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Your social media profile may not impress your publisher as much as you'd like to believe, Sharon Bially writes. Why not? Because raising your profile as an author and promoting your book two different things: "Your Huffington Post articles are not about your novel, so their audience and your book's audience aren't necessarily the same. Ditto your blog posts and webinars on craft, which appeal to a broad group of writers who don't necessarily read your book's genre."

Most journalists have heard of the Freedom of Information Act and know at least a smattering of copyright law, but how many know that a social media promotion could run afoul of laws governing sweepstakes? Sara Hawkins discusses that and other laws that matter to people working in the online media world: "Knowing the laws that affect you is the first step to making sure you raise the bar, not only for yourself and your business, but for your competition as well."

Michelle V. Rafter offers ten tips for freelancers who have trouble getting their clients to pay on time: "In the years I've been self-employed, I've only needed outside collections help once, and I eventually got every penny. But there've been times I've waited months to get what I was owed." Many of her tips have to do with prevention, such as declining "payment on publication" contracts: "Many POP stories are essays that are evergreen and can keep indefinitely."

Results are now available from the NASW-funded Science Writers Compensation Survey, conducted by the Freelance Committee. NASW members can check out the Spring 2014 issue of ScienceWriters magazine for a summary of results or use the "read more" link for details on the survey and a link to the full report and two tables of highlights. Thank you to all the volunteers who worked on this project during the last year.

"Maybe you've heard the adage that if you've been searching for a particular book and haven't found it, that's the book you should write," Nina Amir writes on The Book Designer. Amir says that a "competitive analysis" should be the first step in planning a book, and she provides some tips for creating one, including some questions to ask: "Will my book improve upon the competition?" "Is my book unique?" "Is my book necessary — do my target readers need or want it?"

Sarah Laskow writes in CJR about the all-too-common problem of freelance writers clashing with their editors. She lists some of the warning signs of a coming breakup and some tips on how to head it off: "Breakups are harder on writers than editors. So be wary of editors bearing too-good-to-be-true assignments. Get a contract; make sure it works as much in your favor as you can manage. Try to remember: As in love, in journalism, not all stories have happy endings."

Michelle V. Rafter describes one writer's strategy for selling reprints of previously published stories, and relates her own experience with a travel-related piece: "The contract I signed for the original story was for first North American serial rights, referred to in freelance circles as FNASR. That meant once the article appeared in the publication I sold it to, the rights reverted back to me to use as I please, including selling reprints to other publications."

From the Science Writers' Handbook website comes a story about a writer who finished her story — and then got an unacceptable contract: "I'd heard of this practice," Robin Mejia writes. "But it had never happened to me before, and I'm embarrassed to admit I was surprised. I want to say that I assumed our initial email exchange was my contract … but the truth is that in my excitement to start the story, I didn't really think about it at all."

Michelle V. Rafter offers some advice on deciding how much to charge for a blog post. Among her tips: "If you can crank out a 250-word post on a topic you know well in 30 minutes, the $50 fee is equal to $100 an hour – not shabby. If you're writing about a topic that you have to search or do multiple interviews for and you end up spending four hours, that same $50 comes out to $12.50 an hour, or about what my son earned as a lifeguard at the local public pool."