Last week, I received a credit card order from a bookstore…by mail. I was curious why they’d sent it by mail instead of ordering online or by fax. But, they did. When I read the scribbles on the side of the order form, I was stunned by the insulting nature of the correspence. Without even asking for a quote on shipping, he said our price for shipping was “ridiculous” and that he “wouldn’t pay more than $10” to ship UPS Ground (for 40 copies).
~Got a Gig From Writersweekly~
Angela,
I responded to a brief freelance ad on your site last October or November. It’s a long story, but I ended up with two permanent writing/editing positions and enough freelance work to put me near six figures during the year. Thanks. I still check your site, even though I can’t take on any more assignments.
-JB
Do you ever wonder who writes and publishes those small newsletters you see around town? They
For 12 years I worked as a freelance writer while holding down a day job, often worrying that I would never be able to freelance as a career. It took me until I was 35 years old, but I now earn my living solely as a freelance writer and plan on never going back to the daily wearing of pantyhose again.
You know, I don’t know what I’m going to do when all the children are grown someday. When that happens, where will we find our daily entertainment?
Is customer service devouring your writing and marketing time? At Booklocker.com, we are frequently approached by authors who are weary of all the problems they’ve encountered while trying to sell their books themselves. While they started out wanting to write for a living, they now find they’re spending most of their time on website repairs and upgrades, customer service, troubleshooting, fulfillment, and even dealing with credit card fraud and bounced checks.
The Week:
The first “moving pictures” began to entertain audiences around the world almost 120 years ago. These silent films generally had ex-vaudevillians, called scenarists, come up with humorous situations for actors to perform in front of the camera. All of that changed when, in 1927, singer Al Jolson proclaimed the immortal words in the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer: “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” This was actually an ad-lib by Jolson, promoting his 1919 hit song You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet. At that moment, directors and film studios realized that if they expected actors to speak, they’d better hire professional writers to put words in their mouths. Suddenly actors needed something to say, and Hollywood recruited some of the nation’s best journalists and writers, including the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, who earned as much as $1500 a week, at a time when the average salary in this country was forty dollars a month and you could get a steak dinner for 10 cents.
From the moment I moved back to Iowa from Minnesota, freelancing my advertising copywriting skills was on my mind. Instead of waiting for advertising agencies to start hiring, I settled for a corporate communications job and soon confirmed that the cube farm wasn’t for me. Writing newsletters, emails and web copy was fun, but WorldCom was spiraling downward. In 2002, I was finally included in a large RIF (Reduction in Force, for the few who don’t know), and a few days later, the company’s scandal came to light. I wiped my brow in relief and focused on taking this opportunity to do what I love: write ad copy.
On Sunday, we did something we’d been planning for several weeks. We moved Zach out of his room into the office on the other side of the house, and moved the office into Zach’s old room. He always has lots of friends over and his room just seemed to keep getting smaller and smaller. Now, his room is huge and is more like an apartment than a room. Richard and I even bought him a doorbell and a brass number 1 for his door. Heh… He thought that was pretty funny. Hmmm…maybe we should start charging him rent? Anyway, the best part is that his friends can now use the bathroom on the other side of the house, which is right by the backdoor, and they won’t be walking by our bedroom door anymore. No longer do I have to bump into teenage boys on my way to the bathroom at night and listen to them laughing and hollering at their video games after midnight.
