How do you Take a Vacation from Blogging (or Freelancing)?

Today’s post will explain how you can take a break from both blogging and freelancing. I will also explain why I can only do one and not both right now.

Before I give you some useful information, I want you to know that I feel like I need a vacation. Badly.

I’ve been working my butt off trying to attain some of my personal writing and publishing goals.

And, in addition to being an author, I’m also a blogger AND a freelance writer and editor. (But you knew that, right?) 😉 I have a lot of responsibilities to many people. Fortunately, I don’t have a lot of clients to deal with. Some have been one-timers, some are occasional repeaters, and one is long-term. Because my freelancing business is on the smaller side right now, I’m able to effectively take a break from freelancing. Plus, one of the upsides to freelancing is setting your own hours. (I love that part!)

However, I really wanted to take a vacation from blogging, but I cannot. At least, I can’t right now. I have too many responsibilities to others that I need to fulfil.

It’s no secret WHY I want a break – it’s SUMMER!

Aside from the obvious reason of rejuvenation, I wanted to take a vacation from blogging because summer has finally arrived. In the great city where I live, it only lasts for about two month  – if that – and so I need to make the most of the nice weather while it’s here.

I have posts planned already and duties to fulfil to authors who’ve taken me up on my offer. Plus, I’ve recently released an ebook (my very first one – YAY!) and have started another blog on my new author website.

I wanted to do this last month, but the weather here has been pretty bleak. Hopefully the rainy days will go away soon and allow me to do things I want to do – like go swimming outdoors!

How to Take a Break from Freelancing

Taking a break from freelancing requires planning. You have to clear your schedule if you want to really enjoy your time off. To do this, you should:

  • inform your clients of the days you won’t be available, giving them a lot of notice so that they can adjust their schedules accordingly
  • do extra work beforehand so that you do not leave them in the lurch
  • remind your clients of the great work you do for them in order to get them to be more agreeable to your terms and not cause friction in the relationship
  • offer to do something nice for them as a bonus
  • remind them of what it says in your contract regarding vacation time

If you have never taken a freelancing break, some clients may become upset with you and feel like you are abandoning them. They may even become difficult to work with or threaten to fire you, especially if they feel slighted or if you have not taken time off since you began working with them. If any of these scenarios occur and you cannot resolve your differences, then it may be time to re-evaluate your entire relationship and potentially end your contract altogether.

How YOU can take a blogging break – and not feel guilty about it

For those of you who are not freelancers (yet), but who are bloggers, then this is the section for you!

I’m sure most of you have thought about going on vacation, but DIDN’T, for whatever reason.

If you are wondering how you can 1. take a break and 2. not feel guilty about it, I’d suggest reading How to Take a Summer Break from Blogging (without Feeling Guilty).

It’s a pretty darn good article. Great, actually, if I do say so myself. (Yes, I wrote it!)

😀 Plus, it includes some personal pictures of my brother’s pool and my sister’s little guy. 🙂

It actually started out as a post for this blog, but I deemed it so good that I offered to sell it. (I’m a freelancer, after all, and if I can earn money for my writing, I will.) Because it’s available for all the world to see, you can pop over to Dear Blogger and pick up a few blogging tips. (Or should I say “blogging break” tips?) 😉

I know when you read it, you’ll be a bit confused. But don’t forget, I’m writing for two different audiences, who overlap but are different. Greg’s audience consists of people wanting blogging tips. My audience consists of people who want blogging, freelancing, writing, and publishing tips.

See the difference? Thought so. 😀

Now it’s your turn…

Are you going to take a vacation this summer – or did you already? 

Share in the comments here, or on Dear Blogger. I”ll be responding to everyone on both sites. 😀

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Introductory photo image courtesy of samuiblue/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Reading A Good Book = Going on a Vacation?

I love reading novels for many reasons, but the main reason is due to the fact that I can live vicariously through the lives of the characters.

Reading a good book is an escape from the banality of daily chores like cooking, doing laundry, and washing the dishes.

What constitutes a good book?

A good book is one that can captivate me from the get-go, one I don’t want to put down, for which I will sacrifice sleep to enjoy.

Yes, reading a book is like going on a wonderful (and inexpensive!) vacation.

Even though I’m not world-travelled, I’ve been to more places than you can think of. Yes, they are all in my imagination!

Reading books is much cheaper than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in an effort to visit a foreign place. (Besides, I think that’s why they made Google Earth…) 😉

If a book is good enough, it will transport me to where I want to be, even if I’m sitting in front of a turned-off TV.

Words transcend places, for me. Do they do the same for you?

Share in the comments!

And don’t forget that I am available to help you edit and/or publish YOUR book or e-book!

Self-Publishing is A LOT of WORK! (and I need a hug!)

Now that I’m an official, self-published author, I am waffling on my views of self-publishing.

I don’t think it sucks, but I don’t think it’s awesome, either. What I do think is that it’s a lot of work!

Seriously.

All I’ve been doing lately (with the exception of my two-day camping trip last weekend) is working, working, working.

And learning.

What I’ve Been Doing and Learning

In addition to the boatload of things I did already when I first released Risky Issues, I’ve been learning about formatting for CreateSpace. I’ve decided that I want my book to be available as a print edition, too! But because I’m a Canadian author, I have to submit my book to the Library and Archives Canada.

Apparently it’s against the law if I don’t!

They call it Legal Deposit. So if you are a Canadian who is an aspiring author, I’d suggest that you remember this important fact!

I actually ended up writing a whole post about this LAW. Read it on my author site, Laying It Out There.

I’ve been doing a ton of other things too. Read More

Whitefish Waters + Freelancing Tips

2 trees and dock with lake and nice sky

This post is for all you freelancers (or freelance wannabes) out there!

This past weekend, I enjoyed the freelance lifestyle by actually taking a couple of days to be away from my computer to go camping with a few friends at Whitefish Lake, which is only about an hour by car from the city in which I live. I don’t go camping very often, but I sure like it when I do!

With all the excitement of getting my ebook out there, monitoring and responding to some of the reviews, being interviewed, setting up my new author site, and doing a ton of other things, I really, REALLY needed a break.

It was nice to hang out with friends, have a few drinks (I RARELY drink alcohol), shoot the sh** by the fire, read by the lake, commune with nature (including a ton of spiders, mosquitoes, and dragonflies), and listen to the water lapping against the shoreline. Talk about peaceful!

I walked down to the lake to test the temperature of the water, and had to grab my phone to take a video of the moon with the melodic waters in the background. The video’s not much to look at, but it’s relaxing!

 

FYI, the white “dot” in the video is the moon!

Most of you who live in warm climates cannot truly appreciate the beauty I felt this past weekend. I live in a climate where it is winter for the majority of the year. It’s really only nice in June, July, and August, and swimming outdoors usually only happens in those months. The local outdoor pools are only open in the latter two months, too. 🙁

Enjoying the freelance lifestyle is one of the perks of being a freelancer. 🙂

Learning from others is another. 😉

Let’s Learn From Sophie and Francesca, shall we?

Sophie Lizard, from Be a Freelance Blogger, has started a new thing on her blog: Bloggers of Interest, where she interviews freelancers and gets them to share their best freelancing tips.

In her latest interview, she speaks to Francesca Nicasio, from Be a Freelance Writer, who shares excellent – and I mean excellent – freelancing tips!

Francesca is someone with whom I connected early on in my blogging days. She allowed me to guest post for her on her Credible Copywriting site, with the article Investing In Yourself: Why Surfing the Web is Necessary. I’ll admit that this was my very first guest post, and I was a fairly newbie blogger at the time. But obviously she saw something in me (the fact that I’m a darn good writer, perhaps?) and gave me the opportunity to publish my article on her site.

A year later, she paid me $50 for writing Two Simple Things You Can Do to Kick-start your Writing Success, which reveals how I use affirmations to help me be a positive person. (I list most of the ones I use, too. Feel free to steal them! Ralph Quintero, founder of Happy Someone, has given us all permission to use them!) 🙂

But back to Ms. Lizard. . .

This is her third interview so far. Sophie has also spoken with writers Jeff Goins and Tom Ewer.

Here is her interview with Jeff.

Here is her interview with Tom.

And here is her interview with Francesca! Enjoy!

 

 

Did you find any of her tips useful? Which ones?

Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comment section! 

“RISKY ISSUES” IS OUT!!! (+ I have a new site!)

 

Ebook Cover - Risky Issues by Lorraine Reguly

Yes, that’s right – my ebook, Risky Issues, is finally out!

I’m jumping with joy over here! (Okay, I’m not, literally, but I AM pretty excited!)

During the past two weeks, I’ve been busy. As it turns out, there is A LOT I hadn’t considered doing, but did.

Let’s back up a moment, shall we?

First things first…

I tried to format my book for Amazon, but ran into problems. Most of you know already that I’m a self-proclaimed non-techie, so this shouldn’t surprise you too much!

But I AM resourceful.

So what I did was this: I went on Facebook and jumped onto a group for indie authors (to which I have belonged for a while) and simply asked for a recommendation to an inexpensive formatter. After several conversations, I ultimately got help from Rich Meyer.

Who the heck is Rich Meyer?

Rich Meyer offers services at a relatively cheap rate and does a great job.

He rambles on his blog, too. 😉 But amongst all the book reviews is a golden post about formatting for free.

So, yeah, Rich is a great guy.

And yes, yes, he’s an author, too. Check out his Amazon author page! It gives you some information about him and also lists the books he’s written.

Uploading Problems

I originally uploaded my ebook to Amazon with the ISBN I was given. (Because I live in Canada, I get ISBNs for free. I just had to apply for it.) But then, I noticed that there was a minor issue when I previewed my ebook. There was no space between two words, but there should’ve been. So I had to correct it and then upload a new file. But then, in the same sentence, a space was deleted again. I know that these issues were caused as a result of the formatting, as my Word document was perfectly edited. So, I uploaded it again, after fixing the problem.

However, because the two files were technically “different,” my ISBN would not be accepted by Amazon. So I emailed the person from CISS (the Canadian ISBN Service), who explained to me that “every time there is a change in format or a change in edition, a new ISBN must be assigned.”

Great. More work. And all because one file contained “thework” and the other, “the work.”

I took a deep breath, and requested a new ISBN. Because I was originally assigned a “block” (a set of sequential ISBNs that are assigned to a publisher or self-publisher), this was easy to obtain.

(FYI, ISBN blocks come in different sizes. They can contain either 10, 100, 1000, 10 000, 100 000 numbers. All ISBNs found in the block start by the publisher prefix and are followed by other numbers to identify a publication and validate the ISBN. A publisher prefix identifies the publisher and the country of the publisher, and my prefix showed that I am a Canadian publisher and that I was assigned a block of 10 ISBNs.)

Because I was changing my ISBN, I decided to add a P. S. to the Special Note From The Author section of my ebook. I added my special poem, which I wrote when I was fifteen. (I would have added it to the table of contents, but I didn’t know how to format it properly!) I then uploaded my new file to Amazon with the new ISBN.

Adding Books to Goodreads

Once all that was complete, I added my book to Goodreads. Again, I had some problems with this. (Big surprise… I am a non-techie, remember?)

I ended up speaking with someone from Goodreads who explained that once books are added to their database, they cannot be removed. Apparently there are strict rules for this, too. So my book is listed twice instead of once. But really, I’m assured, it’s not a big deal. I will know for next time, though, to make sure everything is perfect and to only do it once.

Sigh.Ebook Cover - Risky Issues by Lorraine Reguly

Secondly, the things authors need to do…

Then the real work began. By “real” I mean “time-consuming” and “tedious” but necessary.

What did I do?

What a pain in the butt this all was! But kinda fun, too. 😉 However, I’m grateful they are all done.

I was interviewed, too…

It seems like things happen really fast sometimes. Shortly after Risky Issues went live, my good friend and indie author Melissa Bowersock sent me an email asking me some questions, which she turned into a blog post: Author Interview: Lorraine Reguly on Reaching a Milestone.

I’d recommend reading it if you want to pick up some tips. 😉

Then there was the birth of a new site… free of charge!

During the past year, many people told to me to snatch up a website with my name as the domain. Their urgency was unnecessary, in my opinion, as I’m the only Lorraine Reguly in this world. (Yes, it’s true!)

But now that I’m an officially published author, I figured it was about time to set up an author website.

So I did.

In fact, about 16 days ago, I purchased my domain name. With my hosting plan with Abivia, I’m allowed to have four other websites free of charge!

I also purchased a premium theme, which I had a few problems with, but which I eventually ironed out.

I installed plugins – including a new one I just found out about (and which I also installed on this site, which has worked wonders!) called Anti-Spam. This plugin is free and I highly recommend it!

My new author site is called Lorraine Reguly: Laying It Out There. I even set up a place where people can subscribe to my Author Newsletter!

Commenting on the new site is not yet available

While I was setting up my new site, I disabled the ability for people to leave comments. So far, I have published three posts, all visible from the home page.

The posts are:

They are all very short posts, so I’d encourage you to give them a read.

What’s Next?

Next I have to get my book up on Smashwords. Then I have to begin marketing it.

I’m going to be asking others to help, too, so if you are a blogger and want to help me with this, please let me know via email. You can interview me, simply feature my book on your site, whatever… I’m open to anything, and appreciate all the help I can get. 🙂

And if you want to buy Risky Issues and/or leave me a review of it, you can do that, too!

Regardless of what you choose to do, could you please share this post on your social networks? I’d love it if you did!

Thank you, and see you soon!