Getting Through a Large Project

Lately I might find myself with several large proofreading and writing jobs on my to do spreadsheet. The deadlines are looming, and I don't know how I'm going to get them all done, but I know I will. Here are some tips for you who might have a large project you're working on from home.

1. Take frequent breaks. Instead of looking a 100-page project like I have to do it all RIGHT NOW just because my kids are sleeping or are watching a movie or are out of the house, I take it in bite-size chunks. I might stop after every 10 pages and go to the bathroom, refill my water, make some coffee, check in with my Facebook peeps, send a few tweets to promote some Bubblews posts, do 10 sit-ups, return a phone call or ...
2. Reward myself with a piece of chocolate! Rewards are important! I'm not talking about a Prada bag here ... something small to give yourself a pat on the back for working from home, which is something many people want to do, but which few possess the discipline to do.
3. Consider breaking up the job into chunks on your task sheet or Excel spreadsheet or whatever you use to stay organized and keep track of your deadlines. Instead of writing "8 BlogHer Tweets for SlimFast" with a deadline of June 30, I might assign 8 separate tasks, breaking out the income each task will bring, the time each task will take, etc. That way I can cross of each item as I do it and ensure I stay on task and on time. On that 100-page project for proofreading, I might assign 10 different tasks to it to make it seem manageable.
4. Try to break up and schedule the project so you can still have a life! This is super important to me since I homeschool lightly year-round and want to make sure we hit the pool or do something fun outside of the house almost daily.

What are your work-from-home tips?

How Does a Parent Conduct a Phone Interview?

Here's my latest dilemma:

I need to interview a couple of sources for a magazine piece. The editor prefers I do it over the phone. I've never done this! It's going to be hard to do on phone with kids running around and no husband in town this week. Plus I have no recording equipment and don't want to misquote. Email lets them think about their answer and there's no misquoting.

Here's a great post about pros and cons of email interviews.

I asked the editor if I could do email interviews and she said it's not her preference and it's not the norm but she trusts me to make the call.

PARENTS ... how do you conduct telephone interviews for magazine articles?

Update: I'm reading that g-recorder might be the way to go and I can try it for free. I'm REALLY uncomfortable thinking about using Skype for my interviews while I have kids running around the house. It's a plus that I write for parenting and family magazines, but I should be professional.

Still ... I don't want to have to hire a sitter so I can do an interview! I'm thinking a good kid movie and some sugar treats might do the trick. And threatening them with NO POOL TIME if they interrupt my interview?

My Income and Sources for May 2013

Total income for May 2013 = $1,313.94
Here were April's numbers. Quite a change, and all while I homeschool 5 kids and take on June Cleaverdom!

Disclaimers: For the record, I have no reason to lie to you about any of the income I’m reporting, and the most underhanded, nasty, smarmy thing I’m going to do is give you my referral links so I can make a whopping dime or so off of each person who signs up to do what I’m doing! The dollar amounts I show are what I actually RECEIVED in my hot little hand or PayPal account, not what I EARNED because things show up at different times and take different amounts of time to come around.

This all means: I do not count my eggs before they are in my PayPal account. Now, let's get started:

1. Fiverr. I received $763 here in May, only because I didn’t sign up until April 16^th. The majority of my income is from proofreading in the wee hours of the morning when my kids sleep, but I also have gigs for selling my ebooks cheap, writing blog posts, selling reprint articles and promoting things via my social media outlets. I've disable the writing gigs and now focus on proofreading and am growing my Error Police Force so we can take on more word crimes as a unit. I received $120 on private proofreading projects.

2. Bubblews. Signed up here on April 26 and received $150.51 by the end of May.  

3. Regional Parenting Magazine print and online articles and reprints: $120. Yeah, still working on the 5th edition of the ebook (see right sidebar for 4th edition) and someday plan to query the nationals but am too busy on Fiverr!

4. BlogHer. Made about 5 more bucks for May, but have not received payouts yet. Added one ad and a TV dealy jobber to my main blog, plus they have me in another $50 tweeting program.

5. AdSense. HOLY FLIPPING CRAP, I got a check from them for $110.40 on May 28. Keep in mind that's for about 2 years of blogging! Still, I will take it and not complain!

6. Tomoson.com. I don’t make any money here, but it’s fun to receive free stuff in the mail and just do a quick review. Then you can either keep, regift or sell what you got!

7. PostLoop. I'm going to send you here because I have a lot of information on this and it needed its own post. Bottom line: probably worth it and potentially $10/hour while you watch TV. I ended up receiving $5.08 from them very quickly after cashing out, as in the same day.

8. LikeNation. I have to push them again this month because I've seen my followers increase, which is good for a lot of reasons; namely, the bigger my fan base, the more I can charge for social media stuff like on Fiverr and Sponsored Tweets (AND I look better to get stuff on Tomoson to review). You know how you enter giveways and have to like and follow countless people? Well, if you have your own sites that need a’followin’,check this out. You like and follow and get “points” to do it. Then you can post what you want liked or followed and can use those points you earned. So you’re trading favors.

9. SponsoredTweets. I've been with them for probably 2 years and rarely get jobs. Earlier this year I got a bunch of tweeting jobs, then they dried up. I played with lowering and increasing my per-tweet rate, but I didn't get any more business. I'm was sitting at $21.92 and there is a $2 fee for cashing out under $50, so I just went ahead and did it on May 28 to see how long it would take to receive it. Well, forget that ... I kept getting error messages. I'll try again.

10. I forgot to mention that I also do MyPoints and have for years. If you want to sign up under me you have to send me your email address ... they are dumb to not have a referral LINK! Anyway, I've earned about 31,000 points there and 2,000 points is about a $10 gift card to all sorts of places (your choice). So I've gotten a lot gift cards. You get points by clicking through on email, doing surveys, surfing the web and BUYING STUFF with COUPONS!
11. I briefly tried writing for a penny a word and did not love it, but I did get paid $30 for doing it.

12. Ebook sales from Payloadz.com were only $14.95 because I am too busy with other stuff to work on the ebook UPDATE. I also sell the ebooks through Fiverr but count those in Fiverr income. This post is holding me accountable to get the flippin' ebook update done!

Come back to see June's numbers!

*Yes, I pay taxes on every stinking cent!

PostLoop Income: Review

I included PostLoop in my April 2013 sources and income as a site for income I wanted to try. So I got busy working the PostLoop system and here's what I found out.

Bottom line: probably worth it and potentially $10/hour while you watch TV.

Signing up and getting started was a PITA, but I did make $5.08 from chatting in forums like I might normally do if I had time to do that sort of thing for free.

I cashed out with just over 100 points and my total earned was $5.08. Because my rating was higher than the average rating* I was able to cash out. I received the money THE SAME DAY in my PayPal account. Bubblews takes about a week; Fiverr takes a few weeks to see the income (although once you cash out the income comes the same day).

Of course I'm going to give you my referral link because I get 20% kickback on what you post. It's worth it for you to tell people about this program. I'm not into wasting time, and this could be a time waster as far as getting addicted to commenting in the forums, but if you're making money doing something you would normally do for free, why not?

*Ratings annoy me. Anonymous people are rating you ... and I keep getting only 4 stars, which prevents me from getting into the mom forums. As the mom of 5, this is so frustrating.

Here's from their page:

PostLoop has some catches, but it was pretty easy to get to 100 points.

Withdraw - Sell/Cash Out Your Points

Withdrawal Rate

$0.05 per point

REQUIREMENTS TO WITHDRAW:

• You must have at least 100 points to withdraw.
• Your User Rating must be better than the average User Rating to withdraw. Your current rating is 4.00 and the current average rating is 3.67.

Working at Fiverr and Bubblews

Click here to find out why I love working for Fiverr and what I do there, and how Bubblews is real money. If you sign up at Bubblews, connect with me!

Book Rec: Around the Writer's Block

If I can ever get caught up on all my Fiverr proofreading/writing jobs I might get a chance to read Around the Writer's Block: Using brain science to solve writer's resistance by Rosanne Bane.

Instead of having to pay the library more fines for keeping the book so long, I'm just going to buy the dang thing! Here's where to get it on Amazon, along with some reviews!

Currently my struggle is procrastination. I mean, I even signed up to do proofreading to avoid querying national magazines, but I got honest with myself and figured out that it's because I am afraid to have a Big Editor Boss in New York City telling me I have to edit a $1.50/word article within HOURS when I have something planned with my kids. Fiverr allows me to set my own schedule, and I suppose I'm afraid to not be my own Big Editor Boss.

What are your writing challenges?

My Income and Sources for April 2013*

Total income for April 2013 = $438.69 (spoiler alert: May is over $1,000; post is coming soon!)

For the record, I have no reason to lie to you about any of the income I’m reporting, and the most underhanded, nasty, smarmy thing I’m going to do is give you my referral links so I can make a whopping dime or so off of each person who signs up to do what I’m doing!

The dollar amounts I show are what I actually RECEIVED in my hot little hand or PayPal account, not what I EARNED because things show up at different times and take different amounts of time to come around.

I do not count my eggs before they are in my PayPal account.

Fiverr. I made $0 here in April, only because I didn’t sign up until April 16^th. You’ll freak out when you see May’s numbers. The majority of my income is from proofreading in the wee hours of the morning when my kids sleep but I also have gigs for selling my ebooks cheap, writing blog posts, selling reprint articles and promoting things via my social media outlets. 

Bubblews. Signed up here on April 26 and received $0 by the end of April. May is looking hella good, though. 

Regional Parenting Magazine print and online articles and reprints: $340. Yeah, still working on the 5th edition of the ebook (see right sidebar for 4th edition) and someday plan to query the nationals but am too busy on Fiverr!

BlogHer. Just one sidebar ad here made me $3.30 in January, $5.49 in February plus I got paid for a tweeting program for $50. They have lots of rules to follow, like you can’t have ads from anyone else on your site and can’t even post blogger giveaway opps. I only stay with my abusive boyfriend BlogHer because sometimes he offers me chances to review cool things for $50 or to Tweet a few times about a product for $50 and then he sucks me right back in. I’m pretty sure he’s jealous of Bubblews, though. 

AdSense??? I put questions marks because what I earn is all theoretical here. It shows that I earn an amount but will I ever see it? So it looks like I earned $19.22 in April from several blogs combined, but … 

Tomoson.com. I don’t make any money here, but it’s fun to receive free stuff in the mail and just do a quick review. Then you can either keep, regift or sell what you got! 

Ebook sales from Payloadz.com were $39.90. I also sell the ebooks through Fiverr but count those in Fiverr income. 

Here are some I’m trying out:

PostLoop. Signing up and getting started is a PITA, but I hope to be able to report back some decent income from commenting in Forums. 

LikeNation. You know how you enter giveways and have to like and follow countless people? Well, if you have your own sites that need a’followin’, check this out. You like and follow and get “points” to do it. Then you can post what you want liked or followed and can use those points you earned. So you’re trading favors. 

Come back to see May’s numbers because you will flip your lid! (Hint, as of May 19 I’m already at $605). Great, now all my friends will be hitting me up for a loan. Haha! 

*Yes, I pay taxes on every stinking cent!