Jennifer Lancaster

September 25, 2017

Why the Freelancer Lifestyle and What Writing Jobs Can You Get?

False pretense aside, yes I have a short book coming out next week, entitled ‘How to Start a Freelance Business in Australia’, so of course I’m somewhat selling the benefits of a freelancer lifestyle. But as an experienced freelance copywriter and editor, I can shed some light on the truth of it. If you’re new to looking for freelance writing jobs, you might have these questions: What kind of money can I expect… What hours can I work… Do clients expect a miracle? What kind of money will I earn… To which I answer: Your income will reflect the confidence level and expertise of your promotional skills – which you must deliver on. So anything from $20 an hour to $180 an hour is possible. The more specialised your writing (read, pandering to the needs of the corporate world), the more you can potentially…

March 11, 2019

Book Marketing, Selling eBooks and Media

A new tool for creating ebooks / lead magnets

Sometimes a designing service comes up that makes me think: “why did I even bother doing it the hard way?” An online ebook builder (for websites), ‘Designrr’, is making me think this. It’s a simple way of creating a lead magnet — or perhaps a larger ebook for distribution — from your own web pages…. without the stress of learning Adobe InDesign. Feedback from author users leads me to suggest it is not ideal for full Kindle eBooks. You are perhaps best off taking the designed PDF & native file and getting an online freelancer to convert that to your .ePub or .mobi file. Another paid tool for creating ebooks that I’ve used in the past is Jutoh. But Jutoh is not for the fainthearted. It requires knowledge of what to clean up, why tick “make NCX”, and pre-conversion things,…

September 12, 2017

Selling eBooks and Media

Audiobooks: The Future for Busy People

This post was written by Simone Feiler Clark, owner of Brisbane Audiobook Production, who makes it easy to get your audiobooks recorded professionally and listed online. How busy is your life? Work, children, school, study, partner, house, travel, sport, exercise, pets, cleaning, volunteering… the list is endless. Grr, it’s crazy, and then there’s time you want to fit in for yourself; hairdresser, massage, waxing, shopping, pool, beach, holiday, etc… With this busy-ness, do you ever get the opportunity just to chill your mind, just chill? One of the most important pieces of advice my children receive at school these days is to read. Not only is it educational, but as you probably know, it can definitely be relaxing. How do you feel after you read some of your book? Does it take you away from your mundane? Does it educate you? Does it inspire…

November 29, 2021

Book Marketing, Selling eBooks and Media

Use Keywords to help your Author Marketing

SEO, it’s not just for websites anymore. So, yes, you can use keywords and search phrases to help people find your author website and book. Your book’s title and sales page should already be thought about from the keyword perspective (something searchable placed in the title or subtitle). But what about your core topic website — and author marketing? If you choose to register your domain name as your core topic, this naturally will be easier. If it happens to coincide with your book, e.g. Gertrude Stein’s The Happiness Project, then that’s fine… if you have time. But if you’re short on time and intend on a series of books or products, you will want to focus on expanding your author visibility online. Author marketing is one of the hardest forms of marketing to do, and I should know because I have already…

Take a Simple Drive to a Healthier Life review

May 14, 2025

Book reviews

Take a Simple Drive to a Healthier Life – review

We often say that we want to live a healthier life. We make all these new year’s resolutions about exercising more and losing weight and a host of other things, but how many of us really follow-through? Is it that we don’t have the information in front of us to help us on our journey? Sometimes it’s just a little nudge we need to remind us. This comes in the form of a new book, ‘Take a Simple Drive to a Healthier Life’ by Dr. Roger Smith. In it, Roger highlights that out of 100 people surveyed in their local medical clinic, there were only 24 people with normal range BMI. He tracks some of the patient’s struggles and successes with weight control over the years, noting that it is a hard road but well worth it. Another novel approach is…

November 7, 2024

Blogging Strategy, Book Marketing

How Guest Posting Helps You to Market your Books

I’ve been slow to the guest posting game, but better late than never right? While researching, I found quite a few blogs which accept new guest posters. Now some cheeky monkies will try to charge you $190. Others will not let you post a Bio and URL (unpaid writer). Still others are too busy to reply… and leave you wondering! But if you can get a blog owner who is organised, reciprocal minded, and has topics in your Niche, BINGO! You may just have the start of a winning relationship. Benefits are: Blogs with high Domain Authority and Trust flow (and relevant to yours) will give your URL more Google Ranking karma. Conversely, blogs such as a friend’s Blogger site will give you reverse trust flow. Blogs with a high level of visitors (2,000+ per month or high follower engagement)…