Chris Fryers last blog post..Belen

@ Sue – You’ve got a good point. The Internet writing world is more personable, because your clients are, generally speaking, smaller clients.

I never ask for up front payments but when people offer it I am inordinately pleased, not just with the money but the underlying trust behind it. I love writing for the internet.

sue’s last blog post..Working on the Long Tail

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of pros who write for both print and web, and it’s not to say that everyone who writes for the Internet is a failed print writer, but clearly, thanks to the web, anyone who wants to be a published writer can be a published writer.

Whether that’s good for the craft or not is another debate.

@ Brett – Thank you for your kind words. Feedback, I think, becomes less necessary as time goes on. Don’t get me wrong; I love to be complimented, and told that my stuff is cool with alarming regularity. Please, don’t stop that, of course. But I’m to the point where putting gas in my car provides most of the satisfaction I need, in terms of my writing.

@ John – Thank you for sharing. I hadn’t even considered the technical and graphic design side of things.

@ Charlotte – ROFL! I love it. Fortunately, I live in a very small town. I only had to explain SASE once – to the postmaster.

@ Amy – Hallelujah. 30 posts in a day? Impressive. I can hit 30 web content articles, but blog posts tend to take me more time, I guess.

@ Raivyn – Hiya, and thanks for commenting. You raise an interesting point, beyond what Brett did, I think. I, of course, was thinking feedback in terms of how it makes me feel; what you’re saying is that feedback is, really, useful as a tool to understand the market.

I suppose if I’d have had James’ business sense, I’da caught that

What I like about internet writing is the feedback. When our readers comment (or don’t comment) on our posts, they are telling us whether or not we are writing about something that interests them, and other things like whether we’re providing enough information, if it’s written clearly enough, etc. By listening to the feedback, we learn who our audience is.

It’s also a good way to launch a print writing career. One can build his or her audience online, and then publish a book and pitch it to his or her loyal readers/fans. That’s one way to ensure book sales. I’d like to do that one day..

I have print writer friends who spend weeks doing interviews, writing, editing, etc all for one piece. I can whip up 30 blog posts a day, that with legal research and scouring news, etc. Even if I only work two days, or have an off day where I only write 5 or 10 posts, I’m still earning a whole lot more than my print writer buddies who are spending all week on one $1500 article.

James, great point about the business aspect. I’d never thought of it that way, but it’s very true!!!

I’d be hard-pressed to go back to “regular” free-lancing. I much prefer the internet.

Great blog! Glad to have discovered you.

Today for example most of my time was taken up working on my online shopping cart and getting an eBook cover ready for a product that’s launching there.

I expect that real writers and print writers spend the same amount of time on marketing, but a technical skill set is definitely a more of a plus for the former.