If you’re interested in Lindsay’s sewing projects, you can check out her Etsy store, Roots Collective. Also, samples of Mary’s graphic design should be coming soon!

* Latest Radio Chicagoland Podcast.

• http://traffic.libsyn.com/rayhanania/08-03-10LindsayConner.mp3
  
• http://traffic.libsyn.com/rayhanania/08-10-10LindsayConner.mp3
• http://traffic.libsyn.com/rayhanania/08-24-10LindsayConner.mp3
  
• http://traffic.libsyn.com/rayhanania/08-31-10LindsayConner.mp3 (not yet uploaded)

Here’s the backstory on this:

Several weeks ago, a radio show host contacted me after reading my Bachelorette blogs online at Examiner.com. He asked me to call in to his show to talk about The Bachelorette finale, and it’s now a regular feature. We talk about Bachelor Pad, Dating in the Dark and other reality TV news.

For a long time, I focused on pitching articles to established magazines–national, state and regional. I wrote countless query letters, proposing ideas to each magazine. My first sale, or so I thought, was an article to a Canadian health magazine called Alive. They said they would send me a contract for a query I wrote about health benefits of white tea. Ecstatic, I started researching the topic and prepping for my first, real printed piece.

The contract never came and I received no response from the editor.

Discouraged, I stopped writing query letters for awhile, but picked it back up after time. I set a goal to write one great query letter per day. My next sale took about 13 months to close. I was offered a contract to write a 1,200-word article on panic attacks for Alternative Medicine. I submitted the article, and e-mailed, and e-mailed, and called, and e-mailed every month or so waiting for a response. I started my subscription to the mag, because I was so excited to see my article arrive in the mailbox. A little over a year from the date I submitted the signed contract and subsequent article, and after lots of editorial turnover at AltMed, I got my check. Well over a year later, they’ve never run the article; the magazine also changed its name to Natural Solutions.

Since then, I’ve written mostly for specialty magazines (i.e. targeted toward people planning their wedding in Indiana, or targeted toward Christians in their 20s). I’ve connected with a local newspaper, which puts out a bi-monthly magazine. My college runs articles in the alumni magazine. It’s not nearly as glamorous to write for local and specialty publications. But it still pays the bills, and with far less waiting and hassle. These articles also make great portfolio pieces as you grow in your career.

If you really want to write for Rolling Stone or Real Simple, my best advice is to work your way up. Get yourself some clips in similar, smaller-scale publications. Then read the writer’s guidelines and determine if they actually use freelancers. If so, choose a small department to query about. Write the managing or department editor and offer them exclusive content they cannot get anywhere else (i.e. an interview with an up-and-coming band’s frontman, or a review of a book review not yet released to the public). If you don’t hear back, query about a different idea (or query another magazine and hope someone bites).

And if you get a rejection letter, rejoice! That means an editor thinks highly enough of you to write back.

Designing a Business Card to Suit You
You’ve ordered a thousand business cards, also known as the mini billboards to advertise your company. And let’s face it–a boring, predictable billboard is hardly going to make someone look up from traffic road and take notice.

10 Ways to Use Your Business Card for Networking
To get the word out about your business, you may utilize a variety of marketing channels like online ads, door hangers and direct mail. But your business card is your best friend when it comes to putting contact info into the hands of potential clients. Carry your business cards with you everywhere, preferably in a solid, metal case to ensure they don’t bend.

How to Spot a Standout Business Logo
You see them everyday, whether they’re on the car you drive, the channels of your television or the billboards you pass on the road. Logos are symbols we associated with a certain product, business, organization or cause. They may combine a combination of an image and words, or just one of those.

Should You Include Your Headshot on Business Cards?
A black-and-white or full-color photo can add instant memorability to a business card. But it’s not always necessary or appropriate-be careful to think through your vocation and how essential a photo might be to your professional networking.

Top 5 Items to Include in a Company Brochure
When writing up your company’s brochure, you typically have six panels (front and back sides of a typical three-fold brochure) to get your message across. A striking design and clean layout will be essential in making the most of those six panels.

The billboard didn’t take advantage of color, its main talking point. Most people have only a few seconds to read and take in the message on a billboard, one of the reasons brilliant copywriters are so highly regarded (and so highly paid). Sales gurus know how to weave colorful words into their copy. Just a few, carefully selected words can breath life into an otherwise dull palette or verbiage. Writers who master word choice will provoke readers to action in less time than those who drone on and on, repeating the familiar and expected.

Does your sales copy have any color to it? What hue would you call it?

Krop Creative Database is an all-in-one gallery space for your art. Users connect to your page to see all of your creative galleries and design examples in one space. It’s fast, interactive and professional. Thumbnail gallery photos transform into largescale photos with just a click. See a live example here.

Another page shows your professional resume in matching HTML, also downloadable as a PDF. When it comes to marketing yourself and your work, Krop takes a normal portfolio to the next level with easy set-up and interactivity.

Overall, when given the choice between looking at a standard Web portfolio, flipping from the “about page” to each separate page of samples and waiting for images to load,  I think most people would agree that Krop’s single-page, fast loading, clean design wins out over most portfolios.

Has anyone seen a better portfolio service than Krop? Comments appreciated.

Mary designed a brochure for the Red Cross Disaster Training Corps here in greater Indianapolis. This is a great program that pairs willing volunteers from a local community with families in need of disaster response, be it during a house fire, flood or other personal disaster. Volunteers show up at the disaster site and are the first emergency contact for these people in need.

Lindsay is writing for a couple new outlets. CostHelper.com is an exciting online resource for shoppers. The site is rich in content that, as the name implies, helps shoppers estimate the cost of anything and everything. From the cost of daycare to a new roof to an Alaskan cruise, costs are detailed. What’s great about this site is the concise and complete the information, with prices from all over the country, shopping tips, discounts and additional costs you should be sure to factor in.

Examiner.com is another growing freelance outlet. Lindsay is the Indianapolis Travel Examiner, reviewing local restaurants and regional travel destinations. As always, she’s eager to share travel tips from her bargain-hunting arsenal of money-saving ideas. (If you’d like to blog for Examiner for your city, contact Word Out for more information.)

Seth’s take on marketing:

If you can’t get 10 people excited about your product, start over. Because those 10 people are your friends and family, people who trust and admire you. If they don’t need or want your product, how are you ever going to convince strangers to pick it up?

What do you think?