All posts by Carol Sponagle

Marketing yourself, resources

Postcard Marketing Giveaway

Postcard Marketing in the digital age

In an age where e-mail blasts, Twitter updates and Facebook posts are the tools of choice, could postcard marketing be a fun alternative to rely on when you need some extra attention on an event, your services or website?

Here’s a fun way to find out.

In partnership with UPrinting.com, we’re giving away 100 custom-printed postcards to the person with the most interesting idea on how they would use postcards as a way to supplement online self-promotion or PR.

How To Win 100 Custom-Printed Postcards From UPrinting.com

Submit a comment on this post with your postcard marketing idea or send your reply via e-mail to editor (at) freelance (dash) zone dot com. Please include your name, email address and a valid shipping address. We will get in touch with you about how to get your cards printed once the winner is chosen.

The winner, arbitrarily chosen by FZ founders Catherine L. Tully and Joe Wallace, gets one hundred custom printed 5 x 7 front-printed glossy cardstock postcards, which are great examples of the postcard printing services offered by UPrinting.com.

Can postcard marketing work for your freelance business? Here’s a no-risk way to find out…

The fine print–this giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given and Freelance-Zone.com received free postcard printing as part of this giveaway. For more information about postcards, please visit UPrinting online printing services. This contest is limited to US citizens 18 years of age or older.

freelance jobs

Finding Leads for New Freelancers

2 Comments

money

by Carol Sponagle

If you’re just getting started in the freelance market, you already know how hard it can be to find freelance jobs. In the beginning, any work that pays can seem like good work. Experienced professional freelancers will tell you they’ve written blogs, articles, and books on a variety of topics, because you don’t make money being choosy.

Once you get rolling and you find publishers who call again and again, you might start to feel like you should be more discriminating. After all, why write about pets and motor homes when you really want to write about music?  Continue reading Finding Leads for New Freelancers →

advice

Freelance Writer Networking: Being Present In Person

1 Comment

freelance-writing-advice

Please welcome Freelance-Zone.com’s new writer. Carol Sponagle is a Mom and freelance writer with a busy schedule on both fronts, and we are glad she can make time to include FZ. Carol is published across a variety of genres including trade magazines, newspapers and indie newsweeklies. Welcome to the ‘Zone, Carol!

If you are contemplating a career in writing – or you’ve already secured some credits, you’re already aware that your presence on Facebook, Twitter, and guest blogs increase your visibility and provide potential clients with information about your background and talents.

Being present online has its rewards, but a writer should not exist in a laptop-driven vacuum. Your presence in the physical world is an essential tool for getting jobs. Meeting up with other writers and professionals in person can be as easy as toting your laptop to the local coffee shop or library.

Here’s a good example of what being present in the physical sense can do for your career: I was working at home on a rainy day and decided to take my work to the trendy coffee & bagel shop in town. The place is usually packed with students, writers, and business folk. After getting my coffee and logging onto the complimentary WiFi, I noticed a friend and fellow freelancer I hadn’t seen in ages.

As it turns out, my friend is a writer for the local paper. She suggested that I might like writing for the newspaper and offered to submit my work to her editor. She sent a quick email, and within two days, I was on board as a correspondent for a big newspaper with a multi-city audience. The fateful decision to work out of the house turned into a lucrative and credit-heavy gig.

Since that day, I make a point to take my laptop around town and chat up my java-slugging neighbor. Don’t be afraid to catch up with friends and acquaintances on purpose either – a scheduled meeting can bring up a inside information, news of available jobs, and new contacts.

Getting out there in person not only shakes off the doldrums of the same old walls, but it opens a whole new avenue of rewards. The people watchin’ ain’t bad either.