Freelance Writing – There’s Gold in Your Archives

Are you making all your writing work hard for you? As freelance writers, we produce content every day, but often that content is written and forgotten.

That’s a shame: start looking at your archives as GOLD: as valuable inventory, which you can repurpose in many ways.

A warning before we discuss repurposing: you can only repurpose original material to which you hold all the rights. If you’ve written articles or an ebook for someone, that’s “work done for hire”, so all rights transfer to them, once they’ve paid you in full.

I’ve always looked on my archives as money in the bank, and many other writers do too. Around six years ago I wrote a monthly subscription ezine for copywriters. I’ve repurposed that content many times, into fresh articles, tutorials, and ebooks.

I also repurpose the content from my blogs – I’ve got lots of blogs, and I look on all my blogs as part of my writing inventory.

I’m not alone in repurposing content.

Jake, who’s a magazine writer, told me: “Now I’m writing for the Web, I’m repurposing all the magazine queries I’ve written over the years which no one ever bought. My queries are detailed, usually running to 500 words. These are readymade articles, just sitting on my hard drive. I’ve used old queries to create Web sites, and have sold articles based on them too. I’m currently writing an ebook based on magazine articles I wrote ten years ago.”

Shayna, who wrote an ebook on Windows spyware, tells me she’s gained lots of extra mileage from a few weeks of writing her ebook. “I’ve used material I didn’t use in the ebook for articles and videos which I sell. I also sold several video tutorials based on the ebook to a software developer to act as Help files.”

Spend a Few Hours Digging Treasure from Your Archives

The longer you’ve been writing, the more gold there is in your archives.

Go through your archives today.

You can repurpose any and all material to which you own all the rights. Use the material to create Web sites, blogs, ebooks, tutorials and videos. Often you can use the material as-is, but usually you’ll want to cut and paste and rewrite. Even if you do rewrite, using your archives is a lot easier than creating from scratch.

If you’ve written traditional books for a publisher, check your contracts to see when the rights revert to you. You may need to get in touch with your publisher to reclaim the rights to any out of print books. (It’s worth the hassle. I’ve regained the rights to several books, which I’ll be repurposing when I have the time.)

No writing you do is ever wasted. You can repurpose your writing whenever you choose – it’s YOURS, don’t waste it.

Your writing is gold, and I hope I’ve inspired you to check your archives. If you’re a new writer, treasure your archives, they’re money in the bank.

You Can Become A Web Publisher Too: Become A Web Mogul

For the past year, I’ve been receiving messages from writers who want to create their own Web sites. They’ve heard how much money there is in Web publishing, and want a piece of the action.

So, I’ve written a new ebook, “Super-Fast Money-Making Web Sites For Writers: Join The Web-Publishing Bonanza”.

The ebook (and its fabulous bonus ebook) outlines step by step, with images, how to create Web MONEY-MAKING sites fast. What could YOU do with an extra $300 a day?

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