Freelance Portfolio: Business
Memories Are Made of … Mush
Here’s a Medium Day presentation (from August 2023) I did on how memories work in the writing of memoirs. I compare my shoplifting memoir from sometimes-murky events 50 years ago to the clarity of the memoir I’m currently working on—it has 30 years of printed, dated correspondence (and weird mailed objects) from the Jack Daniel’s Distillery.
Freelance Writing Funk? 3 Mindless Productivity Hacks from a Pro
How scribbling a few vivid words or phrases—“word seeds”— on a story or article idea can prompt your brain to work on expanding them, often to a rich level, while you dawdle. Published in February 2020 on the excellent Make a Living Writing site.
Texas Banker Teaches Classes on Painting Your Pet
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a Texas woman who was a banker and MBA graduate who had a mild interest in art, leading to her teaching art in school districts to teaching dynamic painting classes on the side. And the popularity of those classes exploded. Published in November 2019 on the Side Hustle School.
Friends Build Water Filtration System for Outdoor Hydration
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles two pals who developed small, portable filtration systems for boating crews, outdoor recreational enthusiasts and others to provide water free of bacteria and other contaminants. Used with refillable containers, saves the environment from plastic water bottles too. Published in May 2019 on the Side Hustle School.
Turn It Up to 11! Musical Mash-ups Provide Passive Income for New York DJ
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a former New York DJ, who has syndicated recorded mash-ups of famed rock tunes sold to stations all over the world. Published in April 2018 on the Side Hustle School.
Exercise App Encourages Fitness While Helping Sick Kids
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a fellow who, frustrated with his spotty workout efforts, designed an app to set workout schedules and track fitness. Fail to work out, and you pay—both the app maker and children’s charities. Published in April 2018 on the Side Hustle School.
Freelancing Generalists vs Freelancing Specialists: Smackdown!
Being one of those generalist types, who writes everything from ads to white papers and for many points between, I’m naturally suspicious of those niche experts. Here I pretend to be objective. Published in December 2017 on the E-Biz Booster Blog, an email and internet marketing strategies site.
Cannabis Cookies Make a Sweet, Soothing Side Hustle
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a woman who began baking pot cookies to relieve her own anxiety and moved from there to making and selling licensed edibles out of a commercial kitchen she also leases out. Let’s hear it for stoned capitalism. Published in December 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
Dessert Goals Team Creates Sweet Success
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a two-person team of dessert lovers who present wildly popular dessert events festivals in New York and Los Angeles. Published in October 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
How to Beat Loneliness, Stay Connected, and Build a Better Freelance Life
Methods to overcome isolation as a freelancer. Published in October 2017 on the excellent Make a Living Writing site.
Getting Investors Amped Just Takes a Little Jamming
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a guitarist who designs a nifty portable amp that fits on a guitar, along with a smartphone adapter to blend in tracks. He puts the thing on Indiegogo and it twangs its way to $250,000 in pre-orders. Published in September 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
Getting Charged Up: Man Creates One Adapter to Rule Them All
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a fellow mighty fed up with all the adapters and cables needed for devices while traveling, so after a little Kickstarter kick, he devises a series of highly charged solutions. Published in August 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
High School Junior Makes $10,000 Selling Autographed Baseballs
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one profiles a high school student who uses his keen eye for betting that signed baseballs (and other goods) from certain minor-league baseball prospects will zoom in value if they make it in the majors. He went from amassing an expensive personal collection to amassing a profitable income. Published in August 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
Wedding Bells Ring Brighter If the Bride’s Not Broke
And yet another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one is about a woman who started a NY-based bridal accessory rental company, after seeing the crushing prices for bridal gown purchases. She saves brides big dough, and pulls in some bundles of her own. Published in July 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
A Side Hustle with Succulent Growth Potential
Another script I wrote for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one is about a woman who pots up succulents in odd containers, like skateboards and antique chamber pots—and she is pulling in the green. Published in June 2017 on the Side Hustle School.
Operations Manager Manages to Make Heavy Furniture Light
I’m going to be writing some scripts for Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle podcast, where he discusses people who have started successful and often fascinating side jobs. This one is about a woman who has discovered she can make good money delivering furniture she picks up from IKEA. Published in May 2017 on the Hustle School.
Freelancing Tips and Tricks
– PDF of 21 articles for Fidelity’s “Indy Life” marketing publication from 2017-2018; original posts now offline. Article titles range from “Not All Cushions, Not All Pins: The Reality of Independent Contracting” to “How to Deal With—and Perhaps Avoid—Unexpected Expenses as a Freelancer” to “Missing Deadlines Can Kill Your Freelancing.”
The Content Standard
– 10 pieces for Skyword’s marketing publication from 2017; compiled from the original Word files, because the posts are now offline. Article titles include “How to Properly Diagnose a Failed Email Campaign,” “Made in America: Brand Boon or Brand Burden?” and “Storytelling: Using the Moth to Turn to the Light.”
Staying Supreme, Staying Alive
A look at how the Supreme clothing company developed its customer base with clever marketing and go-viral practices. And if that virality can be sustained. Published in September 2016 on Content Marketing.
The (Marketing) Maven
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, rewritten in marketing vernacular. Somebody had to do it. Published in August 2016 on MarketingProfs.
The State of the Marketing Arts (and Sciences)
My brief interview with the delightful Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs on what’s current and what’s to come in marketing. Published in June 2016 on Content Marketing.
Earned Media, Irony-Style: What PBR Learned
When hipsters decided Pabst Blue Ribbon beer was it (oh, the humanity!), it was it. Briefly. What happens when branding depends on shooting stars. Published in June 2016 on Content Marketing.
Immersion via URL: The Websites Telling Brand Tales
I don’t put a lot of my content-marketing writing in this section, but this one has such amazing websites linked in it that I thought it worthy. A look at how some brands use amazingly immersive website tools to draw readers (and potential customers) in. Published in May 2016 on Content Marketing.
Interview: Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt
My interview of the mad (and popular) scribblers behind Write. Publish. Repeat and oh, a million and half words published in each of the last few years, across various fictional genres. (Psst! Sean and Johnny: you’re making us look bad!) Published by the fine folks at WriterUnboxed in March 2015.
One Small Step Toward Silicon Valley?
Peeking into the Digital NEST, a provider of new technology and entrepreneurial skills to youth in underserved communities, modeled on successful Silicon Valley companies. Published in the Winter 2014 edition of The American Scholar magazine.
Mark Twain’s 10-Sentence Course on Branding and Marketing
All the buzz (or sludge) about “brand me” and “platform” isn’t the stuff of now. Mark Twain had it down 100 years ago—and he still has an amusing thing or two to say about how it’s done. Published in July 2013 on MarketingProfs.
Flesh and Blood, Meet Flesh and Blood
How to be a human being in business; my finalist entry in Firepole Marketing’s Awesome Engagement Strategies contest. (Of course, being a human being is always advisable, strategic or not.) Published in January 2013 on Firepole Marketing’s site.
Why You Should Invite Your Customers to a Campfire Storytelling Session
How storytelling (and we’re talking storytelling from an authentic perspective) is the best means to make a connection between your business and your customers. And maybe even between you and your girlfriend. Published in March 2012 on Men With Pens.
Color and Form
A colorful (and form-filled) collection of essays written by the members of Triiibes, Seth Godin’s network of entrepreneurs, marketers and wily poker players. Mine is the last one in the ebook, titled Ideas Take Shape. Published in August, 2010 on Scribd.
Fear and Loathing 2010
Two ebooks inspired by Seth Godin’s free What Matters Now ebook, supplying the advice of 70 “big thinkers” on moving ahead with insight and progression in the new year. Here’s How: Variations on how to make a practical difference in behavior and practice for the social good, were produced by the members of Godin’s Triiibes network. I wrote a piece for both books, and was one of the principal editors for the project. Published in January, 2010.
The Sony Reader Is a Work in Progress
A look at Sony’s new ebook reader, with enthusiasm and skepticism vying for attention. Published in Wired, September, 2006.