Whether you’re a small business owner, or just a busy freelance writer always on the lookout for new writing assignments, here are five reasons you should be blogging for business right now:

1. Creating an online presence is easy with a blog. Today, everyone expects anyone with a serious business to be visible online. But that doesn’t mean a small business owner has to shell out big bucks on an expensive website right from the start. Instead, start with a blog. A blog can be set up easily and quickly at little or no cost - so no matter how small your company might be, you can be on line blogging for business in (literally) a few minutes. You can also update your blog much easier and quicker than you can a regular website. You don’t have to wait for a webmaster to make changes for you.

2. A blog lets you develop relationships with your customers or clients. If you blog regularly, your readers get to know more about you and your services. They can also leave comments for you on the blog, so you can interact with them through this site. Research shows that people are more likely to do business with someone they know. Post to your blog daily (or at least several times a week) and readers will get to know you, trust you, and feel confident to buy your products and or services.

3. A blog gives you additional opportunities to network with other small businesses. You can provide reciprocal links at your blog. That just means you put a link to another company’s website or blog on your blog and that company puts a link to your blog on theirs. You benefit from these links because your blog attracts additional readers from these other sites.

4. You can use your blog to help build your mailing list. A good way to do this is to offer something free in return for joining your mailing list. Free ebooks related to the products or services offered by your business are perfect “give aways” to use for this purpose. Put a sign-up box on your blog where readers can join your mailing list and automatically receive your free products via email.

5. By regularly posting to your blog, you become an “expert” in your line of work. People always turn to experts when they need help. Establish yourself as an expert in your field and people will turn to you when they need the particular type of products or services that you have to offer.

Here’s what I tell them.

A writing instructor is someone who teaches a person (or persons) HOW to write. A writing instructor can teach various types of writing such as technical writing, writing for children, resume writing, writing screenplays, etc. Generally, a writing instructor or teacher is needed when someone wants to learn the craft of writing in one genre or another.

A writing coach can also teach the mechanics, or the “how-to” of writing, from time to time. But generally, a writing coach works with a person (or persons) who knows the mechanics of the type of writing he wants to write, but he has trouble staying on track. The writing coach’s client needs help with specific strategies to develop a focus for his writing (and perhaps even for his writing career) and then comes to the coach seeking additional help maintaining that focus.

Both writing instructors and writing coaches can help motivate the writing student or client. But a writing instructor develops the focus for the instruction he or she is presenting to the student(s), while, with a writing coach, the client is directly or indirectly responsible for setting the focus of each coaching session.

Think of it this way. If you know the kind of writing you would like to do, but you don’t have the skills, education, and training required for this type of writing, then you probably need a writing teacher or instructor. On the other hand, if you HAVE taken courses, workshops, and other training and are skilled at the type of writing you wish to pursue, yet you can’t seem to stay motivated or focused long enough to complete that book you’ve always wanted to write, or you can’t figure out how to use your skills to develop a fulltime writing career, then you probably need a coach.

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Do you need a writing coach? Join The Working Writer’s Coaching Program by January 31, 2008, and receive a f.ree copy of my latest book, pictured here:

Master Class on Comedy Screenwriting

Presented by KC Filmmakers Jubilee & UMKC Film Studies

Seating limited to 40. Register soon!

Dates/Times: Saturday, March 1, 2008 - 9:00 am - 7:00 pm
Sunday, March 2, 2008 - 10:00 am - 4:30 pm

Location: Diastole, 2501 Holmes Street, Kansas City, MO 64108

Cost: Early bird rate: $100, registered & paid by February 15th
Regular rate: $125, registered & paid after February 15th
Fulltime Student rate: $50
PAY FEE online at www.kcjubilee.org

The focus of this master class is comedy screenwriting and will include:

* Examining techniques of screen comedy

* How to pitch your script

* You pitch your script

* Re-working scenes

* Panel discussions on agents, managers and marketing your scripts, and

* A screening of How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog (Saturday 5:00 pm at Screenland Theater,
1656 Washington) - sponsored by KC Screenwriters

Participants are encouraged to come prepared with a pitch and a scene to workshop.

UMKC Continuing Education College credit is available (1 credit hour) - go to www.UMKC.edu to enroll

Fees for credit hours are paid to UMKC separately

Class name: Advanced Screenwriting Seminar: Comedy

Class Number: 18488

Attribute: Continuing Education

Instructor: Mitch Brian 01048504

Presenters include:

Michael Kalesniko - writer / director - over 27 scripts produced or optioned, including: Howard Stern’s Private Parts, Mousehunt, How To Kill You Neighbor’s Dog (Kenneth Branagh), Bubble Boy (Jake Gyllenhal). He won the Nissan FOCUS award for screenwriting in 1990. Kalesniko was born in Trail, British Columbia, Canada. He received his B.A. in Writing from the University of Victoria in 1985 and his B.A. in film and video production from Columbia College Hollywood in 1990. He has worked at various times as a reporter, a gravedigger, a high school English teacher in the arctic and as a bartender in London, England.

Robert Reece - writer - over 17 scripts produced or optioned, including: several Disney feature animations (Aristocats II, Snow Queen, Stoneflight, and Emperor & The Nightingale), and comedies for various producers (A Fare to Remember, Two Strangers & A Wedding, Ghost Detective, Car Wars, and Fanatics). Robert Reece has been a screenwriter and member of the Writer’s Guild of America West for 10 years. He has written projects for Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. He has worked with such acclaimed producers as Imagine Entertainment, John Davis, Robert Simonds and Donald De Line. Robert’s short fiction work in prose and verse has been published in magazines in the U.S. and abroad. When Robert isn’t writing, he paints. His large, contemporary abstracts are in private and commercial collections from the U.S. to Singapore. To see his visual work, visit his website at www.reecestudio.com.

Mitch Brian - writer / director / educator - received his BA in Film Production from California State University, Northridge and his MA in Communication Studies from UMKC. Mitch had previously taught screenwriting at Columbia College, Hollywood. He has written teleplays for all the major networks as well as HBO and FX. He co-created and wrote episodes for Batman: The Animated Series and co-wrote the NBC mini-series The 70’s. He has written feature screenplays for directors Chris Columbus, Oliver Stone, Luis Mandoki and Robert Schwentke as well as for producers including Gina Davis, Mike Medavoy and James Ellroy. His screenplays have dealt with a variety of historical figures including John Brown, Frank Luke, Thomas Jefferson, J. Paul Getty and Lana Turner. His literary adaptations include Far From the Madding Crowd, Dracula, The Totem, and Seven Days in May. He is a visiting assistant professor at UMKC.

QUESTIONS: Call 913-649-0244