In my Entrecard sitehopping I’ve found a lot of gems. One of the great things about Entrecard is that the users let the company know when there are inappropriate or spam blogs. So I’ve found nothing but quality blogs so far.

If you’ve looked at any of my articles in the sidebar you know that I used to have pet rats. So when I found a blog that talked about the history of the Chinese New Year’s Year of the Rat (2008), I couldn’t help but be intrigued.

For Singapore Entrepreneurs Only is a really interesting blog with a lot of useful information for entrepreneurs anywhere in the world.

The post about the Year of the Rat taught me how the rat came to be on the Chinese calendar, and gave some interesting predictions about the year 2008. Rats are fascinating creatures, known to be intelligent and tenacious. The Year of the Rat promises to be eventful with major political changes and a calm stock market.

Read more about the predictions for this year at For Singapore Entrepreneurs Only. While you’re there, take a look around. There’s something for everyone.

I’ve written a few articles for Associated Content now, as I said I would in a previous post. I’m not thrilled, I must say. Sure, there’s a learning curve as to what they want, but I don’t know if I have the patience to figure it all out. Of the 7 or so articles I’ve submitted, two have been accepted for upfront payment for under $4.

Several others were declined for various reasons. One article was determined to be “humor,” which they don’t usually offer upfront payments for. Another had spelling “errors” (I disagree with their spellchecker, but I fixed the words their system “caught”), and another one or two just weren’t the types of articles they offer payments for (current events and articles that aren’t “in-depth” enough.

Luckily, I’ve been able to take some of the declined articles and sell them elsewhere instead. Otherwise I’m just leaving them as “Performance Paid” articles, and we’ll see what happens.

So check out my AC posts and my recent HubPages posts. Enjoy, and let me know what you think:

Training your cockatiel to whistle

Thinking of getting a pet cockatiel?

My first pet rat

Male or female rats?

Starting from scratch with a new laptop

Calming a toddler: Count to 20 method

If this isn’t your first time visiting Crayon Writer, I would like to extend an invitation for you to subscribe.

Most of you are bloggers, so you’re familiar with subscribing to blogs.

But in case you aren’t, take a look at the pretty orange square thingee under my picture to the right. Either click on it to subscribe in a “reader,” or put your email address in the box below it. It’s completely free.

(To learn more about readers, check out Yaro Starak’s post about rss feeds.)

Either way, you’ll get updates from my site on a regular basis, saving you the trouble of traipsing over here to see if I’ve written anything new.

I didn’t know I had it in me (or I forgot), but I recently increased my MyBlogLog community by over 100 in just a few days (in response to a contest).

So now I’m going to challenge myself to increase my blog’s subscribership by at least 50 before Christmas.

I’ll start with repeat visitors, like you. Subscribe for a month, and if you don’t find my blog useful, feel free to unsubscribe (hopefully you’ll let me know what went wrong).

For those of you who are already subscribers, thank you so much! Please let me know how I’m doing, and wish me luck on my challenge.

Freelance writers are the answer to the question, How am I going to find the time to do this, too?
Maybe you can write the copy, you can proofread, and you can do layout without any outside help.

But do you have the time? Can you do everything quickly and well?
A freelance writer can step in and take at least one thing off of your To Do list.

The advantages:
1. Don’t worry about benefits, vacation time, taxes, etc.

Freelance writers take care of their own taxes, vacations, and insurance needs. You only pay for the service you need.

2. Hire a writer as-needed, rather than pay for down time.

When you have employees, you have to pay them even when they talk to their co-workers, surf the internet, take bathroom breaks, or just dawdle. Freelancers are paid only for the time-on-task.

3. Freelance writers are customer oriented.

Employees are not necessarily loyal to the employer, but you can bet business owners are loyal to their own businesses. As business owners, freelancers have a strong desire to do their best work for their clients. Happy customers are essential to a prosperous business.

4. Freelancers are committed to your project.

Freelancers are able to accept assignments they want to do. There’s no boss telling them they must do a particular project. That means your job is important to the  freelance writer, hand-picked, rather than just another assignment from an employer.

A freelance writer’s job is caring about your business as much as her own.

The question is, why wouldn’t you hire a freelancer?

If you need a freelance writer to help with web content, articles, blog writing, proofeading, or more, hire me!

I was having some technical issues, but somehow I figured out that a certain code decided to make things act up. I deleted a script for feedburner, and all of a sudden everything worked fine.

After much research, I finally found out from a co-founder of Feedburner that there was a glitch in their new Adsense program, which I’d recently activated.

I was quite pleased at how quickly Feedburner replied to the question, and at how fast they fixed it.

All systems ready to go!

Here are a few links for your browsing pleasure.

Freelance Switch has just published a list of freelance sites, with categories from writing to designing.

The Copywriting Maven informs us about health insurance for freelancers.

Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home reveals the secret of how to do future posting. I thought it was an obscure plugin…Thanks Wendy! I’m in business now (especially since I now author 3 blogs).

Enjoy!

Having a website for my copywriting business seems to have added a touch of class. It’s given me just the boost of confidence that I needed to effectively market myself.

I have to thank Peter Bowerman, author of “The Well-Fed Writer” and “Back for Seconds.” I didn’t really dive in head first with his suggestions, but now that I’m finally taking his awesome advice, I’m swimming in the deep end.

Having a website with samples from your portfolio allows prospective clients to instantly see what you can do. There’s no, “Send us some samples,” and all the back and forth correspondence that can entail.

Plus, having a website showcases your ability to, well, write! Prospects get an immediate idea of what you’ll do for them.

I launched my website a few weeks ago, mentioned it in my cold emails earlier this week, and I’ve already increased my clientele by leaps and bounds. It’s truly amazing. Not sure if it’s the website itself, or the confidence it gives me. Positive thinking can net results too.