Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog

Tagged freelance

You know, editors are lazy some times. Rather, they are whenever they can afford to be, which isn’t because they have low standards or are nasty little buggers. No, it’s a lot easier than that, they are busy busy busy running the publication, making sure it works out in any possible way. Online editors usually have more than just content in mind, they need to make sure that the traffic is decent enough, otherwise the site will falter as will the cash flow, and with no money to spend on good writers, well, there’s just not much to do then, right? Read more →

magnoliatree.jpgBlogging is very time-consuming and challenging. Either you want to break the story, or you want to be the one adding to it with brilliant thoughts and analysis. Or perhaps your income is based on how often you update, something that isn’t all that uncommon after all.

Do you remember to take breaks?

And more importantly, do you remember to take a day off?

I know it can be hard, because that ever present feeling that we need to update is tough to shrug off. That is partly because it is warranted, most of us are having the problem that we need to produce to make money, and we need to produce a lot. The thing is, having 7 day weeks isn’t the solution. Read more →

I wrote a bunch of posts for The Blog Herald this week, which is fun of course, but not really a fair representation of my work as the editor of the site. There’s a ton of things behind the scenes, and honestly, I don’t think that the public will see the fruit of my editorship until after the redesign. That is, unless you counting me killing the Kontera ads, of course…

These are my top 3 posts by yours truly this week:

  1. ProBlogger The Book with quotes from co-author Chris Garrett
  2. Flickr Gets Video, But Just For 90 Seconds feature post, and the corresponding news post on pimped photo sizes
  3. The April Fools Gag That Backfired

Number 2 is a good example of how to chop up a story, and by doing that giving it more focus.

Here’s a good idea. If you’re going to write freelance articles for me, and we agree on a price, don’t send 20+ e-mails back and forth with pitches, drafts and ideas, and then tell me you can’t do it. I should bill you for my time spent.

I’m leaving Wisdump, which I have been running for quite some time, in favor of, well, what? I’m not supposed to tell until tomorrow, but maybe I let it slip in my bye bye Wisdump post…?!

OK, so I did.

It was a fun gig, running Wisdump, although I could’ve gotten off to a better start, with it being pretty much run down and all. It’s a tough crowd, I guess, but I think they treated me nicely.

Anyway, thanks for all the fish and all that. I already did a goodbye post so go read that one instead. I’m off to celebrate!

901am redesign screenshotSo I did the new design for new media news site 901am, a gig ordered by Splashpress Media. The current editor, Minic Rivera, implemented the new theme yesterday and everything seems to be running smoothly over there.

I’m pretty happy with how the design turned out. It’s got a nice air to it, feels modern and a lot more new media-ish than the previous one, as well as offer a lot of advertising opportunities for the editor.

Speaking of 901am, there are a few of my readers wondering why I don’t blog there anymore. The reason for this is that I just don’t have the time – there’s so many things going on at the moment that freelance news blogging, while being pretty entertaining, just don’t make the todo list. I enjoy it though and hope to return to blogging for 901am in the future, I’ve got a history with the site as you all probably know, being on it more or less since the beginning and helping former owner David Krug make it great.

Anyway, back to work for me. Stay tuned for more frequent updates here while I:

  1. Kill off my wicked cold
  2. Catch up on work
  3. Take a week off (late August)
  4. Finalize my blogging plans

Now check out 901am, and read the redesign announcement if you please.