The Published Parent

Thursday, November 19, 2020

The Art and Business of Writing by Chris Jones

Loved this book by the man who is also the editor at Fredericksburg Parent & Family Magazine. Here's the piece I wrote for them on how to raise a resilient child.

There is so much helpful advice in this book, and it's the perfect size ... not too long and not too short. It even went beyond where I am in my career right now and took it to business cards and web hosting (I just use free Blogger and have for about 12 years) advice.

I have been writing for publication since about 2006 and ebooks since 2009. I also self-published The Tater Tot Casserole Cookbook back in 2013, and it's a fun little cookbook that makes a great gift! I know you'll get something great out of this book no matter how long you've been in the business! Here are some takeaways for me:

Check out the Pomodoro timer in your phone's app store. Interesting to see how much work I was actually getting done versus how much time I THOUGHT I was spending working. It was much less, actually. Here's my post about discovering this helpful app!

This book made me realize that it would be doable for me to write 500 words per day if I made room in my life for that and did it first, BEFORE sitting down to my proofreading jobs. It's all about priorities.

The book is about the Art + Business of writing. To me that's like being good at English + Math, you know? You can't be all about the art of it ... because you also have to worry about record keeping, collections, getting clients, marketing and so much more!

Who is my reader? What do I hope they will learn and how will I help them? Like with my cookbooks, that's easy. And same for my book about making money to write for magazines. But my parenting Christmas and Halloweens? Kinda general and might need to be reworked into a more general holidays-with-kids book that's more focused on solutions.

Am I writing for them or for me? You have to somewhat write for yourself. Like most of my parenting articles were for me and same for the tater tot cookbook and even the magazine book I published was so I could compile all my markets, but then I wrote all the tips in the beginning for the reader! I put all the tater tot recipes in one place so I would have them for myself, but then I spiced them up and created more and added desserts! This gets me so excited to work on my other 8 projects I want to do, like this one!

What are some helpful things that work for you in your life as a writer?

Have files of article reprints that you own but have no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my thick 441-page print book of tips, tricks, and insider information, as well as 384 paying parenting and family markets! You can order "How to Get Published (and Paid!) Writing About Your Kids" on Amazon here.

Thursday, November 5, 2020

October 2020 Work-at-Home Income Report for The Published Parent

Image by aroblesgalit from Pixabay

October earnings: $2,770

Proofreading: $1,718

Blogging: $745

Magazine articles: $170

DoorDash: $97

Book sales: $40

If you're interested, this post shows my Third Quarter 2020 Income.

The McLoughlin household rocked and rolled in October — and I wish the same for you!

I am still blessed to be able to work from home proofreading, blogging, writing articles, and writing books and to be able to do it in my sweatpants or swimsuit, out on the deck or at the dining room table, at my house or traveling with my kids and husband for his work to places like Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Chicago, Florida, and more.

I like to share my income from home with you to show you that I am a real person with real challenges and successes. No, it is not a full-time income, but I am not aiming for that. I am thankful and grateful that my husband has a good job, and my main job is homeschooling. Words are my part-time job for now. When the kids are grown, I foresee working more hours with my word career and helping to pay for travel and retirement. But that's at least 10 years away :-)

And if you are interested in making money working from home by being on the Fiverr platform, please use my referral link! As far as work from home jobs go, this has been one that I have loved since 2013!

What am I currently working on? Well, I'm working on the Write Anywhere series Book 2 right now and hoping to get it out very soon. Then I'll work on the other books in the series, to include national markets, a how-to stand-alone book, and a workbook (and later, writing markets for teens to break into, as well as women's writing markets). What are you working on?

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Proofreading Jobs from Home: 20 Places to Get You Started + Income Potential

I have met many writers and published parents who are also passionate about editing and proofreading, so this post is for you! I work primarily on Fiverr, and I have received over 2,700 positive reviews since I started in 2013. I love working from home and homeschooling! If you want to join Fiverr just to check it out and possibly sign up to do your own proofreading jobs from home, please use my referral code!

Here's what I have come up with so maybe you can do what I'm doing! The first two services I am not familiar with because I just haven't had the time to dive into them. They are reputable sites that ask for a proofreading test or sample, but I hear competition can be fierce, and I'm not about underbidding my services!

1. Scribendi. Must have a degree and three years of experience.

2. Upwork (formerly Odesk)

3. Scripted is a great way to find proofreading work.

4. Hunt down people when you see things written wrong! Is your doctor's website riddled with errors? Offer to proofread it for cheap. Did you get a piece of direct mail that had errors? Figure out who to contact and offer your services.

5. Amazon is always hiring for word-related services! Check out their job listings in Editorial, Writing and Content Management!

6. Gigbucks is most full of micro jobs, which are small jobs which can be completed quickly.

7. PeoplePerHour is another place I signed up at for free but nothing came of it. Some of these sites are flooded so you just have to sign up all over the place and wait and promote your services.

8. Remote.com is a place I tried for a hot second but didn't have the patience to keep at it. (It used to be called Outsource.com so if you are looking for info on it, look for that name). I had to pay for credits so I could bid jobs. I did have plenty of credits in the end and the jobs to bid on were picking up, but the competition was fierce. I did get chosen for one job and it went well and I made back what I spent in credits. I was up for another job but they had a zillion and one requirements instead of just the simple proofing and editing I do and I can't focus on jumping through hoops. I like to fix documents and get out. I don't want to get wrangled into trying to write copy or critique what they've done because those things get touchy and subjective. You might have a better experience. I broke my own rule of paying to get jobs so I could basically get the experience to share here!

9. Fiverr is my go-to place since I signed up in April 2013 and the jobs started flooding in. You can hire me here or just see how I set up my gig. I have a separate post for it because I have so much to say on the topic! I've done many different gigs on Fiverr besides proofreading so poke around to see what else you can offer. Here are some Fiverr tutorials!

And if you head over to The Curious Frugal, she's got 11 more places where you can find work-from-home proofreading jobs!

Income Potential from Proofreading:
I have had months where I was able to make close to $2,000 proofreading in a month but I wanted to die at the end, only because I have other things going on for income and managing everything gets difficult. I like to have other income streams because proofreading can be feast or famine, usually feast once you get going and get some good reviews and recommendations.

If my kids were in school and I didn't care how my house looked or what anyone ate and if I never wrote books or parenting articles or blogged, I could easily make $5,000 per month just proofreading (minus taxes).

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Writing for Regional Parenting Magazines and Selling Reprints: My 182 Publishing Credits

Do you want to write parenting and family articles and get paid to do so? I know there are a lot of parents out there doing the job every day, thinking, "I should write about this. I wonder if others struggle with this. I could help someone with my story or with a researched article about this topic. I could learn some cool things in the process of helping others and making money!"

I had those same thoughts back in 2005-ish when I had my third baby and was in the trenches of the parenting battlefield. I cracked open my local parenting magazine after snagging it at the local children's consignment shop, Kansas City Parent, sent something to them about stocking up on meals instead of going grocery shopping daily, and I made a fast 25 bucks.

Then I wondered if I could maybe send the same piece to other magazines in other cities. Did they only want local content or would they take my little evergreen piece?

Fast forward MANY years: I present to you below a rockin' list of great magazines I have personally written for, and it increases every year. Once I figured out I could do this, I compiled a book of info and markets and guidelines and pay information so others could do the same thing. I've made as little as 10 bucks on a piece up to $250.

I've stayed with the local magazines so far but am planning to branch out to the nationals with some queries and pitches (you don't really have to query/pitch the regionals so it's faster and easier, but the pay is less, accordingly).

Check out my big fat juicy 7th edition. Scroll to the bottom of the email to find out how to get started on your parenting magazine writing career.

I've worked with each of the publications below, so I know all the information you want (guidelines, pay, how fast they pay, etc.). The book also includes national markets I have not broken into yet, like Babble.com, Parents, Working Mother, FamilyFun, Highlights, Brain,Child and many more. Check them out!

Join my Facebook group called Parenting Magazine Writers ... it's FREE and full of tips and tricks and markets and like-minded writer friends!

Thursday, October 1, 2020

2020 Third Quarter Kick-Ass Income Report

Writer friends, the McLoughlin household is healthy and happy and ready to head into a prosperous Q4 2020 (October, November, and December) — and I wish the same for you! (October's monthly income is posted now, so check it out!)

Third quarter ended well, even though I was also homeschooling, running a household, joined committee at the homeschool co-op, and my husband was working from home.

In fact, we just got back from a lovely 11 days in Nashville, TN, Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA!

I like to share my income with you to show you that I am a real person with real challenges and successes. No, it is not a full-time income, but I am not aiming for that. I am thankful and grateful that my husband has a good job, and my main job is homeschooling. Words are my part-time job for now. When the kids are grown, I foresee working more hours with my word career and helping to pay for travel and retirement. But that's at least 10 years away :-)

See you back here on January 1st, 2021! And if you want to work on Fiverr, please use my referral link!

QUARTERLY ONLINE INCOME
3Q 2020 INCOME
TOTAL: $5,495

Proofreading: $2,433

Blogging: $1,986

Magazine Articles: $634

Self-published Books: $37

Door Dash: $405

What am I currently working on? Well, I'm working on the Write Anywhere series Book 2 right now and hoping to get it out very soon. Then I'll work on the other books in the series, to include national markets, a how-to stand-alone book, and a workbook. What are you working on?

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Coming soon! The Write Anywhere Series

Coming soon and only available as an instant-download PDF for $5.95!

Curious about the other books in the series?

Book 1: How to Write for Parenting Magazines will be available for $4.95

Book 3: 101 National & Online Parenting Writing Markets will be available for $4.95

Book 4: The Workbook will be available for $5.95

You can get the BUNDLE for just $16.95

Monday, July 20, 2020

My Love-Hate Relationship with Scrivener

I got Scrivener back in the spring when the lockdown was first in effect and I was surprised and happy about the reasonable price. Many of my favorite writers rave about this program, so I had to give it a shot.

While I do love how I can organize and move around chapters easily without much scrolling, I hate a few things even more, which are huge time-wasters in my writing career:

I can't make the screen bigger without making the font bigger like you can in, say, an Internet browser when you increase the screen print size.
I can't do a search. At least I could never get it to work, so trying to find one market name in a sea of 230 market names was not possible.
When I export into a Word document so I can do final proofreading, Scrivener has randomly smooshed words together and randomly messed up formatting, which wastes a lot of time. So my text might look like this:

Writer's guidelines canbe found on thewebsite.

I am also a proofreader on Fiverr and have been for the last 7+ years. I used to get so frustrated when book projects would come to me for proofreading as shown above quite often: it's because a writer has put their trust in Scrivener and exported, then sent it straight to me. And when I receive it, it's a formatting nightmare with words smashed together and extra spaces inserted.

If you can overlook these things, give it a go. If you can't, just keep using Microsoft Word like I do. Shrug.

Update: I got this in my email inbox recently so I'll definitely let them know what I like and don't like. I'm truly hoping these are easy fixes for a programmer and that I can go back to Scrivener with open arms and lots of writing ideas!