How to Get Started as a Freelance Writer

Article writing makes a great job for stay-at-home moms as well as others who would like to work from home. If you are a decent article writer and learn where to try to find writing gigs, you could earn an insome from your writing. Listed here are some suggestions to help you get going.

Stay Away from Job Bidding Services

ODesk, Elance, Freelancer, and all the rest of the freelance websites that force you to bid against others to get assignments have one thing in common: these sites are flooded with foreign workers who are able to write articles for absurdly cheap prices. If you use freelancing sites, set your bid based on how much you believe you are really worthy of, and do not get caught up in a price war. If you find yourself working for $3 an hour, you'll just end up feeling stressed and get tired of it very quickly.

Content Sites

Nearly everybody goes through a situation where money is tight once in a while, and during those times, sites that specialize in article brokering are a good choice. The Content Authority pays weekly, and Textbroker pays twice per month. The amount of money these sites pay is not that great, but there's almost always work available and the money will prove useful until you can find jobs that pay more.

Online Marketers Often Need Content

There are a lot of sites on the net that need fresh articles. Some site owners write their own articles, but a great deal of these folks hire out the writing to article writers. If you've got great writing abilities, you can often get more money for the content you write by marketing the services you provide in forums where Internet marketers spend time.

Magazines and Newspapers

If writing articles for magazines seems to be unrealistic, let me reassure you that it might not be. You don't have to have a college degree to have your articles published in a magazine. All you need to have is enough talent to write query letters pitching ideas to editors in a persuasive way, and also the ability to conduct interviews and craft the articles on time. It is a lot easier to sell your writing once you have some publishing credits under your belt, but a lot of freelance writers have been able to sell magazine and newspaper articles without having any prior publications. Pick up the Writer's Market book or online membership for a list of publications that accept articles from freelance writers.

Will Your Next Television be Able to Tweet?

For work and entertainment, the desktop computer continues to be an integral part of our daily lives. But as we make our initial steps into the twenty first century, many household devices are getting transformed into lean, mean, multi-tasking machines.

In recent years technology manufacturers have begun to build HDTVs with Ethernet and Wi-Fi allowing your TV to connect to the Internet. This offers several types of multimedia functionality. Computer hardware manufacturers have been building high-resolution screens for several years but until recently they have been too expensive for the home and personal market. But over time, production costs decrease and large screen HDTVs are becoming more affordable for the home market.

We are no strangers to this process. Considering the number of gadgets we are exposed to daily, streamlining our tech-lives has become a useful marketing strategy for technology companies. Phones used to merely be phones, but now they have access to the Internet, have a camera built in and can be used to watch movies. The Internet has been a key factor in making this possible, continuing to push the boundaries of technology.

Online businesses are eager to take advantage of these new markets. National broadcasters offer streaming through televisions and popular websites such as Twitter and YouTube can now be accessed through a television. However, more and more services (such as online book marking and social networks) will undoubtedly be available soon. Imagine being able to save favorites online and access them all without turning on your computer. Personalization and customization continue to be key features of the Internet. Imagine being able to design, build and publish a personalized homepage and then access it by a button on your remote control called "personal homepage".

Whilst most people enjoy the combination of features into a multi-functional gadget, some people do not like them. Reasons range from wanting to "switch off and get away from being constantly connected" to wanting to "use the TV as a form of escapism".

Nevertheless, conventional computers still arguably offer the best Internet experience. But there is magic to be found when discovering new functionalities in traditional objects.

TweetDeck and Twitter

A new user of Twitter might be surprised to learn that a large number of people use the Twitter service, but rarely visit the Twitter site. This is one of the things that makes Twitter special. It has an api that developers can use to produce a wide variety of tools to make the Twitter experience more enjoyable and efficient.

One of the best and most popular of these tools is TweetDeck. It is a free application that greatly enhances the Twitter experience. It's especially helpful if you have more than one Twitter account or also use other social networks like Google Buzz, Facebook or MySpace.

It makes it easy to retweet or choose which account you want to post to. You can also schedule posts to give yourself some time off without neglecting your followers.

You can set up multiple columns for different accounts, lists, direct messages, mentions, etc. It's an excellent way to keep track of your social circle without visiting multiple sites and continually logging in to different accounts.

It doesn't do everything, but it's hard to beat for a free tool and new features keep being added. I do use paid tools for more specialized features, but I still find myself coming back to TweetDeck for general Twitter use.

I recommend that you give TweetDeck a try. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

A Useful List of Twitter Tools

Twitter’s immense popularity has resulted in many hundreds of tools and applications to help manage a person's tweets and accounts. Many are free or inexpensive and new ones seem to keep appearing every month.

Regardless of whether you are using Twitter for business or pleasure, there are a bewildering variety of tools that you can use to enhance your experience or help you to work more efficiently. Popular Twitter tools allow you to track the links you share, schedule tweets, welcome and manage new followers, follow and unfollow accounts and so on. Here is a list of popular and useful Twitter tools. It's far from complete, but it should help you to get started.

TweetBurner – Track the links you post on Twitter.

TwitterContd – Allows you to use more than 140 characters, upload photos and
shorten URLs.

Tweepler – Organize your followers.

Monitter – Monitor keywords on Twitter.

TwitterToolbar – Provides access to a variety of convenient tools.

TwitThis – Add this button to your website so visitors can easily tweet about your company.

Trendistic – View trending topics on Twitter.

CoTweet – Helps companies to reach customers, multiple accounts and users.

Twitter Gallery – Free Twitter backgrounds and themes.

twtQpon – Offer coupons to your followers.

Twitoria – Find followers that haven't posted recently.

Twiggit – Updates your Twitter stream with your latest Diggs.

BubbleTweet – Add a video welcome to your Twitter page.

TwitterHawk – Targeted marketing to find people tweeting about a specific topic and location.

TweetBeep – Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, and your company.

TwitPic – Share photos on Twitter.

Twitter Karma - Makes it easy to unfollow people who don't follow you back.