One of our customers told me this morning how frustrated she is that she doesn’t have enough time to spend on social media.

I suggested that she set aside a block of time twice a day, say as soon as she starts work in the morning and again before she closes the office for the day, to blog, post to her Facebook and Twitter profiles and do what needs to be done on LinkedIn.

When she hemmed and hawed about how difficult it would be to find the time, I asked her, “”How much time do you spend on email each day?”

“A lot,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s a way for me to check in with my clients and other people who I like to hear from,” she said.

“How profitable is answering email?” I asked.

“Not very,” she said.

That’s when it dawned on me that her schedule—-and mine-—should be reversed. She should spend the same amount of time on social media that she now spends answering email, and vice versa.

But for some people, me included, that’s like asking a junkie to just stop using.

I wonder how many other people complain about never having time for social media, but check email 15 times a day, every day, and find themselves catching up on news at news sites, watching funny videos a friend sent to them, or frittering away time on the million other distractions in their email boxes.

I’m entering email rehab.

Starting today, I’m going to try really hard to change these bad habits:

    * I’m going to try to check email only three times a day:  in the morning, at lunch time, and in the late afternoon.
    * When I’m not checking email, Outlook will NOT be running. (Why be tempted?)
    * Try to whittle down email responses to half their usual  size.

That should free up more time to blog, answer questions on Linked In, engage in more conversations on Twitter, and be more productive.

Want to help? Please share your own tips on how you make more time for social media.

What rules have you set up for yourself? What are you doing differently, and where are you seeing the biggest return on your investment of time—on social media or in your email?

Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, blogs at http://www.PublicityHound.net and at http://www.MySocialMediaSolution.com/blog. 

Think back to when you were five years old: coloring and make-believe filled up your days, naptime was a daily requirement rather than a luxury, and if you were anything like me, you probably listened to (and soon read) a lot of children’s stories. As a budding young writer, perhaps you even made up some of your own. And maybe, deep down, you’ve had this itch to write a children’s book, but never had the chance to publish due to fear of rejection, rejection or repeated rejection. (Ugh!)

Now there’s a way to realize that dream, thanks to BigDifBooks.com, an online publishing company that is changing the way kids’ books are published. Freelance-Zone caught up with Tom Watson, the founder of BigDifBooks, to find out what makes his company so special.

Freelance-Zone: What is BigDifBooks?

Tom Watson: We’re an online publisher of children’s books with two specific goals: we want to provide really inexpensive–sometimes even free–original stories for kids, and we want to provide writers a chance to share a children’s story without jumping through the hoops of the traditional publishing world.

The whole idea is to give kids a lot to choose from–while not asking their parents to spend a ton of cash. At the same time, we want to give new voices a chance to be heard—some of our stories are by kids themselves.

The site combines three main features: first, it’s a place for authors to submit a story for consideration; second, it’s a book store that offers stories for $1.99 or for free and third, it’s an e-reader that prints, too.

FZ: How long has it been around and what inspired its development?

TW: We went live a few months ago after about a year of development. The idea came pretty much from my own parenting experience. I had written and illustrated books for my son and daughter. And now they’ve started doing it themselves–their stories are so much better than mine.

Then I worked on a couple of books for our kids’ Montessori school. I worked with third-grade classes to put together a couple of storybooks. They’re both up on the website right now. The [children] used them at an auction to raise money for the school, and people really liked them.

I started thinking maybe there was a way to do that on a larger scale—help people provide books for youngsters, give them variety, make (the books) really inexpensive, encourage readers who might also want to be authors and, most of all, become an outlet for creative people who want to try new characters and voices and writing styles.

FZ: Could you explain the publishing process to us? How does it work?

TW: We’ve tried to make it really easy. Authors can submit a book for consideration by uploading it or snail-mailing it to us. If we accept the book, we’ll make it available on the site so anyone with an Internet connection can get it.

We do things really differently than a traditional publisher.

We aim to accept more than 50 percent of submissions–regular publishers reject 99 percent of new author submissions. The author retains absolutely all copyright. We pay a 50 percent royalty for books that are for sale–one dollar on a $1.99 book. Traditional publishers typically pay 7 to 12 percent.

We publish a whole lot faster than traditional publishers too. Once we accept a book and get a couple of forms filled out, we try to get the book up in less than two weeks. And, I think it’s fair to say that allowing authors to choose to make their books available for free is not a very common practice.

The key to the whole thing is how we make the books available, of course. When someone gets a book from the site, they can view it on-screen in a cool, page-turning program or they can print it out at home.

To make everything work together–mainly the submission program and the e-reader–we need to get the books in a fairly standardized way: 8.5 x 11 inches for size, 144 dpi resolution and Jpeg format. It’s actually simpler than it sounds. Most software or scanning programs can set these parameters pretty easily. And we help during the process if it’s needed–or we’ll do the scanning ourselves if a book is mailed to us and we accept it.

We fiddled around with some other options to get it all to work together–like providing a typing field for copy or common templates. But we really didn’t want to limit the creative side of the process, so as long as it’s 8.5 x 11 and saved the right way, we can make it work. Pages can be done in Photoshop or drawn with crayons on construction paper, in black and white or color, all words or all pictures, vertical or horizontal layout, whatever!

FZ: Who writes for BigDif? What are some tips for getting published?

TW: Right now, we have about 20 books available and we have quite a few in the pipeline. Some are the ones I did for my own kids. There are some by teachers, grandparents and kids themselves. There are also some that you can tell are by people with a little more writing experience.

Tips for getting published are the same tips any good writer–or reader– would think: [you need] a good story, characters, voice. We always [say] it’s better to write ‘up’ to kids rather than ‘down’ to them.

We think our publishing model allows for innovative writing more than a traditional publisher. Traditional publishers need to find, edit, print and distribute their books. Everybody along the way has to get paid. That means they have to be safer with their choices. Established authors, serial characters, movie- and TV-tie-ins. How many Hannah Montana or Dora the Explorer books are there? They know how many books they’re going to sell before they even hit the shelves–and how much money they will make.

We don’t have the same constraints. If somebody comes to us with a feather-eating, peanut-butter cup who speaks in rhymes about the current state of the environment, we’re happy to consider it. In fact, that sounds pretty funny to me.

I don’t mean to say there aren’t terrific books out there at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. There are. And there are some great independent traditional publishers. I guess I’m just saying BigDifBooks doesn’t have the same constraints.

FZ: If a writer wants to work with BigDif, what formats are his/her work available in?

TW: If we accept a story, then we’ll make it available as a page-turning, on-screen book for anyone who buys it–or gets it for free. And that reader will also have the ability to print it at home.

We’re also going to make some of our more popular titles available traditionally. We know that a really great kids’ book is something that gets kept a long time and handed down. We’ll work with authors to get that done.

FZ On average, what might a book earn?

TW: It’s really too early to tell. We went live about three months ago, and the first six weeks or so of that was mostly testing. If the site earns a wide following, who knows? I can tell you that our most popular title has been downloaded more than a hundred times. There are new writers and readers signing up every day.

Traditional publishers can see [the website] too. So if we have something that gets very popular, there’s nothing to preclude an author from signing with a traditional publishing firm as well. That’s because our agreement with each author states very clearly that the author retains any and all copyright. In fact, I could see the site becoming a very easy way for traditional publishers to look for new talent.

It’s also kind of interesting to think about the royalty. We built our model on a really simple premise: the author should make more than anybody else. So, on a $1.99 book, the author makes a dollar. I only made it through Trig, but I’m pretty sure that’s more than a 50 percent payout. Let’s say a traditional publisher pays 10 percent or thereabouts. To make a dollar traditionally, you need to sell one $10 book. To make two dollars traditionally, an author would need to sell two $10 books–or one $20 book.

Our model’s different. The cost of the book is way lower and the payout [ratio] to the author is way higher. To make two dollars, an author has to sell two $1.99 books.

We’ve even built in a fundraising component to the royalty structure. If someone agrees to donate their proceeds to a good cause, we’ll change the royalty to 75 percent. We think teachers who want to treat writing and illustrating a new book as a class project will like this idea. I don’t think they should plan on building a new gymnasium with the proceeds or anything, but maybe it could fund a field trip or a class party at the end of the year. We like the idea of that.

For free books, obviously, nobody makes anything. But you do get to share your story with a fairly wide audience.

FZ: Why might it be advantageous for a freelance writer to publish with BigDifBooks?

TW: We’ve always thought of it as the perfect place for that person who says, “I’ve always wanted to write a children’s book.” The way we’re going about things makes it possible for such a person to accomplish that goal – and share it with anybody who has an Internet connection. We think that’s pretty cool.

We think it will be possible for a new author to make some money. We don’t know if anyone is going to write the next Green Eggs and Ham–but who knows? Why not?

We also think BigDifBooks.com is a great place for professional writers who are in marketing, advertising or technical writing to get out of something that maybe has become mundane, take a break and try to really have some fun–re-engaging their crazy, creative side. That’s part of why we’re working with Freelance-Zone.com. There are good writers here who might want to take a stab at this kind of thing.

To learn more about BigDifBooks, explore their website by clicking here.

Transparency: Nobody at Freelance-Zone.com has gotten a hands-on with the new Apple iPad. The information we’re presenting here is based on other people’s hands-on experiences with the 10-inch tablet, not our own. But even secondhand information is most helpful in deciding whether to become an early adopter or to wait for the inevitable price cut and major upgrade of the next version.

Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad on Wednesday, showing off its web browsing, e-book and gaming potential. Rather than do a complete rehash of what’s already available at Wired.com, we’ll cut right to the chase and discuss the iPad’s impact on the freelance community.

The Ipad’s best performaning models are both 3G and wi-fi capable. For the uninitiated this means you can opt to get one with a subscription to a 3G data plan so you can literally connect anywhere. The wi-fi only version allows you to connect to your home network, Starbucks wireless, anywhere there’s a free wi-fi signal. Freelancers should seriously consider the 3G/wi-fi combo for ultimate mobility.

The unanswered questions about 4g (near as I can tell, I haven’t read everything so perhaps there is a 4G/3G version planned) mean a wait-and-see attitude may be needed since 4G is just now starting to hit the marketplace. Will the faster 4G render 3G wireless data plans obsolete? Will 3G get phased out? Hard to tell, but 3G iPad owners will be mightily pissed if they find themselves with a semi-obsolete model in 18 months.

Apple is launching a digital book store to go with the iPad. This could go one of two ways, but if the launch means more opportunities for self-publishers to reach a mass market, here are two idle speculations:

1. The book industry finally catches up with the music industry. The old model of landing a publishing deal and depending on the big boys to make or break you between the hardcovers starts looking exactly like the dino that it really is. The flip side is that the market is flooded with crap. Think Associated Content, but longer and more annoying stuff.

2. A portion of the content marketing game shifts to e-books. You’ve seen advertorials and infomercials, now shudder at the thought of the adverBook.

As far as moblie freelance work itself goes, I read that Apple plans to make iWork programs–including a word processor–available for the iPad at about $10 each. My biggest objection about the iPad is the form factor–how do you use this bloody thing at a coffee shop AND use the wireless keyboard option that comes with it?

In photos on Wired.com, I spotted a stand for the iPad that let the unit sit upright like a regular computer monitor. I hope this ships standard and is not an add-on purchase. The biggest drawback I see to the iPad currently in this department is with the accidents. It would be all to easy to knock the unit over. One clumsy coffee shop bozo jostling your table with his backpack (because he’s still toting around that 17-inch laptop behemoth) and your brand new iPad could be rechristened iCracked.

One thing notably missing from all Apple’s details on the iPad–can you use this bloody thing as a phone? The Apple site doesn’t say. It’s a glaring omission. Or is it?

Sources say the iPad is NOT a phone, but rather intended as a pure data device. That means that you’ve now got to deal with having a separate account for making calls instead of an all-in-one solution.

Yes, using the iPad for your cell calls would be clumsy and annoying. But it’s also a nice option. Leaving it out of the iPad makes me think twice about shelling out. I’m not totally turned off the idea of becoming an early adopter (for the first time ever) but I have a strange feeling that in 18 months or so we will see some major changes:

1. Could Apple be planning a 4G version of the iPad?
2. Is a phone-enabled version of the iPad coming at a later date?
3. Will Apple drop the price, ditch the lowest-storage model, etc like they did with the original?
4. Are early adopters going to get a rebate like the original iPhone customers?

Some things to ponder.

I personally like to warn my clients far in advance that I’ll be taking holiday time off. This helps them get used to the idea that A) I have other needs outside the immediate demands of the projects I work on and B) that the time I do give to them has value. It’s easy to take a freelancer for granted—we try to convey the impression that we’re always available and ready for work. But that impression can work against a busy freelancer the moment the client assumes you don’t have any other work to do except for them. It’s good to remind them that other concerns are equally pressing.

Freelance job sites like eLance and other for-a-fee providers, quake in your boots. TweetMyJobs has just changed your landscape probably forever with what its marketing hype calls “the largest Twitter job board in the world”. Pretty bold stuff for a company that didn’t exist this time last year, but that’s how things move in the Twitter world–it wasn’t three years ago Twitter wasn’t even a player in the game, now they rule a massive chunk of the online market.

I used TweetMyJobs for the first time yesterday to see what the fuss was about, and I can tell you that the for-pay sites are in trouble. Subscriber-based job sites have reached the end of their usefulness thanks to TweetMyJobs, and unless this fails to catch on with the folks posting the jobs themselves, FREElance is about to be FREE once again.

Sites like TweetMyJobs might not completely replace the Craigslist scraper sites–I predict many will start scraping/copy-pasting TweetMyJobs as well, but the speed and ubiquity of Twitter makes the scrapers irrelevant too if employers make a big shift to Twitter.

That’s an “if” I am willing to bet happens in a big way.

How do you avoid getting such responses? Sometimes it’s inevitable no matter what you do, but an interviewer can at least try to pass on some guidelines to keep them from going totally mad when fielding the answers:

1. Communicate what you don’t want. Tell the interviewee not to use phrases like “rightsizing” and other corporate-speak. Tell them to use plain English, not jargon.

2. Ask the right questions. Don’t ask a yes or no question without asking for elaboration in the very next sentence.

3. Tell them what you’re expecting. Remind them that article readers know the difference between corporate shilling and real interview answers and that nobody wants to read the former unless they’ve picked up a corporate brochure.

4. Explain that you are looking for specific examples in their answers, not broad general statements. “We’re committed to quality” is a common answer–remind them that phrase is a “no duh” statement and they need to say HOW.

5. Don’t neglect the follow-up interview. Always send a few follow-up questions to get more information on the questions they invariably answer with corporate speak in spite of your instructions. For some reaons, many e-mail interviewees turn instantly into pinheads and can’t do much more than regurgitate the sales copy. Don’t ask why, there’s no good answer.

I like to take lessons on the freelance game wherever I find ‘em, and this morning while Googling directions to the event (at the Wyndham Hotel in Rosemont) I noticed that the official site for Flashback didn’t have the hours listed in a prominent place. In fact, I wasted several minutes searching for the hours (I finally located them buried deep on the schedule page–it’s too early in the morning for such a bug-hunt).

Here’s a lesson in marketing freelancers can learn:

When you have important information you want your clients to know, put it in a prominent place. Don’t let it get buried or overlooked. On your Wordpress blog or resume home page, put the critical stuff in a widget on your sidebar where it will always be seen and close the top of the page. If you need to run your phone number, e-mail address, links to contact information, try placing it in the upper right side of the web page for good visibility.

Also, while we’re on the marketing front, it’s better not to promo something and deliver it later if you get caught up and don’t have time to follow through than to promo a feature or special section and not deliver at all. Sometimes NOT talking up your latest addition to a resume page is better than promises.

For example, if you have video clips, just plop them up there rather than creating an empty space and say “Video clips coming soon”. Some may differ, but I personally find the empty promise distracting, especially when Mister Murphy steps in to enforce his law with regard to web design, time management, and other problem areas. Murphy’s Law is one of the few consistent things about freelancing, or so it seems…

by Joe Wallace

Do freelance writers actually USE MySpace? I gave up on it ages ago, but I am very curious about what others are doing and what the general (?) consensus is among freelance writers about the usefulness of Myspace.

The one thing Myspace has going for it is the Bulletin feature, but it’s so abused and overused that it would be tough to get a real message out there among all the clutter. But I digress.

For those who still think Myspace is a viable option for social networking, check Spencer Spellman’s Myspace 2.0 customization how-to. It’s perfect for installing a custom-made Myspace theme and make your  profile look as professional as possible. I’m actually tempted to give Myspace another try, but I would definitely need to pay for a pro-designed theme. I don’t know as much CSS as the average 13 year old.

What the article defines as a vampire client is someone who keeps demanding revisions and is seemingly unable to be pleased–and all that after demanding a reduction in your usual fee. Sounds unreasonable to us!

The first thing you can do to protect yourself from an unreasonable client is to build in some parameters into your work agreement. What’s that? You don’t have a work agreement with your clients? Change that immediately.

In your agreement, build in a standard fee (which you can change to offer discounts for your valuable clients). Don’t accept less than your standard fee without a good reason, but when you do, be sure you add some additional consideration for yourself into the deal. That consideration could come as a more forgiving (and convenient for you) deadline or other concessions.

Most importantly, restrict the number of revisions you will do as part of the project. Don’t commit yourself to unlimited revisions or you risk the vampire client scenario Laura Spencer warns about. You can sweeten the deal by adding a fee for all revisions beyond the agreed-upon number, and you should make that fee go up for every extra revision.

Finally, if you suspect a client will become a nightmare, give yourself some added protection and incentive up front by requiring a down payment. That way you can warn a client when their additional for-a-fee revisions are approaching unreasonable. “Are you sure you want another revision? You’ve already paid for X amount of them and the bill is getting pretty high.”

Freelance clients can be managed most effectively by building in these kinds of protections into the front end of your agreement with them. If you don’t have terms in writing, you are always vulnerable to the vampire client.

–Joe Wallace