WRITING THE WEB

What is a writer’s most essential tool? Besides our creative minds and our muse, most of us would say our computer and the Internet. Writers depend on the Web for research, resources, work, networking, and self-promotion. Some savvy writers use the Internet as their sole source of income—whether through freelance work, blogging, teaching, or website ownership. So how do we tap into this resource and utilize it to our advantage as a writer?

In the past, whenever we’ve published an article on blogging, for example, we’ve received enthusiastic feedback. Readers e-mailed us with questions about the topic or kudos. (We love them both!) While we’ve covered basic topics—such as setting up a blog, creating an online portfolio, or promoting yourself online—we’ve never gone in depth or explored other avenues of interest to writers on the Web. There are so many opportunities online that it would be tough to tackle them all, but we’ve pinpointed several topics of particular interest to writers and created a great issue for you.

How do you make a living as a blogger? What is podcasting and how do you create a podcast? What are the essential elements of a freelance writer or author website? How do you start your own e-zine? How can you make money with your website or blog? How do you track your blog’s traffic and analyze its audience? If you’ve ever wondered the answers to any of these questions, you’re in luck! Our experts in this issue have the answers you need and advice you can put to use right away.

Now, to those of you who are NaNoing at the moment, we haven’t forgotten about you. We applaud you for taking the 50,000-word challenge this month during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)! A large part of participating in this event is feeling connected to your fellow NaNoers. That’s the power of the Web and a perfect example of how it brings us all together in an online writing community. (If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, that’s okay. We covered it last year in a fabulous article written by Suzanne Pitner called NaNoWriMo Applied.) We’ll be posting words of encouragement for NaNoers and sharing stories on our blog, The Muffin. If you’d like to share a story about your experience, please e-mail our blog editor Marcia Peterson at marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com. We’ll also be chatting all things NaNoWriMo at our Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter. We know you have a lot on your plate right now, (or should I say “serving platter”?) but be sure to bookmark this issue because there’s a lot of topics you’ll want to explore once you come up for air. After you craft your first draft, you’ll want to know more about how you can build an author website, blog about your book, or even podcast your experiences or chapters. This issue is just as much for you as it is for all writers.

Putting together this issue has been a blast! It’s one of my favorite issues yet because it’s like taking a course—a free course—on timely topics of interest to any writer on the Web.

A big, warm, thank you goes out to our freelancers and staff members:

We welcome back freelancer Thursday Bram and thank her for her article on becoming a freelance blogger for hire. As a professional freelance writer and blogger, Thursday knows the ins and outs of making a living as a blogger. The flexibility of the platform has led to a growing number of women in blogging. In fact, mommy bloggers are thriving and making a living by writing from home! Here are some answers you’ll find in this article: what’s expected of you as a blogger for hire, what the going rates are, and the best place to find blogging jobs. Thursday also interviews other successful bloggers—Celine Roque and Meryl Evans—whom we also thank for sharing their secrets in this lucrative field.

We welcome freelancer Anne-Marie Nichols to the WOW! family and thank her for her two in-depth articles this month.

First, Anne-Marie shows you how to use Google Analytics to track your blog's traffic and audience. In this step-by-step article, we learn how to install Google Analytics and find out what all those statistics on the dashboard mean: total visits, page views, pages per visit, time on site, bounce rate, and percentage of new visitors per month. It may sound overwhelming, but Anne-Marie breaks it down in easy-to-understand language. She really walks you through the process. She also shares her own blog’s traffic stats in screenshots (very kind of her!) and provides you with alternative analytic tools that are helpful for any website owner or blogger. If you have a website or blog, this is a must read.

Anne-Marie’s second article reviews blogging gadgets that will help make your online life easier. She shares her must-have picks for netbooks, blog editing software, video cameras, video editing software, and online photo editing tools. She also shares her list of things to consider when purchasing a smartphone. Many of these products are the perfect holiday gift for your writer-friend or are ones to add to your holiday wish list, and some are free resources you can take advantage of right now. It can be tricky navigating the gadget-waters, since there are so many out there, but Anne-Marie has personally used these products, so find out what the benefits are!

We welcome back freelancer and former senior editor of WOW! Annette Fix and thank her for her informative article on what every author's website needs. This article provides a comprehensive checklist for both freelance writers and authors. Its layout makes it the perfect article to print out and check off as you complete the tasks. Annette is definitely a list queen, and her step-by-step formula will cut out all the guesswork when creating your writer or author website.

A big thank you goes to WOW! columnist LuAnn Schindler for her engaging article on podcasting entitled The Digital Affair: Podcasting Meets Printed and Spoken Words. I had an idea of the topics I wanted to see in this issue and a comprehensive article on podcasting was on my wish list. Soon after I put the call out, LuAnn came up with a fabulous idea, and I told her to go for it. Boy, did she deliver! LuAnn went above and beyond by interviewing experts in the field: Jodi Picoult, Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl), Steve Bennett (founder of AuthorBytes), and Stephanie Romanski (web editor and social media coordinator for Nebraska’s newspaper, Independent). A big thank you goes to them as well for sharing their fantastic advice with WOW! readers.

If you have a website or blog, it can be time consuming and expensive to maintain. An important part of keeping your site healthy (and wealthy) is learning how to monetize it. A big thank you goes to WOW! columnist Marcia Peterson for putting together this month’s round-up in our 20 Questions column. Instead of 20 questions, we asked one big one: How do you monetize your website? Twenty website owners from around the country wrote in to share their best tips on how to make money from your website. Find out what’s worked for them and see if you can implement some of their ideas on your site.

We welcome freelancer Marcia Passos Duffy to the WOW! family and thank her for her article, How To Start Your Own Online Magazine. Marcia owns two successful online magazines and shares her step-by-step formula for starting your own! In this article, you’ll learn how to: pick your topic, research popular keywords, pick a name and a domain, design a website, pick an e-mail newsletter service, add content to your site, and get the word out. This is a great article for anyone who dreams of being an editor and publisher. By following Marcia’s easy to use advice, you can get started right away!

Keeping with our theme of “writing the Web,” we bring you a wonderful interview with an inspirational woman and website owner this month. We welcome freelancer Shaunna Privratsky to the WOW! family and thank her for her interview with Kim Wilson, founder of WriteFromHome.com and PreemieParenting.com. Kim is a remarkable woman who does it all. She’s not only the founder of two popular websites, she’s also the author of an inspirational book for parents of premature babies, a life coach, a mom of two sons, and an army wife. In this interview, Kim shares some of the challenges she’s faced and overcome and what keeps her reaching for all her dreams.

Speaking of dreams, we announce the Summer ’09 Flash Fiction Contest winners! We’d like to thank literary agent Melissa Jeglinski, of The Knight Agency, for judging the summer season’s contest. Thank you, Melissa, for your expedience and expert attention to detail. And congratulations goes to all those that had the courage to enter the contest as well.

As always, I’d like to thank contributing editors Margo L. Dill and Joanne Stacey for making this issue a joy to read!

Now, on to the issue...enjoy!