Writing Inrochester

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. - Sir Winston Churchill

If you are in the freelance writing business, one sure thing that you will face is rejection, which might feel like failure. If you have been in the business very long you have probably sent out numerous inquiries only to be met with silence, or even worse, those candy sweet letters of rejection. Many writers find that in their early days as a writer that 9 out of 10 inquiries will never bring about anything, and for some, this can be disheartening.

The key to becoming a great freelance writer as opposed to only a decent one, is your ability to take rejection and make it work for you. What Winston Churchill said is true - it truly is how you take failure that leads to your success. As a writer you need to be able to keep the passion for writing, even in the face of a rejection or a piece of writing that just fell flat. When you are rejected and when you fail - try harder.

One example of this comes from when I first started out on my own as a freelance writer. I had enjoyed writing all my life and had been published from time to time, but I never took up writing as a career. I dabbled in a few careers such as the medical field (working in the ER, a nursing home, and home health care), the music field (traveling with a music group for 3 years playing the piano and singing), and also as a teacher (teaching writing, music, and public speaking). Finally some health issues became a part of my life and I had to leave the formal workplace and I was looking for something to do to earn an income. I could not stand just sitting around feeling sorry for myself, so I took something I enjoyed doing and started to look for ways that I could use it to make a living.

When I first started out pursuing a career in freelance writing I wrote for pennies and sometimes nothing at all. My big break actually came after one of the most discouraging failures that I ever had. I had been asked to write a series of dance articles and I wrote my first one (which you can read if you ask me) and turned it in to the person I was writing for. The article had become part of me and it was filled with passion and opinion, and the next day I received it back in my email with a note that it was too opinionated and that they were going to get someone else to do the job. It was so frustrating because I had spent hours on that article, and in essence it had become a part of me, but I decided that no matter what they said I was going to get that article published. I sent the article to a dance magazine and they loved it and published it, and that is when my freelance writing career really took off.

That rejection, and what felt like failure, was the point where I decided that I was going to make it as a freelance writer. I brushed myself off and got up and kept going and that one article opened up a variety of doors for me in the freelance market. You see, freelance writing is about more than just writing about certain topics, and it is more than just a way to earn some money, but it is a passion that you need to have in your soul. When it seems like everything you are trying to do might fail, you need that passion to back you up - to keep you from throwing up your hands and quitting. When you get that next rejection letter and you feel like quitting, remember that it could be the very key to your success. Your failures are what will bring you success in life if you can handle them with enthusiasm and with a steadfast determination that you will not give up!

Joy is a successful freelance writer, writing in various genres. You can check out her website at mysteriousmusings.com mysteriousmusings.com

Joy runs her own business, MysteriousMusings, which offers web content, SEO articles, magazine articles, poetry, fiction, press releases, copywriting, and writing for special occassions.

Feel free to email for more information or with any questions: mailto:joy@mysteriousmusings.com joy@mysteriousmusings.com

New Year. New set of internet advertising opportunities.

As more and more people start to discover the raw power of writing articles and article marketing, brand new possibilities for finding more and more natural ways to market on the internet are becoming evident every day.

And a lot of people couldn’t be happier about that.

Suddenly the need to master some of the more ‘computer relevant’ concepts on the net are not as necessary. You know that ones…opt in lists, squeeze pages, redirects. cookies.

By using article marketing to its fullest potential, you and I now have the very real ability to have our word read on the first page of hundreds of thousands of Google results pages.

Imagine entering a search for “outstanding English Tenors” and finding your article come up as a natural result of that search! How exciting and powerful does that feel?

Here’s how it happens. You happen to know a note or two about ‘outstanding English Tenors’ so you write an article about it and submit it to an article directory that’s highly valued by Google. (The one you′re reading right now is widely regarded as the best, by the way.)

That article sits in the servers of the directory just waiting for a search to be performed anywhere on the planet. By students doing papers on English Tenors, by jealous Irish Tenors, by people who hate tenors…you get the picture.

Your words, by virtue of the fact that you’ve submitted them to such a Google friendly site such as ezinearticles, will sit and just wait to be seen by the potential of millions.

I like those odds.

And I LOVE the fact that the scope of internet advertising opportunities has been OPENED to those of us who fear the autoresponder and want to do business here naturally.

Just click the following link to start using the best of all the internet advertising opportunities… become-a-copywriter.com/articlemarketing.html article marketing. Then read Kevin Browne’s HIGHEST RATED opportunity reviews at his new site WWW.BECOME-A-COPYWRITER.COM/earnmoneywriting.html become-a-copywriter.com/earnmoneywriting.html

Articles create content. Content creates articles. It’s a vicious circle, but in order for your business to grow online you must be creating content daily. Write articles, write web pages, add to your informational data banks, increase the number of info products you sell on your website, and keep building business by continuously building more and more content. Write at least one hour a day and make sure part of that goes on your website, part on Article Marketing Sites, and create a product every week to increase your income.

Marketing is all about motivation and content.

What’s your motivation? How much content do you have?

If your business online comes from your heart, you’ll appreciate your cause enough to spend time and effort marketing your business, writing about your business, and moving your business up in the search engine ranks. That’s what motivation is all about. Moving your business higher and higher because of your own active enthusiasm and dedication to your cause.

When people begin to feel your enthusiasm, they get excited!

Are you passionate about the cause you’re writing for?

Show your reader your passion and let them know how much it means to you. Perhaps they’re as passionate about a topic as you are, perhaps even the same topic, but they don’t know how to express it. When you share your passions, you inspire others to step out and share their passions. Sometimes, you inspire them to share your passion.

Once when I was very young, I told someone about a passion I felt for writing and was warned not to share such an intimate detail. Looking back, I realize the person who warned me, had experienced life theft. Someone stole her passion, because someone in her youth had expressed to her that writing was for the foolish, since writers rarely make money from their craft (at least in that era).

Don’t allow someone to steal your passion. Take a chance and live your dreams, write about what you’re passionate about. Do what you’re passionate about. When others begin to feel your enthusiasm, they will be drawn to you.

What are you passionate enough about to create a website full of content?

Brand Your Market with passionate enthusiasm - the SECRET is at brandyourmarket.com brandyourmarket.com

© 2007 - Jan Verhoeff

Mandy*, a bright, attractive professional woman, had a fear of speaking in front of groups. Recognizing that her feelings of vulnerability and self-consciousness were limiting her potential, she showed up for a presentation skills class filled with trepidation. In the class, the students spent the morning listening to the instructor explain the rules of public speaking. That afternoon, they gave their presentations to the group.

After nervously waiting through five other talks, Mandy took her place at the front of the room-her heart pounding and hands shaking. She plowed through her 10-minute presentation with her mind in an out-of-body blur. When she finished, Mandy obeyed the instructor’s direction to remain front-and-center to receive her feedback. Comments started with a few “That’s a good color on you” and “You had good eye contact″ platitudes, but then the real critique began. She used way too many “ums.” She shifted her weight too much. Her hair was in her eyes. Her voice was too soft. Most of all, her excessive gestures simply had to be brought under control! Luckily, the instructor had a gesture-reduction plan. He playfully took a piece of rope from a cardboard box, used it to bind Mandy’s hands behind her back, and had her give the entire presentation over again.

Did this experience help Mandy overcome her feelings of vulnerability and self-consciousness? Of course not. She shuffled home feeling humiliated and victimized. Rather than compassionately working with Mandy as the vulnerable, dignified, gifted human being she is, the instructor treated her like a horse whose spirit and wild habits had to be broken with ropes. Literally.

Previous Training As A Source of Fear

In my 15 years of coaching public speaking, I′ve worked with hundreds of anxiety-ridden speakers. Surprisingly, they often referred to previous speaking training as a source of their fear. They’ve been badgered, nit-picked, and intimidated-all stemming from a well-intentioned belief that if you fix the mechanics, confidence will follow.

For many people, this approach is, at the very least, ineffective-and it can damage one’s sense of dignity. If you see the audience as the enemy, mastering the art of the upward-hand-sweep-with-the-dramatic-flourish will not make those faces any less threatening. Even worse, this mechanical approach can be devastating if you feel insecure to begin with, then walk away with an even longer list of deficiencies to correct.

Of course, there’s value in noticing distracting habits and getting them under control. If you’re already comfortable in the spotlight, great; go ahead and fine-tune the mechanics. But if you’re like Mandy and anxiety is your primary issue (and believe me, you’re not alone), a mechanical approach may do more harm than good.

What You Need from Training

So what do you need, if not the mechanics? Here are four things you’d be wise to demand from your training session:

1. Work on the cause of your discomfort, not merely the symptoms.

Most people say that one-on-one or in a small group, they’re comfortable with speaking they only feel awkward when speaking to a large group. If that’s the case, there’s good news: You don’t have to work on your speaking you have to work on getting comfortable being the center of attention. It may not seem like a significant shift but it is. Speakers tend to work only on what they’re putting out to the audience (content, appearance, visual aids, voice). Often, the real work is learning to let in what’s coming from audience members, namely their attention.

2. Demand a dignified, healthy process, not just a good outcome.

In Mandy’s case, even without ropes, she would probably gesture less the next time she spoke, but is that really success? Though the end result of her training was fewer gestures, the teacher cut a swath of emotional destruction on the way. Desired ends don’t justify humiliating means. Always demand to be treated with respect as you work to develop your speaking skills.

3. Insist on privacy regarding your video.

A common tool in presentation skills training is video, but your video is no one’s business but yours. I have seen accomplished, respected professionals shrink in horror as their video was shown to and critiqued by the entire class. All learning value was lost because they were too mortified by the public display to learn anything. Besides, it’s a waste of time. The class just saw you present the real thing. Why make them watch you twice? In my workshops, students go to the fun and funky “Learning Lounge” where they have a private video monitor with earphones, snacks, a comfortable chair, cozy quilts, and a soothing foot massager. The lighthearted atmosphere takes the sting out of self-awareness so students can concentrate on learning. Nothing good comes from public humiliation, so if you′re not comfortable with a public video viewing, stand up for your right to privacy.

4. Feel free to explore your gifts.

“Stay inside the lines.” Remember that one? You got a new box of crayons and wanted to go crazy with them, but a teacher or parent squashed your creativity by making you color inside pre-existing lines. The same happens in speaking. Max, a former student of mine, had always been told to follow the rules as a speaker, so he concentrated on his voice, his stance, his visual aids, etc. When given permission to forget the rules and speak from his heart, a delightful dry sense of humor emerged that made him much more likeable and, therefore, more persuasive. He incorporated this gift into a presentation that was already effective in the traditional sense, but now had a wonderful new dimension that would have been missed had he not played “outside the lines.”

Mechanics have their place, but you may need to go beyond nit-picking mechanics. You’re a unique human being with gifts, talents, stories, fears, dreams, and heart. Don’t settle for anything less than a dignified, compassionate approach.

Even horses deserve that.

* Name has been changed to protect privacy.

(c) 2002, Upside Down Speaking

About The Author

Melissa Lewis turns traditional thinking about public speaking upside down to give people more comfort, confidence, and charisma in front of groups. She does this through keynotes, workshops, coaching and innovative virtual learning programs. She is a former comic actress, a certified facilitator of SPEAKING CIRCLES, president-elect of the National Speakers Association Kansas City Chapter, and author of the soon-to-be-released book, Upside Down Speaking. For more information, call (913) 341-1241, email mailto:MelissaUDS@aol.com mailto:MelissaUDS@aol.com or visit upsidedownspeaking.com” target=”_new upsidedownspeaking.com.

Despite your best efforts (and a lot of money out of pocket) your advertising and marketing just aren’t producing the sales you had hoped for. For some reason, your message just isn’t connecting with the people you’d hoped would become your customers.

As a freelance copywriter, is see this situation a lot when I am called in to fix advertisements, web copy and other marketing materials that just aren’t living up to my clients’ expectations.
More often than not, the problem is my client hasn’t developed a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to set their company, product or service apart from the competition.

A USP tells the world you are different from all the rest. It creates a brand new category for you to be the biggest – or better yet, the only – fish in the pond.

One of my loftiest ambitions as a freelance copywriter is to someday create a USP as powerful as Domino’s Pizza’s one-time promise,

“Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.”

Until some unfortunate accidents involving some of their delivery drivers forced them to soften their message, Domino’s rode this 10 word USP to the top of their industry. That is the power of a compelling USP.

Now does that mean that Domino’s was the only pizza chain that made fast deliveries? Not at all. In fact, I am sure some restaurants out there were probably faster. But Domino’s had created a whole new category in the minds of people who were hungry and wanted their pizza delivered fast. And they owned that category.

Another surprising (or actually not so surprising, when you understand the power of a great USP) effect of their USP was that they re-positioned their competitors as all belonging to the “slower” category. In the perception of people who wanted to order pizza because they were hungry right now, the other guys were just not as fast.

So how do you create a powerful USP that creates a whole new pond in which you become the big fish? Here are a few ideas I have put together:
Specifically target a need your buyer has that you want to appeal to. These needs can be things like, “to make more money,” “professional advancement,” “better health,” or “to save money/ to get a bargain.” I recently explored how to appeal to your buyers’ needs in an article I wrote called, dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com/2006/09/freelance-copywriter-secrets-how-to.html#links Freelance Copywriter Secrets: How to Tap Into Your Readers’ Deepest Needs
. Click on this link if you want to read more on the subject.

Make a clear promise that you will deliver a benefit. Your benefit statement should promise to solve a vexing problem or bring about a desired change. If your statement does not make a promise, or if it promises something other than a solution or a change; chances are you are talking about a feature instead of a benefit. Make the solution seem as fast and easy as possible. Your USP is all about chipping away at buyers’ mental barriers. If you can truthfully promise fast and easy results, you have chipped through another excuse NOT to buy from you.

Make sure your claim is believable. If Domino’s had promised 5 minute delivery, no one would have bought in to their concept. Avoid making a “me-too” type promise. You are trying to create your own category, your own pond. The goal here is not to dive into everyone else’s pond and to out muscle the competition. Promise a distinct before vs. after contrast. Does your USP help potential customers to visualize a real change doing business with you can bring about?

Talk about your edge, your advantage over the competition. What can you promise that no one else can do? Or, in the alternative, what is no one else talking about? Domino’s was not the first pizza chain to deliver pizzas quickly, but they were the first to make that their claim to fame.

Address your customers in the second person. This is a good rule for writing headlines that I carry over to writing USPs. My own USP is, “I am a freelance copywriter who turns readers into YOUR customers. People respond when you talk directly to them, not when you talk about a subject in the distant third person.

Incorporate key words. In many ways this is the hardest idea on this list to incorporate. But if you are writing web content or if your USP will be prominently displayed on your web site, you just can’t ignore key words. My own keyword is “freelance copywriter,” and I make sure it appears on every article I write. (Did you notice how I just cleverly made the opportunity to use it once again?) Keywords are how people find you on search engines, so you cannot afford to make it harder for them to locate you by not including keywords as part of your USP.

Not only is your USP what positions you as different from all the others, it also tells them why you are the only logical choice in your industry. So go back and look at all your ads and all your marketing efforts that produced less than stellar results. I just bet the problem you need to fix is a broken USP.

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Download your free copy of