Anya Weber is a copywriter based in Boston. She is @anyaweber on Twitter.

After ten months of intensive hunting, I finally found a job! Lots of people I know are still searching, but a couple of others got hired recently as well—so maybe the economy is finally starting to thaw.

My job search was enlivened by tons of online tips, advice, and (mis)information. Everyone has an opinion about job-hunting, and their ideas spread from blog to tweet to NYT article to Facebook status. What follows is my attempt to separate the pearls of wisdom from—well, the poop. Or let’s say poppycock, for the sake of elegance.

The Internet Says: There is no such thing as a full-time job any more. In the future, we will all be freelancers, contractors, and part-timers, and most of us will be working from home.

Pearl or Poppycock? Poppycock. I can only speak for my own search and my own profession (copywriting and editing), but of the 13 jobs I interviewed for, 10 were full-time positions, in house at a company, school, or other organization.

Nugget of Truth: The job model in which you stay at one job for your entire career has gone away. So we’re all more likely to have a series of jobs than one job. But from what I’ve seen, that series can still consist of full-time, in-house positions.

Job Hunt Takeaway: Yes, it’s easier than ever before to be a freelancer (though that career path holds its own challenges). But there are also full-time positions up for grabs. So if that’s what you’re looking for, don’t let the freelance-slanted chatter get you down.

The Internet Says: Interviews are rarely landed through applying online. You’ll probably only get a job through networking.

Pearl or Poppycock?Poppycock. Of my 13 interviews, I only had connections at three places. All the rest came from postings that I saw online, and I applied not knowing anyone affiliated with those companies (this includes the place that offered me my new position)

Nugget of Truth: Networking is powerful. But its real plus side isn’t that you’ll meet people who’ll offer you a job (though you may). It’s that you’ll access the wisdom of colleagues in your field, and strengthen your ties to your professional community.

Job Hunt Takeaway: Don’t feel guilty or stupid for applying for jobs online. It works. That’s why companies keep posting ‘em.

The Internet Says: Volunteer while you’re job-hunting. It will keep your resume fresh and current, and help you make connections and build new skills.

Pearl or Poppycock? Pearl. There are tons of ways to volunteer, including doing pro-bono consulting in your chosen area.

 In my case, I spent a couple of months doing resume reviews at a career center. This reminded me how fortunate I was: a lot of my clients there had a criminal record, were living in homeless shelters, had learning disabilities, or were non-native English speakers. Seeing them persist in their job-hunts really caffeinated my own.

 I also offered copywriting services for free to small startups and to nonprofits. This pro-bono work introduced me to some wonderful folks and helped me build a marketing-writing portfolio—something I’d never had before.

 Job Hunt Takeaway: Working for free is a fabulous way to get beyond the newbie phase if you’re changing careers, or just to keep yourself fresh and up-to-date on industry trends. It can also help alleviate some of the stress and depression that are so common during unemployment.

What do the rest of you job-hunters think? What are some of the most egregious online myths you’ve come across during your search? What pieces of advice have been most useful?

Sahag Gureghian is a writer and teacher from Los Angeles, Ca. For writing prompts and inspiration, visit his blog at http://bloggersville.wordpress.com/ or follow his twitter @Bloggersville.

Being a writer requires time, patience, determination and skill. While the determination and skill are usually easy to come by, the time and patience can be the downfall of most writers. There are rarely enough hours in the day to get our responsibilities taken care of, let alone to make extra time for writing. For most of us, that will always be a struggle. With friends and family, work and a social life all vying for our attention, it takes willpower to make a writing schedule and stick to it. While there is no easy fix, a writer can do plenty of little things to find the time and get those words on the page.

1. Make a Writing Schedule

Planning a schedule and sticking to it is essential for all writers. If you work full-time, it may actually be easier to establish a regular time each day in which to write. Find a time that fits into your schedule, perhaps early in the morning or right before bed. Make sure to write during this time, and avoid disturbances like email, phone or Internet. This schedule may evolve as your life changes, but make that time count, as you would with any job. Don’t let your busy schedule stop you, because a lot of quality writing can be done in a short amount of time, if you stay focused and motivated.

2. Set Goals

 I can’t stress the importance of this. Having goals is key. I’ve found writing my goals down really helps me stay focused. Whenever I get distracted, I read my goals and am reminded of what I am trying to do and why.

3. Carry a small notebook everywhere

Having a small notebook or notepad with you wherever you go ensures that when inspiration strikes, you’ll be able to take advantage of it. Jotting down a title, word, sentence or phrase that pops up at the most unlikely place can motivate you to revisit the idea later, and turn a simple thought into a complete piece of work.

4. Let “no” become your favorite word

A social life is important, but sometimes, we can let ‘fun’ get in the way of our writing. Time is limited, and we should take advantage of it when we can. While your writing time should not be the most important thing in your life, it should be sacrificed only for the most crucial things. Meeting a group of friends at the bar, for example, should not take away from your writing, especially if it is a frequent thing. A family birthday or gathering, however, can be an exception. You might disappoint some people, but they’ll get over it. In fact, it might influence them to spend time doing what they love too.

5. Take a writing class or join a writer’s group

Taking a writing class or joining a writer’s group is a good way to help you stick to a schedule and keep writing. A group or a class can force writers to submit their writing on a regular basis and receive feedback. Plus, there is the added benefit of forming a writing community, connecting with other writers and discussing ideas.

You can either start a writer’s group with friends, or advertise for one in the local paper or at the nearby community college. This group can act as support when you get stuck.

There are also online writing courses available through the extended learning programs of many universities.

UCLA Extension has a great writer’s program (uclaextension.com) - but for a cheaper and more fast-paced alternative, try the writing classes through National University extension (nu.edu).

Mediabistro also has a list of classes that can help motivate writers (www.mediabistro.com/courses).

6. Create a Writer's Space

Every writer needs their own personal space to get motivated and start writing. Choose a writing space that is as far from the noise of family life as possible because they’ll do nothing but distract. Make the space your own, and feel comfortable in it. Keep it as messy or clean as you want, as noisy or dark as you want. All you really need is that desk and writing chair, and the 'Do not disturb' sign on the door. Having a space to write in will make your productivity skyrocket.

7. Treat Yourself

When you meet your goals, give yourself a reward. A movie from Blockbuster, a new CD from Amazon, a Starbucks latte or Baskin Robbins sundae can help you feel good about getting your writing done. Give yourself an incentive to write and you will write more.

So, what are you waiting for? Write on!

- The Accidental Blogger

Daedalus Howell creates media in Sonoma, CA. He blogs at www.DHowell.com. Follow him on Twitter at @dhowellcom

James Joyce, it is said, became so disgruntled while drafting his first novel that he threw it on the fire. His girlfriend rescued the work-in-progress from the flames, and the subsequent rewrite became A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Such acts of literary self-immolation and redemption could only occur in our once-analog world, when the permanence of erasure moved only as fast as fire. These days, the irreversible deletion of one's work is a mere keystroke away.

That said, it seems would-be authors are more apt to hit the "publish" key on their blogs than the "delete" key on their magnum opus. Future literary historians will decide whether this has been a positive trend for the world of letters. Of the 100 million–plus blogs in existence, it's unclear how many purport to be literature, let alone how many actually are. Nevertheless, entire industries have arisen to support the notion one's blog could be a book, turning aspirants into authors with a click and credit card—at least for now.

Print-on-demand services like San Francisco–based Blurb will print the next Joyce a "Blog Book" for a percentage of that book's sale to the author or his readers, in as many or as few copies as desired. Blurb has even automated the process with a program that "slurps" a blog's content from its online habitué and excretes it in the shape of a book when ordered online. Likewise, online retail juggernaut Amazon provides a similar service, CreateSpace, an on-demand clearinghouse for everything DIY, from books to DVDs. It is a micro-mogul's mecca for the manufacture of media.

Now print-on-demand might prove to be a transitional technology the same way DVDs are giving way to digital downloads. Amazon claims 35 percent of its book sales are downloads for its Kindle "wireless reading device." In March, cult brand Apple will overshoot the electronic book fray with the iPad, which aggregates print, video and music enjoyment into a single, sexy device.

Be assured, publishers and independent authors alike are readying their wares for Apple's latest game-changer, which is an overgrown iPhone sans telephony. But who wants to take a call while in the thrall of a warm, glowing piece of technology anyway? It's like a vibrator for the mind, and a throng of independent content producers hopes to get you off.

In the olden days of digital reading, circa 2000, premium content was scarce. Beyond being deskbound, the only texts available seemed to be classics poached from the public domain, Joyce included. Occasional experiments in electronic-book marketing came and went, with business ebooks and white papers seeming most prevalent. The transformation of print-to-pixel was a trickle with publishers wary or unsure of the medium, though pixel-to-print releases were garnering wider appeal and stoking dreams of digital discovery for thousands of would-be authors (blog-borne Julie/Julia is a popular example). Publisher HarperCollins even created Authonomy, an online authors community from which it occasionally cherry-picks and publishes material vetted by the crowd.

Now, however, it seems a new type of author is poised to emerge, one tailored to the new medium literally at hand, whose work will bypass traditional publishers and appear in the iTunes store, forsaking the bookshelf entirely. Pictures in printed books must have once been a novelty—moving pictures embedded in the text of your iPad is an inevitability, not to mention audio, three-dimensional maps, animated sidebars and other electronic illuminations. How will this amplify or diminish storytelling as we know it? A fear is that mutant transmedia hybrids might obviate established forms or at least leave them marginalized in the market in which a bestseller and killer app are one and the same.

What seems most uncertain is whether how we read will affect how we write. This will have to be determined in the field, for not even a visionary such as Joyce could have anticipated someone cuddling up with his words "In the silence their dark fire kindled the dusk into a tawny glow" from the glow of a tawny Kindle.

Anya Weber is a marketing writer based in Boston. She is @anyaweber on Twitter.

I used to work in educational publishing. Then I was unemployed. Now I’m a freelance marketing writer looking for a full-time job.

So, am I a professional?

This question used to come up a lot when I worked in theatre. If an actor makes $500 over the course of three months on a show, and waits tables to make ends meet, is she a professional actor? If a novelist pays for his writing time by teaching karate 30 hours a week, is he a professional writer?

Being a professional isn’t just about what we get paid to do (although that is a contributing factor). It’s about how we describe ourselves to others, and to ourselves: our internal and external elevator pitch.

At around the six-month mark after losing my job, I realized that I’d started branding myself as an unemployed person. That was starting to feel depressing. So I repositioned myself in my own mind.

I started doing pro-bono freelance copywriting to build my portfolio. At parties, when people asked me what I did, I started answering, “I’m a marketing writer.” Even though copywriting wasn’t paying for my life (and still isn’t), answering the question that way made a big difference to my mental health.  

It’s intimidating to change how you label yourself, especially if the new label is aspirational: something that you want to be, rather than something you already are.

Oddly, the only way to get successful at a new activity is through optimistic self-labeling: telling the world that you’re already doing the thing you want to do. Ever since I started defining myself as a marketing writer, I’ve been getting lots more copywriting work—still mostly unpaid, but the paid gigs are starting to pop up as well.

What do you think? How do you know when you’re a professional? And how much do we control that from the inside?

Sonoma-based micro-mogul Daedalus Howell blogs at DHowell.com. His columns appear in the Sonoma Index-Tribune and the North Bay Bohemian; his video work has aired on Showtime Next, MTV2, MTV Italia, HBO Cesk Republika, BiteTV, IFC and Canal+. 

No sooner has popular culture digested the term “Web 2.0” than the ante is upped by the next generation of the World Wide Web. Behold, “Web 3.0.”

Um, yeah. This unfortunate protologism, doomed to eternal comparison to its pithy predecessor, proves the adage that “Good technologists borrow, great technologists steal and then add 1.”

Also known as the “semantic web,” Web 3.0 presently has several working definitions, the most salient of which seems to be web godfather Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s suggestion that a semantic web will enable “the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives” and “machines talking to machines.” Meaning, data presented on the web and necessarily meant to be interpreted by humans, but inscrutable to machines, will soon become scrutable.

Though the notion of machines talking to each other about one’s web queries, sundry database entries and general arcane of our digital lives, might lead to a more expeditious online experience, it may also foment a paranoia of the sort described in a Philip K. Dick novel. Especially if the machines are chatty and gossip-prone.

Interestingly, the semantic web’s etymological ancestor, Web 2.0, was coined by Sonoma County’s own Tim O’Reilly, the open-source maven, publisher and founder of O’Reilly Media based in Sebastopol. O’Reilly chose the term to describe the emergence of post-crash web-based businesses and the commonalities they share (social, collaborative, no Fusbol game in the foyer) as the raison d’etre for a conference.

“Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as ‘Web 2.0’ might make sense?” O’Reilly wrote in 2005 post entitled What is Web 2.0 archived on OReilly.com. “We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.” So too was born an infectious meme that has seen the “2.0” appliqué on everything from healthcare reform to sex (incidentally, the Sex 2.0 conference, explores the “intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality” returns to Seattle this May).

In the half-decade since O’Reilly’s coinage, culture has undergone something of a digital renaissance (think Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter) and his Web 2.0 Conference is now the annual Web 2.0 Summit. So, how is it then that New York-based Mediabistro, a trade group that bills itself as “the premier content, career, and community resource for media professionals” came to host the so-called Web 3.0 Conference last week? Clearly, something has gotten out of sequence. That is, unless Web 3.0 involves time travel and paid us a visit here in the present to show us the future with a stack of PowerPoint slides. Gimmicky, sure, but revealing nevertheless – about half of the seminars and presentations were presented by marketers about leveraging the semantic web, which some hope will emulate a kind of artificial intelligence, to target consumers. “Ka-ching 3.0” might have been a more apt title for the conference (better lock that in – the KaChing Button, an iPhone app that makes a cash register sound for the currency of your choice, is already up to version 1.0.3).

Given the Sonoma provenance of Web 2.0, it was somehow apropos that its unrelated pseudo-sequel was held at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, where the conference rooms are dubbed “Sonoma,” “Napa” and “Mendocino.” Adorning the walls are tilt-shift prints, photo-collages and other digitally-produced eye-candy designed to evoke a Silicon Valley aesthetic, despite its wine country pretensions. And wherefore Wine 2.0? That conference happened in New York last November.

In the coming years perhaps we will experience Web 4.0, which will find its comeuppance when Webs 2.0 and 3.0 join forces and become Web 5.0. Web 4.0 will respond by rehabbing Web 1.0 out of its post-bust stupor (so-named the way the Great War became World War I) and attempt to beat Web 5.0 at it’s own game. An accord will ensue and all parties will reform together as simply The Web – at which point it will become sentient and enslave us all. You know, if it hasn’t already.

Melissa Breau is a freelance writer and editor specializing in business content. Check out her blog at http://www.jargonwriter.wordpress.com.

While working on my undergraduate degree I spent a semester doing an independent study, creating articles and pitching to magazines in a hope to get published. Below are some of the books I found helpful, and a short description of each of the books. This is an old blog post.

Books I've come back to again and again:

Get A Freelance Life, by Margit Feury Ragland, and endorsed by Mediabistro.com, with a forward by Media Bistro founder Laurel Touby.

This is probably one of my favorite books on freelancing. It discusses all the major questions a freelancer faces, and provides simple, understandable answers. The final section of the book is how to deal with the business end of being a freelancer - something many people forget IS part of being self-employed. It has all sorts of helpful lists, including a list of websites freelancers can use, a section on contracts, what to do, what NOT to do ... it covers everything from how to write your first pitch to how to negotiate the best kind of contracts. I've read it cover to cover, and have pages highlighted, dog-eared, and have post-it tabs sticking out the top. I highly recommend this one.

Starting Your Career As a Freelance Writer, by Moira Anderson Allen

This book has a tone that is a little more formal. However, it is also a great source for information. It deals with some of the inner questions we writers ask ourselves, those things we are too embarrassed to ask others, and those technical questions we need to know but don't want to ask. It breaks down types of articles, and gives tips on how to generate new ideas when you think you're dry. It talks about how to find a unique slant. Again, we have how to write a query letter. This book has a much more detailed contracts section (detailed, in that it's much longer) and even goes into doing your taxes. It's a good book to pick up if your already writing freelance, and you want to expand or become better at it. It's a little less about just starting out, but I found it helpful and informative (and I'm just starting out). Again, a good book.

The Renegade Writer, by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell

This was a book I was really excited to buy, but that disappointed me. It's written by two successful women writers, but it's a bit too chatty for my tastes. I still haven't managed to finish it. The books about, as the title suggests, how to be different and stand out in ways that will help you succeed. It gives a lot of examples and tells the stories of many different people who have followed it and succeeded - but it works a little too hard to sell itself.

The Forest for the Trees, by Betsy Lerner

This book is from an editors point of view, and she discusses writing and writers. It's much more a story style, without much how-to. I'm somewhere in the middle of this book - it's not something you can't put down, but it's an easy and enjoyable read. I find it interesting because I'm trying to go into editing. Witty, and interesting, but not a must-have.

Woe is I, by Patricia T. O'Conner

The self-proclaimed "grammarphobe's guide," this book is the best grammar text book I have ever read. I highly recommend it, and I have insisted several of my friends buy it, and bought a copy for my brother who is a science/math person, starting college in the fall. It is a friendly and fun guide to grammar. I never thought grammar could be interesting until this book - I'm being repetitive but I hope it's getting the point across. If you have any doubts look at the "contents" page. With chapters entitled, "Yours Truly: The Possessives and the Possessed," "They Beg to Disagree: Putting Verbs in Their Place," "Comma Sutra: The Joy of Punctuation," and others, you can understand my enthusiasm. I had to buy this for a class, and ended up absolutely loving it.

Anya Weber is @anyaweber on Twitter. She lives in Boston.

No one is more awesome at harnessing the still-mysterious power of Twitter than musician Amanda Palmer.

Sure, Ashton Kutcher has more followers. As I write this, 358,483 people are following @amandapalmer, while Kutcher (@aplusk) has about four million more than that. But even though Kutcher’s playing to a bigger crowd, I’m not sure he’s seen the results Palmer has.

I’m not getting paid to promote Palmer here. I’ve never met her, and haven’t heard much of her music (either with her band the Dresden Dolls or her solo material). But I am a huge admirer of how she uses Twitter to connect and grow her fan base, to make herself money, and generally to have a blast. We can’t all be rock stars, but we can all learn a lot from Palmer about effective tweetage.

1. Sing, don’t tweet. It’s hard to create an original voice, especially in only 140 characters. Even the words Twitter and tweet are shrill and silly, positioning Twitter users as a treeful of discombobulated sparrows. And too many tweets are consistent with that stereotype. Palmer manages to sing on Twitter, consistently bringing her personality across. She’s sometimes raucous and profane, sometimes tender, but always genuine. A word count of her tweets would yield lots of F-bombs, but also, frequently, the word love. And it always feels as if she’s talking to her best friend – not issuing a press release, or nattering on for her own benefit (two huge Twitter traps).

Action Step for Non-Rock Stars: Honing our Twitter personas is something few of us concentrate on. Reread your last 25 tweets, imagining that you’ve never met yourself. Would you want to?

2. Connect the dots. Palmer blogs frequently, posting photos, songs, and video content. She references new website content frequently on Twitter, and it always feels as if she’s doing so to keep her fans in the loop, rather than to blast out a marketing message.

Action Step for Non-Rock Stars: When you get published somewhere – even on your own blog – do you tweet it? If you work for a company that gets a mention somewhere online, do your followers know about it? We hear a lot about oversharing, but undersharing (and excessive modesty) can also be an issue. Which way do your tweets trend?

3. Leap on the moment. An event that’s already entered into music biz lore occurred last May, when Palmer tweeted about staying home alone on a Friday night. The tweets grew into a tongue-in-cheek Losers of Friday Night on their Computers club, complete with t-shirts that netted Palmer thousands of dollars in sales – all based on a Twitter exchange over the course of a few hours. This was not premeditated. It was beautiful, intuitive capitalistic improv.

Action Step for Non-Rock Stars: Are you having conversations on Twitter? When people retweet your posts, do you thank them, check out their profiles, follow the interesting ones, ask them questions? The ripple effects can be substantial.

4. Be enthusiastic. How many of our collective tweets convey pure joy? There’s a huge amount of revelry in Palmer’s Twitter style. She often writes about people who make her happy, cool odd moments in her day, what a great time she had playing a show. She takes pleasure in her life and uses Twitter to express that.

Action Step for Non-Rock Stars: Again, reread your last 25 tweets. How many of them are positive? Can you bump up the joyfulness without getting saccharine? Positive tweetage lowers blood pressure and lengthens life spans, both for writers and readers. (OK, I made that up – but it wouldn’t surprise me!) Palmer’s clearly having huge amounts of fun with Twitter, and translating that fun into new fans, even-more-rabid existing fans, a well-informed follower base, and cold hard cash. As more of us copy her ideas, Twitter will only become a livelier and more musical place. Ms. Palmer, we whose tweets are like baby goose-honks in comparison to your punk cabaret symphony salute you!

Caroline Hagood is a poet and writer living in New York City. http://carolinehagood.typepad.com. Twitter:@Caroline_Hagood

Every writer faces this proverbial fork in the road: You have pounded out what you hope will be the creation that will transform the literary landscape, but you smell something rotten and fear it may be your writing.