12 Steps for Rebounding from Failure

This beautifully-written guest post is by Matthew Polo. Let me tell you, Matt certainly has a way with words. He knows how to reach in deep, making you visualize each step clearly, no matter how practical. I hope you enjoy the read, and thanks Matt for your wonderful contribution.

Photo by Matthew Howarth (flickr)

Failure is defined differently by everyone. Age brings perspective, since multiple failures in various areas of life are encountered and endured over the years. One person may define a particular event as simply a bump in the road that must be navigated around while another person might view an identical experience as life shattering.

Nothing illustrates this more cleary than Thomas Edison and his light bulb. The story goes that when Edison was questioned on his numeous failed attempts to create a light bulb, he replied, “I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”

The most important thing when you fail is to learn from it. When failure occurs, the wise person will take the time to follow these tips and emerge from the situation stronger and better than ever before. (more…)

Start Printing Money: How to Increase Your Freelance Rates

This is a guest post by James Adams. James has been a tremendous help to me so far, and I think all freelance writers hesitant about increasing their rates should give this article a read. I hope you enjoy this guest post as much as I enjoyed reading it. As always, thanks for contributing James.

Photo by Sunshinecity (flickr)

When you’re doing work as a freelancer, there are a number of considerations that go into determining your rates. Will you charge by hour or by project? Should you start out charging less in order to create a portfolio? After you’ve built a name for yourself, when is it okay to raise your rates? You may be concerned about losing clients with higher rates, but in many cases, you can successfully make the switch if you go about it in the right way. Here are the top five ways to increase your freelance rates and to start earning more money. (more…)

What Did You Do Today?

I just wanted to take this time to ask you one simple question.

Photo by David Kadavy (flickr)

What did you do today?

Right now it’s about 3:30pm in the afternoon. In California, it’s 12:30pm. Depending on where you live, it might be sooner or later in the day.

But, wherever you are, pause for a minute to ask yourself this question – because it might shed some light as to how productive (or not very productive) your day was so far. Did you get anything done yet today? If so, what did you do? If not, what held you back?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Because think about this: Depending on whether or not you wasted the precious hours that lead up to this point, what do you plan to do tomorrow? Will it be another repeat of today?

Just something to consider. (more…)

eHow Experiment 07: An Exciting Discovery

It has been a little over a month since I last updated this eHow Experiment series – and oh do I have good news to tell you!

If you remember, last month I had one article sitting on the second spot in Google search listings, one on the third spot, and another on the sixth. The other two showing up in search results were sitting on the twenty-fifth and fifty-first spot in Google. Keep in mind that these were broad match results for each keyword phrase, instead of phrase match (the results from exact searches).

Well, I noticed that my eHow earnings this month had improved quite a bit lately since last year. Here’s a screenshot of my earnings from last year (2010). You can click on it to enlarge the image.

Last month, I was earning about $8.81 a day – $2.44 an article (eHow removed one of my articles by the way, though I’m not sure which one – now I have 112 articles published).

Now, let’s look at my earnings so far for this month (keep in mind that we’re only 12 days into the month and earnings don’t include what I accrued today). (more…)

What Can You Do in a Year? (Or, Do Something Remarkable Special Contest)

Note: I mentioned a few times that I had something special planned for Cash Campfire’s first birthday (that involved giving away free stuff). Well this is it. Though, before I get into the contest (you didn’t think I would just randomly give stuff away, did you?), I want to first take some time to reminisce over the early months of blogging here and how Cash Campfire transformed into what it is today. But don’t worry – I promise to be brief (well, semi-brief), since I know you’re just jumping with excitement about the contest.

But if you prefer to just skip my ramblings and go straight to the contest, scroll down to the “I Want to Give You Something Special” section – or look for me at the beach.

What Can You Do in a Year?

Photo by Gordon Wrigley (flickr)

I often asked myself this question when I first started out. You see, I never really thought that I would last this long, but it was fun picturing the possibilities – what I would and could accomplish in a year’s time. (more…)

6 Questions, 6 Answers – Happy New Year!

Photo by Horia Varlan (flickr)

Well, here it is everyone – the last new year’s post before we get into singing happy birthday.

If the last bit of the above statement confuses you, Cash Campfire will be celebrating its first birthday on January 10th. THEN, I’ll be celebrating my own 21st birthday (SUPER excited) the 27th of March – I still have a few months to go though.

But before we get into today’s post, I wanted to remind you all about the surprise birthday plans I have for the 10th, so make sure you show your awesome faces here on Monday! You won’t be disappointed.

Now, in case you didn’t know, I asked everyone last Thursday to ask me any questions – anything at all – for the new year and that I would post up the answers sometime this week.

Well, boy did you guys come through.

I’ve gotten questions ranging from how many kids I plan to have to what kind of food would I be able to put up with for the rest of my life if all the food mysteriously disappeared from the planet. And some I can’t possibly fit all of the answers into this one post – so if you don’t see your question on here, know it will be in a separate post!

The creativity in your responses astound me! Though I guess I should have expected it. After all, most of you guys write on a regular basis – and, being a writer myself, we tend to be a creative bunch.

Well, enough of my rambling. Let’s get on to the answers, shall we? (more…)

Goals and Achievements – January 2011

Well, it has been a month since I started this series. I must admit – I didn’t make as much progress as I planned last month, though I did see some major accomplishments – the new Cash Campfire newsletter and ebook Jump Start Your Freelance Writing Career, just to name a couple.

I believe the main reason why I didn’t make a lot of progress was because I set my goals too high and so became discouraged after looking at the work involved. Then stepped in procrastination, and.. well.. I think we know the rest. I was also having back pain trouble, which prevented me from writing much for a few days. But, really, I only have myself to blame – and I’m ashamed because of it.

Photo by Search Engine People Blog (flickr)

But, this month I’m going to get everything back together, set more obtainable goals, and take action. Whatever happens, I won’t disappoint myself (and you guys!) like I did last month – I did just terrible, and the disappointment really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This is just a warning that the following results from last month won’t be good, and I promise – with every breath in my lungs – to make it up to you and myself this month by starting over with a clean slate and completing every last one of my goals.

On a side note – since I have a 3 week vacation to California coming up on the 26th, I have to do a lot of planning in advance to reach my goals for this month to free up time during the trip. So I’ll be prescheduling many of my blog posts, and I’m accepting guest posts as well (free traffic for you).

If you want to help me out, feel free to contact me with your topic idea or guest post draft. I have no requirements other than to please not use affiliate links in your article (or I will take them out), focus your article on either freelance writing or entrepreneurship, and try to base your article on your own personal experiences (makes a better read and proves that you know your stuff – even if you’re just writing about how you organize your office desk space). (more…)

My New Years Resolutions: Looking Back and Moving Forward

This is the first time this blog has been around to see a new year. So, in spirit of the event, I decided to start a ‘My New Years Resolutions’ series (the icon is white for a clean slate) where I’ll analyze what I did each passing year (and whether or not I accomplished my new years resolution goals) and what I’ll strive to achieve the upcoming year – because, rest assured, we’re going to be together for many more years to come!

Oh, don’t give me that face! You need me and you know it.

Jokes aside, though, I’m hoping this series will show you that whatever dreams you have – whatever aspirations consume you whenever you look forward and envision your life – you can achieve if you put the effort in.

Strangely enough, I didn’t have a new years resolution last year, mainly because I had no major goals and because I had a track record of not sticking to my resolutions after the first two months.

But I’m going to stop disappointing myself. Starting today, I’m going to make my resolutions real.

Tangible. (more…)