The Article Writer

Autumn has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere while our friends south of the equator are enjoying Spring. I’m enjoying my visits to various sites and am sharing with you today some of my most recent bookmarks. Lots of good stuff for your review, some of which I have already shared elsewhere in the world of social media.

Combating Junk Mail

If your mailbox tends to get cluttered with junk mail over the waning months of the year, How to Get Off Mailing Lists offers timely advice on what action to take to rid your home of unwanted solicitations.

Improve Your SEO

Sometimes it pays to re-examine your way of doing things, including search engine optimization (SEO). Five Simple Ways too Improve Your SEO offers basic steps every blogger should take when it comes to optimizing their sites.

The Extraordinary Monetary Value of Social Media

It can seem impossible to quantify the value of most social media sites. The majority of them charge no fees and their income is derived solely from advertising. Yet, when I hear what some companies have paid for sites such as MyBlogLog and MySpace, I guess I am not too surprised to hear what Facebook could fetch if their asking price is met.

Now You Can Purchase Blog Comments

I won’t link to the site, but I’ll link to an article that explains it all — Terrible Idea: Buy Blog Comments Sells Spam. Yes, if you are that desperate to leave linkable comments on other blogs but you don’t have the time to do that, you can hire someone to provide that service for you. Yes, blog spamming has now gone mainstream — cringe!

Your Writer’s Union

All right, I admit it: I am not pro-union. That being said, freelance writers who feel that they need representation may want to check out the National Writers Union to see what they’re all about. Dues are based on your annual writing income and are paid semi-annually. Contract advice, grievance assistance, and advocacy are just a few of the benefits offered by the NWU. Nearly every writer I know meets their eligibility requirements; whether you should seek representation is something you’ll have to determine.

Finally, I leave you with this quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne to chew on as you take up your next writing project:

�Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.�

Q. I have a customer who isn’t working out for me. Almost every deadline we have established is missed and then I get blamed for it. I am also finding that my professional judgment is constantly under attack, not always overtly but by some of the comments made about my writing style, grammar, or even word usage. I’m miserable. What should I do?

A. You are in a tough position and I can certainly empathize with you.

Back in 2005, I had a similar experience with a customer who was very difficult, even obnoxious. From the get go, I realized that we weren’t on the same page and my attempts to bring us to a mutually agreed upon place where we could proceed failed.

The issue at hand with us was the level of research involved with each article and the project price. Admittedly, I priced my service too low thinking that the articles he wanted written involved little or no research. Turns out his expectations were much higher than that and I realized I would lose my shirt over the deal.

I countered with a new proposal which tripled my price. He objected even though the research involved was at least three times greater than what was originally conveyed to me. We were at an impasse so I simply stopped working for him. End of story.

In your case, things could be a bit different especially if you signed a contract. If a contract is involved, examine it closely to see if everyone is adhering to what was agreed upon. If not, you can cite paragraph and section to make your point. Otherwise, give the required notice and end the project as soon as you can.

It sounds as if this person isn’t the type to agree with you anyway, given the questioning of your skills. I am personally familiar with your writing and professionalism and I know that you take great pains to complete your work on time. It sounds as if this person could use some help organizing his life, but you aren’t the person to do that!

By the way, Kathy Kehrli (The Irreverent Freelancer) recently alerted her readers to an informative and witty article written by the Inside CRM Editors that can give you suggestions on how to free yourself from a project. Check it out — its a real hoot!

Lyndon Antcliff, Marty Weintraub, and Chris Winfield Are Part of the Sphinn Posse

Linkbait is dead and no longer relevant. The body is cold and rigor mortis has set in. What killed linkbait? Why, that would be Danny Sullivan’s white-hot social media community for search & marketing professionals, Sphinn. Most certainly, if you haven’t re-purposed your quilting blog to become a steroid-injected, article-pumping SEM site, then you’re hopelessly out of the Web 2.0+ loop. At least it can seem that way when it comes to Sphinn. Have you Sphunn your world yet? If not, you’re missing out on all of the “sfun” and an awesome way to inject some much needed moxie into your site.

Launched In July, Sphinn’s Surge Is Meteoric

I’ve been a rather passive Sphinn user so far, although I did sign up soon after its July 2007 launch date. I despise Digg, so I wanted to make sure that Sphinn wasn’t a Digg clone. For the most part I have been reading quite a few articles, sphinning (voting) for some of the same, and adding an article here and there. Although I do cover SEM (search engine marketing) topics from time to time on this blog, my subject matter is a bit broader and leans toward providing information desirable to freelance writing colleagues.

Sphinn, though, cannot be ignored for long. Let’s face it: if you are looking to connect with some of the most visible names in all of blogdom, then Sphinn is where you need to go. Digg has a broader appeal than Sphinn, but that site has long been dominated by a secretive cabal who will not let just anyone in (only the disgruntled need apply). With Sphinn, it only takes 20 votes before your page goes hot — a low enough threshold for most Sphinnsters (my personal term for Sphinn users).

Getting back to Sphinn’s members, if you have a habit of visiting the blogs of Dosh Dosh, Andy Beard, Tamar Weinberg, Loren Baker, Shana Albert, Rand Fishkin, Lee Oddin, et al, you can do some serious damage to your laptop’s keyboard with all of that clicking around as you jump from site to site. With Sphinn, all of your favorite peeps are gathered there each and every day jockeying for position by leaving comments, sphinning, and trading good natured barbs. If you happen to be a StumbleUpon user (you just knew I would mention StumbleUpon now, didn’t you?) you’ve probably been asked to stumble and sphinn pages instead of stumbling and digging them. Provided you are a registered, bonafide Sphinnster, that is.

The Coming Sphinn Calamity?

Natch, as Sphinn’s surge has truly been meteoric, one has to wonder if the community will eventually burn out. Trouble spots are already appearing and they include:

BlogRush Spamming — Really, does everyone need to Sphinn articles about BlogRush at the same time? Some Sphinnsters believe that there is a concerted effort to promote BlogRush which is yet another social community for bloggers. Gosh, can BlogRush really be that good (or bad)?

Sphinn Goes To Kazahkstan — I wonder if Danny Sullivan realizes that his domain has been registered for only one year? I am worrying that come April 2008 we’ll be logging on and finding a male enhancement site in its place! Unless, of course, Danny and gang already see the writing on the wall and are preparing their exit strategy. Uh, oh…here comes Google, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo!, and MSN with their first bids….

Digg Gets Religion — A recent Digg makeover may be the first part of a much-needed overhaul for that site. If Digg wakes up, they could become more Sphinn-like and toss the cabal before things spiral completely out of control.

Long Live Linkbait!

All right, Sphinn hasn’t killed off linkbait but the thought off that happening is kind of nice. Especially, when your Sphinn-bait article goes hot and all of the A-Listers rush to your blog to read what you wrote. Happy sphinning!