One of the most common questions I get asked from fledgling freelancers is, “Someone wants me to write some articles for them and name my price. How much do I charge?”

I have to admit, this is the most difficult part of freelancing for me. I have a hard time assigning a value to my writing and then turning around and charging folks for it. Shoot, there are days I’m still amazed people are willing to pay me for doing what I love!

For me, I much prefer writing for publications that have posted prices they pay for certain content, whether it be by the word, inch, character, article… I want to know what I’m getting upfront and what to expect. I also like to write for sites that read your article on spec and then make you an offer for it that you can then either accept or reject. This is what I prefer.

That being said, sometimes I’ll have someone contact me and give me some specs on writing some articles for them and ask me how much I’ll charge.

I have to come up with a number… so what do I do?

There are lots of things you can do to determine a price to charge – you can charge a flat-rate for your writing and sell it the same to every person – usually this is a per word rate, such as 1-100 words for XX dollars, 101-250 words for XX dollars, and so on, or it can be a flat rate per word such as .10-1.00 per word, or more or less. You set the rate.

The problem I have with flat rates is that every writing is different and the research and time it will take to write or the style required will vary and thus so should the price. I have one client I charge $50 bucks for doing a monthly newsletter article for about 900 words, while another client pays me $150 bucks to do a monthly newsletter article for the same length. The difference is, one is a very easy subject in a casual tone and requires almost zero research, while the other requires references, links and a lot more research, so it should pay more.

One thing you can do is try to put it back on the contractor requesting your services. Tell them, “I don’t have a flat rate, but rather charge for each unique project,” and then ask them, “Did you have a budget you were looking at for this project?”

They might or might not tell you, but maybe they’ll hint at an amount so that you know what your ballpark is to work with.

If they won’t offer you any hint, then the next step is to go and look at other publications/sites that are similar to what is being asked for and find out what the going rate is, or as close to it as you can get, and then I’ll set a rate that is close to that going rate.

Set your rate a bit higher than you really want or need and be prepared to offer a lower rate if they say that’s too high. After all, it’s a negotiation as it would be with any contracting type of job. Set yourself a threshold that you will not accept less than XX amount, and don’t let them talk you into less than that unless they can offer you some other benefit besides cash (backlink, free promotion for other things, etc that might benefit you).

Now, being that freelancing is my only job and I have a lot of things floating around submitted
and pending and I am not in a position that I have to take any job that comes my way to make ends meet. Even when I was in a financial situation when I really needed the money, I had to learn that sometimes turning down a project because they weren’t willing to pay enough is BETTER for your career than accepting a lowballing writing job.

The goal as a freelancer is to constantly increase your breadth of published credits and to make money to support you in your career – that does sometimes mean taking higher and lower payment on similar type content, BUT if someone is really lowballing you, I don’t care how much you need the money, don’t sell yourself short. You’ll get a reputation of working for peanuts and eventually that’s the only jobs you’re going to be able to get.

So, to recap:

~look at what others are paying/charging for similar content
~try to get the contractor to let you in on their budget
~don’t sell yourself short
~offer a bit higher than you are acting ‘needing’
~set a minimum threshold and don’t go below it
~and did I mention don’t sell yourself short?

Keep in mind, writing is a profession. Regardless of what some people may think or tell you, writing well is a skill, a talent, an art… and you deserve to be paid a livable wage for the quality work that you do.

Any questions?

Popularity: unranked

What constitutes good poetry differs from person to person, and what one reader might enjoy, another will not. Judging a good poem is very subjective. Basically, this means there is no way to truly determine what ‘good’ poetry is, but there is a way to tell if poetry is ‘bad.’

Poetry, more than any other type of writing, is usually very personal or emotional. Because of this, readers will like poetry with which they can feel a personal or emotional connection and probably won’t like poetry with which they cannot connect. Just because someone can’t relate to the emotion of a poem doesn’t mean the poem is bad, and just because some can relate to a poem doesn’t necessarily mean it is good. Like I said, it’s very subjective.

The first thing you most know about poetry is that there is no set of ‘rules’ for poetry. While there are some guidelines for certain types of poetry, such as a haiku (which is written in seventeen-syllable verse form, arranged in three lines of five, seven and five syllables), most poetry tends to be free verse. Some of it rhymes and some of it doesn’t, and that’s okay!

When writing poetry, avoid using all caps or toggling between upper and lower case. This does nothing to appeal to the reader and actually detracts from the visual imagery your words are supposed to convey.

Using phrases such as “Undying love” or “I love you more than words can say” are cliché, and honestly, un-original. We’ve heard these tired lines over and over. Plus, there’s nothing worse than reading “I love you more than words can say…” but then to go on and read three pages of a poem where words are saying how much love is there. If words can’t express love, then why write the poem in the first place?

Avoid over and under use of punctuation. I have seen a lot of poems that have no punctuation at all, which makes it difficult to read and pause while reading. I’ve also seen poetry that has an over-abundance of punctuation, which causes the poetry to be choppy and hard to read it with any type of flow.

Don’t misspell words. Edit your poetry, proof it, read it out loud like your reader would read it, not like you think you have written it. Poor spelling or misuse of words will detract from the emotion of your poetry.

When writing poetry, esoteric poetry is great, as long as the reader can get a sense of what you mean or can connect and find a meaning all their own. A poem that makes no sense and leaves the reader wondering, “What was that about?” is truly not good poetry. The reader doesn’t have to understand it from your point of view, but they need to be able to feel something or understand it from their point of view.

Fresh imagery, visual imagery, or emotive conveyance – you want your reader to see something they have never seen when reading other poetry. You want your reader to be able to visualize your poem, in full living color – see it, feel it, or even for the moment to live it, and you want to do it in a way that others have not done it many times before. Poetry that fails to do this is simply not good poetry.

Take a look at how the poem looks on the page. Are there some lines that linger out longer than others? Does it look choppy or have a weird flow to the lines of the poem? In fiction or non fiction writing, how the words appear on the page is pretty much standard, but in poetry, how the lines flow, the ‘shape’ of the poem is sometimes as important as the poem itself.

Think about how the words flow, the meter and rhythm of the cadence. Does it have a beat, a pulse, a pattern? It’s not required, but when you read it, does it flow well? Read your poem out loud and see if your voice rises and falls naturally with a good ebb and flow.

Good poetry does not have to rhyme, however, if you do rhyme your words, don’t stretch too far to try to make them rhyme. For example, if one would have to change the standard pronunciation of a word in order to make it rhyme, this is not good poetry – with the exception of humor poetry, which sometimes forces rhyming as part of the very humor of the poem itself.

Use the proper words and meanings. Just because a word sounds interesting or rhymes with another word, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to use it if the meaning of the word doesn’t fit with what is being said. After all, poetry is more about the meaning than about the reading of it – a word may sound good, but if the poem makes no sense, who care? Get yourself a good synonym finder online or a good thesaurus and look up interesting or even archaic words that mean what you want to say, but never throw a word in there just because it sounds good if the meaning is skewed.

Human beings like twists. We don’t always want to know what is going to happen next. Poetry is a story in verse form, and it should have a ‘plot’ of some sort that we can see. Use irony, metaphors, analogies – tell us a story, and let us be sucked into it. Make your poem a condensed short story and give us a good ending to our short word journey.

Okay, after all I’ve said, this one will seem to contradict – emotion isn’t enough! I know, I have said over and over to be emotive and make us feel something, but truth is, your raw emotion is not something with which I can connect. Write your poem based in and infused in your emotion, but do it in such a way that I can feel that emotion too.

Oscar Wilde once said, “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.”

Emotion is good, but poetry needs words to convey the emotion, and you should choose the words and the meter and style that fits the emotion you want to convey to the reader of your poem.

Emotion isn’t only sorrow or love or grief… happiness and elation are emotions too. Humor is a great way to convey emotions to the readers of your poetry. When you are stuck on a poem, try taking a break and write about an opposite emotion instead – be silly, be funny, and the person who reads your poem can have an emotional connection to that too. Good poetry doesn’t have to be esoteric and morose.

In the end, good poetry is the poem that makes you feel something… it will make you think, respond emotionally, laugh, cry, get angry – but FEEL something. If a poem fails to evoke emotion in a reader, then it is a bad poem. If a poem cannot be understood or the reader cannot connect to it in some way, then it is a bad poem.

And lastly, don’t write poetry just for yourself. Some of the best poems ever written were written by the poet for someone else. Learn to write for you as well as for other people who will read your poetry. Spark emotion in them, make them laugh, smile, cry or scream – and if you do, that is how you know you have written a good poem.

Popularity: unranked

There was a question posed today on my forum about whether one should have an agent or not.

Below is a partial C&P of the response I made on the forum about agents:

NEVER PAY AN AGENT A PENNY UNTIL THEY HAVE SOLD YOUR MANUSCRIPT!

Any legitimate agent will not charge a penny until your manuscript is sold. Now, some agents charge a percentage and some will charge a percentage and some itemized fees, like long distance calls, postage, etc…. both are standard in the practice, but you should never ever ever pay an agent anything upfront nor should you have to pay an agent a reading fee, nor should you have to pay an agent a monthly maintenance fee or an account set up fee.

Let me say it again: a legitimate agent will not charge you a single penny unless/until they sell your manuscript to a publisher!

Now, as to the age-old question about whether you should get an agent or not… it’s a tossup really.

All of the major publishers, the big sisters in the publisher world, require an agent or for you to know someone in order to submit a manuscript. These are the companies who are offering those 6-figure plus advances and then own your soul for a few years after. If you want a deal like that with one of the big publishers whose names we all know like the back of our hand, then you will have to get an agent, period.

But below those big-wig publishers are imprints of the same big-wig publishers and other large publisher that don’t all require agents. Now, the rumor is, agented submissions often get preferential treatment. Sometimes an agented submission bypasses the slush pile straight to an editor, because that’s what an agent does, or should do – they don’t just submit for you, but they foster relationships with publishers and editors, so that when an agent calls on a publisher and says, “I’ve got just what you’re looking for,” the publisher/editor knows the agent is well-versed in what each editor is looking for and providing only manuscripts that fit that need.

All that being said, some writers have landed decent deals with mid-sized to even larger publishers without an agent.

http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/pubagent.htm

P&E has a listing of all agents they are aware of – both good and bad – with the reasons why they are good or bad, user complaints, etc, and they are an exceptional resources.

I am looking for an agent…. I will still submit to unagented mid-sized publishers on my own though too.

Thing is, it’s really up to you… some writers will tell you an agent is a waste of money while others will tell you that you’ll never make it big without one… I think it’s all a matter of how you play the game whether an agent works for you and your type of writing or not.

I want an agent, because the one publisher I dream of being published with will only accept agented manuscripts. I’m going to write it to their liking, try to secure an agent I know who has placed with them before, and play the game the way it should be played.

But for some of my other manuscripts, I’ll probably keep looking around at mid-sized publishers myself.

Agents take anywhere from 5-25% of whatever the deal is they can make for you. 10-15 is standard, if you get 5, I’d worry about their legitimacy, and anything over 20 (without certain rights and other benefits) is probably getting too high.

An agent can also charge for certain ‘extra’ things, like the cost to make copies of the manuscript, the cost for long distance calls, etc… BUT they don’t charge for these itemized things until they’ve made a deal for you and then like an attorney almost (and some attorneys are agents) they will list the costs and itemize it. When the publisher pays the advance and then the subsequent royalties, they pay it to the agent, and then the agent takes out their percentage and itemized things and then remits payment with a statement to you.

If you are going with a small to mid-sized publisher that doesn’t have shelf placement with a major retail bookstore or which doesn’t have good distribution set up, you’re not going to be making much money, and giving away that much of it to an agent is going to really bite into your profit, if there even IS any.

Only you can decide whether an agent is going to benefit you or not. I’d say if you are unpublished, self published or have only published with small houses and do not yet have shelf placement on a book, haven’t received a sizable advance, and you believe your writing is better than the shake it’s been given, seek an agent who can help you get that fair shake.

Otherwise, you might want to try it on your own with some mid-sized publishers who have acquired shelf placement in major retail bookstores… worst they can do is say no, and then you can tweak, edit, resubmit or start searching for an agent then. The only thing you really have to lose at that point is time.

Anyhoo, that’s my ramble about agents today….

Any questions? Comment?

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: unranked

I have a story, mine to tell
Rebound heaven, tortured hell
We have a future, lost in the past
So many questions, afraid to ask
There was a moment, in your eyes
Held captive then, caught by surprise
Suspended there, you reached for me
And fought me through uncertainty
To lift me up, sacred bound
And turn mid-heart, you let me down
Came crashing to the hardened floor
Broken, used, forevermore

“Don’t give up on me,” I heard you plead
You were the one who made me need
But I faltered, and you did fall
A broken promise, a late night call
The tears did flow, afraid to speak
The disappointment ran too deep
I want to scream, “Why did you lie?”
But I can’t bear to question why
Because the truth came back to me
Hidden in the shadow of deceit
For fear that I made this mistake
But it was my heart that had to break

I still recall with great surprise
The look you hid behind your eyes
Anger there, plain to see
Bound to lead to tragedy
I watched you go and not return
And of all the hard, hard lessons learned
The hardest I have ever found
Was letting go, while honor bound
To keep the vows my heart has made
Even when your own has strayed
So here I am, I will remain
With too much lost, so much to gain

Go on and run now, if you must
Forsake the promise, break the trust
The dream will live with you, or it will die
With joy or sorrow, tears will be cried
I am mortal, and I am frail
I can succeed, and I can fail
As wrong as I have ever been
I will be put right, we’ll love again
And stand upon the solid stone
A foundation laid, your heart, our home
Until that day, I wander here
Inside the hope, cloaked in fear

So goes our story, present, past
A love that died, a love to last
Contradiction to each extreme
And all emotion in between
Destiny calls, fate awaits
One stepped too soon, and one too late
One will win, and one will die
The third will close their eyes and cry
And through the tears, love will ignite
The very core of you that night
A choice will be made, one will be freed
One will rejoice, one is deceived

The vision God has sent to me
Is the only truth that I can see
What dreams behold, I will embrace
With faith in God’s amazing Grace
That I will know you once again
To be the one I once called ‘friend’
The pain, the past, will be erased
The dreams we built were not replaced
But merely set aside for you
So you could search and find your truth
My only purpose at this time
Is to wait for you, make up your mind

With unwavering faith, devotion true
Here I am, I wait for you
A triangle sharp, with circles drawn
You are not here, but are not gone
Uncertain limbo, paths entwined
A shadowed fate, a love divine
I draw upon the card of destiny
Knowing God has this plan for me
For who am I to say He’s wrong
When I truly knew it all along
I simply was not strong enough
To pass the test, deserve your love

But I am strong now, though I still stumble
And these are only words I mumble
To reveal the plan for me and you
Words will pale when dreams come true
I believe it now with all my being
That this vision I am seeing
Has revealed a truth about our future
The message couldn’t be much clearer
That God has a plan meant just for us
Adversity, conceived in love
I am for you, my eternal muse
And all that’s left is for you to choose

The only question that now remains
Is not the how, but rather when
The only answer I can see
Is not what is, but what’s meant to be
I do not know how things transpire
I only know I’d walk through fire
To pull your heart from burning ground
As I said, I’m honor bound
And help you create a different view
From deep inside, you will shine through
And when you do, you will soon find
That I have been here all the time

God grants me patience, removes my pride
So you can see these tears I’ve cried
For once you knew me very well
But I have secrets left to tell
Does not matter now if you can’t believe
I have faith enough to make you see
There is no flame that burns too bright
No lover scorned for us to fight
I will no break, I will not bend
We will be together in the end
Because I know God’s own truth
If not for me, I am for you

(c) 2006 Michelle L Devon

(Please feel free to link to it, but do not copy, thanks!)

Popularity: 1%

Man, I’ve talked about this so much, I’m surprised there are still folks who don’t know about this!

I’ve mentioned it in the forums in at least three different threads, and then wrote an article about promotion that included this idea… but some people are just now hearing about it, as evidenced on my writers forum today, so I figured I’d take a moment and share it with all of you guys and gals.

RSS Feeds… what does RSS stand for? Simple! No, really, it stands for Really Simple Syndication… honestly, that’s what it means!

Why? Because it IS simple. There are still many who haven’t gotten into how to use feed readers yet, but I and many others like me love them. In fact, when AC started having so many problems with their emails, I quit subscribing to people on AC and have instead subscribed to their feed in my feed reader, and it shows me every time the feed updates, which would be any time a new article is posted or their profile is updated in some way.

AC publishes a partial feed, which means that people seeing the feed can only read a teaser, which in this case is usually the abstract we put on our articles, and the title of the article. Then, in order to read more, the reader would have to click on the link and go to your article on AC, thus giving you a page view.

If the reader likes your content, they can subscribe to your feed, and then they too will be updated every time you update the page or publish a new article. This is all automatic – YOU don’t have to do anything to make it happen.

BUT… how do you get it where people can find your feed?

Good question!

You have to submit your feed to feed submission sites, where directories of feeds are listed.

You can Google “RSS Feed Submission” and you’ll find a list of sites where you can submit your RSS Feed. Add the word FREE to that – “Free RSS Feed Submissions” and you get sites you can post list your RSS feed for free. I don’t recommend paying for feed submissions, but for the lazy amongst us, you can pay to have a service blast your RSS feed to all the submission sites they have listed. I don’t think it’s worth it.

This website: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

Has a list of a bunch of feed and blog submission sites where you can get your profile on AC listed in their directories. I like using this link because you can just go down their list and not have to search all over for it.

Of course, some of the links are dead, and some of the sites are not going to work for everyone on AC, because they are genre specific, but many of them will work, and you can sign up for them or add your link very easily.

It’s time consuming at first, BUT once you submit it, as long as you post an article regularly, you won’t ever have to update or resubmit your feed!

Some of the sites want the main URL and some want your feed URL. If it asks for your feed URL, you will want to go to your AC profile, and look after the gray profile stuff but before the articles for a button that looks like this:

Only it will be smaller. Just click on that, and you will see in the top of the page where your URL usually is, there’s a new URL that ends in .xml

If you are prompted to submit the feed URL, that one ending in .xml is the one to submit.

If you go down the list in the link I gave you above, and submit your feed URL to every site you can find that accepts submissions, then you will have your profile posted in the feed directories where readers who are looking for things to read can stumble upon your feed and just might subscribe to it. It also helps to build PageRank for you as well, which helps you rank higher in the Google results.

Setting up all the accounts, posting the feed link, entering a category, etc… this takes time in the beginning, but with the exception of a few of the sites, you will never have to post or update or do anything to the feed again. It will automatically update every time a new article is posted, and anyone who is searching the directories for feeds or who has subscribed to your feed can read it.

It really is that simple.

It took me about three days to get all the feeds submitted that I wanted to and could do, and then after that, except for pinggoat and technorati, I haven’t touched them or even thought about them since.

One word of warning though – much like submitting to search engines and directories with your regular feed, you don’t want to submit it multiple times to the same place. Also, if the majority of your content is parenting articles, don’t submit your feed to a technology feed submission site. Please keep your feeds on topic and appropriate for the site you submit to.

Short of that, git to submittin’…

For more information and to see one AC CP’s experience with using the RSS submissions, you can visit the forum here at this thread and see our discussion about it.

Any questions?

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 1%

Don Miles, Author Interview

www.DonMiles.com

Popularity: 1%

If you are a subscriber to my Accentuate Writers board, and you are a Comcast Subscriber, you should know that Comcast is being way too aggressive and stupid about their spam blocking.

I very rarely will badmouth any company, particularly in public where anyone and everyone can read it, but I am sick and tired of Comcast’s aggressive spam filters that block out innocent non-spam emails that YOU as a Comcast subscriber have requested and actually want to receive.

It is not right for Comcast to take it upon itself to tell you what email you can and can’t receive… that is YOUR choice.

As such, Comcast has blocked my domain and my domain mail because the mail server my host uses has been flagged for spam.

See, this doesn’t mean *I* am a spammer, or even that Comcast is saying that I’m a spammer. What they said is that the mail server that my mail and probably hundreds of other people go through too has been blocked because (and I’m quoting here), “Our filters have determined that email from your mail server has been sent in patterns which are characteristic of spam. In an effort to protect subscribers, your mail server has been blocked from sending email to the Comcast network. Mail servers are typically shared by many users so it may be the case that another party using your mail server has sent spam, even if you have not. “

Isn’t that nice of them?

What this means to Comcast subscribers on my board… or if you are someone who emails me from a Comcast address?

It means I can’t respond to your email or send you an email, even if you have me whitelisted.
It means you can’t register on my forum using a Comcast email address and get your login information. It means you can’t get any U2U private message notifications. It means you can’t subscribe to a thread and get updates from the board that someone has commented to the thread.

It also means that I have to go to the gmail web mail service to send you an email or, get this, RESPOND to an email YOU SENT ME – EVEN IF I’M ON YOUR WHITELIST!

If you are a Comcast subscriber, please consider calling or emailing them today and tell them that YOU want to receive all the email you have requested and to quit blocking innocent people with their super aggressive spam filters. It’s one thing to have a bulk mailbox you have to sort through, but it’s another thing entirely for Comcast to completely block the email so you never get the chance to see it!

I’m not happy with Comcast at all right now!

Can you tell?

This message will be reposted on all my blogs until such time as Comcast delists me and stops this stupid and aggressive spam blocking of innocent emails that are not spam!

BTW, I am not the only one who has had issues with Comcast. They are just too aggressive in their spam accusations and if they aren’t careful, they’re going to end up getting themselves sued. Do a Google search and you’ll see… Comcast sucks at spam blocking!

Comcast, get a clue!

I now return you to your rant free day!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 1%

If you are a subscriber to my Accentuate Writers board, and you are a Comcast Subscriber, you should know that Comcast is being way too aggressive and stupid about their spam blocking.

I very rarely will badmouth any company, particularly in public where anyone and everyone can read it, but I am sick and tired of Comcast’s aggressive spam filters that block out innocent non-spam emails that YOU as a Comcast subscriber have requested and actually want to receive.

It is not right for Comcast to take it upon itself to tell you what email you can and can’t receive… that is YOUR choice.

As such, Comcast has blocked my domain and my domain mail because the mail server my host uses has been flagged for spam.

See, this doesn’t mean *I* am a spammer, or even that Comcast is saying that I’m a spammer. What they said is that the mail server that my mail and probably hundreds of other people go through too has been blocked because (and I’m quoting here), “Our filters have determined that email from your mail server has been sent in patterns which are characteristic of spam. In an effort to protect subscribers, your mail server has been blocked from sending email to the Comcast network. Mail servers are typically shared by many users so it may be the case that another party using your mail server has sent spam, even if you have not. “

Isn’t that nice of them?

What this means to Comcast subscribers on my board… or if you are someone who emails me from a Comcast address?

It means I can’t respond to your email or send you an email, even if you have me whitelisted.
It means you can’t register on my forum using a Comcast email address and get your login information. It means you can’t get any U2U private message notifications. It means you can’t subscribe to a thread and get updates from the board that someone has commented to the thread.

It also means that I have to go to the gmail web mail service to send you an email or, get this, RESPOND to an email YOU SENT ME – EVEN IF I’M ON YOUR WHITELIST!

If you are a Comcast subscriber, please consider calling or emailing them today and tell them that YOU want to receive all the email you have requested and to quit blocking innocent people with their super aggressive spam filters. It’s one thing to have a bulk mailbox you have to sort through, but it’s another thing entirely for Comcast to completely block the email so you never get the chance to see it!

I’m not happy with Comcast at all right now!

Can you tell?

This message will be reposted on all my blogs until such time as Comcast delists me and stops this stupid and aggressive spam blocking of innocent emails that are not spam!

BTW, I am not the only one who has had issues with Comcast. They are just too aggressive in their spam accusations and if they aren’t careful, they’re going to end up getting themselves sued. Do a Google search and you’ll see… Comcast sucks at spam blocking!

Comcast, get a clue!

I now return you to your rant free day!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 1%

If you are a subscriber to my Accentuate Writers board, and you are a Comcast Subscriber, you should know that Comcast is being way too aggressive and stupid about their spam blocking.

I very rarely will badmouth any company, particularly in public where anyone and everyone can read it, but I am sick and tired of Comcast’s aggressive spam filters that block out innocent non-spam emails that YOU as a Comcast subscriber have requested and actually want to receive.

It is not right for Comcast to take it upon itself to tell you what email you can and can’t receive… that is YOUR choice.

As such, Comcast has blocked my domain and my domain mail because the mail server my host uses has been flagged for spam.

See, this doesn’t mean *I* am a spammer, or even that Comcast is saying that I’m a spammer. What they said is that the mail server that my mail and probably hundreds of other people go through too has been blocked because (and I’m quoting here), “Our filters have determined that email from your mail server has been sent in patterns which are characteristic of spam. In an effort to protect subscribers, your mail server has been blocked from sending email to the Comcast network. Mail servers are typically shared by many users so it may be the case that another party using your mail server has sent spam, even if you have not. “

Isn’t that nice of them?

What this means to Comcast subscribers on my board… or if you are someone who emails me from a Comcast address?

It means I can’t respond to your email or send you an email, even if you have me whitelisted.
It means you can’t register on my forum using a Comcast email address and get your login information. It means you can’t get any U2U private message notifications. It means you can’t subscribe to a thread and get updates from the board that someone has commented to the thread.

It also means that I have to go to the gmail web mail service to send you an email or, get this, RESPOND to an email YOU SENT ME – EVEN IF I’M ON YOUR WHITELIST!

If you are a Comcast subscriber, please consider calling or emailing them today and tell them that YOU want to receive all the email you have requested and to quit blocking innocent people with their super aggressive spam filters. It’s one thing to have a bulk mailbox you have to sort through, but it’s another thing entirely for Comcast to completely block the email so you never get the chance to see it!

I’m not happy with Comcast at all right now!

Can you tell?

This message will be reposted on all my blogs until such time as Comcast delists me and stops this stupid and aggressive spam blocking of innocent emails that are not spam!

BTW, I am not the only one who has had issues with Comcast. They are just too aggressive in their spam accusations and if they aren’t careful, they’re going to end up getting themselves sued. Do a Google search and you’ll see… Comcast sucks at spam blocking!

Comcast, get a clue!

I now return you to your rant free day!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 1%

Well, you’ve waited long enough for them, so now it’s time to announce the winners of the six-word story challenge!

Ready?

Drum roll, please……

Our Third place winner is…..

“Last human, alone. Knock, knock, knock.” ~~by Opher

Our Second Place winner is a tie! Yes, a tie! Congrats to:

“Crimson puddle. He got home late.” ~~by MelanieS

AND

“Mother sighs with baby’s first cry.” ~~by twnkltoz

Our Grand Prize First Place winner is:

“Husband and dog for sale. Cheap!” ~~JRiva

Congratulations to Jean, Jennifer, Melanie and Opher!

You guys are the first ever Accentuate Writers contest winners…. Jean, if you’ll email me you mailing address, I’ll send your prize in the mail tomorrow morning, and the other three of you, I will contact later in the week to send your e-prize to you via email!

Congrats again!

For those who have no done so yet, be sure to enter our Short Story Contest:

http://www.accentuateservices.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=752

There is a cash prize as well as free editing for the winner, so your short will be ready to be submitted to publishers along with a few other neat prizes too.

The deadline is drawing close and we haven’t received very many entries at all, so get yours in now!

Congrats again to the six-word story winners and good luck to the short story entries!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 1%