Consider Writing for a Nice Second Income
- WEALTHY: The two – no, three – things you need to be a successful freelance writer (Marc Charles)
- HEALTHY: Flu-fighting bacteria (Dr. Al Sears)
- WISE: John Updike on writers
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Are your customers spending enough? (MaryEllen Tribby)
- My thoughts on the current real estate situation (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the magnetic North Pole
- Add "punctilious" to your vocabulary
Learn the Secret to Boardroom’s $50 Million Success…
Power and money decisively travel toward those who are persuasive. Marketing legend Gene Schwartz helped turn Boardroom Inc from a $3,500 idea into a $50 million powerhouse company with his persuasive ideas.
Many marketers who have since studied Schwartz have built multimillion-dollar empires using those same ideas.
What’s stopping you from doing the same? Why not get started today.
- Patrick Coffey
"Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom, but they dare to go it alone."
John Updike
Consider Writing for a Nice Second Income
By Marc Charles
"We loved your reviews, Marc. I’ll FedEx a contract to you this week. We’re looking forward to great stuff from you."
That’s what a top publisher said to me in 1994. I had just secured my first paid writing project.
Freelance writing is a great secondary business. I know dozens of freelance writers who make anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars a month to well over six figures a year. And you, too, can get paid to write.
Now, let me assure you – no one had fewer credentials, expertise, or writing savvy than I did when I landed my first writing project. So don’t let that stop you.
One publisher that I submitted a proposal to required writers to have degrees in English, journalism, and/or business in order to be considered for freelance work. (I wonder if the publisher had any of those degrees.) "Our readers expect a high level of expertise and education from us," he explained.
"But a college degree does not give someone the ability to write a compelling story or article," I said.
The publisher grudgingly agreed – but he still wasn’t ready to accept my proposal to write for him on a freelance basis. So I suggested that I could write a "test" article for him to see what kind of feedback it would get from his readers.
The publisher was up for the challenge. And so I wrote an article about how the dot-com IPO hysteria would end badly (in 1999).
My article received a lot of feedback … much of it negative, from people who thought my premise was completely off the wall. But the publisher liked it. And he loved that it "stirred things up." I got the writing gig, and I worked with him for several years.
What do you need in order to be a freelance writer? Two things: passion and persistence.
You’ve got to be passionate and knowledgeable about your topic. If you’re not passionate about your topic, your readers will care even less. On top of that, you need to be persistent about finding and closing deals for paid writing gigs.
Actually, make that three things. In addition to passion and persistence, you need the ability to communicate your ideas clearly – a skill that can be learned.
What you don’t need is a college degree.
A Step-by-Step Formula for Landing Your First Paid Writing Project
1. Identify the market that turns you on.
This shouldn’t be hard. What topics are you most passionate about? The financial markets? Horse breeding? Poker? Internet marketing? Real estate? Commodities? Major League baseball? My first paid writing gigs were website reviews, because I thought the World Wide Web was pretty neat and I was spending a lot of time online.
2. Identify the publishers and paid writing projects in that market.
This is easy. The Internet makes the research simple. You can search billions of documents instantly with the help of search engines like Google. If, for example, you’re looking for publishers that focus on animals or pets, simply enter the words "animal pet publication" or "pet publisher" into a search engine.
The 2007 edition of Writer’s Market lists more than 2,200 markets and publishers looking for writers. You can also look for work online at MediaBistro, CraigsList, and WritersWeekly, among other websites.
3. Write and submit proposals that ooze with personality.
Sometimes you’ll be vying for writing projects with writers who have more experience and ability. So what?
You’ll need to submit a proposal (sometimes a simple e-mail will suffice) that shows a publisher why he should buy your work. Make it easy for him to want to work with you. Let your personality shine through. Write like you talk in real life – not like you do when you’re trying to impress an employer or an English teacher. Personality goes a long way in closing the deal.
4. Submit your work in accordance with the publisher’s guidelines – and beat your deadlines!
Every publication has submission guidelines, and in most cases they are fairly simple. Follow them to a T. And when you start landing paid writing projects, make it a point to deliver your work before the deadline. If you do both of these things, you’ll soon have more work than you can handle.
5. Always be looking for paid writing projects – even when your hands are full.
When you’ve got a steady stream of paid projects at your fingertips, you’ll never have to deal with "dry" times.
[Ed. Note: Marc Charles is the editor of ETR's Profit Center Dispatch e-letter. Each week, he gives specific details on a business opportunity that could change your life.]
Jump On Now and Make 300%…
Before Wall Street Discovers the Stealth Market in Uranium
Thirty years ago, the biggest energy giants walked away from millions of acres of land with proven uranium reserves… land that wasn’t worth exploiting when prices hit rock bottom. But one company grabbed the best of that land for as little as $1 an acre.
Now, with the price of uranium skyrocketing, the value of those reserves has increased more than 1,300%… yet you can still purchase this company’s stock for pennies on the dollar.
But you’ve got to jump on this now before Wall Street discovers the stealth bull market in uranium. Once they do, this stock is going to POP. Get the full story here.
Business-Building Case Study: Maximizing the Back End as Well as the Front End
By MaryEllen Tribby, ETR’s Publisher
When Michael Masterson was brought in to AGP, the $8 million business had never seen a profit. As a result of his recommendations, two things happened within a year. The company dramatically boosted their front end, and they installed (for the first time ever) a sophisticated back-end marketing machine.
On the front end, they created an entirely new sales solicitation method, borrowing a format from one industry and a copy approach from another. The result was a totally new sales package that boosted revenues from $8 million to $25 million in 12 months.
That was big. AGP was making great money and bringing in lots of new customers.
Everyone was happy but Michael. He said that unless they developed a substantial line of back-end products and marketed them in a scientific way, the huge jump in revenues would soon collapse and they would end up right where they started.
The executives at AGP didn’t believe in back-end products at the time. They didn’t think their customers would respond. "You can’t sell expensive products to these people," they told Michael over and over.
Michael knew otherwise. He had done it before, so he knew it could be done.
He developed the first "gauntlet program" for them – and after only one year of implementing this idea, the company was generating millions of dollars in highly profitable revenues.
Since then, AGP’s back-end profits have grown and grown. Today, they have the most sophisticated back-end marketing model in the business – generating more than $30 million a year in profits.
[Ed. Note: If you compare what you're doing with your back end now to what you could be doing by using Michael's unique matrix program, you will see how much it could be expanded and perfected.
In April, you could be one of a small group of businesspeople who will have the opportunity to do that in person, as Michael leads you through an intense, 5-day program designed to help you dramatically increase your profitability. Learn the details here.]
Notes From Michael Masterson’s Blog: Real Estate Trouble
In Early to Rise, we’ve been predicting a big drop in real estate prices for about three years. Our bet was that prime residential housing would drop about 15 percent, less-well-situated properties and townhouses would fall by about 25 percent, and condominiums by about 50 percent.
Prices are definitely down, but it’s hard to say for certain where they are right now because so few houses are actually being sold. There are loads of properties listed, but few buyers … because those people who are selling are hopelessly hoping to get pre-collapse prices.
But they won’t be able to hold out forever, and that’s why I believe prices will drop precipitously sometime in the next 6 to 12 months. I’ve mentioned the reasons before, but here they are again:
1. There is too much supply.
During the bubble, everybody was building residential properties and converting commercial properties to residential condominiums. Now there is more supply then demand.
2. The demand has crashed.
Ask anyone on the selling side of the game – from private investors to big developers – and you will hear the same story: Nobody is buying.
3. Many investor-owners won’t be able to hold on to their properties much longer.
In Florida alone, there are thousands of condominiums, townhouses, and even single-family homes that were purchased as speculations. What the buyers intended to do was flip them for a profit when they were completed. But when they were completed, nobody was buying (because of the hurricanes and the real estate collapse).
So now these people are holding on to properties they never intended to keep. And that would probably be fine if they could afford to keep them. But they can’t. And keeping them has just gotten to be about two or three times as expensive because of a perfect wave of greed that is stacked up against them:
- Local municipalities are assessing these new homes at their full retail selling prices and charging full millage – usually about two percent – in real estate taxes. Thus, a relatively inexpensive $350,000 condo (a starter condo in South Florida) carries with it real estate taxes of $7,000 a year.
- Mortgage rates are creeping up… just when many flaky mortgages are coming due. Many of those owner-investors bought with interest-only loans or even short-term loans with reverse amortizations. As they come due, rates are skyrocketing, leaving the investor-owners with monthly mortgage bills they can’t afford.
- Property insurance, which is required on financed homes, is skyrocketing in Florida and many other parts of the country – doubling or tripling for many.
These three forces are coming together… and there will be thousands and thousands of defaults all over the place. This will create an avalanche of foreclosures, with properties selling at steep discounts. 15 percent to 50 percent will be commonplace.
One example: Down the street from my office, about a block from the heart of downtown Delray Beach, there is a small development of very nice townhouses. Most of the owners bought into them at about $1 million. There are eight units, and four of them (50 percent) came on the market at the beginning of this year. The average asking price was $1.4 million. Rumor has it that two of the owners can’t wait any longer. One of them has put up big signs around the neighborhood, dropping his price to $1,050,000. A friend of mine who knows the situation thinks the unit will sell for $950,000. My guess: $850,000.
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: To read more of Michael's unedited, uncensored (and sometimes unexpected) ruminations, check out his blog here.
And to learn how to make money with real estate - whether the market is up or down - check out ETR's Main Street Millionaire program.]
Kefir: A Natural Immunity Booster
By Al Sears, MD
You may have seen yogurt drinks boasting the addition of "probiotics" – helpful bacteria that boost immunity and prevent disease. While the benefits of probiotics are well known, don’t count on those yogurt drinks to help you.
Your body has about 100 trillion "friendly" bacterial cells from at least 500 species. Most probiotic products on your grocer’s shelf don’t tell you which strains of those microorganisms they contain. They usually have only one or a few – and generally not enough of them to do any good.
Having enough of the right bacterial strains has been proven to aid digestion, fight off harmful bacteria, and pump up the immune system. But even most probiotic supplements in pill form come up short. So your best bet is to get them naturally. One of the best sources is a fermented milk product called kefir.
Kefir is better than yogurt, because it is packed with millions of probiotics that can rebalance your digestive tract and heal your digestive system. They can also relieve stress, ease depression, and eliminate sleep disorders. What’s more, kefir is inexpensive and widely available.
We are at the peak of the flu season now. A serving of kefir once a week until the weather warms up provides a safe and natural defense.
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]
It’s Fun to Know: About the Magnetic North Pole
The magnetic North Pole, not to be confused with the stationary geographic North Pole, is shifting south toward Siberia at an increased rate. This shift is affecting the accuracy of magnetic compasses worldwide. However, because of the widespread use of GPS (Global Positioning Systems), the phenomenon is not affecting navigation as much as it would have in the past.
According to the National Geographic website, the shift is likely a normal oscillation of the Earth’s magnetic field, and not the beginning of a flip-flop of the north and south magnetic poles, a phenomenon that last occurred 780,000 years ago.
I would recommend "The Billionaire Way" program to anyone who is contemplating a new enterprise or business start-up, or is already in business for themselves. It enabled me to look at my life, attributes, and habits in a refreshing new way. I was delighted to discover that I too have a number of the traits and qualities that many who are successful in business possess, which I hadn’t realized. I am very excited to apply the principles that were presented in the program to my new business ventures.
A tremendous benefit was to be able to talk with the author of the program, Bob Cox, about my own business strategies and ideas. Bob spent an hour on the phone with me after I finished the program, and his personal insights and suggestions were very helpful and inspiring.
I know that I will often refer back to the information provided in "The Billionaire Way" to enhance my chances for success!
- Catherine McNeil, Monte Vista, Colorado
Word to the Wise: Punctilious
"Punctilious" (punk-TIL-ee-us) – from the Latin for "a little point" – means strictly attentive to minute details.
Example (as used by Jon Mooallem in The New York Times Magazine): "In the proud and punctilious history of dog breeding… the mongrel has been regarded as, at best, an unfortunate accident and, at worst, a disgrace."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
Comments