Writing Samples: What if I haven't been published?

One of the biggest challenges in starting out as a freelance writer is getting your first article published. But to get published, you need show editors what you can do. How do you do that when you’ve never been published before? I faced this problem when I first went freelance in April 2008 (fee...

In praise of custom domain names

The road to establishing yourself as a professional writer may seem long and ominous but one quick and easy thing you can do to speed things along is to get your own domain name. Why? Well, compare the following URLs: http://monicashaw.blogspot.com http://monicashaw.wordpress.com http://monicasha...

How to use your writing portfolio to apply to different types of writing jobs

I just had an email from one of our users with a very good question: Do you have any advice or blog posts about using a writing portfolio to apply to multiple types of writing jobs? How should my portfolio reflect this, especially when it comes to the Writing Samples and Home sections? I know thi...

SEO and your writing website

One of our users recently wrote in with a question about SEO, which basically boiled down to this: How does Google find my website? Moreover, how does Google find my website if the website is created by a third party (like Writer's Residence ) and I don't have control over the website's metadata...

5 Must-Haves For Your Online Writing Portfolio

If you've just create an online writing portfolio website to market yourself and your work, then you're probably eager to get it up to snuff as quickly as possible so you can start using it to land some gigs. To that end, I put together this list of bare minimums to get done before you start send...

How I got my first writing gig

The story of how I got my first writing gig - an article in The Daily Telegraph - is integral to the founding of Writer's Residence. Today, I'm sharing this story with you in hopes that it will be useful to those just starting a writing career. Here's a overview, with time estimates: I quit my da...

Let Them Know You're Alive: Keep Your Writer Website Up to Date

I've been looking through our users' writer websites in order to get a feel for how they use their online writing portfolios. It's always nice to stumble upon a use case that hadn't occurred to me before. Recently I spotted this on one of our user's portfolios: This site is to showcase my writing...

More than just a writing portfolio

Most of us started our writing portfolios because we wanted to use them as a tool for finding writing gigs. After all, you need a platform for sharing your work if you want to show editors and clients what you can do. But a writing portfolio isn't just something you throw away once you get the jo...