About the Den

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To give you a quick overview, for one low monthly rate, it’s all-you-can-eat learning in here, instead of paying more for a Webinar here (mine are $47 each) or a 4-week bootcamp there ($197). All my weekly events are free to Den members.Did you notice my “Den Mother is IN” cartoon? I put that up so you’ll know I’m all about being available to help Denizens with their freelance-writing questions. I’m usually in the Den every day except Saturdays, so it’s not one of those places where you can’t find an expert. Lots of other pro writers are hanging out in here, too…but just wanted you to know you can find me in the Den.

Looking to depart? The Den is designed to support you until you’ve got all the great-paying clients you need. We expect that people will come and go, and leaving is easy. Whenever you’re ready, you can cancel your membership by simply going in your Paypal account and canceling your payments. Your Den access will end at the conclusion of the month you’ve paid for.

My wonderful staff

Of course, I can’t run this whole new room stuffed full of freelance-writing resources by myself. So there are a bunch of people who are also helping out in the Den. When I’m not around, they are here to help you get the answers you need.

The Writing Pros

Linda

I am positively ecstatic to have Renegade Writer Linda Formichelli as The Other Den Mother for providing expert help in the Den. I first met Linda when we both won Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Since then, we started the 4-week Blast-Off Class together, and I had a chance to get to know her better. In a word, she’s awesome.

Linda is super-experienced in nearly every type of freelance writing. I find her advice always smart and right-on. When I’m not around, she’ll be keeping an eye on the forums and making sure you’re getting the answers you need.

John

John Soares started as an outdoor writer in the early 1990s. He’s written three hiking guides for The Mountaineers Books, and sold more than 100 articles to magazines and newspapers, including Sunset, Via, and Outdoor Adventure. John left college teaching to write fulltime.

His current big niche is writing supplements for college textbooks. His blog, launched in 2010, is Productive Writers: Work Less, Earn More. His ebooks about writing are Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers and Writing College Textbook Supplements.

Chris

Chris Marlow is all about money and success for writers. She’s been the original copywriters coach since 2003, published the world’s only statistical pricing benchmarks for copywriters, and also has the leading marketing program for landing high-paying clients. (Wealthy Freelancer co-authors Ed Gandia and Pete Savage were both her students!)

A veteran copywriter with millions in sales and two ECHO awards — the industry’s top award for marketing results — Chris shows writers how to write powerful copy, make more money, and increase their productivity. I’m excited that Den members can now tap into her storehouse of experience and knowledge.

Peggy

What more expertise could we possibly add? How about an editor experienced in both print and online media!

Peggy Bennett has over 20 years’ experience with magazines, websites, books and ebooks, including 18 years at Entrepreneur and a stint at Allbusiness.com. She’s been freelancing since ’98, so she knows what we’re up against as solopreneurs, too.

The Webmaster

Keira Dooley at Design by Dooley

When something goes wrong and the forum starts mysteriously chopping all the posts off on the right side, or we need a new feature added to the Den, I am extremely grateful to have a pro Webmaster who knows how to do it.

Keira is based right in my neighborhood, and I’m loving having a responsive Web team in my own time zone (and speaking English as a first language, too).

The Moderators

Neil

Neil lives near Denver and brings the “newbie writer” perspective to the moderator team, along with some solid experience moderating in other communities. He’s been freelancing since 2009, and went full-time with it starting this year.

Neil has a good sense of where resources are in the Den, so give him a shout if you can’t find something.

Sophie

Sophie is a freelance writer, blogger, and editor based in the UK. Freelancing since 2009, she says she has “worked through redundancy, pregnancy, maternity and domestic role reversal to build a dream career that supports her family and her freedom.” Her blog, Be a Freelance Blogger, teaches writers, bloggers, and beginners how to make more money and work from anywhere as a blogger-for-hire. She can also be found at Lizard Creative Chaos.

Mark

Mark Vanderpool is an author of fiction as well as a freelance journalist, essayist, copywriter, and editor. He has over ten years’ experience serving online writing communities–first at the fan site for bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk of Fight Club fame and later as Director of Education for LitReactor.com. In these venues he has planned and organized creative writing workshops with several notables, including Jack Ketchum, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Christopher Bram.

Mark teaches other writers to perfect their craft skills, avoid common mistakes, and move forward in any form of writing at markvanderpool.me

Sharon

M. Sharon Baker told me she fell in love with writing the minute she finished her first newspaper story, in which a dorm advisor chased a thief with a hockey stick. After more than 15 years as a business journalist, Sharon gave up the daily deadline grind to freelance.

In addition to writing for trade publications such as Nation’s Restaurant News, Sharon helps companies with their blogs, case studies, white papers, contributed articles and public relations. Her blog is Every Word Counts. I’ve known Sharon since we both wrote for the Puget Sound Business Journal in Seattle, and she’s one of my best writer-friends — the kind you need when you want to bounce an idea or a client proposal off somebody to make sure you’re not taking a bad deal.

Hope you all have someone like her in your life — if not, find yourself a writer-bud here in the FWD forums.

Jessica

Jessica Ramos is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. She is a grantwriter who has worked with arts, education and health nonprofit organizations. She has also ghostwritten for a fashion blog and done copywriting for a jewelry designer. 2013 marks the year that she’ll explore more of her passions and write about them.

As a Den member since 2011 and a Virgo, Jessica knows where to find stuff in the Den.  She’s super-friendly, so feel free to ask her for help.

Kathleen

Kathleen Birmingham is a ghostwriter with over ten years’ experience and has decided to come out of the closet to share her knowledge and expertise as a writing instructor, coach, and freelancer.  Currently a new transplant in Phoenix, Arizona, Kathleen spent many years in New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment where she discovered that not everyone knows how to write naturally. This led her to working with small business owners who needed to figure out their “story” about what sets them apart from their competition. Under her ghostwriting guise, she has written for WebMD, some content mills as their literature expert, books, blogs, articles, case studies, and newsletters for entrepreneurs, and under her own name for Acreage Magazine, Beckett Publications, and Metanoia Group.

Angie

Angie Mansfield has been a professional word slinger since 2008, when she got her first article published in a magazine for work-at-home parents. Since then, she’s shifted into copywriting mode, writing product descriptions for online retailers and, more recently, blogs for small businesses. She lives, works, and plays in the upper Midwest, and will gladly give you a cookie if you’ll come scoop snow out of her driveway.

Lisa Baker is a professional parenting blogger and a freelance magazine writer. Although she’s been writing professionally in sporadic bursts since 2002, she learned almost everything she knows about freelancing in the Den. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where you can find her at the playground with her kids or at a coffee shop drinking lots of mochas. You can also find her in the Den forums at 3 am, posting on her phone while she puts her baby back to sleep. When she’s not writing about pregnancy and parenting for websites and magazines, she’s writing her parenting humor blog about How to Be Supermom.

The Event Booker

Janet

Janet Thomson is a freelance writer, blogger and book publicist living in New Hampshire.  Janet discovered early that she’s good at making others look good, when she managed to get her cousin elected Ms. Sophomore Maid at their high school in northern Louisiana. She has an obsession with the legal profession because she has 20 years of experience managing attorneys’ professional careers as a legal assistant. Now, her goal is to help trade publications, small businesses, and magazine editors with articles, case studies, blogs and other writing needs.

The Troubleshooter

Jennifer

Jennifer Roland caused a panic in her Montessori School at the tender age of 5 — turns out the teacher had to buy a ton of new books because Jennifer had read them all. Over the years, she learned to turn that voracity for the written word into creation, working to help businesses market themselves through traditional and online methods and writing bylined and ghosted articles for consumer and trade publications.

When you have a problem finding or accessing a resource in the Den, she is your source for help.