Entries from April 2008 ↓

I told you all the other day about how I made a bunch of money writing just a couple of hours a day over at Helium.  While I’m not going to go into all of the ways I made my money writing at Helium until the free report comes out, I do want to tease you all a little bit today.

One of the ways I made money writing at Helium was in the weekly contests. Every week, Helium features contests in 10 different content areas. Contest topics range from Roleplaying Games to Visiting Canada (I’m not making this up. A contest is ending tonight on “Visiting Canada.”) Within each topic there are 25 different article titles. Helium members compete by writing to any number of these titles.

Contests run from Thursday through Wednesday.You don’t have to write to all of the titles, and you are awarded points based on how your articles are rated after the fact.  First Place in each content area gets $75, Second Place gets $25, Third gets $10, and three Fourth Place winners each get $5.

I know you’ve got questions. What is the ratings system at Helium? What about plagiarism? Is there a way to cheat? Is it a level playing field? Here again, I’ll cover these questions as time goes on. Suffice it to say for today that I’m confident in the ratings system.

So, how can you make $750 in a week writing at Helium?  Win every one of the contests, of course.

What’s that?  You have other work to do?  You can’t write 250 articles in a week and still maintain a high degree of quality?  You’re not willing to risk your income on the chance that you’ll win every contest?

And you call yourself a writer.

No, it’s not likely that you’ll enter and win all 10 contests in a given week.  I get that.  I’ve not done it.  I do believe it could be done.  I’ve thought about blocking out 20 hours in a single week to devote to Helium to test the theory, and I may do it in time.  Maybe one of you will beat me to it, though.  If you do, just remember who pointed you in that direction.

So to get you started toward your $750 week writing part time, here’s what I’ve learned about winning the writing contests at Helium:

1. It takes 7-12 articles in a category to score enough points to win.  Fewer articles makes it less likely that you’ll place, as does writing more articles.  If you can get your Helium rate down to 15 minutes apiece, you can write these articles in 20 hours or so.
2. Bullet-point list-style articles (using asterisks because Helium doesn’t allow HTML) will almost always get rated higher than articles that don’t have bullet points.
3. An interesting opening paragraph and a solid concluding one will push your ratings higher.
4. There are often plagiarists in the contests.  Check the top three or four writers in the contest on Tuesday.  Spend 15 minutes or so googling random phrases from their articles.  This doesn’t take long, and it’s almost always worth it. Don’t let that scare you off, by the way.  Helium deals with these folks quickly and harshly – again, more on that later.
5. Article ratings will often sit steadily until after a contest closes.  You might have the lowest-rated article on Wednesday and it will be the highest on Friday when winners are announced.
6. Use the leapfrog tool late in the contest for low-rated articles in topics with a large number of articles.  This will often give you a boost going into the final stretch.
7. Even the best and most prolific writers at Helium, who often win contests, can be beaten.  I know, because I’ve done it on more than one occasion.

Now, I’ll be honest with you.  There are other things I can tell you about how to win contests at Helium.  Com back on May 12 to download my free report, which will contain those contest-winning tactics as well as other strategies you can use to make money writing on Helium.

(I’ve been thinking, a lot, about my readers who are just getting started out on their own writing journey. While I’ve got lots of advice about where to look for work and tips for boosting their career, and I’ll get to those as time goes on, I think what follows is probably the most valuable lesson I can offer. There might even be something here for those of you who are well on your way, too.)

It’s 10:30 AM on October 16, 1986. I’m a freshman in High School. I’m sitting in Mr. Pryce’s Creative Writing Class. In my hands is the most amazing piece of poetry I’ve ever written in all my 14 years.

“I hope he likes it,” I think, almost out loud.

“Excellent job, Mr. Bokash. I absolutely love your voice in that piece.” Mr. Pryce’s voice is fairly small, almost high-pitched, but also very refined.

That really stunk, Matt. Wait till you hear MY voice, Mr. Pryce!

Mr. Younce. Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

I’m not sure what came next. I know I read a poem. I know it was around 14 lines long, and had something to do with the assigned topic of autumn.

“Interesting effort, Mr. Younce. Miss Smith, you’re next.”

Interesting? What could that mean?

I would find out what it meant the next day, when we received our grades. It meant that Matt Bokash, drama club suck-up, got an “A” and I got a “D.”

I dropped the class, and that was the last poem I wrote until I was in Dr. Mary Brown’s Creative Writing class in college.

———-

It’s raining at noon on November 7, 1991. I’m sitting on a bench outside what we still called “New Hall,” even though a Mr. Carmin had donated several hundred thousand dollars to Indiana Wesleyan University to make it “Carmin Hall.” I bet he’s wondering if it was money well spent.

I look at the girl sitting next to me, in the rain. She’s gorgeous, kind, witty. She’s everything I think I’ve ever wanted. She’s crying.

“I can’t, Bob. I’m so sorry. I just don’t feel that way about you.”

How can you not? Aren’t we kindred spirits? You said so yourself. You said you loved me!

I can’t speak the words, though. She continues.

“I love you, Bob. I love you like a brother. Or, more than a brother. I don’t know. But its no good. I can’t. You’re not…”

Not what? What do you need? I can give it to you! I can be it! I can do it!

But I can’t even ask it. So she answers anyways.

“Just not the right guy for me. I’m looking for something different. Someone less safe.”

I spent the next two years pining for her, trying to fill the void, even proposing to another girl in the process. I stopped pining when I met the woman that would eventually be my wife.

———

It’s 5:00 PM on a Thursday in April, 2002. I’ve just spent all day fixing a router in one of the academic buildings. I’m bushed, hungry, and I want to see my kids. I’ve already worked 41 hours this week, and I’m salaried, so I know I’ll be here again tomorrow.

“Rob wants you to go down to Miner Hall and clean up the wiring. He’s pretty upset; he said he was embarrassed to take the vendor into that data closet this afternoon. You’ve got to clean those cables up, now.” Middle-management Jim is feeling particularly managerial today.

“What do you want me to do, Jim? I need an outage to pull everyone’s cables. Rob won’t give me outages to do upgrades, when the hell am I supposed to do cable cleanup? Right fricking now, because Rob happened to be embarrassed today? What is that?”

I realize I’m yelling at this point, but don’t especially care. Jim looks like he’s scared I’ll punch him in the jaw. Tell you the truth, I’m thinking about it. I’m tired of this crap. He musters his courage, though.

“You just need to do it, all right? Rob’s not happy at all, and he’s coming down on me.”

“Fine, whatever, Jim. Oh, I’m going to need an outage, by the way. And YOU can call my kids and tell them why they haven’t seen their daddy all week, k?”

I stomp out of the room, crimpers and cable in hand.

That was the beginning of the end. The University decided it didn’t want me, and I decided I didn’t want them, either. It was the last time I worked for someone else.

———-

I understand failure, I do. I know how to fail. “Fail early, fail often,” Brett says. I get where he’s coming from, but he didn’t need to tell me. I’ve got failure down to an art.

But what happens when you don’t fail? What happens when your teacher plays favorites, your crush prefers bad boys or your boss is an inconsistent prick? What do you do when your best isn’t good enough? What are you going to do about it?

Learn the Lesson

Life is inherently unfair. Sometimes, the other guy gets the job because he’s friends with the publisher’s son, not because he’s a better writer. Sometimes, the webmaster doesn’t recognize quality content when she sees it. And, sometimes, your client will change project specs midstream and demand you charge him less because he thinks it should be easier now. How does that help you?

Knowing is half the battle; being prepared for the worst is the other half. Knowing what you could face, recognizing that sometimes things just won’t go your way, and being ready to make the best of it means that you’ll have a heck of an easier time picking up the pieces when disaster strikes. Recognize your own weaknesses and deal with them, but understand that other human beings are inherently unpredictable.

Love the Journey

Life has its ups and its downs. As human beings, we feel love and hatred and we even feel apathy at times. Pain and suffering and pleasure and ecstasy are all a part of it. Shakespeare was only half right; it is better to have loved and lost, but it is best to have loved, lost, and then loved again. It’s only more intense when it happens again. And odds are that, the second time around, you’ll be better off. You’ll be better at what you do, more cautious, and sometimes just more daring.

So many successful people became a success in their second or even third career. Ronald Reagan was a passable but forgettable actor, but one of the most memorable presidents. If you don’t like that example, think about Grandma Moses or the Apostle Paul or a hundred thousand other folks who started doing one thing in life but became disillusioned and set out to find their true passion.

Prove Them Wrong

The fact that someone else doesn’t recognize your greatness is irrelevant. It speaks more about them than it does about you. Mr. Pryce would soil himself if he knew I was making twice his salary writing. I’m in a satisfying relationship with a wife who loves me, really loves me. She knows what she wants, and she wants me. There was never a question with her. And my old boss, well, as it stands right now, he’ll never badger anyone else (Last I heard, he’d been moved to a position where he didn’t have anyone working under him.) The best revenge is success.

Now, it’s not easy. You’re going to have to work damned hard, and revenge can’t be your only motive. In fact, once you hit your stride you probably won’t give a rat’s ass about revenge. You might not bother to flaunt your success. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll write a blog post about it, but that’s about as far as you’ll go.

Take Action Now

There’s nothing revolutionary here, folks. Nothing you haven’t heard a thousand times. But you’ve got to act on it. If you don’t like your life how it is today, take action. No, don’t quit your day job. But get things going. Start writing, or painting, or begging the local comedy club to let you do a gig once a month. Step outside of your comfort zone and do something. Strip away anything that isn’t necessary. Give up your poker night to work on your novel. Spend an hour less playing World of Warcraft and work on your Match.com profile. Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve in life, you’ve got to take action if you’re going to get it. Only the fool waits for opportunity to knock; the wise man hunts opportunity down and wrestles with him until he relents.

I like article directories.  Why?  Several reasons:

• Article directories can drive traffic to a website like nobody’s business, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey  and Brian Clark of Copy Blogger released a free report back in 2006 on the use of article marketing as a traffic generation strategy.
• Article directories give you the chance to play around in a niche you otherwise wouldn’t write in.  For example, I’ve written articles on things as diverse as starting a running exercise program to American Idol to avoiding work-at-home scams.
• Article directories give you a sandbox in which to test various techniques such as SEO and formatting before you use them on your production site.

Why do I mention article directories, and what do they have to do with a Helium SpongeBob and Powerpuff Girl balloons?  Or is that just another one of Bob’s seemingly-random image selections?

Well, you might remember that, back on March 1, I decided to do an experiment.  The experiment involved the article directory Helium and their Reward-athon promotion.  Essentially, I wanted to see how much I could make on Helium in the 45 remaining days of the promotion. 

I also invited readers to compete with me, and offered a prize to anyone who could top me.  The Writing Journey was but a few days old at the time, and my readership was in the low double-digits.  I got a few takers, but no one that really seemed to enjoy Helium as much as I did.

At any rate, I made $1,044.28 at Helium during the 45-day Helium experiment.  I wrote for about two hours each day - around 33 work days. That works out to about $15 an hour.  That’s not great, but there are other benefits.  I’ve gained several regular readers (and some friends) along the way.  I’ve had about 150 or so incoming hits from my Helium About page.  (That’s nowhere near the hits I get from EzineArticles, but EzineArticles doesn’t pay me, either.) 

What’s exciting to me is the residual income potential of the experiment.  I’ve continued to earn about $2 a day on my articles.  Given that most of my topics are timeless, I should continue to earn that $2 as long as Helium maintains or increases its popularity.  Over a year’s time, that’ll raise my hourly rate by $11.  In five years, Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise, it will be $70 an hour.  In reality I expect that to be higher; Helium, I predict, will go gangbusters before too long.  It will not surprise me if, by January 1, 2009, That $2 a day is more like $10 a day.  Even if Helium only maintains, $70 an hour isn’t too bad.

So, I consider the experiment a shining success.  In fact, it was so successful that I’m turning the experience into a free report.  I expect to release on May 12, so watch for it if you’re interested.

In the meantime, since you all have so such varied backgrounds and differing stories about how you got started writing, I’m curious: What do you all think of article directories?  Do you use them?  If so, how do you use them?  If not, why not?

Photo by Nadia308

Before I get too far into today’s post, let me congratulate David Montgomery of Crime Fiction Dossier for  a wonderful match-up during Blog Madness at John Hewitt’s Writer’s Resource Center.  I was tickled to have made it as far as I did, and I’d have called the match the same way John called it. 

———-

 
 Photo by Chris Breeze

One of the questions I get asked most often in email is, “How do I get started as a writer?”  I’m often at a loss to answer this question.  I mean, everyone’s situation is different, you know? 

Don’t get me wrong; I know what it takes to make it as an Internet writer.  If I didn’t, I couldn’t have spent the last five years doing it.  I can identify the skills you need to write effectively.  I can point you to some places I’ve had success making money online with my writing.  And, as you know, I can talk all day long about what NOT to do.  But to outline a career path would be, to a degree, disingenuous.

Why?  Well, I’ve told you all how it is that *I* became an Internet writer.  It was quite by accident, actually.  Now, I found out very quickly what I needed to do to be good at it, to increase my business, and to make an ever increasingly comfortable living at it.  But as to the question of how best to get started, I think I’m at a bit of a loss sometimes.

So, I’ll put it to you.  I’m curious about your stories.  Whether you write full time or not, how and when did you get into writing?  Did you fall into it like I did, or was it a calculated move?  Did you always want to be a writer?  What would you change about those early days as a writer, or are you still in them?

(This is the fifth and final post in the How to Write the Best Damn Food Blog series.  The other posts in the series include How To Write the Best Damn Food Blog on the Internet, The Number One Reason People Read Food Blogs, Three Types of Food Blog Posts You Must Master and The Essential Element of Food Blogging.  You can, of course, read on, but I’d recommend starting at the beginning.)

I could go on and on with this series.  I could move into talking about some of the specifics of good writing, point out good grammatical practices, or talk about writing headlines.  The fact is, though, that many of you already know the things you need in order to improve your blog writing (no matter what your blog’s niche).

What are those things?  What have I talked about in this series?  Let’s sum it up in three simple bullet points:

• Reader loyalty depends greatly on the quality of your writing.  Write well.
• Write in such a way that your posts activate desire in the reader, teach the reader something, or connect with the reader on a personal level.
• Write with authority.  Authority is integral to your success as an Internet writer.

These are not revolutionary or difficult concepts.  Like I said, you know what to do.  However, the fact is many of you are not doing them.  You might be too comfortable writing the way you have for the last few months.  But ask yourself:  are my readers coming back?  Just because you’ve practiced something the same way over and over again doesn’t mean it’s working.  If you’re not getting results with your blog, you have to change something.  To do things the same way over and over again and expect different results is irrational.  It’s time to switch things up a bit.

Some of you will read this series, take in the information I’ve given to you, and put it to good use.  Now, like I said in the beginning, good writing is only half of the battle.  You’ve got to add effective marketing to the mix.  But if you practice the principles I’ve shown you and you make any effort at marketing whatsoever, I guarantee that you will increase your readership.

photo credit: internets_dairy

I’ll even put my money where my mouth is here, with a direct challenge to my readers.  I want you to go back to your own blog.  It doesn’t even have to be a food blog.  Between now and June 30, 2008, I want you to take these three principles of blog writing and implement them to the best of your ability in every post. 

One participant (determined randomly) will receive ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett and a $10 gift card for Amazon.com.  If you’ve already got the book, I’ll send you a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card (your choice).

What are the rules?  Well, there would have to be a few, wouldn’t there?  They’re not too bad, though.  I promise:

1. Drop me a comment in this post and let me know you’re going to participate.  Alternatively, you can write a post about the contest on your blog and leave a Trackback to this post (use the following URL to link:  http://writing-journey.com/internet-writing/the-last-word-on-food-blogging-and-a-25-contest/trackback.)
2. Post at least three times a week on your blog between now and June 1.  Each post should be written with authority, and use one of the three post types discussed.  You can post more (for example, a link love post), but at least three posts a week must be mouth-watering, teaching, or empathetic.
3. Drop back by here, from time to time and let me know how it’s going.  I’ll even be glad to help you out in whatever way I can.  If you want me to critique a post, say so.  If you want me to help you brainstorm a bit, I’ll try to do that to.  I’m not promising hours of consulting or fast turnarounds, but I’ll do my best to help out where I can.  When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
4. Make some regular marketing efforts.  I can’t verify that you’ve done these, so your word will have to be enough.  If you need ideas, check out the Blog Profits Blueprint by Yaro Starak. 

Oh, If you don’t come across this contest until long after it’s posted, that’s OK.  You can still participate.

Now, I’m not really going to go out and verify that you’ve done #2-4 above.  Those steps are all for you, anyways.  I’m interested in your success, and hope you do them.  But it’s up to you to hold yourself accountable.  It’s all about taking action, folks, and taking action NOW.  That’s how you get ahead with your writing, and that’s how you’re going to write the best damn food blog on the Internet.

———-

I do have a little bit more to say to food bloggers, specifically.  First, thank you for joining me for the last week or so.  It’s been an absolute blast. 

I know that some of you may never come back this way again.  I wish you would, though; after all, my goal here is to help all Internet writers.  And, like I said in the beginning, to be successful you’ve got to be a writer first, and a food writer second.  So, maybe you’ll come back and see me, from time to time, when you need to be reminded that good writing matters.

At any rate, I’ll close this series this one bit of writing advice from John Jakes.  It’s as valuable for blogging as it is for novel writing:

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”