This year, November 1 marks my third Freelanciversary. I’m on pace to have my most successful year yet, revenue-wise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still make mistakes along the way. In years past, I shared some freelance tips I learned since I left my day job, like: The hard Read more…
To everyone who’s ever created something and shared it online, I’d like to say one thing: I’m sorry. See, those of us who’ve been doing this for awhile now — we’re the ones who invented blogging, and tweeting, and YouTubing, and social networking, and we’ve been preaching about “the digital Read more…
NOTE: I wrote this years ago, but I took it down when I last redesigned my blog. Then a reader told me that this post helped her a lot over the years, and she asked me if I would consider reposting it. So, after a few small updates, I did. Read more…
On Sunday nights, Mack Collier runs a Twitter-based group chat called #blogchat, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about blogging while hobnobbing with their peers. But, based on the defensive reaction to some of my comments from several of the #blogchat participants, I’ve realized that Read more…
One of the web’s primary flaws is that it’s actually too easy to use. And as content becomes ever easier to create, finding quality content becomes even more difficult. That’s the general premise of Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen, which lobbies for the return of cultural gatekeepers. It’s Read more…
There’s a gentleman’s agreement in social media that needs to be debunked. We’re always supposed to judge ourselves by the quality of the conversations we have, rather than the sheer volume of our reach. Even Gary Vaynerchuck, who has more Twitter followers than anyone else who’s not “mainstream famous,” preached Read more…
This past week, I attended #140conf in New York City, where some of the biggest names with the widest reach on Twitter came together to discuss the platform’s future. Instead of recapping the event with a play-by-play, I’d rather share one key observation I made during the event that, I Read more…
Lately, I’ve become aware that the audience I most easily attract isn’t necessarily the audience I’m writing for. Not that I don’t appreciate every blog reader or Twitter follower who considers me worthy of their time. But what I want and what I’m attracting may be different things. In my Read more…