New blog for Bowen Island writing festival

I’ve just set up a new blog for the Write On Bowen festival on July 2-4, 2010. I’m on the board and also interviewed a couple of the presenters last week. Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen runs six blogs and plays around a lot with different ads on her sites. “It takes a long time to earn money from a blog...

Switching from wordpress.com to wordpress.org

What an absolute pain! I have to say, don’t make this switch lightly. I wanted to change the look of my website/blog, which I’ve run happily on the free wordpress.com site for the last couple of years. But I wanted a more sophisticated layout. I found a new template I really liked, from Elegant...

Online tips at Bowen Island writing festival

By Alison Bate I learned about Freemiums and Long Tails on Saturday while moderating a panel at the Write on Bowen festival on Bowen Island, near Vancouver, B.C. As traditional media outlets struggle to make money on the web, panelist Lisa Manfield said Freemium was one way for companies to adapt. Freemium...

Ten tips for freelance writers

I joined four other freelancers and publishers on a discussion panel at the Write on Bowen! festival on Bowen Island, B.C. last weekend. Here are some of the tips I gave in a handout afterward: 1. If you freelance full-time, try and have at least three regular clients. That way, when one goes bust, you...

Bowen Island's festival kicks off

“I’m one of those people who embellishes everything,” Vancouver Poet Laureate George McWhirter told the first-ever festival for the written arts on Bowen Island this weekend. “I can’t leave anything alone,” he said, before launching into a series of poems on opening night...