I was recently invited to sound off on the subject of literary magazines and being the editor of the web’s foremost literary rebellion, Black Heart. If you’ve been wondering how to score access to Black Heart’s hallowed ventricles, you should definitely check out the interview over at the Six Questions For… site. The piece is entitled “Six Questions for Laura Roberts, Editor, Black Heart Magazine,” and in case you haven’t noticed from my irregularly scheduled blog posts, will contain a modicum of cursing.

F-bombs aside, I have also written a cuss-free piece on the practical side of writing for the Professional Writers of Austin, entitled “How much does good writing cost?” It is by no means the definitive word on pricing your writing, but it does aim to give some tips and tricks to avoid feeling like you’ve been ripped off by your clients.

On a related note, I’d just like to give a shout-out to the potential client who wanted a “sample” of my copywriting before she hired me. I found this amusing, not only because copywriting is a profession in which no one writes on spec, and there are already quite a number of samples here on my website under the “Copywriting” section, but also because revisions are always included in my fee. If she didn’t like what I wrote, she could’ve had me switch it all around after I delivered the product. Twice!

I guess the moral of this story is that if you’re looking to hire me to write copy for your website, you should have a fairly firm idea in mind about what you actually want me to write. If you’re looking for catalog copy, I can go Payless or J. Peterman, but I need to know what your vibe is from the start so we can avoid conversations in which you ask me to write things for free because you don’t like my fees. (Which, by the way, are extremely reasonable, but will always be priced above zero as I like to do silly things like eat three meals a day and pay my rent; contact me if you’re tired of messing around and want to get down to business.)

Got a question for me about writing, either literary or corporate? Feel free to hit me up in the comments below!