Professional bloggers are fast becoming the magazine feature writers and newspaper columnists of this decade. Depending on who you work for, you can make anywhere from a pitiful $2 per post to a respectable $200 per post. And big businesses pay their professional bloggers as much as $10,000 a month to manage their blogs. Yet, with writers typically expected to meet a strict, high-volume posting schedule, should you set your sites on becoming a professional blogger? Before you jump on the blogging bandwagon, consider these pros and cons. Read the rest of this entry

I had a lengthy discussion last week with a colleague of mine, Edward, about giving away copies of a new book. Although he’s been a businessman for more than 10 years, he is about to become a first-time author of a business-related book slated for publication by late summer.

We were discussing the time commitment, money and frustration invested in transforming a good manuscript into a great book and preparing it for publication. I congratulated him on sticking with it and knuckling through the “I want to quit” feelings that pulse through the veins—however fleeting—of nearly every author I know. And when I asked how many copies he plans to give away, he answered, Read the rest of this entry

Getting published clips when you’re first starting out as a writer is an age-old problem. It’s that proverbial Catch-22 of, “How can I get clips if I can’t get published” and “How can I get published if I don’t have clips?” Here are five ways to quickly stack the clips file in your favor: Read the rest of this entry

In a previous post, I introduced you to a handful of people who attracted book deals from their blogs. Since then I found more bloggers-turned-authors and, in reading about their journeys to “Authorville,” many of them mentioned that Tumblr was instrumental to getting exposure for their professional blogs.

What’s Tumblr? I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know but, with so many mentions of it, I decided Read the rest of this entry