[This was originally an email to my list (Subject: About that 1M…). Shrimpers get my best stuff. Are you one of them yet? C’mon, get on the list!] At dinner the other night, my friend Avo told my husband, Steven, “You better install Ring [security system] on your door and put cameras everywhere, because this […]
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“Salt your cucumber” and other handpicked Talking Shrimp emails
Here’s a curated archive of Laura Belgray’s Talking Shrimp emails. That’s me, referring to myself in the third person, just in case it’s good for SEO. That’s also me, hoping lots of people are searching for “archive of Laura Belgray’s Talking Shrimp emails.” Or maybe: “Best email newsletter examples from Talking Shrimp.” And that’s not […]
KEEP READING11 Ways To Get Paid To Write: Every type of writing gig I’ve ever been paid for (and one that paid ≈$zero).
“You have to be EL James or Colleen Hoover to make a decent living as a writer! Don’t even try! Get a real job!” Ever hear that? Ignore it. There are countless ways to get paid to write. To give you some ideas, I went all the way back to the early Nineties – the […]
KEEP READINGHow To Charge What You’re Worth
I see a lot of blogs and Facebook conversations about “earning the income you deserve” and “charging what you’re worth.”
Blog post vs. email — the death match
What should go in my emails and what should go on the blog? Can they overlap? Should they be the same, or different? I struggled with this one for a long time. Here’s what I used to do:
KEEP READINGHow to sell art, photography, jewelry, luxury goods, entertainment, cupcakes, and anything else that doesn’t "solve a problem."
Have you noticed this? Entrepreneurs* love to get on the digital soapbox and yell, “YOU HAVE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM! IF YOU DON’T SOLVE A PROBLEM, YOU DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS.”
KEEP READINGHow to tap your talent
At my first job that didn’t involve cutting lemon wedges and pouring draught Beer for drunk, off-duty doormen, my father came to meet me one day for lunch.
KEEP READINGMake your name by doing the unsexy work. (AKA Puff Is Pissed, AKA Grownups Eating Ice Cream And Crying)
At the company off-site, they had tubs of ice cream waiting for us first thing in the morning. Breakfast of cry-babies.
KEEP READINGHow to follow up without being a nagging, passive-aggressive psycho
I had a housemate in college who’d leave messages on my answering machine like this: BEEEP! “Hey, just checking in, I was just wondering what you were planning to do with the spaghetti pot and some of the other stuff you left out on the counter. I’d clean them myself, it’s no big deal, but with […]
KEEP READING“Mansplaining” should never have been a word. (On the dopiest portmanteau ever, and how to make your own)
Chocoholic. Faux-hawk. Netiquette. Tanorexic. Jazzercise, glitterati, Brangelina. I love a good portmanteau. You know, that kind of word that’s a combo of two words and usually a twist on a longer one. Cassingle. Showmance. Mathlete. Sometimes it’s called a frankenword. It used to be called a “Sniglet” – coined in the 1980s by comedian Rich […]
KEEP READINGAfraid to repeat yourself? Take a tip from every dumb ’80s sitcom.
It’s not just me, right? I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s rewritten a perfectly good talk because one person – repeat, ONE PERSON – who’ll be in the audience was there last time and heard it already. (I’m not, right?) And lord knows it’s not only me who’s thought, “Oh no, what if […]
KEEP READINGThe F-word I don’t use (and maybe you shouldn’t, either)
“Are you a freelancer?” When someone asks that, I nod yes-ish and answer, “I have a copywriting business.” I’ll call myself a consultant, a professional copywriter, an independent contractor. I’ll say I’m for hire. A free agent. Available for projects. A business owner. But I don’t say “freelancer.” Why? Because it sounds poor. Poor, and […]
KEEP READINGNot every entrepreneur wants to change the world. Some of us just want to love what we do and never fly coach.
Should I be ashamed? Am I a freak? A grinch, a soulless beast, a Kardashian-hearted money grubber? I wonder that sometimes. Because here’s what I see: People in the online business world (life coaches, business coaches, healers, private chefs, virtual assistants, copywriters, dog psychics) who cater to other people in the online business world (other […]
KEEP READINGYes, it’s raining, humans are weird, and you can make a living telling us what we already know.
The other day, I was on my walk (fyi – when I say “a walk” it means just a putter around the neighborhood where I might stop into a clothing store and try on a top; when I say ”my walk” it means a long one that counts as my workout for the day. A walk that must happen. Podcasts […]
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