March 2010

So tell me. How can I help YOU?

by Marian Schembari on March 31, 2010

I think I’m a little bit of a narcissist. Maybe everyone with a blog is. But as much as I enjoy writing about my life and having comments that make me feel like the popular kid I never was in high school, I want this blog to be something more. Something where I can share things and give advice that are relevant to you, my readers.

The whole point of blogging (besides narcissism) is to provide niche content. The way we receive news is drastically changing, and like the sections of a newspaper, most of us don’t even read everything about everything. Unlike the newspaper, we no longer casually scan those sections as we flip by. Instead, we go directly to the content via URL.

Like design? Read design blogs and craft sites and online magazines targeted to your interests. Trying to build your business? Join community forums to get advice and read tips from others who have done the same. When I first graduated Davidson I read every job hunt/career advice/life after college blog out there. As a freelancer I now read all sorts of sites targeting people like me. Like this and this and this.

My newist existential crisis is: What can I contribute? How can my blog become one of those sites people bookmark and go to for the best advice on ___________?

That’s where I get stuck and as usual, I take my quandary to you folks.

So tell me. How can I help you?

Related posts:

{ 9 comments }

What People REALLY Notice About Your Blog

by Marian Schembari on March 29, 2010

Sorry, but design and functionality and popularity matter. Just like a bar full of desperate singles looking to get laid, a dude (or lady) saunters up to the object of their affection. They don’t saunter based on personality or intelligence or sense of humor, because first impressions are all about attraction. And if you’ve got a blog with a yellow font or lack of links, or – gasp! – are using comic sans, no one’s going to spend the time getting to know the real you.

Readers will notice…

How many comments you get. Traffic doesn’t matter. Google rank doesn’t matter. Twitter followers and retweets and “influence” don’t matter. It’s all about the comments, baby. Comments mean people are moved/annoyed/emotional enough by what you have to say to add in their own two cents.

Comment sign-ins. Unless your HuffPo, don’t. Just… don’t. Do you know what happens when I’m told I need to sign in in order to comment? I don’t comment. Period. End of story. Capiche?

Professionalism. Does your blog look like a legit site or someone’s childhood diary?

Is it up-to-date? If you have events that have passed or an about me page that’s blatantly expired, fix it. Not being on top of  your blog’s information shows you’re not serious and/or are too lazy to fix it.

Google ads. Good bloggers just don’t have them. AdSense is cheap, doesn’t make you enough money and looks ridiculously spammy. Article databases have them, and as any good blogger knows, you don’t actually make money  from those kinds of sites and the last thing you want to do is look like them (plus, editors could give less of a crap if you’re published on Suite 101). You want to monetize your blog? Build it up so you can get real advertisers. Write an eBook. Use your blog to expand business.  Opportunities abound but I swear to God people… if I catch you so much as looking at Adsense I’ll hunt you down and pay you the 7¢ myself.

Your theme. God, I know I’m the last person to talk since my blog design is so thesis-y, Thesis wants to vomit on it,  but you have to know what I’m talking about. When you see a blog with a generic theme you’ve seen a thousand times it just looks a little less professional. So (if you can): customize, find a really awesome but rarely used free theme or shell out for a designer.

Social media links. I’ve gotten to that stage in blogging where I’m confused when a site has no links to their social media outlet of choice. Make your Twitter feed or button prominent and accessible. And if you’re not on Twitter?  Ugh, never mind, I can’t even look at you right now.

Readers wont notice…

If your blog is easy to navigate.  I know, it sucks when you put in the hard work to make something easy, but trust me on this one. Make sure your site is glitch and over-the-top/snazz free. Because while maybe people won’t notice if your site is the easiest place on the web, they will notice if it’s not.

{ 60 comments }

Why blogging about my life rather than anything actually relevant is good for business

by Marian Schembari on March 23, 2010

I work from home. Actually, right now it’s 5pm and I’m still in my pajamas. I’m in bed… Okay, I’m really lazy today but it’s raining outside so shoot me.

I have a point though, I swear. My point is this: As with most freelancers, there isn’t a hell of a lot of separation between my personal and professional lives. I don’t have an iPhone for this reason – I need a few minutes during my day (this usually involves subway travel) where I can be turned off. So when I’m bumming around at home, writing about publishing and digital books or helping new (and sometimes established) authors tweet their way to stardom, it’s booksbooksbooks salessalessales publishingpublishingpublishing around the damn clock.

Which is cool. I love publishing and books and sales and Twitter. But when I finally sit down to blog, the last thing I want to do is write about what I do.

So Instead…

For the past couple posts I’ve been talking a lot about my personal life and my struggles as a new entrepreneur and finding sneaky (or not so sneaky) ways for people to come up with my tagline. And guess what? These are the posts with the most comments. These are the posts people retweet and email me about and inspire discussion.

If I were a dude.

And since I’m a little slutty when it comes to comments, I feed off that and I do it again the next day.

And every day I worry “shit shit shit I need to write about publishing or else I’m not going to get new customers and I’m going to lose a handle on my niche.” But a weird thing has happened in the past two weeks; I’ve gotten two new clients and a ton more Twitter followers and an all around better handle on the people that want to pay me to do things for them.

In fact, I’m a little shocked. Especially after that post I wrote about learning how to be professional, well, I figured that would really spotlight how unprofessional I am and people would stop hiring me. Thankthelord but the opposite has happened. One (awesome) author emailed me last week and when I asked how/why he found me he wrote: “I was nosing around online and linked to your site from a list of cool literary blogs.  I like a girl who can pull a great stunt. While cursing up a storm.”

Ha!

It’s All About Trust

Now, despite helping me stay uncrazy, not writing about my work has allowed prospective clients to get to know me better. I, for one, would prefer to hire someone I feel I know.

Example: I recently hired Jamie and Nicole (girl crushes) to design my blog header. I know about their company – Shatterboxx Media – because I’m an avid blog reader and both their blogs are rockin’. I know about Shatterboxx because Jamie is the QUEEN of getting digital attention and I found press surrounding her job hunt a while back.

I don’t know the company by recommendation, Jamie and Nicole are based in San Francisco. They’re not the most famous web design company on the planet as they’re relatively new, but I feel like I know them, and trust is the most important thing when working with someone. That and the fact that Jamie’s portfolio is KICK. ASS.

Here’s the thing: Blogging, which started as a career move, where I only blogged about my job search and attempted to highlight my publishing knowledge, has blossomed into this really cool and fun thing where I write about my (and try to help others on the same) post-grad-freelance-social-media-bad-ass path. And doing so, while bringing in the occasional client who’s just as crazy as I am,  does in fact keep me sane.

Related posts:

{ 18 comments }

Contest! Help Me Pick a Tagline

by Marian Schembari on March 19, 2010

I just spent 2 hours staring at my computer trying to think of a clever and smart tagline for my blog. Am getting a fancy new header and I need a bad ass tagline to showcase who I am and why I’m different. But I can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound ridiculous, cocky or sales-y (3 things I hate).

Then I realized that the power of social media is to rally together, right?! So who wants to help a lady out?

Goals:

Short and sweet tagline that combines both what I do professionally and how I incorporate my personality into my blog posts. That’s it. I’ve got nothing. Ideas?

Here are some taglines I ADORE:

The Bloggess: “Like Mother Theresa, Only Better.”

Domestic Sluttery: “The home and lifestyle blog for women who have better things to do.”

Chapman/Chapman: “The Venn diagram of literature, new media, & some cool, mind-blowing 3rd thing.” (this is on his Twitter bio, but whatever)

Contest ends Monday night. Email me, @ me on Twitter or leave a comment. Winner gets a $15 iTunes gift card, and if you could tweet this and spread the love, well, awesome. The more the merrier!

Ready? Set? Go.

UPDATE: And the winner is…. Scott Ripley!!! Telling it like it isn’t. But should be. Think it fits me down to a T and the second I heard it I knew. So thanks Scott, you are the best of the best. The tagline king. As a reward, besides me undying love and devotion, you get presents! And by presents I mean music in the form of a card :)

I want to thank everyone SO SO SO much for all your help. I’m a miserable failure when it comes to this stuff so it was amazing to get everyone’s juices flowing and see how you all see me. And a shout out to Ryan Rancatore: please tell me you do this for a living. A genius, you are.

Related posts:

{ 39 comments }

The Best Freelance Advice I’ve Ever Been Given

by Marian Schembari on March 19, 2010

I recently wrote an article for Digital Book World about freelancer jobs in publishing. (Take my post, Freelance Jobs in Publishing: taking advantage of publisher outsourcing, from a few months back and put it on steroids.) In order to add more content and actually provide advice,  I put out a HARO request looking to get quotes from freelancers and those who hire them. (I am the sneakiest/most awesomest person ever. I now have about a dozen names of publishing execs who hire freelancers on a regular basis. Genius? Hells yeah.)

Anyhoozey, lots of people responded, but I got a fabulous book of an email from editor Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, of KOK Edit, with a list of the most amazing advice for any freelancer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use all her tips in my article, so she is graciously letting me reprint some of them here.

So for your reading pleasure, soak up this woman’s ridiculous knowledge:

1. Hand out your business cards absolutely everywhere you go, including such places as banks and office-supply stores; you never know who’ll need your services.

2. Maintain a professional-looking web site: It’s your calling card on the Internet.

3. Keep in constant contact: Find reasons to periodically contact all of your clients so that they remember you. Frequently, the freelancer who gets the call or e-mail for a project is the one whose name is freshest in the client’s mind. Consider producing a very small periodic newsletter that you e-mail or snail-mail to clients.

4. Advertise judiciously: I advertise in the special edition of a Long Island newspaper that’s produced annually for a book fair here, and I have an ad on the web site of the Council of Science Editors.

5. Send out small gifts to regular clients: Once I’ve had a project or two with a particular contact, I send him or her a coffee mug or tote bag or other item with my company name and logo and contact info on it as a thank-you.

6. Put your name and contact info on everything you touch: Develop a signature that you can pop into place easily in each e-mail you send; it should contain at least your name, your company’s name (if you have one), your phone number, your e-mail address, and your web site URL. Every style sheet I produce (those unfamiliar with book editing should take a look at the “Style Sheet” section of this page of my web site) has my logo and contact info on it. If you do hard-copy editing, tape a business card onto the back of the last page of each ms. you edit. For onscreen edits, place your contact info in the document’s properties.

7. Investigate new clients constantly: Absolutely every single time a potential client’s name comes up on an e-mail list, in a news story, in a magazine feature, or anywhere else, search for the company’s web site online. Bookmark it. Find out everything you can about that company. And then set aside a bit of time each week to e-mail or snail-mail or call the companies you’ve checked up on. Let them know you’d like to be of service to them; never ask if they can give you work. In other words, always approach them from the perspective of their needs, not yours.

8. Buy the EFA booklet “Resumes for Freelancers.” Use it to structure your resume as that of a consultant rather than that of an employee.

There you have it. There’s advice all over the web for freelancers, but Katharine has hit the nail on the head with these little gems of knowledge. Hopefully you’ll find them as useful as I have! (And if you have any other tips, or things you wish you knew at my age… by all means, share away!)

{ 25 comments }

← Previous Entries