suggestion is to build a blog about the type of service you offer, regularly publish content on it, showcase case studies in your niche, and appear on relevant blogs to contribute value while promoting your brand.

5. Sell Value, not Money

Your clients are making a business decision and as a result, they do not care about the money they are spending but about the value they are getting by spending that money.

If a client pays $500 for your design and makes $2,000 back in one year, that is an ROI of 400%. If a client pays $2,000 for your web design and makes $100,000 back as a result in one year that is an ROI of 5,000%. In this case, your client would be willing to spend $2,000 instead of $500.

The key to closing deals isn’t to tell your client how much they will be saving if they pay your rates but to tell them how much they will be making. To most real clients, it probably won’t make much of a difference to spend $2,000 instead of $500 but it will make a lot of difference to make a profit of $98,000 instead of a profit of $1,500.

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This is what you should use to convince clients to pay your rates. If possible, look for relevant case studies from past clients who have gotten great ROI from using your services. Use these case studies to convince your clients to pay your rates.

Wrap Up

Your clients won’t come and hand you what you deserve and your market won’t determine a fair price for your work. Instead, use the above tips to get clients to pay you what you are worth.

Editor’s note: This post is written by Bamidele Onibalusi for Hongkiat.com. Bamidele is a blogger, freelance writer, and the founder of WritersinCharge.com.

via Hongkiat https://ift.tt/36URf0W

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simplemlmsponsoring · 5 years

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6 Email Personalization Hacks You Can Use Right Now To Boost ROI

This is a guest post from Bamidele Onibalusi at Writers in Charge. How often do you feel that your email marketing is missing something important? That deficiency manifests in low open rates, high unsubscribe rates, and meager conversions. All of these are symptoms of one major malady: subpar...

https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/list-building/6-email-personalization-hacks-you-can-use-right-now-to-boost-roi/

#EmailMarketing, #Examples, #GuestPost, #Personalization, #Preferences, #Roi, #Segmentation #LISTBUILDING

Simple MLM Sponsoring

#email marketing #examples #guest post #personalization #preferences #roi #segmentation #LIST BUILDING

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traimidave · 7 years

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Who are the top bloggers in Nigeria?

There is a great deal of justified frustration among disillusioned readers of blogs in Nigeria.

Top 10 Bloggers In Nigeria BY RANKSNG BLOG

Who are the top bloggers in Nigeria?

There is a great deal of justified frustration among disillusioned readers of blogs in Nigeria.

Regardless, these dominant personalities have found a way to keep their readers…

View On WordPress

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years

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Learn from the Best: 6 Skills All Great Writers Have (and How to Learn Them)

If you want to be a successful online marketer, there’s one thing you must be able to do:

you must be able to write.

Writing is involved in almost every type of content creation there is.

Emails, blog posts, and books are all primarily written content.

But even for videos, podcasts, and courses, you need to write content as well as scripts.

I’ll be honest with you:

If you’re a terrible writer, it’s unlikely you’ll be successful.

It’s harsh, but it’s true.

The good news is that you probably aren’t a terrible writer. It’s pretty hard to be one.

But at the same time, it’s hard to become a great writer.

Even after years of writing, I still wouldn’t say I’m a great writer—maybe a good one.

The key thing that you need to know is that you can improve your writing skills.

By studying the works of great writers, you can learn what makes their writing great.

And with practice, you can improve the effectiveness of your own writing, which means more traffic, subscribers, and customers.

Although you could spend dozens of hours doing that research yourself, you could just let me show you which skills are the most important when it comes to writing.

I have studied a wide variety of top notch writers (who are also great marketers) over the years and noticed that they all have certain skills in common.

In this article, I’ll break down these skills, showing you examples of them in action and ways to develop them.

By the end of this post, you should have a concrete game plan of how to become a better writer for the benefit of your business.

1. Having a big vocabulary doesn’t make you a great writer

When most people picture great writers, they think of them crafting sentences full of obscure words such as aphesis and esculent.

But the people who use words like that are usually terrible writers.

The measure of a writer is not how big his or her vocabulary is. As long as you have a decent vocabulary and understand the fundamentals of grammar of the language you’re using, you can be a good writer.

Even if you’re just learning a language, don’t think that you can’t be a good writer just because you don’t know every word of it.

There are plenty of successful bloggers who write in their second language (e.g., Bamidele Onibalusi).

Is their writing perfect from a grammar and vocabulary perspective? No, of course not.

But even without an extensive vocabulary, they’re able to create content that people love to read.

There’s actually a way for us to quantify the complexity of writing. It’s called the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale.

It looks at the length of words, and a few other factors, in order to determine at what grade level people could understand your content.

By copying a few sample blog posts into this readability score calculator, I was able to create this chart:

The three other writers on this list are all great writers in my opinion, or at least very good.

Notice that Brian and Ramit both write at about 4th grade level, as do I. That means the average 10-year-old could read most of our content because it’s not very complex.

Even though Michael Hyatt writes at a more sophisticated level, it’s still only at a grade 7 level.

The big question then becomes: Why?

The reason why great writers use simple words and phrases is because they write for the reader, not themselves.

They may appreciate the intricacies of the English language, but most readers don’t care about that. They want their information in the simplest and easiest to comprehend way.

Obviously, it’s much easier to read and understand short simple words than to figure out what the heck clandestine means (if you are curious, it means “done in secret”).

Oh yeah, there’s one other benefit to writing simply: you can write much faster.

Instead of searching for the “perfect” word, you use plain language—typically the first words that come to mind. These words are usually the words that your audience understands easily as well, so they’re really the perfect choice.

How can you apply this? This is a very simple skill to develop: just write. When you’re writing something, write down the first things that come to mind instead of searching for more complicated words instead.

Don’t worry if you make mistakes; you can always fix them when you edit.

2. Do you care how your readers feel?

Poor writers do a variety of things.

Some write what they themselves would want to read.

Others write to sound as intelligent as possible.

Either way, it’s not about the reader. Instead, it’s more about “look at how smart and awesome I am.”

Very few people are interesting enough to make this strategy work for them.

When writers focus on themselves, their writing is not compelling to the reader. These kinds of writers either improve over time as they recognize their mistakes, or they blame the readers for not recognizing good content.

I have to ask you a tough question now:

When you write content, do you think of the reader first or do you think about how to make yourself look the best (as the author)?

It’s not necessarily one or the other. Your answer could be somewhere in the middle (i.e., sometimes you focus on yourself).

The simple solution: If you’ve recognized an opportunity for improvement here, it’s easy to take advantage of it, at least in theory.

The answer is to develop empathy.

Empathy basically means that you can understand your readers’ perspective: their problems, interests, personality, and other relevant aspects of their lives.

It takes time to develop empathy, and I’m not sure if you can ever master it completely.

But empathy really shows in great writing.

The best writers use empathy both to understand what readers need to hear (solve their problems) and to determine the best way to teach them.

Some audiences need to be shown direct solutions; others need step-by-step directions; while others need a gentle prod in the right direction.

Examples of empathy in action: When writers truly understand their audience and then focus all their attention on writing that will help the audience as much as possible, it shows.

Take a look at this post from Seth Godin. He mentions the word “you” or its variations 10 times in about 100 words. This post is all about the reader.

The post is about being passionate about your work.

Many bloggers write on this topic. Most would have focused on how their own corporate experience led them to the epiphany that they needed to care more.

But that would have fallen on deaf ears.

Instead, Seth focuses on the reader’s life. He explains the problem using the language that the reader would use to describe the problem in detail.

And then, he offers a simple, one-line solution.

Or how about James Clear? He’s another great writer.

His posts aren’t based on the numbers in Google’s Keyword Planner. They are based on questions that he gets from his readers.

He knows that for every person who expresses frustration or identifies a problem, there are a hundred other people in his audience with the same issue.

So James uses his readers’ language so that other readers can relate to it and feel that the content was created specifically for them.

There’s no other way to do that other than by writing solely for the reader.

The hard part – How to develop empathy: Telling you to develop empathy is easy, but actually doing it isn’t so easy: it takes a lot of conscious practice.

But it’s not all or nothing either. Just because you don’t perfectly understand your audience doesn’t mean you can’t partially understand them.

And as you get better at empathizing with your audience, your writing will improve.

To practice this skill and develop empathy, I suggest the following five-step process. Perform it every time you create content:

1. What problems (and related problems) do your readers have around [topic of choice]?

2. How significant are these problems (very serious? or just minor pains?)

3. How do you think your readers would describe these problems?

Use steps #1-3 to outline your post. Create an intro and headlines that a reader would not only understand but would see and think, “I was just wondering about that!”

4. After writing the content, look at every single sentence/paragraph and ask yourself: “Does my reader actually care about this?” If not, either rephrase it, or take it out completely.

5. Study all comments you get on your content (whether it’s a blog comment, review, email, etc.). Try to understand why a reader says they do or don’t like it.

Create a simple checklist using these five steps, and follow it every time you write.

If you do, you’ll notice that your content will start to resonate with readers more and more.

Your audience will be more excited to read your posts, and they’ll be more engaged. You’ll get readers’ comments telling you their thoughts and opinions, which will be full of great ideas for more content (I get great suggestions all the time from my readers).

Ultimately, when it comes to your business, this type of resonance is very important because it tells the reader that you understand them.

If you create a product, they know that you’ve created it just for them and that it will meet all their needs and wants. Developing empathy is a skill that will have a long-term impact on your revenue.

3. Great writers aren’t born overnight

Think of the great writers in history: Shakespeare, Hemingway,…Neil Patel (maybe one day).

Whomever you think of when you think of great writers, it’s important to realize that they were not born that way.

Although writing is more abstract than mathematics or programming, it is a skill like any other and can be developed.

At one point or another, all writing greats could barely string a sentence together.

However, they all shared one thing: a drive to be a great writer.

Right now, you need to check if your motivation to become a better writer is enough to get you to the level you want.

If you really want to be the best writer you can be, you’ll have to write many hours, every single day. That’s what it takes to be the very best.

If you want to be one of the best writers who is also a marketer, that’s still hard, but not quite as difficult. You’ll still want to practice at least 10-20 hours a week.

But the most important thing you need to determine is this: do you really want to be a better writer?

Determine your goals, and then figure out what you’ll need to do to get there.

For example, if you want to be a blogger, start by taking a look at your favorite bloggers.

If you scroll down to the bottom of Quick Sprout’s blog page, you can click on the “last” button to see my oldest posts.

And if you do, you’ll see that my first post on this blog was written in 2007:

If you wanted to reach my current level of success, are you prepared to write about 2-3 posts a week for 8 years?

And then write over 300 guest posts as well?

If you are willing to put in that work, I guarantee that you will be very successful.

How to put in your dues in a systematic way: If you simply say out loud, “I’m going to write a blog post every day for the next three years,” chances are that you won’t.

You need to develop your own system that keeps you accountable.

Step 1 is to determine what you need to do to become the writer you want to be.

Create a new document that clearly states what you think you need to do.

For example:

Step 2 is to determine a schedule that you can stick to. This is formed by your personal schedule. If you have more time to spend on writing, you have more flexibility.

Here’s what it might look like:

I will write and publish a post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, no matter what.

You have the plan, but you need to make sure you follow through with it.

Step 3 is to find a way that will hold you accountable.

It’s really easy to just not write a post because you’ll barely notice the difference in the short term. But in the long term, it can make a huge difference.

So, how will you hold yourself accountable? There’s no wrong answer, but make sure that there’s a serious consequence if you don’t follow through with your plan.

For example, you could say that if you miss a post:

you will donate $50 to a charity

you will do something that you don’t like

you will email a friend or family member revealing an embarrassing secret

When you’re feeling motivated, you’ll have no problem writing. But when you’re not feeling motivated, this accountability plan will keep you on track.

Now you should have a simple but solid writing plan:

You should print this out and put it somewhere where you will see it at least once a day (at least until you develop good habits).

Finally, step 4 is to forget about the result, and focus on the process.

The reason for this is that in order to get the most out of your writing, you need to focus on writing itself as much as possible.

The whole point of this writing plan is for you to not focus on the results.

You don’t need to worry, thinking: “Am I doing enough to become a successful writer?” because you’ve already determined exactly what you need to do.

If you just focus on adhering to your plan, you’ll know with nearly 100% certainty that you will become a very good and successful writer when you are done.

So, don’t worry about traffic stats and other metrics while you write; just focus on writing well—the result will come.

4. “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time”

That quote has been attributed to many great writers, but it appears to have been first said by Blaise Pascal.

Regardless of who said it, the meaning is incredibly powerful.

When we talked about using simple words in writing, I advocated writing down the first words that came to mind.

When you do this, you’ll often end up using more words than you need to.

And the reason why this is a bad thing is because it dilutes the value in your content.

Think of it this way: your content has a message that has a certain value to your readers.

I would define the intensity—or quality—of writing using a simple formula:

Intensity = Value / Length

The longer your content is (if the value is held constant), the lower the intensity.

If you really want to inspire your readers to take action, your writing needs to blow them away.

It needs to provide value at a fast enough rate so that it feels to them as if a light bulb went off in their heads. In other words, your writing needs to be of a high intensity.

The more unnecessary words you have, the lower the intensity of your writing will be, and the smaller the impact your content will make.

Again, we can look at Seth Godin for a perfect example of high intensity writing. He makes every single word count.

Despite writing very short posts, he delivers a ton of value to his readers, which results in significant emotional reactions from them:

As you’ve noticed, I take a very different approach with my posts.

They are very long, usually at least 4,000 words. Since they are so long, I need to pack them with value.

Where Seth’s content is more strategic (broad thinking), my posts are more on specific tactics and ways to implement them, which takes more time to explain.

But although my posts are between 4,000 and 6,000 words, they are usually much longer when I first write them. I edit them down and remove as much “fluff” as I can.

With blog posts, you have a lot of flexibility with length. In other forms of writing, you don’t.

In emails or landing pages, you typically only have a limited amount of space (often fewer than 100 words) to get as much value across to your readers as possible.

Notice in the above example that every sentence either describes a feature or a benefit of the product.

How do you cut out the “fluff”? Like with these other skills, it takes practice to become a good editor (you could hire one if you wanted).

To practice, go through your content, sentence by sentence, and ask yourself if there is a simpler way to get your message across.

For example, the sentence:

There are some marketing channels that are better than others, like email marketing.

could be reduced to:

Email marketing produces the best ROI of any marketing channel.

That simple change took the sentence from 13 words to 10 words, and made the meaning of the sentence clearer.

That’s a 23% decrease in length. If you originally wrote a 3,000-word article and decreased every sentence by that percentage, you’d end up with a 2,300 word article.

Although it’s shorter, it will make a bigger impact on your readers because of its increased intensity.

Here’s a brilliant article on specific edits that you can make to make your writing more powerful to get you started.

5. I’ve never seen a great writer that doesn’t have this

What do typical writers do to prepare for an article?

They do a bit of research on Google and then compile what they learn into an article.

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a recipe for producing content that is very similar to what’s already out there.

The best writers I’ve seen can write about any topic in their niche and put some kind of unique spin—angle—on it.

Besides being unique, that additional something is also insightful and adds to the value the reader gets.

In Breakthrough Advertising, a legendary copywriting book by Eugene Schwartz, he notes that great copywriters have a wide array of experience.

You might consider them jacks of all trades.

Great writers read and practice things in all sorts of fields. If I had to boil it down to specific traits, they all possess high levels of curiosity and an open mind.

They can write an article about social media marketing and use an example of hiking up a mountain in a way that makes the point they are making clearer to the reader.

One marketer that does this really well is Bryan Harris at Video Fruit. He often shares personal stories in the introduction of his posts. But he always finds a clever, insightful way to tie it back to the point he’s making:

Another well-known marketer, Ramit Sethi, often mentions real life stories in his blog posts and emails.

For example, in an email about “unconventional ways to win,” he mentions both baseball and government officials as examples:

The great power of connections: The reason why these unexpected connections are valuable is because they can relate your thoughts using a different language.

Some points will be difficult to explain no matter what niche you are writing for.

For example, maybe you’re trying to explain to your readers how to write in a conversational tone and why it’s more interesting to their readers.

If your readers don’t understand your explanation, reading it over and over again won’t help them.

But often, when you make a point in a different context, it becomes much clearer.

With regards to writing conversationally, for example, you could tell a story of being bored at a lecture when a lecturer simply read his slides to his students instead of talking to them. That’ll illustrate your point in a way that’s recognizable to most people.

So, how do you do it? The very nature of this skill is abstract. You’re making connections that other people don’t think of naturally, and that’s what adds a unique angle to your writing.

In order to do this, you need two things:

Experience – The more experiences you have in life, the more connections you can make.

Practice – At first, you won’t make these connections naturally. When you write about a complex topic, force yourself to come up with five connections you could use to explain your point. Over time, you will naturally notice good opportunities.

And when I’m talking about experience, I mean different experiences.

Always be ready to try something new:

travel

take a cooking class

reconnect with old acquaintances

take an online course in a subject you’ve never studied

Basically, now you have a very good reason to learn or try anything you’ve ever wanted.

6. Want to become (and stay) a great writer? You need to have this…

The final skill that the best writers (in a marketing context) have is adaptability.

Each content medium has its own quirks. Although your writing style will be more or less the same, the best writers know how to tailor their writing for each medium.

When I say medium, I’m talking about forms of content such as:

blog posts

emails

Kindle books

social media

I could give you many examples, but let’s look at Danny Iny, founder of Firepole Marketing.

He’s written multiple courses in the past:

But he’s also written hundreds of blog posts and guest posts.

On top of that, he actively engages with his followers and customers on social media:

And if that wasn’t enough, he just released a new book, in addition to several others:

On top of knowing how to write for different formats and audiences, great writers keep up with change.

Take me as an example. If you look at older Quick Sprout posts, you will see that many are only 500-1,000 words.

But as blogging has developed, good writing practices for the topics I cover have changed.

I noticed that longer posts performed better, and now almost all my posts are 4,000+ words long. I try to make every post the definitive post on that specific topic.

How do you develop adaptability? By definition, you need to learn how to respond positively to changing circumstances. And in the marketing world, things change fast, which makes it even more important.

The first key takeaway for you is this: adaptability comes second. First, you need to hone your initial skills.

In practical terms, this means that you should pick one main format of writing and focus as much of your attention on it as possible. That’s how you’ll learn all the ins and outs of it.

For most, blogging is a great place to start.

Once you’ve put in the time and effort to fully understand how to write great blog posts, you can move on to the next format, be it email, social media, or something else.

In the initial period, you can still write emails or other content, but most of your focus will be on the first format you’ve chosen. Then, you’ll shift that focus to the second medium.

The second key takeaway is that you always need to be looking for what’s next, whether it’s a new medium or changes happening within an old format.

When you see a new type of content becoming popular (e.g., lately video content and podcasts), give it a try because you can always learn something from it to become a better writer.

You should always be testing different ways of reaching your audience.

Conclusion

Being a great writer will be very valuable for the foreseeable future, no matter which industry you work in.

And even if you’re not an experienced writer today, you can become one with practice: all great writers had to start from some point.

If you follow the steps I laid out in this post, I guarantee that in a few years, you will be an excellent writer.

You can use those skills however you please, whether it’s to get more followers, subscribers, a better job, or take your sales to a new level.

http://www.quicksprout.com/learn-from-the-best-skills-all-great-writers-have-and-how-to-learn-them/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/03/learn-from-best-6-skills-all-great.html

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olaluwe · 6 years

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Whetting your appetite!

If you're here, I want to believe you find the post's title kind of engaging.

It’s probable too that you're indeed hoping one day to be a writer like the title rhetorically posed.

Whichever way, I can assure you that you're in the right place and at the right time too.

To make myself clear, I want to state categorically that I design this tutorial primarily for the next generation of writers in mind.

And the reason is simple; I see myself yet as a trying writer and could be mentoring everybody else but the big-uns.

I couldn't be even dreaming.

You know what; there are far too many iconic writers out there to whose faces I couldn't lift the lantern of my writing adventurism.

And I’m not being modest here at all, far from it.

As aspiring writer, I want you to congratulate yourself first of all for stopping by.

The thing is you need to focus on what matters and leaving out what doesn't.

And what matters, to start with?

Soldiers can brag they're courageous types because they lay down their lives in the defence of territorial integrity and for continuous existence of their countries and the likes.

That kind of make a lot of sense; you'd agree.

Let’s face it, troops are not the only one who died or get killed in the line of service; writers do too.

But then it's all by choice granted conscription is not on the card,

We all choose what to become in life and the cart is simply brimming with endless choices.

Let assume you're familiar with what being a soldier entails- the rigorous training, the clean and crispy uniforms, the shining jackboot, the colourful parades, the wars and the likes.

Fantastic, what a panoply of noble stuff!

You know what, I've been close to these guys and in my candid opinion they are a bunch of idlers who arrogate too much to themselves.

And I’m honestly not hating on them.

But they think they have a calling that's by far superior to others.

And to this unnecessary professional aggrandizement, I always disagree.

And the few who’ve actually met me in person can testify how robust my arguments were on this topic.

Most time all they could mutter in defence was if I think it’s that easy to be a soldier why I didn’t try it. My answer as always is I don’t need to try anything to be sure it’s tough or not.

Career, I repeat, is mostly a function of choice.

Besides I’ve tried enlisting with near success.

“But nearly like you know don’t ever kill a bird.” Hope that fits the narratives and isn’t too diversionary?

Needlessly, they sometimes resort to taking out their frustrations on the harmless civil folks out there. Faced with desperate lack of preferred options, I've encountered many too who are simply in there for the glam and the pay.

They pray all day for peace to reign supported by well-meaning people from the polity and religious institutions.

Ring the bell of war, and they run into hiding.

And traditionally they cover four major domains namely-land, air, water and space.

But we writers are nobler breeds of professionals with kinder souls too. And we're no less courageous to any. History can testify to that.

While the weapons of their warfare are guns and grenades; battle tanks and gun boats and frigates; the weapons of our warfare is nothing but the innocuous pen and paper or sometime the computer.

And our battle cry is simply 'everybody deserves to know'.

Isn't that more sublime to taste?

Yes it is!

According to Novelist Stephen King, if you ever write anything of note, of value then is prepared for hate e-mails. And that is because writing polarizes.

From history and experience too deaths threatening calls are not out of the picture.

In the time past and now, writers have faced and are still facing criminal censorship in various countries of the world.

For instance, the death of Mr Dele Giwa, a co-founder of Newswatch magazine in Lagos who was killed via a parcel bomb in 1985 comes to mind.

Not forgetting also Mr Dimgba Igwe and Mr Mike Awoyinfa both of Concord Newspaper Lagos who were killed covering the Liberian civil war.

Nor of Maltese anti corruption journalist, Mrs Daphone Curiana who was murdered 2017.

Finally mention also must be made of the substantive fatwa placed on British-India writer, Salmon Rushdie, by Islamic extremists after publishing his book: ‘Satanic Verses’.

He’s currently on exile in the UK. In functions, we're on a mission says Jon morrow of smart blogger to change the world for the better.

And getting paid for this wouldn't be a bad idea altogether.

The pay, however, might not be enough to buy us luxury homes, cars and other existential comforts like we would've loved but we most time take solace in the fact that we love what we do.

In case you don't know, ours is the fifth domain of warfare which is 'information' with equal companions like education and entertainment.

Even military institutions world over know the importance of this long ago and have resorted to adding it to their operational cart too.

But I doubt they understand it the way writers do.

Isn't propaganda all they do and calling it war information?

I might be wrong in few instances.

It is not uncommon to hear outright lies from battle fronts; a case of information censorship here and there.

But our own concern is the 'defence of the truth' at all time. In addition, we make this civilization tick from ages to ages.

We keep track of knowhow, events and teach it to all.

And what doesn't matter, to end it all? I say nothing and I repeat nothing!

To the writers who know his onions, everything matters because the people deserve to know it all.

And as a writer it is your primary duty to ensure this. No more no less.

As a take home, folks, the writer’s job are definitely not an easy one but I can assure you its quite fulfilling if you fall in love with it enough.

And that I hope you'd do from today on.

Mastering the language of your medium

Either in its written or spoken form, language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols with which a social group cooperate through sharing a schemata of ideas and impressions from ages to ages.

So it is the first media of communication to be mastered,

I couldn't just place my fingers to it, but I know a bewildering number of languages are spoken the world over.

From Mandarin which is the most spoken language in the world, to say Izon language of a minority Riverine tribe in the Niger delta creek of southern Nigeria.

As an aspiring writer then I know you're either a native speaker of one or more/ or a received speaker of one or more as well.

By extension too, you must have been groomed by the educational system of your country to a varied level of sophistication.

Be that as it may, I presumed you're sufficiently mastered it as a user of one or more assemblage of these global community of languages.

But to gain worldwide audience, a writer must necessary writes in any of the major languages like Mandarin, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish etcetera etcetera and hoping your works get translated into more as the cultural and educational values it carries become common knowledge to influential personalities, academic institutions and governments from around the world.

It's on record for instance that, Nigeria's Chinua Achebe's monster hit novel 'Things Fall Apart' has been translated into many international languages which definitely accounted for its global success.

Of course that's the dream of an average writer. But only a few will get there. It's not a curse.

All it takes is, however, hard work and some elements of luck.

To do this, books play very important role.

I'm a received speaker of the English language, and I've been exposed to quite a number of them all my life.

Now, do I've recommended textbook on English language in mind?Frankly speaking I don’t.

As a matter of fact, quite a number of writers (speaking specifically about writing for the web) have written at length on this same topic with express biases or preferences for some books.

'Elements of Style' is a name in this respect as given by writers in charge's Bamidele Onibalusi.

As far as I'm concern, there are tons and tons of textbooks on English Language in bookstores both online and offline waiting to be picked up for the right prices.

Go get yourself one, and you're well on your way to success as a writer.

Choosing a mentor

Why mentors?

Agreed, God's the only source of inexhaustible inspiration.

So connect to him or her today.

But Mentors are prime example of people we all wish to be like some day.

Mentor provides us with inspirational and practical pathway by their own success stories through direct and indirect frameworks of reference or benchmark in the otherwise crowded and confusing world of aspirations and dreams.

And they exist either in close or distance proximity.

They're both living and dead. Whichever way, there's always one or more for everyone.

And in this industry, they come aplenty.

If I start to name names now, I'm not sure we wouldn’t leave here in a lifetime.

At this juncture, I think it rests solely on you to know who does it best for you granted you must have met a sizable number in your academic journey.

It is possible too perhaps while you're reading for the fun of it.

Think back now and you'd be amazed about who strikes you the most for the mentoring roles.

For me before I let you go, it is Wole Soyinka, Nigeria literary juggernaut.

Believe me; it has nothing to do with sentimental stuff like lineage or some racial or nationalist suasion.

I love him for he represents the ambassadorial best Africa nay Nigeria can get to advance the cause of its cultural heritage consistently under attack by the imperialist west.

For his voice is unique, and his identity super peculiar.

And to whom I dedicated a poem titled: 'Doyen of Letters'

He's, finally, as it happens a winner of Nobel Prize for literature in 1986.

Creating engaging content.

Writing essentially is all about content creation textually speaking.

But it doesn't stop there.

The content must be engaging, riveting so to say driving us ultimately towards studied steps based on the writer's position supported by facts and not myths.

The question remains how then do writers go about creating content that's engaging?

To be factual, engaging content starts with creating engaging title or headline if you like.

Engaging headline we're told in journalism school is like a beautiful gateway into a palatial building.

On the other hand, a headline that's not as engaging is an immediate put off any day.

No matter how well decorated is a house's interior nobody will take a chance to look in if it has a twisted gate.

So, the more attractive the headline is the more the likelihood of readers clicking through in other to interact with the content proper which must be equally engaging.

Or else the visitation might not be a memorable one for the visitor. And you may not have a second chance. Now don't worry unnecessarily about that.

Writers like other professionals do have their bad days in the office.

And it doesn't always call for needless self flagellation. That's why not all novels, dramas, poetry even by the same author achieve the same level of success.

Not all articles as well by the same writer would go viral online; though he may wish it so.

Be motivated, however, as a writer to do your best under the constraints changing time and season throw at you.

But for any content to come close to being engaging, which has at its heart the core of communication’s tripod of information, education and entertainment; it must equally meet all these five principles of composition namely:

#1) PURPOSE: For every composition to be engaging it must get good response from the reader.

It must be purpose driven.

To be moderately successful then as a writer you must adapt your words to your readers.

Granted that people have attitudes and beliefs which they drawn from experiences both of the past and the present.

It is only proper for a writer who wishes to explain a new idea to connect it with what’s already known.

And if he’s to convince at all, he must start from known or agreeable beliefs.

#2) CONCRETENESS:

Concreteness in write-up is brought about when the writer says to the reader: ‘Here is an example,’ or ‘let me illustrate with an anecdote’.

Believe me, what is concrete or specific in all situations holds attention as much as it frees us from needless dialectical tussle.

#3) EMPHASES:

Another word for emphasis is repetition.

If a writer repeats a word or an idea he calls attention to it.

And isn’t just for the fun of it because it has long ago been an accepted standard that for learning to take place emphasis is key.

Doing so automatically leads to meaningful engagement and action from the reader.

#4) UNITY:

The writer who wishes to convince or explain old or new ideas must hold the rein properly lest he wanders aimlessly away from the focus of his assignment.

The piece he’s to post must be seen to function like a unit despite having so many parts in terms of thought-groups.

#5) COHERENCE;

Writers ordinarily are advocates.

They argue for or against a proposition.

They argue also for the relative merit of a choice over another based on the hard fact of life that the human person is always confronted by problem of choice.

For this, the ability to think straight and to dependable solution is required which coherence is all about.

Creating a style.

Why style?

Style gives identity to the one acting in a professional environment.

It makes identification an easy task. Any professional who's got style is automatically branded.

What then is style?

Style can be defined as a consistent flair discernible in the human operation or execution of a task.

It could also be define as uniqueness of approach to things by a particular person.

Style for writers emerges from the rubble of conscious experimental writing activities.

While it is not always easy to come up with, trying on the other hand to imitate other iconic writers is equally counterproductive.

So it is highly recommended that you write the way most suitable to you; and overtime a style might just emerged from such background.

Finally, equally important in style creation are your level of education and how widely read you’re.

Editing your composition.

For many reasons, believe me, there's no such writer anywhere whose work cannot be edited.

Why editing?

Editing is the last of all writing tools.

Defined, it is the refinery of all writing activity.

It helps filter the unwanted from the wanted.

After the creation of your content, to make it more epic by bringing all its inherent values into sharp focus it must be edited.

Why then do we edit?

We edit for the following reasons:

#1 For grammatical correctness:

Language as an arbitrary vocal symbol through which a social group cooperate follows a set of rules called grammar that writers must necessarily obey or else it thought trains breaks down.

So editors try as much as possible to see if a given content conform in entirety with these rules.

So where the rules are violated corrections are made.

#2 For space:

Where the constraints are the space like in the field of print journalism editing becomes very important.

The task of the editor therefore is to make sure contents are trimmed to size in other to fit into allotted space or spaces.

#3 For fonts and style:

Writing is all about fonts and style:

Editors try also to see which font is best for the chosen medium and their stylistic arrangement.

For instance, the font that will be applied to newsprint will be different to the one that will be applied to a billboard which is something passersby see from the distance.

#4 For narrative unity:

Content is also edited to be sure story ideas follow consistent pattern.

Every part of a story must be seen to help advance the course of the story itself.

No part must be contradictory. Every part must function as one unit.

#5 To eliminate excess words:

Like student of landscape painting who begins by covering too much ground; often too, writers do commit the sin of verbosity.

That's using too many words to convey an experience when ordinarily fewer words would do.

So, these flabby or wordy excess in content is sometimes the focus of editing.

And as he or she puts the editing jigsaw to it, content becomes trimmer and sharper in mind of reader.

Publishing your content.

Now we have come to the last but very crucial stage in the life of a writer.

Publishing is the Icing on the cake of content creation.

Publishing involves making your work available to the public who pays to get it.

And there are basically two ways to go. It either you publish your works in paperback or as e-books.

It has been said that's no matter how epic your content is until promoted it is useless.

Or not worth more than the paper on which it is printed.

But publishing your work online and promoting it through the right channels is essential if it is to reach greater audience and have the right impact.

I've read severally writers calling it the queen of content creation.

But publishing has never been easier or liberalized than now.

These days we now have both free and paid platform to advance the course of your career as a writer.

While some resource people insist that to have a good start to writing career online, platform A, B, C must be the choice forgetting the fact that money plays important role in career pursuit especially writing online.

Starting from any of free platform may after all not be a bad idea.

At least it helps to sharpen your writing claw preparatory for the big moments.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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makeitwithmike · 7 years

Text

20 Amazing Sites That Will Pay You $100+ Per Article

By Bamidele Onibalusi

Content is more important than ever.

Research from the Content Marketing Institute reveals that at least 55% of companies will increase their content marketing budget this year.

Whether you’re a writer looking for established outlets to spread the word, or you’re a guest blogger looking to promote your brand and get traffic, you can get paid to do so.

Many sites will pay you to contribute content, while still allowing you to have a bio and retain a link to your site – but very few sites will pay you really well.

Listed below are 20 sites that will pay you at least $100 per article, upon acceptance or publication, and most will allow a bio with a link back to your site.

I also have a bonus for you at the end of this article, so look out for that!

Here we go.

1. A Fine Parent

Niche: Parenting

Amount: $100 (potential $200 bonus)

Payment Method: Paypal

A Fine Parent is a leading parenting blog that focuses on helping people become better parents.

They are looking for in-depth parenting articles about your own experience, or about other parent’s struggles that you can empathize and connect with.

Every month, they list a topic for articles that you have to write on, and they’ll pay you once your article is accepted.

They expect articles to be around 1,500 – 3,000 words, and they pay $100 per article. You’ll also be awarded a bonus of $200 if your article becomes the most popular article at the end of the year.

2. eCommerce Insiders

Niche: Online retail/commerce

Amount: $75 – $125

Payment Method: Unspecified

eCommerce Insiders is an authority about online retail, and they are looking for content that is retailed-focused or commentary on retail industry news and trends.

They pay $75 per article for accepted articles in the 400 – 600 words range, and $125 per article for articles above 600 words.

3. Listverse

Niche: General

Amount: $100

Payment Method: Paypal/Bitcoin

Listverse is possibly the foremost authority when it comes to lists online, and they boast an audience of over 15 million readers a month.

They are looking for unique lists of 10 items, usually at least 1,500 words, and they pay $100 upon acceptance of your list.

4. The Penny Hoarder

Niche: Finance

Amount: Up to $75

Payment Method: Paypal

The Penny Hoarder is a leading personal finance publication, and they are looking for articles mostly based on personal experience. Especially ones containing detailed numbers, strategies and advice about saving or earning money.

They prefer articles to be 700 – 900 words, and they pay up to $75 per article depending on a lot of factors; you might need to reach out to their editor first to discuss payment.

5. Photoshop Tutorials

Niche: Photoshop/Design

Amount: $25 – $300

Payment Method: Paypal

They are looking for tutorials related to Photoshop, and they pay anything from $50 to $300 per accepted article depending on whether you submit a “quick tip” or a full tutorial.

6. Treehouse

Niche: Design/Freelance

Amount: $100 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

They accept articles on a range of topics including anything design related, freelancing or productivity.

They pay $100 – $200 for every article published.

7. The Travel Writer’s Life

Niche: Travel

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

They are looking for articles about the business of getting paid to travel, whether this is through writing, photography, tours or other means.

They pay $50 – $200 per article depending on the type of article.

8. Viator Travel Blog

Niche: Travel

Amount: $40 – $150

Payment Method: Unspecified

They are looking for articles that share an insider’s view of travel, and they typically prefer submissions to be around 1,000 – 2,000 words.

They pay $40 – $150 depending on the type of article.

9. UX Booth

Niche: User Experience

Amount: $100

Payment Method: Unspecified

UX Booth is an authority when it comes to User Experience, and they are looking for research-backed articles on how to create better user experience.

They prefer articles to be in the 1,200 – 1,800 words range.

10. Cracked

Niche: General/Humor

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Paypal

Cracked is looking for funny and clever articles, mainly in list format, and they pay $50 – $200 per article depending on the type of article.

11. Tuts+ Code

Niche: Web Development

Amount: $100 – $250

Payment Method: Unspecified

They are looking for articles on anything related to web development; this could be PHP, HTML5, CSS3 or anything in between.

They pay $100 for a “quick tip” tutorial and $250 for a regular tutorial.

12. Smashing Magazine

Niche: Design/Coding/User Experience

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

Smashing Magazine is looking for articles related to web design, graphic design, UX design, WordPress or mobile, and they pay $50 – $200 per article.

13. A List Apart

Niche: Internet

Amount: $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

They accept articles about coding, design, content strategy, user experience and basically anything in the internet industry/business.

They prefer articles to be between 1,500 to 2,000 words and they pay $200 per article within a month of publication.

14. Write Naked

Niche: Writing

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

Write Naked is looking for articles related to the writing business; this includes interviews with key writing figures, publishing trends, or success stories from successful indie authors.

15. Metro Parent

Niche: Parenting

Amount: $35 – $350

Payment Method: Check

Metro Parent is a leading parenting publication looking for parenting articles. They pay $35 – $350 per article and they want features to be within 1,000 – 2,500 words.

They have a preference for articles from local freelance writers in the following communities: Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne Counties.

They pay via check upon publication of your article, within the first week of the month of publication.

16. International Living

Niche: Living Overseas

Amount: $250 – $400

Payment Method: Unspecified

International Living is a publication focusing on living and retiring overseas, and they are looking for articles about living and retiring overseas.

They pay $250 for 840 words, and $400 for 1,400 words. They also pay $50 for one-time use of your photographs, and they pay upon publication of your article.

17. Sitepoint

Niche: Web Development

Amount: $150 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

Sitepoint is an authority when it comes to web development, and they are looking for in-depth articles about HTML, CSS and SASS.

They pay $150 for articles and $200 for tutorials, and they often pay more for articles that are more comprehensive and that they feel will do well traffic-wise.

18. Digital Ocean

Niche: Linux

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Paypal

Digital Ocean is looking for beautifully-written tutorials about Linux and FreeBSD cloud hosting and, besides potentially gaining exposure to their millions of readers, you can also make up to $200 per article.

Your article can come in the form of Updates, Simple Tutorials and In-Depth Tutorials, and you can earn $50, $100 or $200 respectively depending on what category it falls into.

19. Tuts+ Vector

Niche: Vector

Amount: $50 – $200

Payment Method: Unspecified

Tuts+ Vector is looking for articles related to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, CorelDRAW and other vector-related tutorials.

They pay $50 – $200 depending on the nature of your contribution.

20. Tuts+ WP

Niche: WordPress

Amount: $60 – $500

Payment Method: Unspecified

Also a part of the Tuts+ network, Tuts+ WP is looking for articles related to WordPress; this could be WordPress 3.7+ tutorials, plugin development tutorials/tips and other WordPress related articles.

They pay $60 – $500 per article depending on the type of article.

Bonus: 110 Websites that Pay You to Write [PDF]

Do you love the above list? Awesome. There’s more where that came from.

As a bonus to Jeff Bullas’ readers, you can also get my report featuring a total of 110 sites that will pay you, most of which pay more than $50 per article, for free.

The report comes in detailed PDF format (like this article) and in spreadsheet PDF format. If you’re a writer looking to get paid for your content, this list is invaluable.

Download the PDF List

Guest Author: Bamidele Onibalusi is a world-renowned blogger and freelance writer. Huffington Post calls him an “ultimate business success story” and he’s been featured in Forbes and Digital Journal amongst others. He blogs at Writers in Charge.

The post 20 Amazing Sites That Will Pay You $100+ Per Article appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

The post 20 Amazing Sites That Will Pay You $100+ Per Article appeared first on Make It With Michael.

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