Author Archives

Cathy C. Hallhttps://cathychall.wordpress.com/I write, write, write. Then I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. THEN I submit all those polished-up words out into the world and sell 'em. It's a plan that's worked pretty well.

A Freelancer’s Time and Money

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When I first read Mr. Bob Bly’s comments re: how a freelancer’s time is divided, I thought that can’t be right. Now I know better.

Mr. Bly, you may recall, is the freelance guy who makes mega-bucks in the industry. I’m reading his book, Getting Started as a Freelance Writer, trying to play a little catch-up in the freelance business. Anyway, according to Bly, a freelancer can expect to spend 25% of her time on business stuff (invoices, research, filing, mailing, and all those other jobs that eat up your hours). That seemed reasonable.

But 25% on marketing? Leaving only 50% for actual writing? Nahhhh, I said. I write more than that. And I do. But I write an awful lot of query letters, and cover letters, too, trying to get my articles and stories into new markets. Which is um, marketing.

Shazam! So Mr. Bly had a point. Since he also mentioned setting a financial goal of say $200, 000 (That’s exactly what he nonchalantly threw out there), I thought why not set $200,000 as my financial goal? That’s quite a Fortune, I know.

But hey, he was right about the time percentages.

Finding Something Friday for Book Lovers

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I just love it when I find an email titled Book Winner! in my inbox!

Remember that chat link I posted? From the ICL newsletter? The one that entered me into the contest to win free books? I won! I won! I won! I won a whole series of books (How to Write A Children’s Book) by Eve Heidi Bine-Stock. And when they come in the mail, I’ll give you the whole scoop on Eve Heidi Bine-Stock’s books. Three books are on their way right now; three wonderful books, which I think fits rather nicely with Eve’s three names.

I love books…tiny, little books, big, coffee-table books, skinny books, and fat books. The fat ones take me forever to read, but I love ’em anyway. I love old, musty-smelling books, new, crisp books, hardbound and paperback books. I love books with lots of tabs and pop-ups and books with wild artwork. So when I found this book at Patina Stores I knew I would order it:

It’s full of crazy tattoos that I can’t wait to wear. Temporarily, of course. The beneficent Mr. Hall is rather unbeneficent when it comes to tattoos. In fact, he’s downright hysterical about the whole tattoo business. But that won’t keep me from putting some of these hysterically funny tattoos on various body parts. I will, however, keep a huge supply of band-aids handy.