July 2009

There is a fair amount of linguistic research about sex, gender and writing, and how culturally encoded linguistic norms affect writing. There are, for instance, tendencies mf symbolsfor female native English speakers to be more exacting about color names (women might use mauve instead of purple), curse differently (or not at all), and use verbs and adverbs differently than native male speakers use them. There are also tendencies towards differences in syntax and intonation in speech when male and female native speakers are compared. But these are tendencies, not rigid rules, and the research is not exactly as rigorous as we might prefer. Professor and linguist Robin Lakoff is the best known of these researchers, and the most approachable discussion is her book Language and Woman's Place: Text and Commentaries (2nd edition. Oxford University Press, 2004).

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At the end of my last post in this series on how to monetize you blog, I mentioned writing reviews in order to make money from affiliates.  Well, there is a little more to it than that.  Ok, a lot more to it. In fact, hundreds of articles, blog posts and books have been written on the subject, and there are conferences and seminars held around the world providing more information on how to make money as an affiliate publisher.

In the face of that wealth of information, this post will be a short and sweet overview for integrating affiliate advertising on your blog as a viable andgenuine source of income.

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Chances are, if you have added some Adsense to your blog, and have sold off any spare advertising space then you might feel like you are running out of ways to generate advertising revenue from your blog.  Right?  Wrong!  There are still several more ways to turn your blog into a money making machine.  Actually, I am not fond of sensational claims like that, as I feel they are misleading for new bloggers who have been conned into buying e-books and software claiming to hold the secrets to making easy money overnight.  The techniques that I am outlining this week can give you ways to earn money from your blog,  but there is no guarantee of how much.

No matter what anyone tells you, a lot of the results that you get will be based on how much work you put in to content, design, SEO and promotion.

Fortunately, this next technique doesn't require too much work other than creating great content on a focused niche, which you should already be doing.

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Shout Out!Late again!  This time unfortunately because the credit crunch has finally caught up with me, and I spent three days trying to squeeze blood (money) out of stones (clients) who have turned their cashflow problems into mine.  And I'm not just talking small, independant blogs here, but major magazines and restaurant chains. 

But rather than lash out at the people I am angry at, I am taking a healthier, more proactive approach of looking for better clients and editors to work with.  A full time job in itself!  Here though, are the notable sites I did surf upon last week.

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Freelance writing can be a very stimulating career or source of supplementary income, but it's not as easy to get into the business as it may seem from the outside. As with any kind of work there are a number of snags and hidden wastes of time mixed in with real opportunities. Here are a few ways to make sure you don't get caught up in unfortunate setbacks on the road to your next fulfilling job.

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Tonight I'm going to an event called Hugo Works in Progress.  It's put on at The Hugo House (1634 11th Ave., Seattle), which is right here in my neighborhood on Capitol Hill.  This event is the 1st Monday of every month and people go there mainly to read their work out loud and to meet fellow writers.  I'm personally hoping to hear more fiction than poetry.  I have nothing against poetry, it's just that I have heard so much of it in my life and am ready for something different.  

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Shout Out!Ironically,  I have been exploring so many great writing resources this week that I forgot to post my shout out yesterday!  I landed myself a couple of nice new jobs,  and yet old projects were still outstanding and I was in a bit of a quandry as to how to move them forward.  So what did I do?  Hit the web of course and searched for some advice from other writers.  Here is my list of some of the web's best writing sites from this week.

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