When I was in school, I never ran with the popular crowd. I never fit into any clique, really. I drifted between the artsy folk, the drama club members, and a few of the freaks who spent time between classes having a smoke out back. I was always the type of kid who was a day late and a dollar short when it came to fads. I had my own hobbies that never seemed to fit with what others were doing. I wasn’t particularly athletic (although I was part of the varsity track team and
> Read MoreArchives for April 2008
Blog Archives
Enjoy 1,000+ articles geared to your content-marketing, writing, freelancing or small business endeavors. Scroll down for recent posts, select a category, or browse the archives here.
Our Page Rank Comes Home
Written by
Google’s updating its Page Rank tool these days. That means you may see the PR for your site move up or down. It moved around for us here at Men with Pens, and… Yep, we got our PR4 back, folks. We said goodbye to our PR 4 when we changed domains and moved here. We put a 301 redirect and hoped it’d follow. Close to three months later, it found its way home. Even though a strong readership and community made of people like you matters the most, it still sure feels nice to have
> Read MoreHow to Use a Laptop In the Sun
Written by
After the 10-foot snowbanks melted and I could actually see grass, a wonderful weather phenomena happened: warm spring sunshine. I love the sun. So naturally, nothing seemed more tempting than grabbing my laptop and heading outside to soak up the rays with a beer so I could do some writing. Well, I couldn’t see a damned thing. The laptop was on and I was squinting away trying to see what I was doing. Fun? No. Productive? Not at all. I turned to Twitter to ask people for solutions on how to use a laptop in
> Read MoreHow to Show You Care About Your Customers
Written by
One of the most impressive ways to earn repeat business is to show your customers that you truly care. That may seem difficult, but in fact, any industry can show a caring attitude and some good values to customers. It doesn’t take much at all. And it’s worth going the extra mile to show your potential clients that you care, because you may earn a customer for life. Have a Guarantee Find some way to guarantee your product or service. The more you remove the risk of purchase for the client, the more comfortable they’ll
> Read MoreThird Round and One Shot Closer to Victory
Written by
It’s down to eight elite blogs in Poewar’s March Blog Madness competition to find the best blog for writers out there. And damn. There’s a lot of female competition. Then again, there are a lot of women writers. Maybe it’s time for the Pen Men to shine. We’ll be going head to head against I’d Rather be Writing, and here’s the criteria for winning this round: Best headlines – Check. Best user experience – Hmmm… hopefully check. Best community experience – Double check. (Behave, guys. Active, intelligent and interesting.) Best branding – Triple check. Damned
> Read MoreLink Love From James’ Feed Reader (and on Giving Up)
Written by
Putting together a page of links to show appreciation for other bloggers, point readers to good posts and be a community-conscious blogger takes time. I don’t think that many people realize the effort that goes into those seemingly quick link love posts. (I also hate the term “link love”. There. I said it.) We’re often completely remiss on sharing the Google juice with our peers and friends. To those who do link to our posts, we always try to share a thank you by leaving a comment on their blog, and we mentally tip our
> Read MoreDrive-by-Shooting Sundays: Bibliophile’s Retreat
Written by
Last week’s hit had been accomplished in the fog, but this morning, the moment was beautiful. The mist that rolled off the Northern Pacific coastline embraced Harry like a long-lost friend. He had risen before James, quite a feat in itself, and had set out early in the dark. His prey was a delicate creature, one that spooked easily. Harry didn’t want to chance the loud noise of a gun firing – if they missed, they’d scare away the prey. Instead, he had persuaded James to make this a silent hunt. The bow was perfect.
> Read MoreFiction Writing: Character Creation
Written by
In past Fiction Writing Series posts, we’ve discussed how to make people care about your character, why characters rule the story, and overcoming the fear of hurting your characters. Now it’s time to build a character. Open the creative vaults and let your imagination run wild. The Spark of Creation Everyone has their own process for creating characters. In gaming, character sheets that use points or numbers to determine skill levels and abilities are common. In fiction writing, authors may build complex Black Books for each character. Others might just have a general idea of
> Read MoreAre You Really A Good Web Worker?
Written by
You have a great idea, you’re set for business and you’ve put up a website. So, you start scoping for work and you realize one important fact: You aren’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Competition is stiff – damned stiff. Why wouldn’t it be? You’re competing for work with millions of other people from all corners of the globe. The rates that you set don’t compare to the ones set by other workers. Some offer exactly what you do at a fraction of your cost. It makes you pissy. You get upset when you hear about
> Read MoreSecond Round Victory? Are the Men Going Down?
Written by
We almost lost last round of John Hewitt’s March Blog Madness. Pitted against Writing on the Web, we squeaked by with a one-point victory. Seriously. One freakin’ point. It was that close. Now we’re next up for round two, taking on Publishing Careers. We’re being good, too, and James hasn’t tricked the game yet. It’s tough on him, but he’s managing. This round, John rakes blogs over the coals mercilessly, focusing on giving points for quality comments from the community (*AHEM*), value-for-reader posts (check), top three most commented posts (check), and… and… Uh, that’s it.
> Read More