A Profile Editing Breakthrough!

Photo from Flickr

Many thanks to Eloise Elaine Ernst Schneider for helping me work out how writers can edit their own profile. It can be done! What we found was that if you were a registered subscriber to the site and logged in before you filled out the form, that form automatically connects with your username and when you log in again, you can edit it.

I checkmarked that "Let users register" button without really knowing what it would do. Now we know!

So here are a few options:

1. You haven't completed a profile yet, so you go to the Writers page and find the Register button on the right side. (Note: I only see this option on the full desktop site. I can't find it in the mobile site. ) Create a username and password and then log in and complete the profile form. 
2. You already completed the profile but there wasn't an option to register when you did, so you go to the site and register now with the same email address that you used on your profile. I will connect the username to the profile with the same email address. (I know, I know. There are already 162 writers that I would need to connect. It was my fault for not having it in place. I'll connect.)
3. You completed the profile before registering, but you don't want to use the same email address to register, so register with your preferred email address and then you email me at Laura@WritingForTheEducationMarket.com and let me know which username to connect to which profile. 

Another step in the right direction. Thanks for bearing with me! Oh, and at a reader request, I added a Company Name field in the form and I added an Other to the subjects where you can type your own in.

Fun!
Laura

(Note: I thought I published this earlier in the week!)

New Blog Post on WritingForTheEducationMarket.com

Happy Independence Day! (Tomorrow...)

Photo from Flickr

Today is the first issue of our #FailUp Friday episodes. Stories of mistakes and learning by our writers. Head to WritingForTheEducationMarket.com/blog/ to see all the posts, or go straight to today's #FailUp Friday

I will no longer post full entries here. I plan to get the email list switched over within the next few days. More info on that coming soon.

And if you have a #FailUp story to share, email me at Laura@WritingForTheEducationMarket.com

Moving Right Along (with a quick recap)

First, the Recap

Photo from Flickr

Wow. Things are really moving along with the new site. I am going to publish this post in both WritingForTheEducationMarket.com and educationwriting.blogspot.com so that it's part of the new blog history but everyone on the yet-to-be-moved-over email list will receive it in their email from the old blog. All this will get cleaned up soon. I was able to get some advice on moving the list over.

I'm getting some recurring questions, so I am going to address some of them here. I'll set up an FAQ page on the new site soon (after the email list move).

• The new website address is WritingForTheEducationMarket.com
• The old blog address is educationwriting.blogspot.com.
• The old blog address is where you have been receiving emails from Writing for the Education Market.
• This will be changing very soon, so you need to
  • read all then WEM emails or blog posts from last week and this week to stay updated on the move
  • go to the Writers page on the new site and Join the List (I've had 46 new writers join since Sunday noon)
  • Check the job board on your own until I can get the email thing sorted out (HINT: There is already a job posted there!)
• You can't edit your profile (yet), so if you need to change something, fill out the form again and then email me at Laura@WritingForTheEducationMarket.com and let me know to delete your other one.

Moving Right Along

First, I got to meet Laura Bresko at ISTE today! Yay! Laura's been a subscriber from the beginning and hires writers through WEM. It was a pleasure to be able to talk to her in person. Laura also introduced me to someone who could help spread the word about WEM. It was exciting!

Then, I stopped by Gale Group booth in the expo hall and the person in charge of content development was super excited to hear about our community. That was a great feeling. So tomorrow, I plan to stop at a few more places to see if I can make some connections.

If you know of someone who hires freelance writers, perhaps you'd be willing to send me their contact info. Those folks know others of their ilk and I bet we could get it moving along at a fast clip just by being social.

Next Steps

• Move the email list over
• Figure out how to let writers edit their own profiles
• Notify all the folks who link to the blog of the new address
• Close down the educationwriting.blogpost.com site

New Website Update - 55 Writers Listed Already!

I'm really excited to see the list of writers. We're at 55 writers at then end of Day 1. Woo hoo! What was most exciting to me was to see the names of people I've talked to over the course of the blog. I have the email list, but it doesn't have names. The names are what helps me make the connections. It's good to see you guys. (Hey! Maybe I can figure out how to add pictures of ourselves...)

I'm still using the old blog to send you this update because I haven't transferred your email addresses over to the other one. That's next on my list.

The job board is up. I'll spend the next few days making contacts (in between going to sessions and learning stuff, of course) and see if we can't get some listed posted directly by companies. Wish me luck!

Laura

It's Almost Time!

As part of the re-design, the blog has moved to WritingForTheEducationMarket.com from it's previous home at educationwriting.blogspot.com.

Here's what the new site will have:

• A database (eventually searchable) of freelance education writers, correlators, and editors
• The ability for writers to create their own profile
• A job board for companies to post job leads directly
• A blog focused on the business of freelance writing for the education market.

We're going to start with the searchable database. This means I need you to go to the Join the Writer List page and create your profile. This information will automatically populate in the Writers page. The ability to search will be in place by July 8.

My next steps are to move the email list over so you continue receiving blog posts and job leads. More on that later.

I am heading to ISTE tomorrow and plan to visit with several education companies to tell them about this service. I'd love for them to come to the site and see a huge list of writers!

You can reach me at Laura@WritingForTheEducationMarket.com or comment on this post. I get all the comments in my email. Please let me know if there are any glitches that I need to fix.

We Learn So Much When We Fail

"Ever tried. Ever failed.
No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." ~ Samuel Beckett

One of the recurring themes in all the listening and reading I’ve been doing lately is that other people’s failures are interesting. It’s not that we want to look at something terrible and say “Oooh, I’m so glad that’s not me.” It’s the idea that we can learn from other people’s mistakes or failures without having to make them ourselves. There is not enough time in a lifetime to make every mistake there is (not that we'd want to, of course), but when you have a community of people with the same interests and goals, those failures become gold.

In working on this redesign (coming soon), I have gotten a lot of feedback from writers who want to know how other freelancers deal with problems. This is definitely a case where the smartest person in the room is the room itself.

Salvaje .Model&Photographer.

I imagine every member of the Writing for the Education Market community has made mistakes on this freelancing path. Yucky ones. The kind that make us cringe and hope no one ever finds out. But those are the stories we need to hear from each other. Freelancing can be isolating. You feel like you are ‘on an island’ as one reader said. That aloneness is heavy. When you hear a story of failure that resonates with you, you sigh and say, “Oh, I thought that only happened to me,” and the weight lifts a little. It’s always easier to carry something when it’s shared, right? 

But the real value is hearing how that person picked themselves up and carried on. What did they change because of this failure? These answers give us the tools we need to face those sticky situations ourselves, perhaps changing our outcome armed with that knowledge.

So here’s my question:

Would you be willing to share with this community a story of one of your failures or mistakes and what you learned from it? 

You can respond to the email feed or use the email address on the blog to write to me directly. I would love to collect your stories and share some with our community. Include #failup somewhere in the email so that I can search my inbox for them easily. 

Education-Related Leads for Thu, June 11, 2015

• Social Studies Teachers: Make Money Writing Lesson Plans From Home (United States) ($25/lesson. Your call)
• Remote Item Writer (looks like English or Math K-12)

Good luck,

Laura

Publishing Solutions Group

Publishing Solutions Group has postings for freelance ELA writers and editors and all subject assessment writers, but they are also conducting their annual freelancers update. It sounds like a good time to get yours in. Check out their Careers at PSG page for more info.

Thanks to Carole Gerber for the lead. 

Laura