Hello and welcome to my world of writing, video and voice.
I have finally taken the plunge to put up a portfolio of samples of my various works. This has been prompted by several incidents in my life that may cause future confusion and concern about my abilities as a writer.
1. On my very first professional writing assignment, the client used an article submission program to post my articles to thousands of blogs. I did not know such a program existed at that time. Unfortunately, he did not realize that the program not only required that the article be re-written twice in a very similar fashion but that it scrambles the paragraphs of all three articles together to form thousands of "unique" articles. Oh, boy, were they EVER unique! Rather than contact me for the rewrites in my own words and style, he wrote very different versions of what I had written, even going off on totally different tangents, not realizing that his writing style and ideas would be scrambled in with mine when he submitted them, causing jarring thought changes and awkward transitions between paragraphs. These thousands of "unique" articles went out onto the Web under my real name as author. The result has been pure embarrassment that such horrible writing is now attributed to me on a professional level. Naturally, I dread the thought of anyone searching on my name for samples of my writing on the Web.
However, the client and I worked out at least one way around the problem, sort of. We resubmitted all of the articles under a pseudonym that we both verified through several search engines to be sure it did not belong to anyone else on the Web at that time. A search for my name will now bring up "By Dan Stanyier (erroneously attributed to Crystal Eikanger)". However, the fix was not perfect, since the software vendor could not guarantee that a resubmission of the articles under the new author would go to all the same blogs, nor that the same scrambled version would either, nor would all blogs be able to handle such a long "author" field. So there are at least 500+ versions of those "scrambled eggs" that are still out there under my name alone that seriously compromise my credibility as a professional writer.
2. Because of number 1 above, I have been reluctant to let any client use my name on any articles I have written for them if they plan to submit them to multiple sites. This has resulted in not having sites that I can point potential new clients to for samples of my paid professional work. It also means that clients who have purchased my articles have placed either their own names or their own pseudonyms on my articles. Since part of my contract with them through that particular freelance site was to relinquish my copyright to them, there is nothing I can do about the resulting confusion.
3. In one case, I have allowed the client to use my real name on the articles that are posted directly on his website; but because they were also going to be edited for length and submitted to other sites, they will have a different byline with slightly different wording. This may cause those derivative works to be flagged in Copyscape as being plagiarized by different people, but rest assured, if my name comes up on it, it is my original writing and it should pass Copyscape as the original work from which the others are derived.
Due to the above chaos related to numbers 1, 2, and 3, I have decided to post all of my articles here, pending releases for permission to do so from the new copyright holders of my articles. I will continue to add my work-for-hire articles and videos as they become available to me by permission. These articles will contain link-backs to the original websites that they were written for. Those articles that I do not have permission to repost here will have a brief excerpt and a link pointing to the site it was written for, so that the site can get its hits.
I will also be adding new, unpaid material that I may decide to write for the sheer pleasure of writing and sharing with my friends and family. It may be poetic, it may be psychotic, it may be funny, it may be sad or it may be totally dry and boring to anyone but someone who knows me personally. But that is what blogging is all about.
If you like my style(s) and decide to hire me to write for you, I hope you will allow me to post either the full articles, short excerpts, or at least links to your site that may contain my works, here on my portfolio blog. However, that is not a requirement. I do feel that posting both here and on your own site can help both of us as advertisers of our respective products and services. I am always open to discussion and negotiation.
Again, welcome to my world...enjoy your stay!
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