My Move to Mac

My laptop debacle has come to an end, with a brand new Macbook that was gifted to me by my big brother. I’ve been getting used to the new operating system. Fortunately, it hasn’t been very difficult for me. Plus, there’s always Google.

Here are some things I love about my new Macbook.

The ability to save webpages (or anything for that matter) as PDFs lets me put a mini-library on my computer. If I have to go somewhere without internet, I can simply save my research to my computer, then refer back to it when I’m ready to to write my article.

Managing mail from different email addresses is much easier. With Outlook, I had to set up rules that routed my email to different folders. Mac Mail automatically creates an inbox and sent folder for every email address you set up. It was a little difficult to get the POP3 and SMTP folders set up simply because I didn’t know where the port numbers were supposed to go.

I have a new software, MacFreelance, to help manage projects and invoicing. It doesn’t have as much functionality as my home grown Access database does, but it’s a good option, considering there’s no Access for Mac.

A dictionary application comes installed.

My (factory) battery lasts like 4.5 hours.

Safari, the internet browser has built-in spellcheck, which I absolutely love. I’d downloaded Firefox to my PC, which also has spellcheck, but I like Safari much better.

The touchpad can do a lot. Mac’s touchpad lets you zoom in and out, scroll up and down, minimize windows, and switch applications, without picking up your fingers. It’s a huge time saver.

Some things I don’t like…

I don’t get the OS yet. I’ve been a Windows user since I first learned to use a computer in 1998. I’m having to learn things all over again…like the Ctrl+Alt+Delete equivalent for Mac and the location of the command prompt.

There’s no Outlook. Mac has separate mail and calendar applications, which isn’t so bad. I’m just used to managing activities and mail in one place. But, I’ve been looking at purchasing Office for Mac which has an application called Entourage. It may solve the Outlook problem.

My Macbook has a cutting edge…literally. The computer is made of aluminum and has a sharp edge that cuts into my wrists when I’m typing and hands when I’m using the mouse. I haven’t found a suitable solution yet.

No more right click, which was so convenient in Windows.

The Verdict

There are some huge differences between Macs and PCs and a steep learning curve in some areas. Overall, though, I love my Mac.

You Don’t Have to Have a Blog About Writing

I’ve seen the question asked plenty of times and a recent post at Freelance Writing Gigs reminded me to post my thoughts on the issue. Many new freelance writers are under the impression that they’re supposed to have a blog about writing. Once you get into the freelance writing world, it seems like every freelance writer has a writing blog. You can easily make the assumption that a writing blog is required to be successful. Let me tell you, it’s not.

I have a freelance writing blog because I want to share by freelance writing knowledge with other people - mentoring has always been in my nature. I can’t say that I’m the most successful freelance writer, but I know business. If you follow my blog, you’ll see that many of my blog posts are about the business side of freelance writing more than the writing itself.

Looking back, when I started Writer’s Brew, I didn’t have much experience freelance writing and that made it a little hard to come up with posts. I advise any writer thinking about starting a blog to come up with a list of 30-50 tentative posts. Why so many? To make sure you have a feel for the niche and have a store of topics to write about.

While it’s a good idea to have a blog to showcase your writing ability, your blog doesn’t have to be about writing. In fact, a blog might be a better marketing tool if it’s related to your niche rather than strictly about writing.

The Downside of Web Writing #1 - Technology Dependencies

I guess it’s bound to happen at some point in any internet-based worker’s career - the crashed laptop. My laptop didn’t exactly crash, though it is, in my definition, inoperable. For some reason, my laptop’s fan stopped working. So, there’s nothing to cool off the internal hardware of my computer. Fortunately, computers are built with a self-protecting auto shutoff mechanism that keeps them from overheating. In other words, my computer turns itself off whenever it starts to get too hot, which is after about 10-15 minutes, if it’s started up from cool. Then, once it’s hot, it won’t come on again until after it’s cooled down. Bummer.

I have not been backing up the way I should have been. Luckily, I was able to have my laptop on long enough to put my important client files and my inbox on a thumb drive. Otherwise, I would be completely out of luck. Once I get my laptop back, I’m going to start doing two things.

First, I’m going to place a backup copy of all my documents in a folder on my webserver. I’ll just create a shortcut to the FTP folder on my desktop and drag and drop the folders there nightly. How can you do it?

1. If you have Windows, go to My Network Places.
2. Click on Add a New Network Place.
3. Select “Choose another network location.”
4. Enter the path of your FTP folder, e.g ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com (add a specific folder using /folder name)
5. Click OK
6. Cut and paste the link to your desktop (or leave it there if you’d like)

For me, putting the link on my desktop is a lot easier because most of my folders are on my desktop anyway.

The second thing I’m going to do is check the box in my Outlook configuration that says “Leave a copy of messages on my server” (or something to that effect). If I’d left my messages on the mail server, then I’d be able to access them with any computer that has internet access. Instead, to access my old messages, I now need a computer that has Outlook because that’s how I exported the messages. The good news is that I can catch any new messages via webmail.

Overall, it could have been worse.From now on, I’m going to prepare for that worst.

Have you had a technology scare impact your freelancing business? Tell us about it in the comments.

End of the Year Tax Moves for Freelancers

Only a few days are left in 2008 and that means you only have a few days to reduce your tax liability. The more money you make, the more you’ll owe in taxes. If you want to lower your tax bill, here are a few things you can do in the remaining days of this year.

Delay invoices. There are two types of accounting methods for taxes: Cash and accrual. With the cash method, you count income and expenses when you receive and pay them. With accrual, you count income when it’s invoices and expenses when they’re incurred. No matter which method you use, saving your final invoices until January 1 will reduce your income.

Pay January’s health insurance premium. Self-employed individuals can deduct 100% of the health insurance premiums paid. This is a top-of-the-line deduction you can make whether you itemize your taxes or not.

Prepay next year’s web hosting. Business expenses are also tax deductible and reduce your taxable income. If you host websites as part of your freelance writing business, hosting charges can be deducted. Your accounting method (cash vs. accrual) does count here. Paying your web hosting works best when you use the cash method.

Make an extra house payment. Mortgage interest paid is tax-deductible, so sending in a payment before the end of the year gets you closer to home ownership and decreases what you owe the IRS.

Give a donation. If you itemize your deductions, you can deduct any donations you give to charity. Work done for charities counts too. You need a receipt for donations over $250 so make sure you get one. Keep track of what and how much you give to make it easier when you prepare your taxes.

Max out retirement accounts. In 2008, you can contribute up to $44,000 ($51,000 if you’re over 50) to a self-employed 401(k) plan and $46,000 to a SEP-IRA. Your contributions are tax-deductible if you open your retirements accounts and contribute to them before December 31, 2008.

If you want more information about taxes for self-employed individuals, I recommend Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultantsby Stephen Fishman. The IRS website is another good resource, but you have you know what you’re looking for.

Disclaimer: I’m not a tax professional. This is advice based on research and personal experience. If you want more information about taxes for self-employed, consult with an accountant or tax attorney.

Feed Update

I’ve set a goal for 2009 to reach 100 subcribers for my RSS feed. I honestly don’t know if that’s a realistic goal or not because I don’t have a clue how many subcribers I have right now. That’s why I signed up to have FeedBurner manage my RSS feed. After updating your Writer’s Brew feed address, you can still receive RSS updates in the same method that you receive them now, only I’ll actually know you’re a subscriber - kind of.

Do you have a feed subscriber goal for 2009?

Change it Up Before You Become a Writing Zombie

I’m sure we all have days when hours of writing gets absolutely boring. I know I have them. It’s not that the work is boring. It’s more of staring the same white screen and the same black letters for hours after hours. If you’re like me, you get pretty unproductive during times like that. I start looking for things to break the monotony - and they’re always things that have absolutely nothing to do with finishing the project, like browsing the internet or checking email.

Here are some things I do to change it up, without losing focus or momentum.

Change the font.

Change the font color.

Change the background color.

I’ve never counted, but I’m guessing Microsoft Word has at least 75 fonts, maybe more. Switching to a new font, color, or document background brings newness to the screen and helps get me through at least a few more articles. When I get bored with one setting, I just change to another.

Get familiar with your document processor so it doesn’t take you too much time to change the settings and make sure you change everything back to the format that your client expects. Sending your document in magenta Comic Sans might not go over too well.

What do you do to break up the monotony of document processing?

5 Signs You Have Too Much Work, How To Fix It

Theoretically, there’s no such thing as “too much work.” That’s like saying there’s a such thing as “too much money.” When your output is limited by time there can definitely be a such thing as too much work and here are some signs that you have too much.

You keep missing deadlines. Missing deadlines could be a sign of poor time management, but it could also mean that you have too much work to give yourself enough time to complete projects by the deadline. A single missed deadline here and there is conscionable, but frequently missed deadlines is unacceptable. If you’re missing a lot of deadlines, take a look at your workload.

You’re living assignment to assignment. If you finish one project only to start another with no break in between, you could have too much work. I tend to worry when I have some downtime between projects, but a short break is a good thing. It gives you time to relax and take your mind off client work for a little before getting back into the swing of things.

You have to schedule work far in advance. Of course, regular work will have recurring deadlines that could happen weeks, even months from now. When you have to give new clients deadlines that fall weeks and months from now, it could be a sign of a problem, especially if the work doesn’t take weeks or months to complete.

You can’t take a day off, not even a weekend or holiday. All work and no play is a destructive combination. Every person needs some “me” time. If your schedule is so booked up that you can’t take a day off, especially a holiday, it’s a problem.

You’ve cut back on sleep so you can get more work done. Again, this could be a sign of bad time management, but if you’re spending most of the day working and you have to sleep less so you can do more work, you’re doing too much. Your body needs a certain amount of rest to function properly. If you don’t get that amount, it will catch up with you sooner or later, Red Bull or not.

What do you do after you’ve turned yourself into a machine? First, figure out why you have so much work. Is it because you have to work that much to make ends meet? Or did you simply overbook yourself? Do you have a problem saying “no” to work? Figuring out why you have so much work will help you come up with a plan to cut back on the work.

If you can’t afford to work less…

Consider increasing your rates and moving to a higher-paying market. You might also take a look at your expenses to see if there’s anywhere you can cut back to make living more affordable.

If you don’t know how to say no…

Learn how. Come up with a list of requirements that each job must meet for you to say “yes” to it. Then, compare every job to that list. If the job doesn’t measure up, say “no.” If you find that you’re still saying “yes” a lot, make your job requirements stricter. 

If your demand is high…

Scale back the marketing. Don’t stop marketing all together because you want to keep your name out there. You just want to reduce some of the work coming your way.

Have a list of referrals to whom you can send clients who don’t meet your “yes” list or those who you just don’t have time to work for. This way, you still get the client’s needs met, without overworking yourself.

If you regularly overbook yourself…

Come up with a better scheduling system. Put your work on a calendar and always refer to it when you’re scheduling work. When you have a day that’s filled up, mark it off your calendar so you don’t give out any new deadlines on that date. You might also mark off some of the days preceding your booked up days.

My Favorite Cure For Writer’s Block

I know I said coming up with new ideas was the one thing I hated about writing. Well so is writer’s block. If you think about it, they’re almost the same thing. I mean, they’re both obstacles to your creativity.

Now, I have a clear list of things I do to overcome the lack of ideas, including talking to other people and browsing the web.

Just Stop Writing

I don’t have a list like that for writer’s block. In fact, I do one thing to combat writer’s block. I stop writing. The more I think about what I could write, the more obscure those perfect words seem to become.

I’ve heard about other cures. Like looking at pictures that evoke emotion or listening to music. Those don’t work for me.

At first, you might think that just quitting will ruin your productivity and push you past your deadline. Quitting can’t be any less productive than staring at a monitor screen wondering what to say, typing then backspacing and repeating.

Why Quitting Works for Me

Even though I’m no longer actively working on the writing project anymore, I still sometimes work on it in my head. In fact, I’ve usually worked out an article in my mind before I ever start typing. So quitting takes me back to the blueprint, so to speak, and helps me think about what I’m trying to do.

But, there are times when I quit that I don’t think about the project. Those times, I turn my mind to something else entirely. Then, when I come back to the project, I have a fresh perspective I can work on it with.

It Works Everytime

I can’t think of a single instance that quitting didn’t solve my writer’s block. Usually, I get writer’s block because my mind is racing too swiftly to get the thoughts out. So taking a step back, helps me slow things down so I can think about what I need to say.

Share your solutions to writer’s block. Do you fight through it, use writing prompts, or just quit all together like I do?

The Easy Way to Write Newsletter

I don’t usually like getting subcription things in my inbox. Even if I signed up for a newsletter or feed, I get a little annoyed to see random emails in my inbox. I have enough mail to read as it is.

The Easy Way to Write newsletter by Rob Parnell is an exception. Though I’ve only received 2 of the weekly issues, I’ve been extremely pleased with both of them. Last week’s issue was about having confidence in your writing and this week’s discussed the difference between premise and theme.

You can catch the online version of (and sign up for) the newsletter at The Easy Way to Write website.

How to catch a content thief

I usually think about finding content thieves only after I’ve discovered a thief. I think to myself, “This can’t be the only one out there.” Usually, I’m right. Content thieves think they’re flying under the radar, but there are plenty of ways to catch them.

Google your keywords

I discover most thieves this way. I Google one of my targeted keyword terms to see where I’ve placed and there’s the thief, ranked right up there with me. I go after these people hard because they’re stealing the most traffic from me. Not only that, my site could lose credibility with readers because the content appears somewhere else. That’s personal speculation, but I’m not willing to take the risk.

Set up a Google Alert for incoming links

You can set up a Google Alert for any searchable term. When you write, include a backlink or two to your own site. Then, when the lazy thief reposts your content with links intact, Google will send you an alert letting you know that someone linked to you.

I’m not sure how Google runs this alert or up the search is updated, but this one doesn’t always work. For some of my sites there are far more links out there than I’ve been alerted to. Even so, I still use and recommend this as a way to catch thiefs.

Copyscape

Copyscape.com is probably one of the easiest ways to find copies of your webpages. There are some limitations to using it though. You must search by URL. If you have 100 different pages on your site, you’ll have to manually search all 100 of those pages. You are limited to a certain number of searches per domain each month. When you have several pages on your site, you can easily reach your free limit.

Copyscape has a premium version that lets you do more searches for a fee. You might check this out if you find that you’re consistently hitting your free search limit each month.

Google your content

The old-fashioned way of catching thieves involves Googling random phrases from an article to see if any results are returned. The key is to pick a sentence or phrase that’s not likely to appear on other pages unless they’ve been stolen from you.

Going after thieves can be a full-time job especially when you have a large site and lots of traffic and revenue to consider. Still, it’s worth it to keep your content yours.

What do you do to catch content thieves? How often do you find your work has been stolen?