#all pictures without a source either by me or from public domain or protected by fair use

[drev-the-ambassador]

Can you tell us a little about food in Finland, like... What do you eat day to day? What are sweets like? Which fast food chains are the most popular? or something else you think is interesting. Thank you! :D

Thank you for the ask! I can tell you a lot about food in Finland, fortunately, because both of my parents happen to be cooks, so I can ask about stuff from them. A lot the information I’ll tell you probably came from them.

Well, first off, I want to say that today Finnish people often eat food that isn’t necessarily traditionally Finnish or anything, for example my town has at least 5 pizza-kebab restaurants, and spaghetti is very popular. This thing called “raketti-spagetti” is sold in stores, it’s just normal spaghetti but cut into shorter pieces, and the name literally means rocket-spaghetti. I’m not sure how that name came to be, but it rhymes, so maybe it just sounded funny…? I don’t know. Stuff like rice is pretty common too, even though it’s in no way traditionally Finnish. Anyway, I’m sure that a similar phenomenon (the international foods thing, not raketti-spagetti) exists in almost every country.

Also, the Finnish cuisine has gotten a lot of influence from our dear neighbours, Sweden and Russia. Especially Sweden. So anyway, if you’re from either one of those countries and I say that something is Finnish when your country has the exact same thing, please blame my ancestors for not being more original. Although I’d like to hear about foods or customs similar to these I’m about to mention from other countries, so if you’d like to, please share them in the tags!

Okay, so I think I’ll start with the fast food- part of the question.

Finland doesn’t have that many fast food chains, really. We have McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and soon a few Taco Bells. Like, three. BUT! We do have a chain of our own, Hesburger, which is my personal favorite out of these. It is the most popular fast food chain in Finland, with 268 restaurants. For comparison, McDonald’s has 65, Burger King 32, and Subway 155 restaurants here.

If you want to have a taste of Hesburger’s food, but don’t want to come all the way to Finland, that’s totally fine! There are Hesbugers in eight other countries, too: Estonia (42 restaurants), Latvia (44), Lithuania (47), Russia (34), Germany (3), Ukraine (3), Bulgaria (3) and Belarus (1). Pretty impressive for a chain from such a small country, huh?

I hope this doesn’t sound too much like an ad, this post is not sponsored by Hesburger. I just think it’s pretty neat. I don’t know where the restaurants are more specifically, but I’ve been to Tallinn and there were a few Hesburgers there. They have really good paprika-mayonnaise! Just saying.

Scratch that, I now know where is the Hesburger farthest from Finland: 

Now, for sweets, I think I’ll have to make their own post, but we do have a lot of different kinds of candy in Finland, since we have two bigger and several smaller candy manufacturers, the two big ones being Fazer and Panda. Fazer also makes bread and cookies.

Popular candies are suklaa (chocolate) in different forms - bars, slabs (?? I hear that is also called a bar sometimes? Like smaller bars like Snickers and then slabs like the one I’ll show a picture of), chocolates, like the ones sold in a box, with filling or without, you get the idea, a lot of chocolate - and, of course, salmiakki, salty liquorice. Salmiakki candies get their amazing/awful taste from ammonium chloride. Mmmm. Potentially life-threatening chemicals combined. Delicious. (pic source)

Here is perhaps the most iconic Finnish sweet: Fazerin sininen, Fazer’s Blue. It’s just simple old milk chocolate and yet is the most popular candy in the country. Is it really that good?

Yes. Yes it is. The shade of blue used in the wrapping is trademarked*, by the way.

Okay, moving on to the day-to-day stuff…

In Finland we drink the most maito (milk) in the world per capita, a bit over 360 liters. The 2nd is Sweden by the way, with around 356 liters. We also consume the most kahvi (coffee) per capita, the national average being around 2.6 cups. Seriously, people here drink coffee all the time. In the morning, after lunch, when you come to visit you can be sure you’ll be offered a cup of coffee, at weddings, at funerals, with dessert, I mean, all the goddamn time. Sometimes they don’t even have a reason I’m sure. You know when at work there are those shorter breaks? In Finland a break like that is called kahvitauko. It means coffee break, which I’m sure is a familiar concept in other countries too.

But yeah, people do drink milk at every meal - not everyone, of course, but most people - and for people who are lactose intolerant there are special kinds of milks where the lactose has been processed already, so lactose intolerant people can drink it safely.

This is our fridge. That milk probably lasts like half a week. The light blue one is fat-free.

‘There is also this thing called piimä, which is a drinkable product made from milk with Lactic acid fermentation. It’s not my favorite, but it’s okay.

Maito versus piimä. (source) 

Apparently there is a strict divide in Finland between west and east, where west likes piimä better, but east prefers something called kokkelipiimä, which, to me, sounds very suspicious, and I did not know it even existed. It’s piimä with something more solid also made from milk mixed into it. Looks like this.

I seriously had never heard of it. I do live in the western half, so I suppose the divide is real. Huh. (source)

A traditional Finnish drink, kotikalja, is often drunk at fancier occasions, for example at the Christmas meal or at some other celebration, like weddings or such. It has a bit of alcohol, but so little that it doesn’t really count as an alcoholic beverage. Wikipedia tells me that it’s similar to Estonian kali, Swedish svagdricka, Dutch oud bruin and Russian kvass. It’s not the same, but it’s similar. People drink it with food.

(source also includes a recipe for kotikalja)

 There is a Finnish word ruokajuoma, which means any drink that is often drunk at meals, like water or kotikalja or milk and sometimes also juice.

This post is getting really long, sorry about that. Anyway, we eat a lot of different keittoja (soups) here too. Most of the time they contain potatoes (perunaa), carrots (porkkanaa), possibly other vegetables, and some meat (lihaa). Kalakeitto (fish soup) can be creamy (I love it) or clear (not so good). Lihakeitto (meat soup) and jauhelihakeitto (minced meat soup)are usually clear as well. There is also hernekeitto, which is made from peas, minced meat or ham or something and some carrot. People can add mustard and onion to it. It’s often eaten on Thursdays, a habit that has spread from the army. There every Thursday is hernekeittopäivä, hernekeitto-day. With hernekeitto the dessert is usually pancake with jam. (pic source)

The pancake, pannukakku, doesn’t look like what you might expect, though. It’s like this.

(source)What is the closest relative to the other kind of pancake is called lettu here, or räiskäle, and it’s closer to a crêpe or a blin. (An actual blin, in Finland there is some misconception about blinis being small and thick… things, but maybe people would otherwise mistake them for a räiskäle?) (source)

 They are usually eaten with jam or sugar or whipped cream, or ice cream, or berries, or all of them. There are also muurinpohjaletut, which are cooked differently. (source)

A very basic dish we eat a lot here is potatoes and some kind of kastike (sauce). The sauce usually has pieces of meat, or sausage, or minced meat. We use a lot of minced meat. The picture example is made with makkara (sausage). (source)

When it comes to leipä (bread) I might be a little biased, because my parents bake a lot of bread themselves. Most households usually have at least two types of bread available, some lighter bread like piimälimppu for example, and ruisleipä. It is very Finnish, even though rye bread is eaten elsewhere too. In grocery stores you can find many shelves full of it. There are even rye chips here! Not French fries, or potato chips, really, more like nachos. But made from rye. Weird. (source of pic below)

One of the many forms of rye bread. (source)

Usually the shelves would be full but it was late and almost juhannus. That’s all for rye bread there. (Don’t mind my sister’s hand btw)

You can get rye bread in dried from too, all crunchy and pretty tough. Examples of this, dry, crunchy, though perhaps not that tough bread are näkkileipä and hapankorppu. Näkkileipä is often served in schools, since it doesn’t go bad easily. Both näkkileipä and hapankorppu are the best when they have some butter (voi) on top, at least I think so.

Hapankorppu in the front, näkkileipä in the back. 

“Which side do you put the butter on?” is a common topic of debate between Finnish people. (It’s the side without the holes, fight me)

And yet another traditional Finnish food that’s eaten like bread and has rye in it, is karjalanpiirakka, Karelian pie. It’s basically rice porridge in a crust made from rye flour. It is also called riisipiirakka. There are other versions of it as well, for example they can have mashed potato instead of rice in them. It’s traditionally eaten with munavoi, boiled egg and butter mixed together. It is heavenly. It’s the stuff in the picture way up there, actually, but I’ll refresh your memory.

(source)

Another pretty basic, and quite traditional Finnish food that is still pretty popular as I understand, is makaronilaatikko, macaroni casserole, made of macaroni, minced meat, and a mixture of milk and egg. All the ingredients are put together and mixed, and cheese is put on top, though not in traditional versions. Then the whole thing is put into the oven and cooked for some time, and then eaten usually with ketchup. It’s one of my favorite foods.

(source)

Fish is eaten fairly often, but pork, chicken and beef are probably more common. In summer we eat a lot of sausages and nakki (frankfurters) (?? I have never heard this word). Most common spices are salt, suola and pepper, pippuri. There are also a ton of prepared foods in markets, and I mean a lot. Whole aisles, many meters, of foods like makaronilaatikko or jauhelihakeitto that you just need to warm up. Convenient. One of my favorites are pinaattiletut, small lettus with spinach in them. I like them a lot. There are also the same kinds of small lettus made with carrot. Oh, and also blood. They’re called veriletut in Finnish.

(source)

Well, I’d love to tell you more, but this post is already way too long, so. I’ll end it here. If you want to know more of something specific I mentioned, ask, and I’ll try to get a post made. I’m planning on covering a few topics here more in depth in the future, but we’ll see.

Oh, also, a lot of the sources for the pictures in this post also feature a recipe, though they’re in Finnish. If you’d like me to translate one of them so you can try it out, just ask!

Thank you for the ask again!

(*edited because I, the smart person I am, mixed up copyright and trade marks. Sorry about that.)

[sapphetti]

Announcement

Hello!

My blog is going to change slightly and I want to be transparent and explain why.

My mistake:

So recently I have been looking into copyright laws and realized that oh shit some of my posts might be copyright infringement. I know I probably should have looked more into copyright laws before I started this blog but let me explain why I didn’t. Mainly, I saw a lot of people doing the same thing so I thought it must be okay. Secondly, my reasoning was “this blog is for a good cause, it’s not like I’m trying to gain financially from this so it must be okay”.

Well after reading up on it I have changed my mind. I was entitled to think that it was up to me to decide how another person wanted to distribute their artwork, and for this I am very sorry. But I don’t want to just say sorry and do nothing, I want to actually make up for it So what I have done these last few days is I have removed all the posts I suspect might be copyright infringement. This includes a lot of poetry, photography, screenshots from movies & music videos and modern paintings.

I will of course continue to post though. The change is that for my new posts I will take advantage of two cases where it is actually allowed to post artworks that aren’t yours. Those two cases are:

1. When the artwork falls under public domain. To my understanding, unless the artwork is protected under some special license (which seems to be rare), the copyright for an artwork dissipates when the artist of the artwork has been dead for 70+ years (in some countries the time is a bit shorter or longer than 70 years, generally it’s always 50-100 years). Today the year is 2020 so if the artwork was made by an artist that died before 1950 it is in the public domain and I can post it.

2. When I have gotten permission from the artist. Before I sometimes posted the artworks even if I couldn’t get ahold of the artist (like for example photographs by famous photographers or poetry by writers I didn’t know how to contact). But from now on I will only post artworks if I have gotten permission from the artist, even if it’s a famous artist that is difficult to contact.

Also, I have always done my best to reblog instead of posting artworks. Sometimes you might have seen me post artworks from smaller artist. The reason for that is that the smaller artist haven’t had a tumblr account, so I have asked them on instagram if they were okay with me reposting their art on tumblr and they have said yes. The artists I haven’t gotten permission from have been more famous, often older artists without social media or a website with contact info. But from now on I will try better to contact those artists, or if I can’t get ahold of them simply not post their artworks.

How this will change my content:

Paintings: There will mainly be older paintings, since they more often belong to the public domain. These might not be very diverse and are often made by men but of course I will do my best to make it as diverse as I can.

Photography: There will be less photography from famous photographers (such as Catherine Opie, Donna Gottschalk etc) and probably less photography overall since I will need to ask for permission every time (most photography was made in the last 50 years or so and therefore does not fall under public domain).

Music: There will be no screenshots from music videos as those fall under copyright laws. I will still post a link to the song and the music video (if there is one). By the way, I will not ask permission from musicians when posting their music as tumblr has a feature that I will use where you can post links to audio clips without it being copyright infringement.

Movies: I will not have any screenshots from the movies. Instead I will only have a link to the trailer of the movie, and I will try to always link the trailer from the official account that belongs to the movie’s creators so they will get the revenue.

Books: I won’t include a picture of the cover of the book. Instead I will link to the GoodReads page of the book where you can see the book cover.

Poetry: I will either post older poetry that falls under public domain, poetry that I have got permission to post or videos made by the poet where the poem is read out aloud.

Sculpture: Pictures of sculptures can fall under public domain, therefore I will only post links to websites where you can read about and see photos of the sculpture or in some cases links to videos where someone has filmed the sculpture.

What I need from you:

Please reblog instead of repost my posts. If you do not know the difference, please read this post.

If you see me making a post that you think is copyright infringement, please tell me about it and I will look into it.

If you own the copyright of an artwork I have posted and want it to be removed, tell me right away preferably through sending a message.

Respect the copyright laws. Do it for your own sake, do you really want to risk getting sued for a simple post? But more importantly, do it for the artist’s sake. Making a living through being an artist today is really difficult and people stealing art without giving proper credit is a big reason as to why. This causes a lot of people who might have created masterpieces to stray away from the art world. I don’t know about you but I love art and it would be absolutely amazing to see a world with more thriving artists in it.

If you really, really, really want to repost instead of reblog one of my posts please follow these guideline:

Look up who the artist is and if they are dead or alive. I always write the name of the artist in the post. From now on I will also include the year they died (if they are deceased) in the post. If you still find it unclear, message me and I will provide further explanation.

Is the artist deceased? Look up the laws about the length of copyright in your country (here’s a list). If the copyright for the artwork has dissipated, also look up if any special license applies to the artwork (my best source for this is Wikimedia Commons, let me know if you know of any other reliable sources for this). If the copyright for the artwork has dissipated and there is no special license applied, the artwork falls under public domain and you are free to use it however you like.

Is the artist alive? Contact the artist and ask them for permission to repost. Here is a guide of what to include when asking for permission. 

Apply fair use. This is an exception to the copyright laws that applies when you are using someone else’s artwork for either commentary/critique or parody. I am not very knowledgeable in what exactly does and does not constitute fair use so I would advice you to look into this further through other sources if you’re interested.

I want to add that I have neither studied law or art so my knowledge on this topic is of course limited. If you have more knowledge of these topics and have something to add, please do so! I really value all your opinions and feedback.

Lastly I want to say that it’s okay to make mistakes. I mean I even just admitted to doing the exact same thing. But I also think it’s important we really start paying attention to this issue as every day I see tons of reposts of artworks that doesn’t even give credit to the artist and honestly it upsets me.

That is it for now! Sorry for a long post, but I have really been wanting to speak about this. Stay safe out there <3

ps. I have recently become more active on my instagram, so go give me a follow if you’d like!

TL;DR: I have made the mistake of not asking some artists for permission when posting their art, so from now on I’m gonna do that. I ask you to follow the copyright laws and reblog my posts, not repost.

[currantlee]

Should we boycott Inktober 2020? (+ Inktober Alternatives)

In short: Yes, we should. If you use the #Inktober, you’re promoting Jake Parker’s brand, which has been involved in some questionable practices, most recently including alleged plagiarism.

So, if you haven’t heard of this already: Jake Parker, the inventor of Inktober, allegedly plagiarized his book - or at least, it has a lot of uncanny similarities with Alphonso Dunn’s book Pen & Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide. I’d go into further detail, but Mr Dunn already posted a video that covers pretty much everything about this issue himself, which I highly recomment watching.

Ever since this was made public, people have been debating on whether Inktober 2020 and Inktober in general should be boycotted / cancelled. This has gotten to a new dimension after Jake Parker’s response to the claims in which he denied everything despite the fact that he literally copied some of Dunn’s wording. Overall his entire response comes off as very manipulative to me, especially seeing as he doesn’t even mention Dunn’s name and instead laments the fact that Dunn made it a public issue rather than reaching out to him privately. As many people have pointed out before, Dunn would likely have been silenced by Parker or his lawyers if he had taken that route.

So, here is my two cents on that. However, before you click on “Keep reading”, I’d love to remind you that I’m a human and not some holy book of ethics and morale. You can disagree with everything I’m saying here, I won’t fault you for it if you do. This is just my opinion on the matter and I wanted to share it in order to spread some awareness to what is happening.

That being said, let’s get into this. It’s going to be a long ride everyone.

Why I think we should boycott Inktober

If you aren’t aware of the drama around the #Inktober that has been going on since late 2019: don’t worry about it. The world and the internet are both huge places. There is no way to be aware of what is going on all the time.

That being said - let me be clear with this once more: this is merely my opinion. I personally can’t support the challenge and / or the #Inktober with what has been going on recently. However, if you don’t think that way, this is totally fine for me. Just because I can’t stand behind it from an ethical point of view and decide to boycott for this reason, that doesn’t mean you have to. Ethics and morals are a very personal matter and they differ from person to person. Which is not always a bad thing by the way, but that’s another story for another day.

Why I am sharing my opinion in that case? Because while this is how I think - I know not everybody is aware of what has been going on and I want to inform more people, enable them to make their own decision based on their own opinions and morals. And yeah - maybe influence said decision a little to match my own. I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t play it’s part.

What is the recent drama?

In short: Jake Parker, who created the Inktober hashtag, has decided to trademark the term and the logo so he is the only person able to make money off of it without asking for permission.

This video offers a pretty good rundown on what happened, so I’m going to leave the link here. If you don’t want to watch - here is the summary: in late 2019, Amazon suddenly started to send out Cease and Desists to independent artists who were selling books with titles that included the word Inktober. It turned out that Jake Parker has trademarked the term since 2017 and there were now guidelines on making money off of Inktober, which nobody had been previously aware of, seeing as Parker hadn’t announced it or posted said guidelines anywhere. To make matters worse, he only posted them after public pressure. And there are some other inconsistencies with his behavior that the video is touching on.

Let me be clear: trademarking something you created and that got immensely popular, like Inktober did, is not inheritly wrong in my opinion. Because if you don’t trademark it, someone else will. That’s what happened with the Smiley in the 1970s.

However, if you trademark something like this, then you should make the guidelines on making money of something that was previously public property and is now yours alone clear from the beginning in order to avoid something like this from happening. In addition, I think that if you do this, you shouldn’t trademark your idea to be the only one able make money off of it, but to protect it from harm (like others claiming your idea or inappropriate merchandise being produced). That’s just my view on it though and I wouldn’t bring it up if it weren’t for the other things that happened.

Now, Parker was clearly intent on making money off of Inktober, seeing as he is working on a book titled Inktober All Year Long. However, if it was this alone, it wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that said book was allegedly plagiarized - or at least heavily borrowed concepts, from Alphonso Dunn’s book Pen & Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide (link to amazon.com). If you want more details on this, I again heavily suggest watching Dunn’s video on the matter or, if you don’t want to watch a video that’s almost an hour in length, any other YouTube video on the subject. At this point, there are several out there, so you just have to type into the search bar.

What is my problem with the situation?

To make this clear, let me clarify what isn’t my problem first.

My problem is not that Jake Parker trademarked Inktober. My problem is not that he is publishing a book titled Inktober. My problem is not even that he wants to be the only person to publish a book with Inktober in the title.

My problem is how he is handling all of this.

First up, I said this before: if you trademark something that was previously a public domain, you either don’t change anything about the rules and merely take the rights to protect your property from harm (like being trademarked by others who want to profit off of it or use it in a way that you can’t support) or you make the new rules clear to begin with.

What Parker did, however, was trademarking Inktober in 2017 and not making the rules clear until late 2019 after public backlash. And instead of apologizing for what happened he tried to blame Amazon for the mess. To be fair: yes, Amazon was the party that send out the C&Ds to the affected artists, not Parker or one of his lawyers. However, it could have been avoided if Parker had made the new rules clear from the beginning. So yeah, it is partly his fault, even if he didn’t send out the C&Ds.

Secondly, Parker’s behavior seems very manipulative and greedy to me. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make money off of your intellectual property - because the reality is that the world we live in requires us to make money. However, I think money should never be the top priority for a person, no matter what they are doing.

It seems to me like this isn’t the case for Parker though. This goes back to an Inktober drama in the past, where he spoke out against digital artists who wanted to do Inktober because it was supposedly not real inking or something like that. However, nowadays he seems to be fine with digital artists. Why? Well, as someone pointed out on Twitter this change of mind corresponded with Parker getting a partnership with Adobe. And while this could definitely be coincidence, it just adds to the picture of someone who is greedy if you take other things he did in account. I might be very nitpicky - and wrong - here, but this is just how I feel about it.

Parker also has a tendency to claim that he “would never do something like that” or that he “did never want that” when something goes wrong and place the blame on others (such as Amazon and now, with the plagiarism scandal, on Alphonso Dunn - without even mentioning his name, allegedly so no one checks Mr Dunn’s book or video out and comes to the same conclusion as he did). As someone who has been raised by a parent with a supposedly narcisstic personality, I know this pattern of behavior very well. Let me be clear here: I don’t want to say that Parker is a narcisst - I’m not a psychologist and aside from that, I don’t know him personally. I only know what he has been doing on the internet. That’s way too little to determine something like that. All I want to say here is that this pattern of behavior heavily reminds me on what my parent did to me. To me, that’s a clear red flag.

And even if he never wanted those things, even if he isn’t trying to be manipulative: he is still guilty of being careless.

And lastly... Don’t plagiarize. Never. Ever. Do that! No matter if you’re an artist, a scientist, an author, you just don’t do that! If you have sources - or even major inspirations - credit them! Not only do you express respect and love for something that way, you also acknowledge their work and might help them to get some more exposure and / or recognization. You might inspire others to have a look at what inspired you, something you love.

How does this tie into the #Inktober?

Simple. By using the hashtag, you’re using the name of Parker’s brand and the title of his allegedly plagiarized book. Therefore, you are promoting said brand and book, even if you don’t want to. That is the reason why #Inktober should be boycotted in my opinion, at least until Jake Parker has (properly!) apologized for his actions.

Making mistakes is human, however, mistakes usually cause harm. That’s why we apologize! And because everyone of us makes mistakes, that’s why we forgive. However, there is no forgiveness without a proper apologize.

So yeah. Until the proper apologize happens - if it ever will (I doubt it to be completely honest, but if it happens, I’m open for it) - I am boycotting Inktober, and I think you should as well. If you still want to do it, that’s totally fine though. However, if you are like me and want to do something else now: here are some suggestions for you!

Alternatives to Inktober

Someone on Twitter has already compiled a pretty much complete list of every alternative October drawing challenge to Inktober. Because I am lazy - and they get to the point much faster than I am - I’m leaving the link here. However, there are some additional drawing challenges not in the list (at least the last time I checked), so here they are.

QUEERtober

If you’re part of or support the the LGBTQAI+ community, you might like this challenge created by KreuzUndQueer on Twitter. One prompt is for three days instead of one and the prompts generally deal with LGBTQAI+ themes.

DRAWlloween

This is another popular drawing challenge, although it has more to do with Halloween than with daily prompts as far as I am aware. The goal is to create something awesome related to the Halloween season. Depending on the host of the challenge, there might be additional rules as well.

Tumblr Inktober Alternatives

This is a short list I compiled last evening. I’m sure that there are plenty more awesome, but I can’t include every single one of them, so I just included my three favorites so far.

First up, we have of course the Boycottober Prompts by @h0tleafjuice, Chardesair and Sleepingdreams_ (both on Instagram), which I’m also thinking about tackling because I think they’re awesome and I have some ideas for.

If you want to go with a more witchy theme for this October, then @gnomehuts‘ Witchtober Prompts might be the right prompt list for you.

If you like Disney, or if you’re like me and you love Kingdom Hearts so much that you find a way to mention said game franchise in an anti-Inktober posting, then you might like the Disn-ober Prompts by @hermioneblack. There are no rules for the challenge and the prompts, just from what they are, can be used for non-Disney related stuff as well.

Change the rules, name or create your own challenge!

What you can of course also do is to just make up your own art challenge. You can just create your own prompt list, your own rules for Inktober, your own name for Inktober (popular suggestions as of now are Artober, Drawtober and Notinktober), even an entire challenge.

As an example, I took up the challenge of creating a Halloween Story with five chapters this year, which I am also going to illustrate (or at least... I’ll try to do that).

Use the #Inktober without actually participating in Inktober

The idea of this is to change the meaning of the #Inktober - by posting stuff that is either criticizing Jake Parker’s actions and Inktober in general or just... Stuff that really doesn’t belong there (such as memes), if you’re more of a trolly person.

Now, I personally don’t hold anything against trolls - in fact, I have trolled myself in the past - as long as they’re not overdoing it and are ready to face possible consequences of their trolling (such as people getting annoyed because the #Inktober is being spammed with memes). However, be aware that in case you decide to take the trolling route, you’re still promoting Jake Parker’s brand (depending on what kind of meme you post under the #Inktober). Therefore, I’d advocate against the trolling route in this instance.

And that’s it! If you’ve made it this far - or even if you only read part of this post - thank you so much for reading! I hope that no matter what you decide to do, you’re going to have a wonderful time and a wonderful October / Halloween season.

Happy creating!

[williamlwolf89]

How to Create a Writing Portfolio That’ll Wow Potential Clients

Your writing portfolio is a critical tool in your marketing arsenal.

After all, it’s the first thing a potential client will want to see. And a kick-butt writer portfolio can do most of the selling for you.

As a freelance writer, you know this, but where do you start?

Well, there are three things you need to know to create an online writing portfolio that wins clients:

What online portfolio sites will showcase your writing samples?

Tips for a writing portfolio published on your own website.

Ideas for building a catalog of writing samples.

Let me walk you through these. Ready?

8 Portfolio Sites to Showcase Your Writing Samples

Online portfolio sites allow you to create attractive and professional-looking portfolios while handling the technology and design concerns for you.

Using these sites for your freelance writing portfolio frees you to focus on creating more samples. This is especially crucial for newbies.

As a bonus, two of these sites may even help you find writing jobs.

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1. Clippings.me

Creating your online writing portfolio with Clippings.me is fast and easy. During the account setup process, you can even connect to your Twitter account to import your bio and avatar.

You can customize the look and feel of your portfolio by choosing one of the provided theme pictures or by using your own picture. Your portfolio will show your name, title, bio, and will display up to 10 clips (free version).

Here’s one of the writing portfolio examples from Clippings.me:

Pros of Clippings.me

An easy and quick way to show off your portfolio pieces. Paste in the URL of your clip, and the date, publication, title, and image populate automatically.

Support promises to answer most questions within 24 hours.

You can showcase your portfolio in their journalist directory.

Cons of Clippings.me

The free version is limited to 10 articles.

A spam-protected contact form is only available as a premium member. (The site warns against spam if you provide your email in your bio.)

Cost of Clippings.me

Free for up to 10 articles. The premium package costs $9.99/month. Included features are unlimited samples, custom domain name, portfolio privacy (spam-protected contact form), and Google Analytics integration to measure views.

Clippings.me is a solid option for freelancers with less than 10 samples.

2. Pressfolios

Pressfolios states that it’s “the easiest way for journalists, writers, reporters, bloggers, public relations and other media professionals to backup their news stories, design a beautiful online portfolio website, and showcase their personal brand — no coding required.”

There is no free version, but there is a 14-day trial.

Pros of Pressfolios

A clean page design containing three sections — a header, stories (your samples), and an About section.

You can organize your stories by section (aka niche).

Full-text backup of your stories (as part of the paid service).

Cons of Pressfolios

Free for a 14-day trial only.

You can only upload PDFs with the Pro version at $14.99/month.

Cost of Pressfolios

14-day free trial. The Lite version costs $9.99/month for up to 250 stories. The Pro version is $14.99/month and includes unlimited stories, privacy options, custom domain name, and allows you to upload PDFs.

This option is best for journalists and reporters as the concept of “stories” may not fit for other writers, especially copywriters.

3. Journo Portfolio

Journo Portfolio provides an impressive amount of options to design your writing portfolio. They boast of “hundreds of ways to customize your online portfolio.” Multiple themes, background images, colors, and fonts are available to choose from.

The site allows you to display a bio, social media links, PDFs, or any kind of multimedia files. You can also publish articles directly on the site.

Pros of Journo Portfolio

Adding samples is easy —enter the URL and Journo Portfolio will autofill the date, publication, title, and image.

You can have multiple pages in your portfolio, including Contact and About pages.

You can sort samples into different niches either by using content blocks or by putting them on separate pages.

Cons of Journo Portfolio

The number of customization options could be overwhelming.

Your portfolio isn’t password-protected unless you select the Pro version.

Cost of Journo Portfolio

The free version allows up to 10 articles. The Plus version is $5/month for unlimited pages and articles. The Pro version is $10/month and includes your custom domain name, article backups, a password-protected portfolio, and an HTTPS certificate.

The Pro version of Journo Portfolio is the closest thing to having your own WordPress website without worrying about hosting, security, or backup.

4. Contently

Contently calls itself, “The complete content marketing solution.” Not only is it an online portfolio site for writers, but it’s also an online content agency.

Contently provides a single-page interface where you can display unlimited projects. You can display your picture, bio, links to social profiles, skills, niches, and even the URL of your writer website (if you have one).

Pros of Contently

No limit on the projects you can upload.

A rates database that allows you to see what clients are paying for various projects (information is uploaded by freelancers who work for the platform).

The potential for writing work. It’s an active marketplace with reasonable pay, and clients include larger companies such as Google, Dell, and Walmart.

Cons of Contently

You need at least 7 projects to be considered for brand work.

LOTS of competition on the platform, so it will take time to be “discovered” for freelance writing gigs.

Cost of Contently

Free

Once you set up your profile, you will have a professional-looking and free writing portfolio. Plus, you have the potential for writing gigs in the future.

5. Quiet.ly

Quiet.ly is an online content marketing agency that allows you to create a profile potentially leading to writing gigs.

Pros of Quiet.ly

Potential for writing job leads.

Active marketplace with clients such as Adobe, Slack, and Dell listed.

Cons of Quiet.ly

No guarantee that you will be matched with clients. It depends on your skills, niche, and the businesses searching for potential freelancers.

You’ll be in direct competition with other freelancers.

Cost of Quiet.ly

Free

Fill out your profile in detail, add relevant writing samples, and the Quiet.ly editors could match you with writing opportunities that match your interests and skill set.

Note: The option to create a public portfolio isn’t currently available. Unless you have very specific needs, you should probably look elsewhere to meet your writing portfolio needs.

6. LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn profile is your freelance writing online resume. A link to your profile is often requested by potential clients (especially larger companies).

LinkedIn isn’t designed to be a writing portfolio, but you can use it as one.

Highlight your best samples by placing them in your Summary section, using the Upload File or Add Link options.

You can use the Experience section to list clients and provide links to the  work you’ve done for them.

Pros of LinkedIn

LinkedIn builds your visibility online. More than 30 million companies are on LinkedIn, and companies run searches to look for freelance writers whose skills and interests match their needs.

You connect with people at companies you are interested in writing for and build relationships with them.

You can use LinkedIn Publisher to publish (or repost) your work to prove your writing skills in a particular niche, and perhaps capture the attention of those in your network.

Cons of LinkedIn

With LinkedIn, you don’t own your profile. You could lose all the work you put into building your connections if your account was blocked or banned.

You need a niche prominently stated in your profile to help companies find you, or it will be hard to stand out.

Cost of LinkedIn

It’s free to set up a profile.

Creating an enticing LinkedIn profile is an excellent way to connect with both prospects and clients, as well as other freelance writers.

7. Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine. To design a writing portfolio, you’ll want to create a Pinterest business account complete with bio and a professional picture.

To use Pinterest, you first create or source images to represent your posts. Then use those images to create “pins,” which link to your post and can include your headline, author name, and post description.

These pins can be organized on boards, which act as containers for groups of pins. Using the right keywords or keyphrases is essential if you want your pins or boards to be discovered.

Pros of Pinterest

It’s another way to expand your online presence (and help potential clients find you), and it’s free.

You can create boards for each niche or keyword to make it easier for bloggers and other business owners to find you.

A fun form of marketing if you enjoy creating or sourcing images.

Cons of Pinterest

It’s not relevant for all niches. Look at popular boards to confirm whether or not your niche does well on Pinterest before you begin.

Creating and/or finding images is the entire point of this platform, so if that doesn’t appeal to you, you may want to pass.

Cost of Pinterest

Free to use.

Creating a writing portfolio using Pinterest can be fun if you enjoy working with images. At a minimum, enable the “Pin It” button for images on your writer website so your posts can be shared on Pinterest.

8. Muck Rack

Muck Rack is a PR software platform designed for journalists and PR pros. The platform is open to any writer; however, only verified journalists get a green badge to signify that they meet Muck Rack’s criteria.

This platform is dedicated to the profession of journalism. Since it is integrated with Twitter, it tracks what journalists are Tweeting about.

Pros of Muck Rack

Automatically compiles articles and social media profiles, making set up easy.

It provides full-text backups for your writing portfolio.

You can track the impact of your work by using the “Who Shared My Link” tool to see social shares for your article, and the journalist who shared it.

Cons of Muck Rack

Designed primarily for journalists.

You’ll be signing up to receive PR pitches (although you can edit this in the settings).

Cost of Muck Rack

Free for journalists.

This is a fantastic option for journalists. A benefit of using this site as a freelance writer is you could sign up and then use the platform to find journalists to interview for your articles.

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12 Tips for Portfolio Pages Hosted on Your Own Writer Website

The writing portfolio sites we just discussed can get you started, but eventually, you’ll want to create your own writer website.

Why?

Because with portfolio sites, you are only a renter, not an owner. Policies and pricing can change overnight. An ideal situation is to use these sites in addition to a writer website, which you own and control.

So how do you optimize a writing portfolio hosted on your own website? Follow these 12 tips:

1. Know Your Target Client and Desired Niche(s)

Select your writing portfolio samples with your target client and niche(s) in mind. Choose relevant samples that would appeal to potential clients and are in niches that you want to write in.

And in you include testimonials in your writing portfolio, be sure they come from reputable sources who represent your ideal target.

2. Limit Your Freelance Writing Portfolio Samples

Avoid overwhelming potential clients with too many choices. Provide enough samples to demonstrate your writing ability and to give a selection of options, up to three per niche. This is your writing portfolio, not a blog, right?

3. Choose Quality Over Quantity

Include only your best work, not every example of your work. And not only your best pieces, but your most recent writing samples.

4. Confirm That Your Writing Portfolio (And Website) Is Easy To Navigate

Make it super-simple to find everything. To test this, ask a friend to open your website, and then find one specific piece of information on your portfolio page. Make any necessary changes based on their feedback.

5. Organize Samples By Type, By Niche, and Use Clear Descriptions

Make it easy to find samples by organizing them by type (posts, white papers, landing page copy, etc.) and by niche. Also, provide brief descriptions of your samples (and put on your copywriter hat where possible). For ghostwritten clips that lack your byline, add “ghostwritten” in the description to prevent confusion.

6. Keep Your Writing Portfolio Design Clean and Simple

Keep your design uncluttered, with no distractions, so your samples stand out. Use clear, easy to read fonts at least 14pt in size.

7. Don’t Display Entire Articles on Your Portfolio Page

Instead, provide links to the samples, and have the samples open in their own distraction-free pages.

8. Use Thumbnail Images For Each Writing Sample

Text-only links are okay but aren’t as compelling as images. Images help your samples visually pop on the page.

9. Use Plug-ins or Page Builders to Help You Design

These tech tools help you design a professional-looking portfolio. However, before you install a plug-in or page builder, confirm it has been recently updated. Also, check that it is compatible with both the latest version of WordPress and your theme.

As an example, the page builder Elementor (affiliate link) has an Image Box widget with impressive capabilities (and it’s free!).

10. Check It On Mobile And Tablets

Your writing portfolio may look beautiful on your desktop, but always double-check how it looks on tablets and phones. Confirm that text and images don’t get cut-off or distorted.

11. Keep Your Writing Portfolio Fresh and Up-to-Date

Check your links often, at least once a month. Also, replace older samples as you create new and improved ones — Google loves and rewards fresh content on your website.

12. Have a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) On Your Portfolio Page

The whole purpose of your writing portfolio is to motivate potential clients to contact you. Make that next step easy. Either display your email address or a clickable button leading to a “Contact me” page.

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How to Build Writing Samples for Your Freelance Writing Portfolio

So…

What if you complete the steps above, and your writing portfolio looks a bit, well, sparse? Solution: Build a list of strong writing samples.

Start with a spreadsheet and a strategy. This answers the questions of “what do you have, and what do you need?”

A spreadsheet (or simple Google Doc) provides an organized list of all of your published samples — one central location to track your work. Not only will this save you time, but it will show you at a glance what holes you may have in your strategy and what you need to create.

Here’s an example:

As a freelance writer, you need to prove that you can write the type of content your target clients are willing to pay for. Your writing samples provide this proof.

So let’s cover how to do this.

1. No Barriers To Entry: Publish Posts on Your Own Website

For newbies, this is the easiest way to get started. Plus, creating posts provides a benefit beyond proving your writing ability to clients. You also prove to yourself that you would enjoy writing in a particular niche.

If you want to break into new types of writing, you can create samples to demonstrate your skill. For example, if you want to add case studies to your writing services, create a fictional case study to show that you understand the form.

2. Money Well Spent: Hire a Copyeditor

The downside of creating samples on your own is that you don’t get the feedback you need to improve. Friends and family are helpful, but typically far too generous.

By hiring a copyeditor, you can learn where you make mistakes and improve your samples.

3. Smash Down the Wall: Take a Class

If you’ve been procrastinating or don’t know where to start, a course can be an excellent way to move forward. The best courses do more than provide information — they encourage you to implement what you’ve learned, and provide feedback.

Taking a course costs money, but it’s an investment in yourself as a writer.

Editor’s Note: Smart Blogger has a free Six-Figure Freelance Writing Class. If you don’t know where to start, start here.

4. Friendly Practice: Publish Posts on Medium

By posting on Medium, you can practice your writing skills in a friendly environment. Practice publishing regularly so you get used to your words being out in public.

SEO tip — publish your posts on your own website first, wait for at least two weeks, and then re-publish it on Medium. This way, the search engines index your site first.

5. Byline Power: Write Guest Posts

Write guest posts that allow you to include your author bio with a link to your writing portfolio. This is an excellent method to get published posts with your byline on it, critical for social proof and credibility.

Guest posting is typically unpaid, although there are exceptions. The focus here is on getting your first byline, and on creating samples for your portfolio.

Choose a blog that has a high level of credibility, is respected in your niche, or is where your target clients are likely to hang out.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, try Google:

Search for a niche or topic (in the screenshot example above, we used “blogging”) along with a relevant phrase (“write for us”).

Google will return a list of search results containing both terms/phrases.

If you find a good target, add it to your spreadsheet. Next, try a few different variations in Google:

“blogging” + “guest post”

“blogging” + “contribute”

“writing tips” + “write for us”

Etc.

Replace “blogging” and “writing tips” with your own niche/topic.

When you have a solid list of potential blogs to pitch, look at their popular posts, and the topics they cover. You need to know what kind of content they want, so do your research.

Read their guest posting guidelines and follow them when preparing your pitch.

Once one of your pitches is accepted, celebrate! Then be prepared to do your best work. After all, this post will be one of the building blocks in your writing portfolio.

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Start Building Your Rockstar Writing Portfolio Today

Your writing portfolio is your main sales tool, the one that follows the adage, “Show, don’t tell.”

Imagine how you will feel with a strong writing portfolio backing you up as a freelance writer. No more blending into the crowd — you’ll be a confident freelance writer, with proof of your writing skills.

Creating and maintaining a writing portfolio signals to both the world and yourself that freelancing isn’t merely a hobby — you are a professional who is serious about your freelance writing business.

So take one step, one tip, or one action from this post, and go implement it right now. Yes, right now. Your future self will thank you.

About the Author: Karen MacKenzie is a freelance writer and Smart Blogger Certified Content Marketer specializing in digital marketing and personal finance. She blends her business and financial experience with a desire to connect with readers in a warm and friendly manner. Go to kmackenziewriter.com if you’d like to hire her for your next project.

The post How to Create a Writing Portfolio That’ll Wow Potential Clients appeared first on Smart Blogger.

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