writing tips

Writing Tips: 10 Productivity Secrets From the Author of 1,000 Blog Posts

I’ve got some writing tips for you today, on how to crank out volumes of useful posts that draw a crowd. What’s the occasion? Well, in the past month, this blog hit two milestones: We published our 1,000th blog post, and hit roughly 1 million annual readers.

I wrote the vast majority of these posts (for several years, at the rate of five posts a week).

It isn’t just the posts here that I’ve written over the past decade, either. I also wrote posts daily for a year for BNET (remember them?), wrote 3-4 times a week for Entrepreneur.com for years, and contributed 165 posts to my Forbes channel, to name just a few of my paid blogging clients.

In all, I’ve written thousands of blog posts, since getting back into freelancing in 2005.

If you have trouble pushing ‘publish’ on your posts, and wonder how to produce volumes of quality work, here are my writing tips for maximum productivity:

Tagged with: blog-based business, blogging, productivity, writing tips

How to Improve Your Writing: My Top 7 Fast-Acting Methods

Posted by: Carol Tice

It’s rare that I meet a freelance writer who thinks their writing is good enough. It’s not just that you want to know how to improve your writing, either — you want to know how to do it in a hurry.

Ideally, quick enough to get you some better-paying freelance writing gigs, real soon.

It seems no one wants to become a strong writer the way I did it — namely, to file 3-4 stories each and every week, like I did for 12 years. Or to write 72 blog posts a month, like I did when I got back into freelance writing in 2005.

Everybody wants a shortcut. OK then! I think there are a few.

Here are my top seven ways to quickly improve your writing:

Tagged with: article writing, Article Writing Masterclass, writing tips

Article Writing Secrets of a CIA Analyst Turned Freelancer

Posted by: Editor

If you want to improve your article writing skills, the Central Intelligence Agency probably isn’t your first place to look.

Yes. I’m talking about that CIA. The organization that feeds the President and senior officials information to keep us safe. I was an intelligence analyst for the CIA for 8 years, and spent most of my time writing for top policy makers.

Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes at the CIA?

It’s not exactly like living in a Jason Bourne movie. But there is a lot of information that requires article writing skills to keep people informed. Along the way, I uncovered article writing secrets at the CIA that helped me go from analyst to full-time freelancer.

It wasn’t easy. In this high pressure environment, I quickly learned to kill my purple prose, prioritize readability, and create impeccable work under pressure.

Want to improve your article writing skills, land better clients, and earn more?

Here are a few tips from inside the CIA to help you be a better freelance writer:

Are You Looking for More Writing Motivation?

Posted by: Carol Tice

If you find it tough to get psyched up to write, this post is for you. I recently received a letter from a new writer hoping I could help her find more writing motivation:

I’m Sherin from Indonesia, it’s such a pleasure to find you as someone I can look up to. I’ve been saying to myself that, I really want to be a writer. And I’m very passionate about being a freelance writer, especially in content writing and maybe in proofreading. I know I need to plan how am I going to do that, but I feel lack of confidence and I don’t really know where to start.

I think this will be a good opportunity to make my own income too. I’m still a student supported by my parents. But I just love the image of standing independently. Anyway, I am so sorry to bother you. I know that I need to have some good skill to become a freelance writer, and to become skilled, I need to learn and practice. And I don’t know how to do that.

Can you give me some tips or maybe some motivation?

Letters like this make me want to cry. Because I’m dedicated to helping freelance writers earn more!

I want to have tips and useful info for you. (And ESL writer or not, writers write in every language and there are clients all over the world, so any grammar errors you spot above are not important here.)

What’s the trouble then? When you ask me to give you some motivation, I’ve got nothing.

Tagged with: motivation, productivity, writing advice, writing tips

3 Keen Copywriting Tips to Create Better Content

Posted by: Editor

If I had a copywriting tips guide to follow when I landed my first job, it would have saved me a lot of suffering.

Mum, dad… please look away now.

I’m afraid that my expensive university education and a degree in English didn’t prepare me to write words that sell.

When I finished school in 2001, I was lucky enough to land a copywriting job at a huge media company. And to be perfectly honest, I thought that I’d find the job pretty straightforward.

But it wasn’t. Making the transition from writing academic papers to crafting commercial copy was really hard.

The truth: I used to be quite a horrible copywriter. And I don’t mind admitting it now.

I had to learn to write differently. I studied pro writers, copywriting tips, and the best ad copy. I tested and evaluated copywriting strategies to see what worked and what didn’t. I learned how to write words that sell.

And I’m keen on helping others make a living writing. These three copywriting tips will help you create better content:

How to Be Original: 18 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Creativity

Posted by: Carol Tice

Do you feel like everything has already been said? That it’s impossible to be original, in an age where everyone has instant access to everything?

Well, I disagree.

Fresh, original writers and bloggers emerge every day. Each of us is an utterly unique human being.

Yet originality remains a struggle for many writers. Here’s a typical comment I recently got on one of my blog posts:

“I run a blog and I’ve been trying to be original in my content. The more I try, the more I get less original.

“What’s your advice on this?” –Ifeanyi

When you feel like you have nothing fresh to contribute, it’s time to take a step back and shake up your creative process.

I put together this list of 18 originality-enhancing ideas because in Hebrew, the word for life, chai, has the numerical value of 18. Pump some new life into your writing with these!

Tagged with: creative writing, inspiration, story ideas, writing tips