I’m in a unique position to see how the most successful and most long-lasting relationships are built between our customers and their writers, so I want to pass along some tips for you on how to get the most out of our service by building the best crowd for you.

Now, let me stop right there for a second.

Why Is It Important to Build Strong Relationships With Your Writers?

In this market, it’s just not enough for your content to be OK. In order to get noticed, your content needs to be personal, engaging, and tailored to your brand’s unique voice. But how can a writer do that if they don’t know who you are?

Before they can create great content, a writer needs to know some really important information about your business and your goals. When you build strong relationships with your writers, they can:

• Have a deep understanding of your brand positioning and grow with your brand over time.
• Tailor their content to your specific customer persona(s).
• Match the tone and style of your existing content or build a style that’s perfect for you.
• Create content story arcs by intimately knowing what you’ve published in the past.
• Suggest new content ideas that appeal to your audience (and help you save time).

I think of customer-writer relationships as the core of Verblio, because they allow customers to get something that is very rare in outsourced content marketing. That is…continuity.

But wait! Isn’t Verblio a crowdsourced solution? Doesn’t a “crowd” mean big and anonymous?

We don’t think so.

Although we have a very large number of writers in our system, there won’t be 3,000 different writers creating your specific content. That’s crazy!

The beauty of the crowd is that with so many great writers looking at your requests, you’re able to build a small, personal crowd of writers who understand your industry and who create content that’s perfectly catered to your audience. Have clients across many different industries? Build a perfectly unique crowd for each.

In fact, by helping you build this crowd, we can actually give you a much more personal and relationship-based experience than a service where a different writer creates each new piece of content that you publish.

Remember when I listed all the benefits of strong writer relationships?

Well, here’s the thing.

In Order to Help You Build Your Crowd, We Need Some Help from You, Too

You’re the communication channel and the common denominator. YOU are the one who knows your brand. YOU are the expert in your industry. YOU are the one who understands your unique audience. YOU are the one who gets to choose which writers are right for you.

Here are some of the things that a writer needs to know about your business before they can write their first sentence for you:

• Your brand personality
• Your audience/customers and others you’d like to target
• Where they can find information about your product(s)
• Your location (is it important?)
• Your goals as a business and goals for your content efforts

Strong relationships with writers don’t grow overnight and they don’t grow without some upfront investment. Think of it like this.

Starting a Verblio subscription is like getting a new puppy.

You have to do some work at the beginning to train the puppy, socialize it, introduce it to the new environment.

But over time, the puppy requires less work. You can leave it home alone longer, there are fewer messes, and its walks just become part of your daily routine.

The same thing goes for Verblio. For a relatively small time investment at the beginning, you get have an adorable, cuddly, loving new member of your family who requires a much smaller amount of effort to maintain later.

In order to get the most out of our service (and really, out of your content, no matter how you get it), you are going to have to put some work in to make sure that your writers have access to the information that they need about your brand.

Below is everything that you need to know about building your crowd, including:

• WHAT you should do,
• WHEN you should do it, and
• HOW LONG you should expect each of those tasks to take.

I. Optimize Your Page for the Writers. [1 hr]

As soon as you sign up, take 1 HOUR to make sure that your page is ready for the writers.

1. Provide writers links to your website and the blog where these will be posted. [2 min]

While you’re at it, make sure to provide writers your “Contact Us” page URL (if you want your want your posts to have CTAs) and your Twitter handle if you’d like writers to check out your social media presence.

2. Make sure your “Business Info” is actually informative. [20 mins]

The following text fields are specifically intended to help you communicate your writing needs with our community of writers:

• Audience
• Voice & Personality
• English Type
• Content Example
• General business information for our writers

Take the time to fill out these fields because they give our writers the best chance to create great content for you on the first try!

Click here to view our full guide to filling out your Business Info page.

3. Enter a few thorough but concise requests. [15-45 mins, depending on the length of your posts]

You need to enter requests so that writers know what you want to write about. These descriptions vary a lot with the length of your posts, since a 1500-word post requires a lot more depth and research than a 300-word post.

Here are a few things that ALL requests should include:

a. A keyword that you want to target (learn more here).

b. The goal of the post. For example: “I want to show working millennial moms how my product could make a difference in their lives.”

c. The intended audience.

d. An outline* (attach a PDF or Google Doc for longer posts).

(Need help crafting the perfect request? Click here to learn more!)

*TIP: Read this post → How to Write a Blog Outline To Get Exactly The Post You Need.

*TIP: Remember that writers can search for requests by title. Use compelling request titles to draw in writers with the right experience.

4. Be BOSSY, but professional. [All the time!]

In order to receive great content, you must create great requests—after all, our writers can’t read your mind! The clearer you are about what you want from the writers, the more likely you are to get it on your first try.

For example, pretend you are looking for a 700-word post about how millennial moms engage with online content. You know a little bit about this subject and have read some other, similar posts about millennials and even millennial women, but you want to make sure your post is unique. If you enter a three-word request—”Marketing to Millennials“—you can’t expect the writer to read your mind about everything else that you’ve considered.

Instead, try entering this request:

Marketing to Millennial Moms: 

Keyword: “how to market to millennial moms”

Please read these similar articles (you can use them as sources), but be sure to come up with some new and different strategies from the ones that have already been written about. The blog should be oriented toward business owners who are seeking to attract new audiences and who already have products that might be successful with this demographic.

(Include specific links/URLs to other articles that you like, but want to differentiate yourself from)

I don’t want a composite article, but rather a post that really breaks down (1) how millennial moms engage with content (and where), (2) why they are different than other millennial women, (3) how they are different than the previous generation of moms, and (4) that gives the reader some actionable ideas for how to shift their marketing strategy to attract this audience.

By adding a description to your request and telling the writer exactly what you want, you’ll make your life easier later on. This process also forces you to figure out what you really want, so that when a post comes in, you’ll also be able to evaluate it quickly and fairly.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Make sure that writers have access to as much information about your business and about the goals for your blog as they possibly can.

II. Take your time on posts #1-5. [15 mins per post]

How you handle your first five posts can tell me a lot about how successful you will be at building your crowd. You’ll want to set aside some time during that first week to review these posts thoroughly.

My most important piece of advice: the sooner you can review your post after you receive it, the better. 

1. Review each post to determine if it’s a good fit. [5 mins]

2. Follow this flowchart to decide what to do next. [10 mins]

Even if you have a larger subscription and don’t have time to review every post you receive each month (in the future), taking the time to give thorough, kind, and specific feedback on your first few posts will go a long way toward helping writers understand what you need.

If you can give writers information about what you like and don’t like about each post, this becomes a great starting point for other new writers. All writers can see your feedback to all other writers, so your feedback to one person actually impacts how our whole writer community learns about your needs.

Community feedback is a critical part of how we are able to grow your writer crowd over time. It allows a new writer to take your previous criticisms into account as they write their first post for you, avoiding the issues that other writers have faced in the past.

III. Employ Best Practices for Managing New Posts. [15 min]

These are some quick actions that you can take over time to help optimize the growth of your crowd and ensure that when you find a good writer, they keep coming back to write for you.

None of these items take more than a few minutes, but they will give you an incredibly high return on that time.

When you receive a new submission, I recommend scheduling yourself 15 minutes sometime in the next day or two to do all of the following. For most posts, you’ll use half of that time and get a mini break as a bonus!

1. ACT QUICKLY.

Writers can see your last purchase date, and they always seem to know which customers purchase content quickly and which customers leave posts languishing for weeks. I recommend that once you review a post, you make a decision about it within a day or two. 

This will encourage your favorite writers to prioritize your posts.

There are three possible decisions that can be made here. You can: (1) accept/purchase the post, (2) decline the post, or (3) ask the writer to make changes. Choose your own adventure!

Check out our full guide on the actions you can take on Verblio submissions here!

2. Ask for edits when appropriate.

If only a couple of things need to change in order for the post to be great for you, request changes (you can learn how here)! Be specific, but don’t go overboard.

If the post would require a full rewrite to meet your specs, you’re probably better off declining it.

3. Give star reviews (for better or for worse).

This will make you popular with the writers.

Try to be fair and give a variety of reviews. This will help writers understand which posts you liked (or didn’t).

4. PREFER writers that do a good job for you.

This is the beginning of your personal crowd. When you prefer a writer, it sends that writer an email asking that they come back and write for you again. Writers can also filter their searches by customers who prefer them, so by giving the writer preferred status, you dramatically increase the chances that they continue to write for you.

Learn more about why (and how) you should prefer writers.

(Oh, and you can also block writers who just aren’t submitting content that meets your needs. Use this feature if a writer simply is not a great fit.)

5. Give constructive, polite, informative feedback on ALL posts you receive in the first month, whether or not you purchase them.

ALL writers can see your feedback on EVERY post, and this is a big factor in who decides to write for you. Negative but constructive feedback is better for your writers overall than no feedback at all, but positive feedback is also SUPER important.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Feedback, feedback, feedback! Anything you can do to communicate to writers which posts you liked (and didn’t like) will help you in the long run. 

IV. After Your First 2 Months:

All of this might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but over time, Verblio really should just become a part of your content routine, along with scheduling Facebook updates, posting to LinkedIn, sending your monthly newsletter, filing expense reports, or checking traffic trends.

How much time you spend on your content will vary based on how much content you are hoping to publish, but you should expect to spend approximately 15 minutes per  post, per month, in addition to the time spent on maintenance of your account (including keyword research, coming up with requests, etc).

I recommend setting a schedule for yourself with calendar updates that remind you to check on each subscription once per week at MINIMUM.

The more often you check, the less time you will spend on each visit!

Each time you log in, run through this short checklist to make sure that your account is up-to-date. [~1 hr]

1. Catch up on your submissions! [~25 mins]

• If you have submissions you like and credits available, purchase those posts! 
• Give feedback and star reviews for as many posts as possible.
• Decline posts that you know you do not want to purchase.
• Pin posts that you can’t purchase yet, but intend to purchase eventually.
• Request edits on any posts that need it.

Ideally, this is stuff that you should do AS posts are submitted, but your biweekly visit is a great time to catch up if you’ve fallen behind.

2. Enter new requests. [~30 mins]

• Add enough new requests for all of the posts you’ll need before your next visit.
• Make sure existing requests are still relevant, and delete any that no longer make sense for your content needs.

3. Update your page, if necessary. [~5mins]

• Check your “Business Info” section to make sure the information is current.
• Make sure your business website link is working properly.
• Do you want a CTA at the end with a “contact us” phrase? If so, make sure that link has been entered properly. If not, delete that link from your page.

By simply checking over your page a couple of times per month, you can avoid some headaches later on.

If you follow these guidelines for your first two months and beyond, we KNOW that you’ll have a great crowd of writers who can keep your content machine churning and keep those leads coming in.

Don’t have the time to review and manage the content yourself? Consider Verblio Complete, our managed professional services option. Your personal account manager can communicate with your writers and help decrease your overall time investment in the content.

Get in touch below with any questions you have!

The post The Best Ways to Build Your Crowd of Writers With Verblio appeared first on Verblio.

Tyler’s Life at Verblio

Here’s a quick snapshot of Tyler’s Verblio stats:

• Time with Verblio: 5 months
• Total posts sold: 66
• Top industries: Legal, financial, home improvement
• Expertise: Law, taxes, speechwriting, weightlifting, Russian literature

Since Tyler Theisen started writing for Verblio in October of last year, 96% of his customer-rated posts have received 4 or 5 stars and he’s been named a “Preferred Writer” for an impressive 36 different subscriptions. His acceptance rate is currently at 99%.

Tyler says that he enjoys working on legal and financial topics since he has professional experience in those realms, but that he also covers a pretty broad range of subjects, including appliance repair, medical conditions, politics, tech industry news, industrial manufacturing, and social issues.

Here are some topics that he has recently tackled for our customers:

• What to do if you’re assigned court-ordered treatment?
• Highlights, features, and benefits of using JaguarPC.
• The ins and outs of taxation for real estate investors.
• Active shooter training tips for emergency responders.

Tyler’s career has been varied, to say the least, which may explain why he’s comfortable tackling so many different types of topics. “I have a low professional attention span,” he says.

Outside of Verblio

Before law school, Tyler earned a Master’s degree as well as a B.A. in Russian Literature from the University of Montana in Missoula. He practiced law in Montana, but eventually decided to retire and move into a full-time career as a freelance writer. He has also worked as a property manager, marketing consultant, bookkeeper, hotel agent, and even as an ESL tutor.

Tyler describes himself now as a “retired attorney and full-time goofball residing in beautiful Lolo, Montana with my wife and far too many dogs.” His not-so-little family includes six dogs, seven chickens, a giant tortoise, and a hedgehog! Yep, a hedgehog.

(Photo by Piotr Łaskawski on Unsplash)

He says that being an attorney helped him develop a writing style that is “analytical and persuasive,” but that ultimately, law was not the career for him.

I quickly learned I didn’t much care for court rooms or mediating personal disputes; a full-time career spent in an adversarial system starts to wear you down a bit, and I’m very glad to have a career now that lets me help others build positive, productive enterprises.

“Also,” he is sure to add, “I love lawyer jokes.”

Why Tyler Theisen Loves Being a Writer

Tyler says that his favorite thing about being a writer is getting to explore different disciplines and research new topics. Just to throw in a little plug for curiosity and openness, HubSpot agrees that this is the first trait you should look for in a freelance writer, who needs to be able to present a fresh perspective on your business and industry.

And Tyler has certainly gone on some thematic explorations with Verblio. He says that so far he has written a short essay on the history of Canadian beer and a primer for diagnosing, treating, and preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (“which has come in very handy for this line of work!” he quips).

He tells customers not to be afraid to work with writers who may be less experienced as freelancers:

Some of the most brilliant work I’ve encountered has been authored by writers with small portfolios, and you may end up with a phenomenal resource for your enterprise that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. …Less-experienced writers are always excited to receive your interest, and will likely go the extra mile to make sure you’re getting…the best product for your needs.

Besides Writing

Outside of his writing career, Tyler Theisen loves spending time with his extensive “animal family” and says he and his wife plan to adopt some goats, sheep, and horses in the near future. His wife owns a small business as a dog trainer, where Tyler also helps out from time to time.

When he’s not lifting weights or gaming, he might be found doing some DIY repairs on his house or — most likely — reading. His most recent recommendation? Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight.

Four Past Midnight is by far my favorite collection, and includes several of the best-composed stories I’ve ever read. Highly recommended (if you don’t mind some less-than-merry subject matter, that is — it’s still Stephen King!).

Lawyer, avid reader, rural Montanan. Think you’ve got Tyler all figured out? Nice try. He says:

People are usually surprised to learn that I am very interested in the history & culture of tattooing, and have extensive tattoos myself. 

Tyler and his wife also love to travel internationally: they recently returned home from a 3-week tour through Iceland, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands. (Take me with you next time!)

I asked Tyler if he had anything else to share, and here’s what he said:

I’m just happy to finally be able to say I love my job, and I’m thankful for the opportunity Verblio’s given me to develop my career as a writer.

Thank you so much to Tyler Theisen for being a part of our diverse, talented writer community! Here at Verblio, we’re passionate about two things: content marketing and creating opportunities for freelance writers to grow their careers. It’s a darn good thing those two go together like toast and avocado.

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Tyler Theisen appeared first on Verblio.

Gary’s Verblio Life

Here’s a quick snapshot of Gary’s Verblio stats that earn him a writer spotlight:

• Time with Verblio: 2 years, 3 months
• Total posts sold: 866
• Top industries: IT & data security, software, web design/UX
• Expertise: Software engineering, file formats/digital preservation, academic libraries, filk music, cat rescue

Since he started with Verblio in 2016, Gary has sold nearly 500 posts related to IT, data security, and software. As it happens, Gary has been working with (and writing about) computers for some time now:

My work in computers has covered a significant chunk of their history, from mainframes using punched cards to desktop computers.

Some of Gary’s first paid writing was for the “American microcomputer magazine,” Byte, which covered topics related to small computers, software, and general computing from 1975 (when home computer kits first appeared on the scene) to 1998. They actually ran Microsoft’s very first advertisement (“Micro-Soft” at the time) in an early issue.

Gary also wrote his own book!

Gery wrote a text-based adventure game when that genre was at its height. His book, COMPUTE!’s Guide to Adventure Games, was published in 1984.

Gary’s professional experience also spans broad categories within the tech world to earn a writer spotlight. He worked as a software developer for many years in both business and academic fields, and even spent 8 years working for the academic library at Harvard University.

As an expert in file formats and digital preservation, Gary did a large portion of the work on creating JHOVE (the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment), an application that libraries and archives use to maintain and preserve digital resources.

He also wrote a book, Files That Last, Digital Preservation for Every Geek, about digital preservation for system administrators and individual developers trying to ensure the safety of important files.

The 1981 cover for Byte, featuring a painting by Robert Tinney.

Today, Gary has turned his attention to his writing career, although he still maintains a blog called Mad File Format Science that discusses current issues in file formats and digital preservation. He says his favorite writing projects are those where he can explain a technical topic to readers.

With every article I write,” he explains, “I aim to learn new things and to teach something. I like to think they all have some educational value.

Here are some of the topics that Gary has covered for Verblio’s customers:

• “A Mortgage Banker’s Guide to Cybersecurity”
• “What Lawyers Need to Know about Blockchain”
• “DaaS vs. VDI: Two Approaches to Virtual Desktops”
• “MPLS or SD-WAN? Or Both?”
• “Computer Tip of the Day: Avoid File Obsolescence”
• “GDPR and Website Security”

In his writing, Gary says, “What I aim for most of all is precision and clarity”.

Gary understands how to explain complex technical products, services, and concepts to his readers. That’s a valuable skill to earn a writer spotlight in the content world overloaded with advertisements. How often do readers see clear, straightforward explanations that can actually help them make decisions? A customer who learns from your content is a customer who is much more likely to trust you and therefore to trust your products.

Outside of Verblio

Here at Verblio, we may know Gary as a talented technical writer, but if you ask him about himself, you’ll soon learn that this is far from the only thing that defines him or even his writing. In his free time, Gary writes poetry and music, and also publishes content on a variety of topics related to politics, current events, and the economy.

“Words change everything,” he says. “They keep our knowledge alive. They let us stay in touch with each other. They can convey beauty. They give us four of the best things in life: talking, listening, reading, and writing.”

Apart from words, Gary’s other favorite things in life are “music, computers, and cats”.

You probably guessed that whole ‘computers’ part, but the others might surprise you. I’d call Gary a filk music enthusiast, but that would almost certainly be an egregious understatement. Gary is literally in the Filk Music Hall of Fame.

And no, I’m not spelling that wrong.

Filk music is essentially a type of folk music related to science fiction or fantasy fandom. I might be getting myself in trouble for saying that, though… ‘filkers’ have a lively debate going on about what exactly constitutes filk music and my definition is highly controversial. I managed to get lost in a Google vortex of filk and funnily enough, the clearest definition I came across was written by (of course) Gary McGath himself.

Gary has not only written a songbook of original filk songs, but he also has an album called Shrink Wrap Blues and wrote a comprehensive history of filk in his ebook, Tomorrow’s Songs Today. After attending a filk conference in Germany some years ago, Gary learned to speak German and has now performed and even written songs in German, which has earned him a bit of an international following.

Gary’s Homelife

Luckily, the filk community also seems to embrace Gary’s other passion, too.

As he says:

Cats are essential to life.

Gary has two cats who “claim title” to him (can anyone really “own” a cat?) and he volunteers regularly at a local cat shelter to earn him a writer spotlight. Of all the things that might surprise you about Gary, here’s the one most likely to warm your heart: he loves speaking German to his cats. Not a bad way to practice those language skills, eh?

Thanks so much to our writer spotlight, Gary, for answering my questions, for helping Verblio grow over the last 2 years, and for being an active part of our writer community. We’re delighted, as always, to have you as part of our team.

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Gary McGath appeared first on Verblio.

Sherilyn became a freelance writer for Verblio back in 2015 and she’s quickly closing in on her 1000th post. She’s a preferred writer for a whopping 168 unique content subscriptions managed by 43 different businesses.

Her Work as a Freelance Writer at Verblio

Here’s a snapshot of Sherilyn’s Verblio stats:

• Time with Verblio: 2 years, 6 months
• Total posts sold: 861
• Top industries: Marketing & advertising, real estate, home repair & maintenance
• Expertise: Inbound marketing, small business, HVAC, education, Christianity

Sherilyn holds degrees in both writing and communications and belongs to our small, but growing team of HubSpot Certified writers. While she often uses her inbound marketing know-how to create lead-driving content for our clients in the marketing and advertising industries, Sherilyn also has some other tricks up her sleeve.

For example, Sherilyn co-owned a small heating and cooling company for several years, handling payroll, taxes, and customer service for the small, family-owned business. “I like writing for small businesses,” she says,  “…because I understand where they’re coming from”.

Here are just a couple of the HVAC and small-business-themed topics that she has tackled recently:

• How do you know if your HVAC contractor is doing a good job?
• A guide to preventative maintenance that will make your heating system last longer
• How CPA services can benefit small businesses
• Simple tax deductions for your small business that you might not know about
• A comparison of bookkeeping softwares and apps for small businesses (Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Xero, and Zoho)

Where Her Experience Comes From

Like most writers, Sherilyn also has a wealth of experience in fields that range far from her professional career. She recently completed a 2,000-word downloadable e-book about how RTOs (Registered Training Organizations) in Australia can create better programs to increase student completion rates. So, how much does she know about education?

A lot, it turns out. Sherilyn homeschools her two boys and has worked as a substitute teacher, as well. She’s deeply familiar with the needs of students in non-traditional education settings, including students with special needs. With a few particulars about the Australian system provided by the customer, Sherilyn was off to the races.

As a content creator, Sherilyn says that “writing is part logic, part creativity”.

I am a person that doesn’t just want to know what but I really want to know why. I’ve always been this way… My dad used to call me ‘the question box'” when I was a little girl, and I guess I haven’t changed.

Once you understand the topic, Sherilyn continues, you have to understand the people:

I think understanding people is important in writing, because we are writing for and to people. So, it follows that the more we understand what moves, motivates, thrills, or upsets them, the better we can present our ideas to them… Some clients want their posts to sound important. Others want them to sound ‘down to earth.’ Other people want to be considered funny. I think as you get inside people’s minds, then you have a better chance at giving them what they want in your writing…

And Sherilyn is definitely the type of person who knows how to empathize with and understand other people. Her compassion for others shines on our forum and many a new writer will tell you that she has helped and encouraged them to succeed in their writing career.

Sherilyn volunteered a great deal of time with a homeless ministry in Washington D.C. which made a big impression on her. She packaged bag lunches and delivered them all over the city to places where needy people were gathered. For nearly two years, she says, she did this work alone, sometimes bringing along her two kids.

“I didn’t only give them food,” she said, “but offered them a time of Bible reading, “speaking,” and prayer.” She never had a negative experience with this work. Even in the rougher parts of town, people were grateful for the help.

After doing it for several years, it changes your perspective about the homeless… I determined that helping even a handful of people is relevant. When you think of how many homeless people there are in D.C., we probably helped only a fraction of them. But it didn’t matter. Each individual person is so important. You never know where that person is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually… The worth of one person is priceless.

Where She is Today as a Freelance Writer

Today, Sherilyn says that her two boys take up nearly all of her time, though she still loves to read whenever she can slip in a quiet moment. She and her boys attend church regularly, along with all of the associated picnics and gatherings, and the whole family is looking forward to a trip out to the ocean this summer.

They’re joined at home by Maggie, shown below in her native habitat:

Thanks so much to Sherilyn for being such a wonderful part of our freelance writer community! We love getting to work with you and your kindness and positivity on our Writer’s Forum truly make Verblio a better platform.

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Sherilyn Moore appeared first on Verblio.

As a Verblio Freelance Writer

Here’s a quick snapshot of Sarah’s Verblio (formerly BlogMutt) stats:

• Time with Verblio: 2 years
• Total posts sold: 761
• Top industries: Art, legal, health, home
• Expertise: Painting, restoration, nursing, military, poetry, fiction, photography

Sarah becam a freelance writer for Verblio in 2016. Over the past two years, she has sold over 700 posts and 95% of her customer-rated posts have received 4 or 5 stars. Sarah is also a preferred writer for 19 different customers who absolutely love her work.

Her Customers

Here at Verblio, some of Sarah’s most loyal customers include:

• A high-end art and furniture restoration service
• A preventative health technology firm
• An architect
• A law firm supporting veterans with disabilities
• A software company that builds financial systems to support micro-finance initiatives in the developing world.

At first glance, these companies may not appear to be intimately related. They span different industries and offer radically different services.

But not only does Sarah’s career and life experience cover many of these same industries; these five customers also have one very important thing in common: they’re purpose-driven and working in their own ways to make the world a better and brighter place. And to Sarah, that matters:

I only write for clients with businesses I believe in, and who do work I support and think is important. I write for [Client A], for instance, because I am a passionate supporter of micro-finance in the developing world.

Outside of Verblio

However, Sarah also understands the audiences that these clients are speaking to. She holds a BS and an MS in nursing, for example, and is also herself a veteran of the U.S. Navy. She has traveled around the world and lived in 15 different U.S. states, not to mention a stint in Italy and a time living in the Navajo Nation in Rough Rock.

Art

Today, after retiring from the military, Sarah is a full-time writer and artist. She lives with her son in beautiful Roanoke, VA alongside the Blue Ridge Mountains. She calls writing her “retirement career”; Sarah retired early to pursue her creative work and care for her son, who is unable to work due to developmental challenges.

The stunning Blue Ridge Parkway has inspired some of Sarah’s art, including encaustic paintings which use molten beeswax blended with pigment and resin, like this one:

Beyond painting, Sarah’s art also includes photography and sometimes a blend of the two:

The last few years I have wanted to work more with images, and found that combining media, such as painting and photography, was able to give work an interesting narrative drive, the same story element that keeps people reading.

Story

Story is important to Sarah’s writing, as well as her art. In the rush for SEO and “cutting through the noise” of content overload, we too often forget that the most basic ingredient of good content is really quite simple: compelling and well-crafted writing.

The amount of information demanding a piece of our increasingly fragmented attention is of concern to me as a writer,” says Sarah. “…repeating the same formula writing… is not going to bring to the community of readers the ideas, presented with clarity and precision, that could change the world, or change one person, or make a customer for life.

Instead, Sarah argues, we should be bringing the best parts of fiction writing into the world of non-fiction: “narrative drive, characterization, and unique descriptive language.”

Craft is critical,” she says, “and so is the unique idea… What our readers deserve, and our Verblio clients, is unique and interesting ideas, presented in the most perfectly crafted ways.

As a Writer

Before she became a content writer, Sarah had been writing fiction for over a decade. She has found success as a writer, publishing work in several categories from short stories, novels, and novellas, to flash fiction and even poetry.

Sarah’s military tenure offered her the opportunity to take classes in literature and poetry and hone her writing craft. A highlight: while taking a poetry course in Patuxent River, MD, she had the opportunity to hear a poetry reading from award-winning poet Lucille Clifton.

For the past ten years, Sarah has also written gay love stories for Dreamspinner Press where she has a new novella, “War Paint” coming out this week. But fiction doesn’t exactly pay the bills. “A person could make more money selling plasma than writing fiction,” she quips.

Sarah began seeking out nonfiction writing, like at Verblio as a freelance writer, in order to lessen the isolation of being a full-time artist and also to support her creative goals. But she has found that the structure and process of researching and writing business content has also improved her creative practices in art, fiction, and poetry.

For visual art and for creative writing,” Sarah explains, “the idea is the important foundation. The idea can develop during the process of the work, but meaning is the foundation.

New ideas bubble up through Sarah’s writing and it’s almost as if projects and passions are building momentum as she types. And this potency in her own writing is, I think, well represented in her reading list (Sarah loves the Beats: “I’m crazy about Kerouac”) and her poetry preferences, too (TS Eliot, Billy Collins, & Allen Ginsberg, among others). Sarah clearly reads broadly and voraciously and says that she is especially fond of the sci-fi/fantasy genre sometimes referred to as the “New Weird” which includes writers like China Miéville and William Gibson.

Digital Work

As for current projects? Sarah recently re-opened a shop for digital art downloads on Etsy (Black and Blue Fine Art) and has been further exploring the world as seen through a lens. She says she has been “roaming around the alleyways of downtown, taking pictures of abandoned buildings.”

Here’s a snapshot from downtown Roanoke:

Thank you so much to Sarah for taking the time to send along thoughtful and beautifully written replies to my many questions. We are so thrilled to have you as part of our freelance writer community!

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Sarah Black appeared first on Verblio.

(Photo by Corey Blaz on Unsplash)

Crowd or Community?

The concept of Community with a capital “C” hasn’t been around for very long. One of the first brands to recognize the need for and power of community was one I think you’ve probably heard of: Apple’s Ellen Petry Leanse talks about building community around the brand back in 1985, when Apple was going through some tough times.

Leanse describes a moment when Apple users were excited by the products, but not receiving the support or improvements that they wanted. In response, she did something that was pretty radical at the time: she started calling users directly.

A community will hold you accountable to be the best that you can be,” she says. “…They care enough to be a thorn in your side.

Fast forward to 2018, when you won’t catch any self-respecting startup without a Community Manager. We all know it’s important to talk to our customers about what they want, but crowdsourcing offers another community that tends to get underrated. We have hundreds of writers who look at, work on, and interact with our platform every day. And there are also thousands of posts on our writer forum each month.

We know that crowdsourcing can sometimes get a bad rap (thanks, Uber…), but this isn’t just a faceless crowd. It’s a community and a highly engaged one, at that.

Why Ask for Community Feedback?

Since our founding, one of BlogMutt’s core missions as a company has been providing an adaptable and reliable income source for talented writers in a tough industry. We also have a platform that is built to support the power of relationships. A unique feature of BlogMutt is that customer feedback is completely transparent: writers can not only see each other’s work, they can also see all previous customer comments on that work.

(Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash)

TopCoder founder Jack Hughes wrote that “competing one moment and learning from one another the next is the basis of what we believe will significantly increase the pace of innovation… It is also the basis for something else; it is the basis of community.”

And like our partners at TopCoder, we also understand that this community extends to our in-house staff. How we interact with, learn from, and treat our writers directly impacts the quality of content that our customers receive.

In some ways, this is simple: if you’re a talented, experienced freelance writer looking for a new gig, we think it’s obvious that you’d rather work for a platform where staff knows your name and where they respect your ideas.

But knowing and talking to our writers isn’t just about keeping our writers happy. It’s also about building a better platform and a better customer experience. 

Here’s why:

Our writers know our platform better than anyone. For some, BlogMutt is their full time job. For others, BlogMutt fills in the gaps between high-end private clients or adds a creative outlet alongside another career. These writers know the industry, they know our customers, and they’re personally invested—some quite literally—in the success of our company.

In 2017, we launched a program to talk to as many of our writers as possible. We now host quarterly feedback sessions for the whole community, and bring together writers for focus groups on individual projects.

Through these feedback sessions, we’ve learned a lot about our community, but we’ve also learned a lot more than that. Writers have come up with ideas for how to improve our platform, our admin efficiency, and even our customer experience. Here are 4 ways that writer community feedback has helped us improve customer experiences in the recent past.

4 Ways Feedback Has Improved Customer Experiences

1. Custom post lengths

We used to offer posts in 4 word count categories: 300 words, 600 words, 900 words, and 1200 words. And while multiples of 300 offered a simple model, sometimes you just need a post that’s 750 words. Today, after some encouragement from our writers, we offer custom post lengths from 300-3000. More than 10% of new accounts have since opted for a custom length subscription.

2. Room to breathe (and use up your credits!)

If you decide to take a break from your subscription, we’ll be sad to see you go! But you can thank writers for ensuring that you have a full 30 days to use any remaining credits.

3. Improved editing

We recently released a brand new line-by-line editing tool to make it quicker and easier for you to request edits. Writers have told us over and over again that they’re happy to use your feedback to take a 4-star post to a 5-star post, if you’ll let them. Writer requests for more and clearer edit requests helped inspire this new feature.

4. Better business information

Even a great writer can struggle to create a great piece of content if they’re missing key information. Try writing a compelling email without knowing who the recipients will be. …Or writing an SEO-focused blog post without knowing the keyword you’re supposed to target.

Writers know better than anyone what they need in their toolkit to be successful. That’s why, with a little help from our community, we’ve added more ways for you to tell us about your business. Learn more here about expanded options for sharing information about your audience, your brand voice, and examples of content you’d like to emulate.

Crowdsourcing doesn’t have to be faceless: when you encourage people to participate in your company’s growth and progress, they not only understand the challenges you face, but they also become even stronger advocates for your success. Innovation requires a diversity of ideas and perspectives, and through valuing our community, we’ve fostered a crowd of 3000+ writers who we can turn to for ideas and feedback. What will they think of next?

The post Crowdsourcing Innovation: Building a Better Platform Through Community Feedback appeared first on Verblio.

Her Verblio Writer Spotlight

Check out some of Rachel’s Verblio (formerly BlogMutt) stats that earned her a writer spotlight:

• Time with Verblio: 2 years
• Total posts sold: 1404
• Top industries: Home repair & maintenance, IT & data security, business consulting
• Expertise: Behavioral economics, investing & personal finance, DIY, debate

With wide-ranging experience and an eye for organization, Rachel has become one of our go-to writers for web content and concise, well-crafted blog posts. One of Rachel’s specialties is riffing on broad topics: taking a keyword and make it into a series of catchy, fascinating SEO-focused articles that you won’t be able to resist.

One client asked for a series of short posts about “irrigation systems” and here are some of the topics that she created from that two-word request:

• Top reasons why you should have a professional check your future property’s irrigation system before you buy
• Reduce your maintenance costs with a new irrigation system
• Save your landscaping with these two irrigation design elements
• 2 ways to integrate irrigation systems into your neighborhood construction

Rachel is also one of our ever-growing team of HubSpot-certified writers, and she is particularly talented at crafting short, punchy web copy.

Unlike long-form blog posts, the content that appears on your website isn’t about diving into all of the details; it’s about catching a customer’s eye, creating a sense of trust and authority, and most importantly: conveying a great deal of information in a relatively small number of words. You probably know what you need to say on your website, but you need someone to help you say it right.

Her Specialties

That’s where Rachel comes in. Here are just a couple of the specialties for which she has crafted top-notch web copy and earned a writer spotlight:

• Sprinkler winterization
• Animal control
• Pool heater installation
• Fire damage restoration

Rachel writes a great deal now for the home repair and home maintenance industries, but she wasn’t always an expert in those fields:

I like writing about home maintenance clients because, for a long time, it was something I knew nothing about. There was a big difference between being able to follow someone’s explanation enough to understand a problem and knowing the parts and systems well enough to troubleshoot the problem myself.

Now that Rachel has become a DIY guru, her writing projects sometimes inspire repairs and upgrades to her own home. She has published over 500 articles in the home maintenance industry on Verblio alone.

She likes educating and empowering others to feel like they can make smart choices about their properties:

If I can write articles that help people better understand what’s rumbling in their house,” she says, “that’s a great way to spend time.

When She’s Not Writing for Verblio

Though freelance writing is now her main gig, Rachel also has a certificate in teaching and experience in corporate law. She writes content about topics from business consulting to data security and even investment strategies. Need a blog post about how to form a company inside your 401(k) or whether you can reduce your tax bill by rolling over your IRA? Rachel’s got you covered.

Outside of her writing career, Rachel is also passionate about debate. She judges high school debate tournaments on the weekends with topics ranging from philosophy to current events and public policy. She’s also extremely well-read and spends her free time —at least when she’s not out for a hike with her husband and adorable pup—listening to podcasts about retirement investment strategies and behavioral economics.

Thank you so much to Rachel, this April’s writer spotlight, for being an awesome addition to the Verblio community!

The post Verblio (Formerly BlogMutt) Freelance Writer Spotlight: Rachel Denney appeared first on Verblio.

Here’s a quick snapshot of Marc’s Verblio stats:

• Time with Verblio: 4 years
• Total posts sold: 2575
• Top industries: Legal, Insurance
• Expertise: Mechanical engineering, manufacturing, physics, rock climbing

This month, Marc is beginning his 4th year with Verblio and in that time he has sold over 2,500 blog posts with an acceptance rate of about 99%. He’s also a “preferred writer” for 16 different subscriptions.

Many of his posts are in the legal and insurance industries, but he also works on topics from data security to home repair and maintenance. Here are just a couple of the topics that he has taken on recently:

• Why you should use an ERP (not just spreadsheets) when scaling your company
• How cyber crime techniques are used in cargo theft
• Limitations of all-wheel drive vehicles in snowy conditions
• How miscommunication caused two different space probe disasters

Many of Marc’s posts fall on the more technical end of the spectrum, which makes sense given that he has an extensive background (and a Master’s degree) in mechanical engineering, as well as a PhD in physics.

He says that he started out working as a mechanical engineer, designing pneumatic controls for industrial machines before going on to earn his higher degrees.

Here’s how he described his pre-Verblio career(s):

I worked with a small start-up company for ten years. I did engineering analysis, design, testing, and field installations of a new type of powder injection system for manufacturing operations…

I’ve worked in some pretty harsh manufacturing environments. I had a summer internship at a foundry that made multi-ton castings. It was a kind of Hades on Earth with soot everywhere and holes in the floor where molten castings were cooling off. There was incessant overhead activity where big gantry cranes moved giant castings around.

And that wasn’t Marc’s only job in a tough and chaotic environment. He also has experience “[troubleshooting] control systems in cement manufacturing plants with intense noise, vibration, and cement dust floating everywhere.” It’s not only challenging just to be in a place like that all day long, but, as Marc says, “The work required clear analytical thinking in the midst of a very busy and harsh environment.”

Perhaps Marc’s ability to focus and think in tough climates comes from another passion of his: rock climbing. Although non-climbers may be surprised by this, rock climbing is an intensely analytical sport. It’s not just about physical strength, but also requires extreme mental focus and extensive knowledge of the equipment (and its limitations).

After his first foray into mechanical engineering, Marc took several years off to grow as a climber. “For almost two decades,” he says, “I was an absolute rock climbing fanatic.” He has climbed all over the country from the Shawangunks (“the Gunks”) in upstate New York to the iconic Yosemite Valley granite in California. Marc’s passion for climbing was unmistakable as he explained it to me:

Nothing else I’ve done before or since has come close to energizing me to the same extent that rock climbing did… I’ve done lots of roped climbing with partners but also did a substantial amount of solo rock climbing without a rope up cliffs hundreds of feet off the ground… I’ve also done a lot of night rock climbing for the fun of it. These experiences gave me a kind of otherworldly feeling that was intensely satisfying.

Eventually, Marc quit climbing after some close calls, including a harrowing moment soloing (ropeless) on overhung terrain 80 feet off the ground.

An old climbing magazine article aptly stated: ‘just because you can climb 5.11 or 5.12 doesn’t mean you can fly.’

Though he doesn’t free solo anymore, Marc still spends a lot of time outdoors. He cross-country skis in the backcountry, snowshoes, and says he loves to go bushwhacking (hiking off trail), using the sun and his GPS watch to navigate. He also says that in spite of living in a largely rural area, “I get a kick out of using my car as little as possible.”

For 3 and a half years, Marc has carried his groceries—25-30 pounds of food—4.5 miles home from the grocery store on foot.

Our customers often ask us about a writer’s career experiences, but Marc really embodies something that I’ve always had a hard time explaining: a writer’s on-paper experience doesn’t always give you a complete picture of their range and talent. Passion can be as powerful as professional experience, and often creates more compelling content.

Marc’s resume may tell you that he’s a technical writer, but beyond his degrees and years of experience in engineering, Marc also plays (and composes music for) piano and reads extensively about the space program. I suspect that he could write a climbing manual or two.

Here’s a list of some of the diverse topics that Marc is knowledgeable about:

• Engineering & manufacturing
• Physics
• Rock climbing
• Piano & composition
• Space
• Skiing & backcountry travel
• Historical figures, especially mathematicians & explorers

For fun, I asked Marc about the strangest trivia facts that he has learned from being a Verblio writer. Right away, he said that the most niche topic he has covered is “the worst items to flush down a toilet,” but while writing for a pawn shop, he also happened upon a pretty amazing space trivia fact: Did you know that “the atmospheric conditions on Uranus and Neptune allow for storms that rain diamonds out of the sky”?! 

Thank you so much to Marc for telling us about his life and experiences! If you’re hoping to work with experienced, talented freelance writers like Marc, reach out. We’d love to learn more about your business and to help you create great content to drive sales and growth.

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Marc S. appeared first on Verblio.

The first question you should ask, before requesting their best British English samples, is how they plan to deliver content writing that speaks to your audience including:

• Proper spelling and grammar in your preferred English
• Links and resources that look familiar to readers in your country
• Appropriate technical and industry standards for your audience
• SEO keywords that target your potential leads, whether they are local, regional, or even international

Just about any service can offer you a sample post, but not every option will have thought through your experience of the content writing creation process. Below, we provide a list of some of the specific questions you should ask when working with a company “across the pond” and explain how Verblio (formerly BlogMutt) (as one of those companies) has changed our platform to make this process easier for international accounts.

First off, let’s chat about the “British English” elephant in the room…

Why?!

Why would an American company with U.S.-based writers even try to create content in British English?

There are a lot of reasons but two main incentives are based on a company’s specific expertise and the cost of labor in the U.S. vs. other countries. Outsourcing content is already less expensive overall than hiring an in-house content team, and when you can access markets with lower labor costs, your overhead becomes even lower (while still allowing you to set prices accordingly). The market expertise piece is a bit less black and white, but each content service has a different specialty—you may not be able to find the perfect partner in smaller markets around the world and the U.S. offers not only a massive workforce, but also a huge marketplace where you can find an array of content options with, at the very least, an international mindset.

Think about it this way: Verblio is a unique crowd- and subscription-based content writing service that focuses on providing top-notch writing for SEO. Just like in the U.S., businesses, and agencies in the UK, Australia, and Canada are seeking to improve their Google rankings AND lower their overall content production costs. Our expertise—and our writers’ expertise—goes way beyond just spelling and grammar (although I’ll explain how we handle that part later).

We’re able to provide international customers with professional, crowdsourced content on a platform that caters to content marketers and agencies, generally at a lower cost than can be found abroad.

To put it simply, we’ve seen a lot of demand for SEO and content marketing expertise and we think we’re better prepared to handle results-driven content creation for agencies better than anyone else in the world. That’s a pretty good incentive to dive into our platform and optimize it for customers like you.

But how could an American content writing possibly deliver great content for my audience?

Not every American service will be able to handle content for agencies operating in other countries. In order to determine whether they can create content optimized for your unique audience, here are 6 important questions that you should ask their sales team:

1. Do you have experience working across international borders?

If the company has had experience with other businesses in your country, they should be able to give you an example of a case study or put you in touch with another client who can give a reference. Previous experience doesn’t guarantee success, but it usually means that the company may have more resources for international clients and clients who serve global audiences.

2. What types of English do you support?

A lot of services offer only one, or maybe two settings: American English and/or British English. This may seem trivial if you only work in the UK or U.S., but if you’re in Australia or South Africa, you may find that neither of those categories really fits your needs.

Ask the company if they support your specific variety of English. If you work with clients in other countries in your own business, check to make sure that you can select different settings for your individual clients, too. This ensures that writers use the correct vocabulary, idioms, and even colloquialisms if you’re seeking a more casual, approachable tone.

After all, an Australian audience may not find a reference to a “gas station” familiar (it’s a “petrol station” or “servo” there) and a casual-sounding post in Canada should probably refer to a knit cap as a “toque“.

A pug in a toque! (Photo by Charles Deluvio via Unsplash)

These things may seem trivial, but mistakes can really make your content seem off-brand: think of the gaffe that would result if you referred to “football” (UK) as “soccer” (U.S. and Australia) or worse, mixed it up with Australia’s favorite sport, “footy” (which is actually rugby).

That’s how you end up at the bottom of the pile…

Verblio offers customers 6 different English selections: American, British, Canadian, Australian, South African, and New Zealand English. For each subscription (or client) that you add, you can select a different variety to communicate to our writers and ensure your clients are only receiving content in their own English.

3. How do you ensure that writers use the proper spelling and grammar?

Once you’re sure that you can select the type of English that you want, you’ll also need to learn more about how the content writing service delivers on this promise. Do they use specific editing software for different types of English? Do they have a QA protocol in place?

Look for a service that offers their writers resources for perfecting their content to your specifications and whose editors understand your needs. And maybe even more importantly: make sure that the service you choose won’t charge you if their writers make mistakes or deliver content that requires editing.

You’ll also want to make sure that your content writing provider understands that the differences between American and British English go way beyond just adding a “u” in “colour” or using an “s” in “realise” instead of a “z”.

In American English, for example, we require that commas stay inside quotation marks, while British English dictates that a comma belongs outside. The British also use different prepositions than Americans in certain cases, using “at this time of year,” for example, instead of “during this time of year” (U.S.), and “in Maple Street” (UK) rather than “on Maple Street” (U.S.).

As Verblio’s Head of Writers, this is a challenge that I’ve had to overcome as we’ve grown to become a more global company and I’ve developed several strategies for ensuring that our international customers are receiving content that’s just as polished as what we deliver domestically.

Here are 5 ways we ensure that your final product is publish-ready:

• As soon as a writer visits your page, they see a message alerting them about the specific variety of English that you use.

• We require that writers use an external editing software to double check every post before they submit it to your queue, along with verifying that they have proofread the post independently.
• We curate resources for our writers to learn about writing in other varieties of English so they can become familiar with regional spellings as well as grammar and style differences.
• See something that’s not quite right? We offer unlimited rounds of edits, so that our writer can make sure that your audience sees content that you’ve personally approved.
• Did you receive a post that’s just not a good fit? Well, that shouldn’t happen too often, but if it does, you are not obligated to purchase the post. Simply decline the post, explain why it was not a good fit for your audience, and we’ll work on getting you a better piece of content. Declining posts is a healthy component of the Verblio ecosystem.

In addition to these 5 safeguards, we also have an extensive QA system both to vet writers as they enter our system and to ensure that only top-notch writers succeed within our platform. If you find a writer who you love, you can also mark them as “preferred“, which invites them to write for you again and again.

4. Can you show me some samples of content writing in the right type of English?

Be sure to check out some of the content that each service has created in the past. You shouldn’t rely on this as your only source of information about the content available, but it is still an important step.

Does the writer use the proper spellings, technical terminology, and grammar? Ask about whether the writer is representative of their larger pool.

5. How do you ensure that the content and resources used are relevant to my audience?

This is probably the most important question that you will ask any content service, so be sure that they give you a good answer.

First and foremost, you should seek out a service (no matter where you are in the world) who takes the time to get to know your business. No writer will be able to create great content for you without knowing some important things about your business such as:

• Your audience and/or customer persona(s)
• Your brand voice & personality
• Your content marketing & SEO goals
• Keywords that you’re hoping to target, topics you’d like to write about, etc.

Since you may be a unique customer for an American service, you should expect them to take extra time to ensure that their writers understand what you need.

The above categories apply to pretty much everyone, but for agencies working overseas, here are some specific options to ask about:

• Can their writers use industry/technical standards specific to your country?
• Will writers exclusively use resources from Australian/British/Canadian sites?
• If I have hyperlocal or specific information to share, how will I be able to convey that to my writer(s)?

At Verblio, we do our best to provide a flexible system. Our basic content plans offer you the ability to choose all your own keywords and topics, request that writers use resources from your country exclusively, and give you ample opportunities to share everything writers will need to know about your business. You can even specify competitor sites that you want to avoid linking to or prestigious sources that represent authorities in your local or industry content space.

We also use a transparent system, so you won’t have to tell our writers anything twice. If a writer uses a term incorrectly and you let them know about it, all of our writers can see that feedback, so they’ll be sure to use the term correctly in developing future content for you.

That way, our system gets smarter over time, so the longer you’re with us, the better we’re able to serve your needs.

6. What other resources do you offer to help international clients use your service effectively?

Beyond the content itself, I recommend asking about other types of services created specifically with international customers in mind. Here are some examples of services that you might want to look for:

• Content scheduling in your timezone
• Images relevant to your (or your clients’) needs
• Optimization for your keywords
• Managed services at convenient times
• Payment options beyond credit cards

Right now, Verblio has customers in over 25 different countries. We work closely with these accounts to constantly improve our site and experience for international customers.

We allow our customers to schedule content for purchase and publishing in their own time zones, select different settings for their individual clients, and six different types of English to ensure that our customers get content ready to be published, no matter where they come from. We also offer payments via PayPal to ensure safe, secure transactions.

No matter where you come from, we’d love to hear from you about the most important features you look for in a content writing service. Have you worked with an American content writing service for clients in the UK, Australia, Canada, or another country? Tell us about your experiences with content writing!

And if you’re ready to outsource your content, connect to our sales team and ask how we can create great content writing for you and your clients, wherever you are in the world.

The post Questions for an American Content Writing Service: A Guide for British, Australian, & Canadian Agencies appeared first on Verblio.

When Wendy Little first came to Verblio in 2013, she says that she was quite nervous about submitting her first few posts. Five years later, she has submitted over 450 pieces of content and maintains an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars. In fact, 95% of her rated posts have received a 4- or 5-star rating!

Wendy has found something of a surprising niche here at Verblio—she is a master at taking a topic that’s been written about many times and creating something that’s fun, fresh, and personalized. Trying to break into the competitive world of advice for new moms? Fitness apps? Pet care? You’re certain to come up against some heavy competition, so your content and your brand need to truly stand out.

Wendy says her main goal is not just to write facts about what she knows, but to, “always, to the best of my ability, give the clients what they’re looking for”.

And Her Reviews Speak for Themselves:

Only you understand exactly the content and style we need in these reviews!   -Fitness Tracking Industry, Content Manager

This is absolutely wonderful!!! I have no edits to request. The tone is “expert”, yet fun and you go into great depth in a very interesting way. I felt like it was what I would say, but better…-Dog Walking Service, Owner

Life at Verblio for Wendy Little

Here are some of the types of topics that Wendy has brought to life:

• “Gear Up for a Healthier You with the Newest Samsung Fitness Devices”
• “Messaging Apps That Teens Love (And Parents Should Be Aware Of)”
• “The Best New Smart Home Technology of 2017”
• “The Simple, Quick Way to Replace Your Vacuum Cleaner Belt”
• “5 Great Celebrities Who Made Terrible Superheroes”

Superheroes, you say?

Well, it turns out that with 3,000+ writers, we have experts on just about everything. And just about every writer has some surprising expertise. In addition to being a skilled writer, Wendy is also a movie buff who loves superhero, sci-fi, and fantasy films. Her favorite superheroes are Superman, Captain America, The Flash, Thor, and Supergirl. She’s also an unabashed Star Wars and Star Trek geek.

Other Areas of Expertise

Beyond the entertainment industry, Wendy also happens to have some personal experience and expertise in topics related to visual impairment and accessibility. She was born with visual impairment and congenital cataracts and later diagnosed with congenital glaucoma.

Wendy has overcome some pretty serious hurdles to become a professional freelance writer, including seven eye surgeries in the last 10 years or so. She’s brought a great deal of sensitivity and understanding from her own experiences to content that helps other people overcome their own hurdles, writing posts about assistance for injured veterans and service animals for conditions like diabetes and epilepsy. As an adult, Wendy learned to read and write uncontracted braille through The Hadley School for the Blind “just for the fun of it”.

Outside of Verblio

Outside of Verblio, Wendy spends a lot of time reading, hanging out with her two precious kitties, and watching movies with her husband, whose smoked culinary creations are apparently to die for. She’s currently 10 books into Terry Goodkind’s 17-book series, The Sword of Truth. I asked her for a brief review in case anyone was in need of some new reading material:

It’s a 17-book sci-fi/fantasy series that has everything you could possibly want: wizards, witches, magic, love stories, battles, good, evil, mythical creatures, Mord Siths….”Wait, what’s a Mord Sith?” you ask. I can’t tell you, it’s a secret; a secret that can only be revealed if you read the books. I haven’t finished listening to the series yet, but what I’ve read so far is fantastic and I highly recommend it—it has something for everyone.

Her Writing Life

Wendy discovered her love of writing as a young girl, when other kids were doing their best to avoid their English homework. She took a correspondence writing course in high school to learn about writing short stories for children. After some discouraging rejections, Wendy took a hiatus from personal writing projects—the writing world can be quite brutal for a young person.

However, Wendy continued to write professionally. After struggling to find work due to discrimination related to her visual impairment, Wendy found a position and excelled as a Desktop Publishing Officer, or DPO, proofreading, finalizing, and designing graphics for tech manuals for GE and the U.S. Air Force. Most people might be intimidated by that type of technical material, but Wendy enjoyed it immensely: “It could be complicated with all those paragraph, sub-paragraph, and sub-sub-paragraph numbers,” she said, “but it was a lot of fun!”

After she was married in 2000, Wendy began to submit her poetry to some online publications, where she finally began to have some success. She found Verblio and, with some “prodding” (as she puts it) from another writer, began to submit short posts on our site. Since then Wendy has become a core member of our community, and has gained a reputation for her incredibly positive presence on our forum, where she continues to encourage and support new writers as they begin their freelancing journeys.

Here’s advice from Wendy Little for new members of the Verblio community:

For writers: Never give up… always proofread your work. Oh, and don’t forget to have fun writing!

For customers: Be cordial… You will catch more flies with honey. [And] be specific in what you want us to write; the more details you provide, the better your post will be.

Thanks so much to Wendy Little for years of hard work and dedication. We couldn’t be happier to have you as part of our community, and we hope to work with you for many years to come!

The post Verblio Freelance Writer Spotlight: Wendy Little appeared first on Verblio.