Even though I've had a few over the years, "they" continue to say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Well, if you run a website on WordPress )or another platform(, we've got one for you today. Our StudioPress team wants to go ahead and hand you a collection of world-class web graphics. Free . There are currently 67 stunning icons, banners, backgrounds, and buttons waiting for you over at studiopress.com to download and put to use on your site, right now.

Do you ever feel as if your blog has plateaued? Like you've hit some kind of blogging hump you just can't get over? About a year ago I wrote the 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers here on Copyblogger. I practice those habits and continue to see huge improvements in my writing " but some habits come more naturally than others. Through this continued struggle, I've identified 8 more habits to help stay on top of the ceaseless blogging and writing game,

I used to think that successful people had it all figured out. If they wanted to make something happen, they knew exactly what to do. If they created a new product, it would be instantly popular and profitable. They knew all the right people, hired the right help, set all the right prices, and pulled all the right strings of the many moving parts of their business to make it all work perfectly. Had they attained some kind of career Nirvana ,

Robert Greene is the bestselling writer of some of the most legendary nonfiction books of his generation. The 48 Laws of Power , The 33 Strategies of War , The 50th Law )with rapper 50 Cent(, and ' The Art of Seduction . Though much of his work can be applied directly to good writing, business, and marketing online, it's the principles of seduction that can seal the deal between you and your audience. So grab a coffee and come on in,

During his career he was loved, hated, admired, dissed, fought over ' but never ignored. His name? Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y ' Picasso . Anybody with a name like that was bound to lead a big, bold, messy life, and Picasso did exactly that. I have to confess that I've had a creative crush on him ever since I first encountered his work in my college art history class.

In my opinion, the most powerful social media profile you can use is the LinkedIn profile. Most powerful that is, if you are looking to do more business and/or achieve your professional goals. There's a certain mindset LinkedIn members have when they spend time there. They don't browse through pictures and videos of their friends. They don't go there to share 140 characters of their current status.

Every writer who has ever lived has lusted after ideas. Where are they, how do I get them, and how do I keep them coming? If you've been writing long enough, you know that " like Solomon " there is nothing new under the sun. Try as you might to sweat them out of your head or pull them gently from the stars above, there are no new ideas . So, relax . But that page is not going to write itself , is it? Where then do we turn for ideas that work, ideas that move,

What if, 30 days from now, you had a finished, well-crafted eBook sitting on your hard drive, ready to distribute and sell? That might sound next-to-impossible to you, but it's not. Every November, over 200,000 people worldwide take part in NaNoWriMo " ")inter(National Novel Writing Month". NaNoWriMo participants aim to write 50,000 words during the month, and tens of thousands of them manage to do it. If those writers can do that, you can write a 20,

If there's an art to email marketing , it's being able to write messages that are simultaneously : Interesting content, and Persuasive sales pitches Unfortunately, most emails are either pure content or pure pitch. But when you merge those two elements, you can see a large )and long term( increase in sales. I'm going to give you precise examples of what I mean. And by "examples," I mean "ready-to-use templates." Get ready to learn to write emails The Settle Way.

Facebook likes to keep us on our toes, right? They continue to evolve, thanks in part to the new competition from Google+. Facebook introduced three new features recently, including improved Photos , the Ticker , and Top News . The buzz surrounding Google+ is forcing Facebook to improve their features and differentiate their offering. Competition is good. But make no mistake, Facebook continues to dominate the social media scene.

Starting a business is risky. Horribly, terrifyingly risky. Nearly all new businesses fail " that's the official statistic, right? Some say 4 out of 5, some say as many as 95%. Successful entrepreneurs have a different kind of DNA from the rest of us. Ice water runs through their veins. They thrive on risk. The more insane the odds, the better they like it. For those of us who have families, or who just don't feel like living on ramen for the next four years,

You love books. Printed books. And like most writers, you're probably an avid reader who has spent thousands of hours with print books over your lifetime. Perhaps you're mourning their passing. No, print isn't quite dead, but it is struggling. And when publishing is fully reborn, it will be utterly different. As a writer, you've never stood in front of more opportunity than you do right now. As a copywriter,

We live a lonely life out here on the internet. Sure, we've got email and blogs and social media and Skype and the occasional contact via an actual phone, but in real-life terms we're pretty isolated. We usually live far away from our "work friends." We swap ideas in small, discreet blocks " a half-hour IM chat with someone here, an email or two with someone else there. Sometimes,

Good writers should get paid for their work. It's as simple as that. If this is what you want to do professionally , then you should be paid for it. A dirty little secret of this business is that many writers that earn a full-time income by putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, aren't any better than the writers who don't make a dime. It doesn't have to be this way. Let me be clear, you're not going to find any "get rich quick" ideas in this post.

Those are the opening lines of a post Brian wrote last year , one that has become a Copyblogger mantra " one of our core philosophies. If it resonates with you, download the full poster below and hang it in your office, wherever that may be' Click here to download The Writer Runs This Show )PDF( Tweet Comments This is really cool, and a very fitting mantra for Copyblogger. ... by Gregory C. Further Reading Firefly Creativity, Writing Process Tips,

I like to use these Weekly Wrap intros to feature interesting industry news and tidbits, not to talk about myself and the cool things I've been up to. Note: All previous intros that violate this principle have been random coincidences resulting in accidental self-aggrandizement. Anyway, re: developments in blogging and social media,

Can regularly publishing relevant, useful, entertaining and valuable information online actually build a business over time? Or, is this whole content marketing thing just a massive waste of energy? You can probably guess where we stand on these questions, but in this episode we lay it all out anyway. You, of course, can make your own decisions. Also, Sonia gets another new executive title based on her expertise in email marketing. In this episode Brian,

Recently, I asked the Copyblogger tribe over on Google+ to name their biggest writing challenge. From the many responses, a pattern developed: How to get started How to cut the fluff How to finish These three issues are really symptoms of the same painful problem, which boils down to not clearly understanding what you're trying to accomplish with your writing. Don't worry ' it's a fairly common ailment.

I was reading Jonathan Fields' new book Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance this weekend, and one of the insights that struck me the most was his breakdown of the two types of creativity. Because analogies help us learn, and because Firefly is the best show that has ever been on television, I'm going to call the two types of creativity Mal Reynolds creativity )insight, vision,

The danger of giving good advice is, of course, that it is not often used . The listener nods politely, saying, "Yes, yes, thank you. That is precisely what I ought to do." Then the listener goes right ahead and does precisely the opposite. "Don't ever give anybody your best advice, because they're not going to follow it." ~ Jack Nicholson Jack may be right. Nonetheless,