Welcome to the latest edition of Writing Lab News. At this time of year, it's always nice to remind ourselves of what we've achieved. That's why I've decided to dedicate this month's newsletter to the issues that have been most important to you in the last year. There's also an addition to our new humor section. Thanks for reading Writing Lab News and I wish you all the best for the holiday season. See you next year! Next edition: January 9th.

In this issue:

• Writer Without Portfolio
• Why The Library Is Your Best Friend
• Recession And The Freelance Writer
• Is Your Business Prepared For A Disaster?
• Screenplay Copyright
• Writing Talk: Holiday Time
• Diary Of A Working Writer January 2009

Writer Without Portfolio

by Sharon Hurley Hall

Does it seem that I'm obsessed with writing portfolios? Here's something I wrote about getting your portfolio organized. The full article is on Get Paid To Write Online.

What To Include

So you’ve saved everything and you have somewhere to showcase your work, but what should you include in your online writing portfolio? The short answer is: your best work. If you can’t judge what should be in there, ask someone who will give you an unbiased opinion. In other words, someone in the business, not your best friend from school. I’ve done that for some writers through my mentoring service - it’s amazing how different your work looks when you get someone else’s perspective.

Organizing Your Portfolio

If you have a lot of items in different areas, then you need to think about organizing it. You can do this by date or by theme, depending on what you want to highlight. If you want to show that you have done a lot of work recently, then date is a good option, but if you have lots of areas of expertise, then organization by theme is a better bet. Of course, it is impossible to cover every possible theme, but if you apply for a job, it’s easy to rearrange your samples to include the themes that clients are looking for (provided you’ve done the work, of course).

Why The Library Is Your Best Friend

Lindsay of Writing for your Wealth has written a great post on why it's still good to use the library. Here's an excerpt.

1. Libraries are a great place to brainstorm new niches

The magazine section, in particular, is a good place to browse. If there’s a magazine on a niche, then there’s an audience for information on that topic. And if that magazine is full of ads (I haven’t seen too many that aren’t!), then there are merchants paying for those sponsorships. Chances are the same or similar merchants will be bidding to have their Adsense ads displayed on your site.

2. You find more than the things you search for

The search engines are great at finding information for you, as long as you know what to type in.

What I like about the library is the way you can wander and just see what catches your eye. I don’t know about you, but I always come home with books I distinctly wasn’t looking for.

If we limit ourselves to the blogs in our feed reader for information, how much good stuff do we miss?

Don't miss the rest of Five Reasons Why The Library Is Still Your Best Friend.

Recession And The Freelance Writer

by Sharon Hurley Hall

I've been thinking about the issue of recession since October, and wondering how it would affect my freelance writing business. For me, things are still ticking over, though it's not a good time to get paid in sterling. How has it affected you? See if the suggestions in this article match your experience.

For months now, all the talk has been of recession. Everyone’s wondering how it will affect their business and freelance writers are not exempt. Some clients might have to cut back on the amount of work they outsource because their business is in bad shape. (I haven’t had any business from the financial sector this month.) However, others may take the chance to avoid paying tax and benefits for in-house writers and outsource more of their work. There’s a 50-50 chance that this equation might go your way.

Keeping A Balance

I haven’t seen any slowdown in the amount of work I’m getting. For the most part, my clients are pretty solid and there’s been no indication of any plans to cut back. I’ve also managed to get a couple of new contracts. However, I am not taking this for granted. Especially at this time, it’s important to keep chasing work so that you have plenty in hand if a major source of income suddenly goes belly-up.

Read the rest of Recession and the Freelance Writer.

Is Your Business Prepared For A Disaster?

by April Borbon

This post on Freelance Switch reminds us of the fragility of some areas of our business. Here's a short excerpt:

There are two disasters that befall freelancers on a regular basis when it comes to equipment. The first is losing files when you turn on your computer and see the blue screen of death. The solution? Make sure you back up your files at least weekly. Even better—make two back up copies and leave one off the premises in case a fire or other disaster destroys both your computer and your back-up files. The second problem is loss of power. Say you are working on a critical project with an even more critical deadline. The client on the other side of the country will not care that your power went out and you couldn’t work. Always have a secondary source of power for your computer. This could be a laptop which can run off of its battery, a battery system to prolong the power to your desktop after an outage, or even a generator that will power your entire home. Don’t forget that your modem may not work if you lose power so having a secondary way to reach the internet is also good disaster planning. You may do this through a dial up service (phone lines often work even when the power is out) or through your cell phone.

Read the rest of Is Your Business Prepared For A Disaster?

Screenplay Copyright

by Stephen Hall

Concerned about copyright issues and your screenplay? Here's everything you need to know from Film and Movie Making's Stephen Hall.

Screenplay writers will have heard of the need to copyright their work, often because they’re paranoid that unscrupulous individuals may wish to steal their work. It does happen, but it’s rare. Go and Google copyright theft and you won’t find too many live and proved cases. The real problem is after your screenplay has been produced into a movie on DVD or via internet download; that’s when the real copyright theft hurts you the most, because you won’t get paid a cent on illegal bootlegging scams.

Copyright protection is completed in just about the same manner the whole world over. If you’ve written it, then you have copyright protection. You don’t copyright an idea, but you can copyright a treatment and a screenplay. How that’s completed legally so you can sue another party is down to the country in which you want your copyright protection to apply.

Find out more about Screenplay Copyright.

Writing Talk - Holiday Time

Here's another in the Writing Talk Series about a common scam. The others are here.

Diary Of A Working Writer - January 2009

For once, I don't have too much to write about in this column. That's because, for the first time in three years, I took the Christmas holidays off. I did a lot of work in advance to make sure that both of my paid blogging gigs were looked after, as well as Get Paid To Write Online itself. As I write this, I'm near the end of my first week back at work, and am still looking at priorities for this year. While I don't tend to make New Year's resolutions - you can change at any time, right? - I think it's good to periodically see where you are and where you want to be. Now that I'm feeling refreshed at the end of a break, it seems a good time to do that.

As usual, my plans for the year include ebooks. You must be tired of hearing me talk about these, but I am going to finish at least one within the month. I'm making this promise here, so you can chase me if it doesn't happen. I'm also going to work on streamlining my income sources and finding more clients who pay well. By the way, I introduced a rate rise and no one has complained. :)

Looking ahead, there are a couple of client ebook projects on the horizon, as well as increased work on the ParkRideFlyUSA travel blog. I'm looking forward to the challenges and triumphs of 2009. Hope you are too. See you next month.