I have discovered a Shangri-La for Toronto freelance writers.

You know how much we love coffee, and coffee bars. We sit around the all day with our laptops, typety-typing away, watching the world and working ourselves into a caffeinated lather. Starbucks has finally made their wi-fi free, which is a huge help for our kind. Aroma Esspresso Bar, a favorite chain of mine, has always had free wi-fi, but no electrical outlets. It’s a short-term solution at best.

But today I discovered The Mad Bean. Located at 519 Eglinton Avenue West (just East of Bathurst), this place is paradise. The coffee and assorted beverages are about 60% less expensive than at Starbucks, the wi-fi is free, and there are electrical outlets everywhere! There’s pretty much one outlet for every chair in this tiny, independently-owned café.

The staff is friendly, the restroom is shining clean, and the chairs are comfy. Life is good here.

I am never leaving this place. Ever. You’ll pry my latte from my cold, dead hands!

I was watching TV last week, and started getting annoyed at some of the language used. No, not blue language, which I employ more often than someone with stage 4 Tourette’s. I mean trendy terminology (conversate) alongside old-timey “mom” words like (slacks).

Words that hurt my ears and make my spine compress:

• Conversate
• Healthfully
• Slacks
• Lamestream Media (thank you Sarah Palin)

Surely there are words that grate on your nerves, too, and I’d love to know what they are.

I just updated the Resources Page of Girl on the Write to include a link to AWeber, the top email marketing client. AWeber allows you to create multiple email lists for newsletters, marketing, subscriptions and more. Also, they require a double opt-in, to eliminate that spammy feeling some people have about email marketing.

So if you’re thinking about building a list, get AWeber for $1 now, and drop me a note to let me know how it’s working out for you!

On Wednesday I was heading up to my gentleman friend’s house in northern Toronto. It was rush hour, and the office types were leaving the cool comfort of their air conditioned jobs and heading home. One girl sat down in front of me, dialed her BlackBerry, and began to cry.

She was having a miserable day at a miserable job that made her, well, miserable. Her manager was torturing her. She didn’t have clear instruction on what expectations she was supposed to meet. From the sounds of the conversation, she lacked leadership and was depserate.

Desperate.

Who hasn’t been there? Working in a job we hate, one that makes us unhappy sometimes to the point of sick, and yet trapped because we are afraid to take the leap to something else.

As I listened to her, I thought “There but for the grace of God go I.” My life without corporate employment hasn’t been easy. Of course, it was also plagued with the kind of marital strife that puts one in a shelter, and that certainly didn’t help. But regardless of these circumstances, and regardless of the nervousness that goes with striking out on your own, I could never imagine being once again trapped in corporate whoredom, listening to some overpaid MBA prattle on about things that don’t even matter.

Whoever that girl was on the bus, I hope she finds her path.

I’m Canadian. Please don’t judge me on that unfortunate birth defect.

When I was little, I developed an ear for accents. I realized that the people I grew up around talked funny – saying things like “eh, aboot, Tranna (Toronto)”… I hated it. Mostly though, I lived in fear of talking that way myself.

With a bit of determination, I taught myself to talk like a normal person – and I did it through the most valuable RosettaStone program imaginable: Audrey Hepburn movies.

English wasn’t Hepburn’s first language – she was Dutch. And being a) from Canada, and b) from Montreal, it was safe to say that English wasn’t exactly mother tongue to me either.

With the waif on my side, I elocuted my way through Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Paris When it Sizzles and more. Ironically, I never watched My Fair Lady, preferring Leslie Howard as Higgins in Pygmalion.

My dedication paid off. By the time I reached my late teens I was doing voice-over work, and eventually launched a hugely successful podcast.

I never say aboot. I never say “eh”, except ironically. My only “tell” is my pronunciation of the word sorry, which I pronounce sore-ee. Other than that, you’d think I was from Pennsylvania, not Canada.

Which is why I found this article on All Freelance Writing amusing.

It’s a joke on too many shows these days that the alien or the foreigner learns English by watching MTV or the equivalent. It might have been marginally funny the first time, but it’s way past time for that joke to be over, and the underlying message is actually rather dangerous for those who are trying to sound like professionals. It’s hard to learn real English from people who make money with catch phrases they probably didn’t even come up with themselves. “That’s hot….” Right.

Fair enough. Rebecca goes on to suggest novels as a better way of grasping the intricacies of English. While I tend to agree, I must say that at the tender age of four, I wasn’t able to slog through The Great Gatsby. Sabrina, on the other hand, never failed to delight.

I had these older friends – much older – who came to Canada to escape the Nazis. They spoke only German and a little Hungarian. Like me, they taught themselves English at the movies. Bogart was their professor of choice. While MTV may not be quite the patois one would want to acquire, I stand by Ms Hepburn (along with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Tyrone Power) as a linguist worthy of a PhD.

Wendy Lowe has a great guest post over on Working Naked about getting started with email marketing.

Making money on the internet is tough enough, but if you don’t have a viable list of people to pitch to, it’s that much tougher. Now, these aren’t random people you’ve collected addresses for. There is a certain ettiquette to email marketing that must be adhered to. Your recipients must opt in to receive your emails, or you could be hit with a complaint for spamming them.

Here’s the thing though: Some marketers just don’t care. I attend a lot of conferences where business cards get passed around. Within days of returning home, I’m suddenly “subscribed” to about 50 new email lists for newsletters and promotions. I had to laugh when I read the same thing from Chris Brogan in his “Stop adding me to your email newsletter” post he put out a few months back.

Most of the time I go through and unsubscribe myself, which takes time out of my day that could be better spent doing other things. There’s one list though – Townhall.com – that is impossible to remove yourself from. Impossible. I have unsubscribed several times, plus sent them emails requesting that they forget my name – to no avail. I will be stuck with Townhall.com until the day Obama shuts off the internet.

Anyway, with those caveats in mind, getting started with email marketing is actually pretty easy. You have to build a list, but AWeber makes that so easy you could cry. Simply pop their opt-in box onto your site, and direct people to it. If you want to give them incentive to sign up, offer a free report or video/podcast. Most people want something free, so they’ll add their email address in order to take advantage.

Says Wendy Lowe:

Start building your opt-in e-mail list. Opt-in means that your customers understand clearly that by signing up they are giving you permission to send them e-mail communications. In addition to name and email address, think about other information that you can collect that will help you target your e-mail campaigns, such as gender or geography.

• Include a check-off box option for your customers to learn more about certain products and services as well as topics, issues and challenges that interest them.
• Use all of the tools at your disposal to gather e-mail and customer information including a quick sign up on your homepage.
• Actively seek people you want to reach by attending relevant trade shows and conferences.  Gather business cards, ask for permission and add them to your list! [My bold- Ed]

Launch your first email campaign! Kick things off by introducing yourself and setting expectations.  Let your audience know the type of information they’ll be receiving and how frequently to expect it.

• In your first campaign, don’t just sell, but also offer valuable information or tips your audience can use.

Encourage feedback to begin an ongoing dialogue with customers, allowing you to continually gather more detailed profile information to improve the targeting of future campaigns.

I subscribe to a few programs that send out regular emails, usually timed. AWeber allows you to schedule emails to certain people at certain times, like for example: You sign up for a 5-day e-course. The teacher certainly isn’t going to sit down and write each student an individual email each time someone enrolls. Instead, the emails are pre-written and once someone subscribes, the emails are sent out in order to that specific person. It’s too easy for words.

Many people don’t want to spend the money on a system like AWeber to manage their email list, so they try to do it themselves or use a free program like the one built into Feedburner. Eventually, almost everyone makes the switch to a paid service for convenience and flexibility, with AWeber being the #1 choice. I tried using iContact a couple of years back, but it just wasn’t enough. AWeber is the way to go, and you can get started for only $1.

Good luck, and happy marketing!

I spend a lot of time working in the library. Free WiFi, a break from the at-home routine, and no need to keep buying caffeinated beverages like I have to at the coffee shop. Also, since I’m living in Da Hood, my nearest coffee shop is further away than the library anyway.

Hanging out here. often staring into space or watching people – generally doing anything except the task at hand – I’ve noticed that the Dewey Decimal Classification might have come to its natural end.

When I was a kid in elementary school, we were taught Dewey on library days – once a week the teacher would herd us down to the library for a story, and then to pick out books for the week. We learned how to use the card catalog to find books on subjects that interested us. Every book was assigned a special number, and every number grouping formed a section of the library.

However, kids these days (wow, that really made me sound old) don’t have library days the way they used to. They don’t learn about card catalogs (though now it’s all computerized) or Dewey categories.

Here at one of the outposts of Toronto’s sprawling library system, kids wander aimlessly about, wondering where their favorite Twilight and Harry potter books are. These kids, teens and tweens are accustomed to bookstores.

There was a time in not too distant history that books were a luxury for only rich families to collect. Cities that had thousands of working poor put together libraries to make books more available to everyone. A system to keep track of all these tomes was devised, and librarians were required to help people learn and understand the system.

Fast forward to today. In Canada we have Chapters and Indigo. In the United States, there’s Borders and Barnes & Noble. Books are sorted according to area of interest, and then by author name. It’s all very straightforward, no indecipherable digits required. In a pinch, some minimum-wage college kid can direct you out of Cooking into Self-Help. Biographies are all clumped together, not spread about by area of biographical interest. Language books span from Arabic to Zulu without interruption. Signs clearly advise you what area you’re in, and are visible throughout the store so you know which direction to walk in to get the latest chick-lit marvel.

It’s very civilized.

So where does that leave Dewey and the moth-bitten librarian of old? Libraries are still functioning with an archaic system (albeit one they’ve slowly dragged onto computers) that few people – especially in a “multicultural” society like the one I live in – can comprehend. And with books being more affordable to the average person, the days of the library may be numbered.

Montreal is having the Grand Prix this weekend. As an orphan, I tend not to notice Father’s Day – it’s better that way. But if you still haven’t picked out a gift for Dad, and might be facing Mom-Guilt™, hit up Amazon for the right present.

I took a well-earned week off to relax and enjoy the heat wave we were having in Toronto. I spent a lot of time on the beach, and gardening in my gentleman friend’s backyard. Bliss. I also spent a lot of time reading, both fiction and non-fiction.

I was pleased to see that Jenn Mattern of All Freelance Writing is starting a book club for freelancers. Summer means that client projects drop off slightly, since so many decision-makers go on vacation. As freelancers and small business owners, we can take this time to hone our craft and better educate ourselves. That’s the sort of important learning that often falls by the wayside when we’re busy meeting client deadlines.

The first book in Jenn’s series is Peter Bowerman’s The Well Fed Writer. This is a book (e-book) I bought last year, and devoured in a weekend. It was one of the rare occasions that I emailed the author and thanked him for providing such a great resource, and he actually wrote me back! That’s the thing I’ve noticed about the freelance writing community – no one is inaccessible. Most writers are happy to help each other out with information, leads, tips and more.

If you want to join the summer book club – or just follow along on your own – grab a copy of  Well Fed Writer today. Consider it a business investment, for Bowerman’s advice is solid.

Click here for more info about Jenn Mattern’s book club series.

Do you market affiliate products on your website? Do you actually use those products?

I discovered early on that I couldn’t write a solid, sales-worthy review of a product if I didn’t a) use it, and b) find it helpful. I mean, I could cover my sites with information about Viagra or PokerStars or something, but I’d be lying about any interest I had in them.

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about Glen Allsop and his book Cloud Living. I’m an affiliate for Cloud Living, and proud to be, because the book is useful. I don’t recommend the book just to make the cash – I recommend it because I learned from it and I think you can too.

The same thing goes for all the info-products listed on the Resources Page. I’m an affiliate for some of those products, because I believe in them. I believe they can help you in your quest for a better blog/business/bank account.

Do you flog products to your readers that you’ve never even tried? How can you vouch for them?

I’m one of the people who doesn’t want to be smarmy in my affiliate marketing. I don’t want to feel icky, and I don’t want you to feel sold to. I want to be able to offer you a solution to a problem. If you don’t have that problem, don’t spend money on that solution! Simple as that – no harm, no foul.

I think affiliate marketing gets a bad name because a lot of marketers are happy to just throw links out there without having a clue about the efficacy of the product. I have more than a clue – I’ve used them all myself, at my own cost. Only once was I ever offered a free product to advertise. So I used it, found it helpful, and plugged it with a clear conscience.

How do you do affiliate marketing?