Most freelance writers write for clients, and the writing is usually some form of business writing. However, I know that many of you professional writers also dabble in fiction, usually short stories and essays, even if you've not published in that arena. Maybe you haven't even submitted before.

Here are a couple of freelance fiction writing opportunities for you if you'd like to try to broaden your horizons, if only to take a break from business writing.

These two listings are from Cindi Myers Weekly Newsletter. Usually, she reports on book markets, but sometimes she throws in other listings. If you'd like to subscribe to Cindi's newsletter: send a blank email with subscribe in the subject box (of course remove the spaces) to:

CynthiaSterling-subscribe @ yahoogroups.com

Market Listing #1
On the Bright Side is a new monthly webzine interested in humorous essays and short stories. Editors Gregg Winkler and Susan Taylor are open to all genres, from science fiction to romance, as long as you can make them
laugh.50-2000 words. Payment is 3 to 5 cents a word. Submission guidelines are available.

Market Listing #2
Horror Garage is an ezine that pays $30 for short, dark fiction. Read the profile of the magazine by D.L. Snell.

Reeves Rules
Always add to your skills. Remember the lessons of Who Moved My Cheese?

Just about everyone who visits Performancing and its blogs are in the business of online writing and publishing and/or freelance writing and publishing, either for themselves or for clients. Amazon's recent announcement that they would require all books produced by print-on-demand technology be printed by BookSurge should concern you.

Why worry?

Here's the announcement from Authors Guild which was sent to all its members on April 4, 2008. Since I'm a member of this watchdog for authors group, I'm happy to post it in its entirety, which they allow, so writers who aren't members can learn what the big deal is. And it is a big deal, especially for freelance writers who put together books for clients using POD technology and for small presses. Read on.

----------------------------

AUTHORS GUILD INC. Statement

Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregetor. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Feel free to post or forward this message in its entirety.

Copyright 2008, The Authors Guild. The Authors Guild (www.authorsguild.org) is the nation's largest society of published book authors.

-----------------------

The Takeaway Truth

A corporation never changes its business model unless there's a big reward in it for them.

If you've ever written a book and self-published it and want to sell through Amazon, this has HUGE implications for you. Have you checked with the small press you may use or the self-publishing companies like CreateSpace and Lulu and the others to see if they are going to have to change their POD partnerships?

I don't know if any other professional writing organizations have done anything yet about it, but I know the attorneys for Authors Guild are looking into it. On a grassroots level, I don't know if anything is being done or if anything effective can be done, but I do know this issue is of great importance to all of us who write for a living.

Tell others why this is important for you as a writer. Start a petition. Get behind your writing organizations. If you're not a member of Authors Guild but are eligible for membership, join. They are one of the few whose full-time job is to look out for writers best interests.

If you're writing in isolation without belonging to any writing organization, find one. Most of us are little fishes in a great big ocean, but together we are massive. Collective power is always greater than individual power. Think about it.

A lot of the links in this roundup are aimed at freelancers, bloggers for hire, network bloggers.

1. Deb Ng and Jennifer Chait have recently launched a great resource, Network Blogging Tips. The focus here is on blogging for networks, and there's some juicy advice there. They also define what a blogger for hire is, and what "network blogging" is all about. Recommended reading for aspiring freelancers.
2. Over at FreelanceSwitch, Muhammad Saleem offers part 1 and part 2 of his Social Media and Simplicity series. These articles are his advice on how to effectively use social media sites to build your business. (In case you didn't know, Muhammad is the #2 Digg user.)
3. Warren Greeley has a guest post at Anywired on getting local clients while working pretty much anywhere.
4. Darren Rowse has an interview with Victor Agreda Jr., who is a blog producer. Victor "produces" blogs for Weblogs Inc. While you're there, also visit Should I Change My Website into a Blog. (This might be good advice for you freelance writers that I know who are not sure whether you should create your blog or not.)
5. Steven Snell asks, Is There a Career in Blogging, and offers some sage advice on becoming a pro blogger or alternately a freelance blogger. Personally, I think that once online publishing revenues stabilize and publishers offer livable rates, there is a career in this, just as with any writing career.
6. David Peralty at Xfep is looking for weekly columnists. Please read his description carefully, as he needs specific qualifications.
7. WordPress 2.5 has been released, and Matt Mullenweg writes about all the incredible new features it has at the WordPress blog. There's also a 4-minute screencast of the new interface.

This is a quick rundown of blog posts published in the past week that caught my attention and might be of interest to Performancing readers (in case you've got nothing to do this weekend :)

1. Need to move large files around online? Charlene at Essential Keystrokes has a summary of thirteen file sharing/transfer services that might interest you.
2. If you're putting together a professional blog that promotes your own personal brand, you should consider Darren at Problogger's advice andadd some or all of the 20 types of pages that every blogger should consider.
3. Darren also wrote about how he uses Twitter to promote his blog - an activity that seems to be becoming more common. Also check out Nathania's post at Copyblogger on using Twitter for networking, marketing and fun.
4. Smashing Magazine presented summaries and snapshots of 20 free first-class WordPress themes, with bonus info about a couple of WP admin themes.
5. Skellie at Skelliewag.org offered 25 paths to an insanely popular blog and why you've got to dig digg to get dugg.
6. David at Xfep compares the top 50 make money online blogs, showing the ranking change over five months. He also lists nine blogs that should be in his list but aren't.
7. If you're having trouble focusing on your writing, check out the text editor Dark Room, which Maki at DoshDosh discusses. It's a full-screen editor that obscures all your other windows, thus reducing distractions.
8. Kris at Blogging Tips discusses revisionist blogging. We've had this discussion at Performancing before: whether or not to revise your archived posts. I operate on the "relevancy" principle, so I believe it's okay, though some SEOs say Google penalizes you. (If that's really true, I'm hoping it's temporary, because relevant editing should not be penalized.)
9. Yuwanda at Blogging Tips offers advice on building freelance writing credentials.
10. This is from last Friday, but in case you missed it, Chris announced an Authority Blogger contest that includes $2,000 in SOBCon and ChrisG consulting prizes. Check it out, and if you're near Chicago, considered going to SOBCon.

Over the last few years I've hired many, many writers. More often than not, when making the final decision, I have to make the tough choice between several very talented writers.

So what's the single biggest differentiating factor I use in choosing a writer?

Social Media Marketing Experience

Do you have an account at Digg? Reddit? StumbleUpon? Propeller?

If not, chances are that you're at a disadvantage in the freelance writing job market. And chances are that you'll be competing against someone who has this experience.

So why does a blog owner like me prefer writers who can help promote their own stories? Well, for a number of reasons. First, it shows an added level of investment and commitment to the job (i.e. it's not just writing for writing's sake). Second, social media is all about diversity of numbers. The more people involved in the promotion of a story, the better it's chances of success. Third, it helps shape a writing environment in which articles are gradually shaped to fit the interests of the readership.

Whatever you think of these reasons, the fact is that all freelance writers should add "social media marketing" to their resume. It makes a huge difference to me, and I assume it makes a huge difference to other site owners too.

Back in August I created my very first blog. I was naiive back than, I was under the impression, if you build it, people will come. Ha ha ha, I made sure my blogs were rich in keywords, rich in content, and had google adsense all over the page.

A blog is great, but it's nothing if you don't have a page ranking, or at the very least traffic. Since I created my blog it's been four months. Do you know how much I've made with google adsense? A whole $6.00. Wow am I getting somewhere.

That's why I am grateful I found performancing, indeed.com, and craigslist. I'm also glad that I started looking for freelance writing and blogging jobs. If I hadn't, than I wouldn't have made $700.00 this month.

I've read other blogs that claim to make $1000 just from their blogs, and someday I would love that, but for now I do what I can, to get that extra Christmas money.

This article is dedicated to explaining how I made $700 this month, and how it'll continue each month. First thing, join perfomancing, create your own blog. Update it regularly. You'll be surprised by the people who contact you just from performancing. Check craigslist, this is a valuable resource. Check Craigslist daily for jobs in your area. Craigslist isn't as popular as monster or workopolis, so you don't have nearly the competition.

Other places to check are problogger, indeed, ifreelance, etc. Some places you need to pay membership for, I would suggest you research this before you spend money. I managed to find all my jobs without paying for a costly membership.

How I make $700 a month is this: being a freelance reporter for Cheezhead.com, writing two reviews for Eaton Webdirectory, writing 20 ehow articles for $300 for demand studios, and writing for a Canadian Blog. I have only just begun my freelance journey, but already I am quite profitable.

As long as you have a portfolio, a place to demonstrate your skills and abilities, and you are always applying for jobs, they will come. Just make sure you never rush your jobs, and you give high quality articles or features. If you do, you'll be surprised what your jobs may grow into. They may turn into a steady gig, or they may give a chance you normally wouldn't get.

Either way, if it wasn't for all the tips on performacning, I don't think I would be nearly as far today with writing as I am. So thanks for that.