Comments on: How Content Shock Hurts Freelance Writers

By: Sharilee Swaity

Sharilee Swaity — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 07:36:28 +0000

John, I can say from my own experience as a reader, that the number of blogs on the internet, on any given topic, is completely overwhelming. I recently joined a well-known blogging challenge, and there were over 1000 members, all working on their blogs, many of them on similar topics. I had wondered then, how can we all get noticed?

From what I have read, the trend now is that everyone has to have an free gift for subscribers, but again, these free gifts are getting more and more common. It reminds me of how people used to be able to get a job with a high school education, but now you almost need a graduate degree to land a decent job. The bar is being continually being raised.

To me, my blog is a way to reach readers and encourage people in a personal way. I would love to profit from it down the road, but for now, I agree with you that finding the dream client is an excellent way to go.

Thanks for the interesting article! You taught me something today!

By: Newbie freelancer tip #13 (in the 28-day series) - give up | Craig Martin, SEO & Content Marketing Specialist

Sun, 27 Jul 2014 19:13:42 +0000

[…] fellow freelancer John Soares wrote, sometimes you need to avoid “content shock” and focus on good ol’ fashioned old-school marketing to find legitimate […]

By: John Soares

John Soares — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:54:38 +0000

In reply to Inderpreet Kaur. Thank you for your kind words Inderpreet!

By: Inderpreet Kaur

Inderpreet Kaur — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 18:18:15 +0000

John,
What an accurate description of what writers face now not just in terms of content shock but how the limited number of hours are available to the readers as well as writers.
Content is the king but networking is the queen if you want to succeed in this game;)
Carol is an authority on aceing the freelance writing career, we might not achieve her success but we can be inspired by her to work as hard as we can.
Thanks once again for getting to the heart of matter and simplifying it.

By: Don Wallace

Don Wallace — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 22:24:13 +0000

In reply to John Soares. Thanks for reading, John.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 22:14:12 +0000

In reply to Don Wallace. Don, headlines are crucial. I always pay attention to writing an eye-catching headline, but I I also wince slightly at some of the headlines I see on some blog posts. And I really like your post.

By: Don Wallace

Don Wallace — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:29:01 +0000

Hi, John – great article. You nicely handled the aspect of targeting content effort vs. throwing content out into the void and waiting for it to stick – hasn’t worked for me.

I have developed a premise that content itself needs to be actively marketed. Even down to the choice of a title. “Pavlov’s Dogs”, er, peers on LinkedIn 🙂 respond well to post titles with words like “Surprising” – hardly at all to straight informational titles. I’ve seen that with back to back posts with different title approaches and observing the new “Who’s Viewed Your Updates” meter.

Your post was inspirational for me. It lead me to write a post (link attached) that attacks the problem of content shock from an entirely different angle – the resources and goals of the authoring organization.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 16:41:02 +0000

In reply to Graham Strong. Graham, very good point about the nature of content changing to non-text. And I dig the Star Trek reference!

By: Newbie freelancer tip #13 (in the 28-day series) - give up

Newbie freelancer tip #13 (in the 28-day series) - give up — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:58:03 +0000

[…] fellow freelancer John Soares recently wrote, sometimes you need to avoid “content shock” and focus on good ol’ fashioned old-school marketing to find legitimate […]

By: Graham Strong

Graham Strong — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 15:24:34 +0000

Hey John,

Another important point to make is that the content itself is changing, which will have an impact on writers. Ten years ago even, 90%+ of Internet content would be writing*. Now, you can watch videos easily, even watch movies through Netflix, listen to podcasts, etc. etc. So blog writing — any writing — is now competing for eyeballs with other media that frankly has a pretty good track record against all things reading…

~Graham

*numbers made up for effect, but probably in the right ballpark. Dammit Jim, I’m a writer not a mathematician.