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You send lots of emails. Think of all those pitches to editors, replies to clients as well as interactions with interviewees, friends, family and coworkers. Your email signature is a valuable, free space that appears time and again in front of people who’ve already decided you’re worth their attention. Most of us set one up quickly and forget about it. But could it be working harder for you? The nudge effect of the email signature The golden rule of advertising is that people must see a message multiple times before they act on it. Likewise, your email signature delivers repeated exposure without you lifting a finger. I’ve bought books this way, simply because I saw a tagline under someone’s signature often enough that I got pulled in. Kris Faraldo of IttyBiz, which provides marketing resources for small businesses, reviews their signature roughly once a month, tweaking it to nudge people towards their services. This habit has brought ‘a small but noticeable uptick’ in clients and sales: ‘You can make very good money over time from even a marginal investment in crafting a good signature.’ Here’s how to start. Crafting the message Faraldo argues that people too often treat their email More

Many writers are held back by the fear of the unknown. They speak it in a dozen different ways, but in talking to writers, I’d say the comments can be distilled down to one thing. . . trying something different is intimidating. There is the fear of submitting to a traditional press. Most writers I advise are asked why they haven’t considered traditional publishing, and they usually cannot really say other than they want to be more in charge. Many still haven’t grasped the complexity of indie publishing, but they know more people who have done it. They usually haven’t even looked at the details of traditional. There is the fear of speaking to groups. They say they don’t know how, don’t enjoy it, don’t know where to do it, and don’t think speaking matters. As someone who once published The Shy Writer Reborn, I can tell you that you can go from being shy and intimidated into someone who can talk to a crowd. There is the fear of entering contests. They might be scams. They charge entry fees. The odds are against them. Well, someone has to win these things, and the gymnastics of entering contests are incredibly More

Fiverr is a popular freelancing platform where buyers can browse services from freelancers around the world. But is it a viable path for writers looking to make worthwhile money? I’ve spent the last seven years finding out. I’ve completed more than 4,000 orders on Fiverr, achieving Top Rated Seller status and earning over six figures in total income. At my peak, I was consistently generating $2-3k USD per month from freelance writing, all while working remotely in New Zealand. These are my main takeaways. Fiverr’s biggest benefit: Buyers come to you Unlike traditional freelancing, where you spend hours pitching potential clients, Fiverr is built like a marketplace. You create a “gig” describing your services, then buyers can find and purchase it. The greatest benefit I’ve found is that Fiverr exposes you to a massive audience of prospective buyers actively searching for freelancers. As of June 2026, there are 2.9 million annual active buyers on the platform. While there is a “briefs” system where buyers post project descriptions and sellers can reply with offers, over 95% of my orders came from people organically discovering my gigs while searching the platform. That doesn’t mean you can simply create a gig and wait More

If you are interested in writing for someone, take the time to learn what they are about. As much as we’d like to think the relationship is simply one of they need writing and you write, it isn’t. The whole human factor gets involved, and the sooner you realize that, the better your odds. Magazines/Online Publications Do you read them? Do you even know how often they publish? How large is their readership and what kind of people comprise their market? Read their masthead, study their ads, subscribe to their online missives, and follow them on social media. They like to think you are interested in them for more than making a sale. They like long-term relationships just as you do. Agents Do you follow them on social media? Do you read their blogs or newsletters? Do you pay attention to who they represent? Are they regional? Have you read the books of anyone they’ve represented? Where did they go to school? Where have they lived? Where are they from? Publishers Again, do you follow their social media? Have you signed up for their newsletters to learn about their latest releases? Who have they published in the past? What genres More

Being recognized for being original has to be one of the best compliments there is. Such recognition is a sign of several things: 1) You like yourself. 2) You enjoy thinking and creating. 3) You enjoy feeling liberated and not confined. 4) You’re willing to step out and just see what happens. 5) You like learning from the highs of success and the lows of failure. 6) You like owning what you do. 7) You don’t like walking in someone’s shadow. 8) You don’t quickly take up fads. I could go on and on. FundsforWriters was original and continues to be so. I continued writing my novels after agents in New York rejected and ignored them. There are other choices I made and continue to make that probably aren’t the norm or follow the status quo, some of which have worked well while others did not. But there’s something freeing about being in charge of all that. The success is mine and the failure is mine. There’s nobody to blame but myself, putting me in charge of correcting, discarding, and embracing. When you work for yourself, you live to take care of yourself first. To be a writer, you own More

Landing pages are crucial to making money and growing an audience online. Unlike a homepage with multiple links and choices, a landing page is built with one goal: driving a single commercial action, like selling a book, collecting newsletter sign-ups, or booking a course spot. Every element of an effective landing page needs to earn its place. Decades of research has gone into understanding how small changes in structure and wording can turn a casual visitor into a paying customer. The Rule of One High-converting landing pages strictly follow the Rule of One: •    Target one audience, even if you have many (e.g. self-published fiction authors needing a fast proofread) •    One powerful offer, e.g. ‘24-Hour Web Launch Proofing Package’ •    A single call to action, e.g. ‘Book your place’ or ‘Order now’ Remove friction by stripping way other links and non-essential information and not asking for info in forms you don’t immediately need. Message match Your page is the endpoint of a user journey that typically started when a user clicked on a social post, ad or search result page. To prevent instant departures, your landing page must instantly show they have come to the right place. If I click on a More

The short answer to the title question is, “No.” The longer answer is, “No, but it would be extremely difficult to do so without one.” Agents exist for several reasons. Below, let’s outline: 1) what benefit an agent brings; 2) a few different agent scenarios to consider; 3) what lit agents with Hollywood connections are looking for; and 4) ways to navigate around the agent issue if you’re having trouble landing one. Why An Agent First and foremost, agents have the keys to the castle – the castle being Hollywood, which is fraught with walls and moats. Studios, streamers, networks, production companies – they all have very strict policies against unsolicited submissions. Most will only read your material if it’s submitted by a bona fide agent. Second, agents are experts at understanding book option and licensing deals. They know the questions to ask when valuing these deals and how to get the best bang for your buck. They can also bring in entertainment lawyers who will work with them to protect your underlying story rights, including subsidiary rights to adapt your story into sequels or other mediums like audiobooks, graphic novels, etc. Different Agent Arrangements If you’re already repped by More

Say you’ve spent a decade producing whitepapers on fintech trends and case studies about enterprise software. Now you want to tell your LinkedIn audience you’ve signed with a small press for a dragon fantasy trilogy. Will they think less of you or stop giving you work? Corporate clients know me as a b2b copywriter, so admitting I was also a fiction writer felt strange at first. Most of that was just imposter syndrome, the familiar fear of being caught out as a fraud. The answer is to push on. Writers need people to promote to, and this crowd already knows you. Remember businesses are just people Your LinkedIn contacts may have serious job titles, impressive employers, and equally impressive thoughts about their industry, but they are just people, with all sorts of unexpected interests and aspirations. I know one senior industry client whose secret passion is skateboarding. Another loves to make jewelry. They’ll likely respond to your alternate writing news with encouragement and approval. We’re all quietly nosey about what other people are up to out of hours, and clients will find you more memorable if they know a bit more about your hinterland. The power of vulnerability Sharing this More

Many writers are uncomfortable discussing money or selling their work. But, like it or not, we are salespeople. Writers pitch for work, trawl for new clients, network, and negotiate. Over my career, I’ve spent a lot of time with salespeople. They’re energetic, resilient and resourceful, and many of their ideas are useful to writers, too. Feeding the funnel Salespeople use the analogy of a funnel for their activity. The top is wide, where you pour all your leads: contacts from networking events, names from social media, editors you’d love to write for, publications in which you’d love to list your byline. As the funnel narrows, leads fall away. The ones that remain warm turn into prospects (people who’ve shown real interest). The idea is to keep the top filled with new leads so you don’t end up with a dry pipeline down the line when you need it most. The warmer the lead, the more attention it’s worth, which is where writers often fail. It’s also worth ‘qualifying out’ people who are anyone not interested, to save wasted effort. Does this agency even use freelancers? Does this company have a content budget? Sites like Who Pays Writers and The Freelancer’s Year’s pitch tracker give More

Do you need to make a living as a writer and earn an income but suffer with regular writing procrastination? I’ve a few resources you can try that have been game-changers for me. During six weeks of using them, I’ve written two short stories (a genre I’d never tried before), two web features, a health story, and edited a ‘real life’ interview. The health story pitch – and subsequent feature – was accepted by the Editor of the UK Daily Mail’s Femail section. ‘Femail’ comes out on Thursdays, ‘Good Health’ on Tuesdays. The articles are extraordinary personal experiences, overcoming hardship, unusual family situations, successful weight-loss journeys or managing health issues. They pay upwards of £750. UK’s monthly Prima magazine accepted my short story. They accept one a month and pay £100. Best of British magazine will be using my interview. My web feature will be appearing on FundsforWriters ($100). My bank balance has a healthy £1,000 from this short period. I’ve got my focus and motivation back, too. Here’s how. The Pomodoro technique, a way of writing in forced time-management chunks, has been around for years. While this is a great idea for writers, it can be difficult to manage alone if, like me, you’re More