Market Your Writing Services on Entrecard
March 24, 2008 Labels: tips for writers, writers, writing 3 comments
After I signed up for a free Entrecard account, I browsed their website to learn more. While browsing, I went into the Shop section and noticed writers offering to write blog posts for payment in Entrecard credits. That's when I realized this could be a great way for writers to market their writing services.
Many of you may already write guest posts for other blogs related to yours in an effort to create a backlink to your blog and draw in more traffic. Well, now you can market your writing services through Entrecard, and it's the same concept. You'll offer to write guest posts on blogs in exchange for payment in Entrecard credits. Or, in addition to writing guest posts for blogs, you could offer to write short articles for websites, newsletters, e-zines and other publications as well. However, before you advertise your writing services on Entrecard, think about your current writing schedule. Will you be able to handle the extra work? If you're schedule isn't full or you currently have no clients but are looking for clients, then marketing your writing services on Entrecard may help you fill your writing schedule with clients that pay in dollars. Again, I strongly advise you to make sure you can fit extra work into your current writing schedule, because I've read where many writers with Entrecard accounts have had tons of contacts after they marketed their writing services on Entrecard.
Can you handle the extra work? If so, keep reading to find out how you can market your writing services on Entrecard.
Create your ad
This should be your first step. All you need to do is write a short ad to place in Entrecard's "Shop" section. Your ad should begin with a sentence or two about your writing experience. Next, mention the minimum and maximum word count that you're willing to write; if you prefer to write for blogs and/or websites with a certain Google PageRank, mention what their PR must be; specify the amount of time it will take you to deliver the guest post and/or article to the Entrecard buyer (i.e. 24 hours, one day, one week, etc.); and finally, let the potential Entrecard buyer know what topics you will write about. In regards to the topics you plan to write, mention topics that you would normally write for clients compensating you in dollars; this will allow you to build your experience. After all, you are marketing your writing services to gain paying clients for your freelance writing career.
Link to your writing samples
After you create your ad, include links to two or three of your writing samples. List the titles of each published article, and then include the link to those articles. This allows the potential Entrecard buyer to see if your writing style fits the style they're looking for, and it lets them see how well you write. Make sure you link to your best writing samples.
Determine your price in Entrecard credits
Determine how much you think your writing services are worth in Entrecard credits. I've seen some writing services in the Entrecard shop go for 500 Entrecard credits. Your Entrecard credits could be used to advertise your own blog on other blogs. If you'd rather exchange the Entrecard credits you earn for real money, go to your Entrecard dashboard and click on "Exchange Settings" under "Your Account."
State the rights you'll be selling
Usually a blog posts is written to sell all rights, but you can state in your advertisement that a short bio and a link to your blog, as well as your writing services page, is required. If you're selling an article to a website, e-zine, newsletter or other publication in addition to blog posts, then mention that those articles are available for X rights only and must also include a short bio with links.
Place your writing services advertisement on Entrecard
According to Entrecard's blog, they plan to place a link in the shop section for those interested in selling their services and/or products for Entrecard credits, but at the time of this writing, Entrecard has yet to add that link. Therefore, to market your writing services in the Entrecard shop, Entrecard is advising all sellers send their advertisement through the feedback form. You'll find the feedback form in your dashboard.
Once you've placed your ad in the shop section on Entrecard, you should start receiving responses soon. After you've received enough requests and are satisfied with the guest posts and/or articles you have in cyberspace, then you can send Entrecard a request to remove your writing services ad from their shop section. Good luck!
Hi Misti,
Just wanted to say that I love the new look! It's so professional! Did you download the template from the internet and modify it yourself? That's what I did with my blog just recently, and it looks so much better than it could possibly look with the "official" blogger templates.
Also, I wanted to mention that after I saw your post on MyZip.net, I applied to blog for my own zipcode and was accepted, so thank you for the heads-up. It's a fun and very easy gig.
Diana,
Thanks! I love my new design as well. I've been hunting for a more professional looking, three column template for a while now, and I finally found one. I got the template from http://www.bloggerbuster.com/.
I didn't modify the template a lot (yet). Instead, I just added my widgets and inserted the code for the social bookmarking links to appear at the end of my posts again. I may play around with it more later, but for now, I'm quite happy with it.
Welcome to the MyZip team! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. I'll have to check out your MyZip blog soon. By the way, what's your zip so I can.
Take care & God bless!
I'm on 11103. Quite a distance from you :) Thanks for the link to the blogger templates. I just redesigned my blog and had a hard time finding templates. I don't think I'll be changing it again, but I'm playing with the idea of starting a second blog and then the templates there will really help!