Blogging

I started Inspired to test a theory (I start things just to test a theory all the time. My recent experiment with ReviewStream a fine example. It's going alright by the way).

I wanted to find out if I can actually get money for blogging. But the key was whether or not the money would still be coming if I didn't advertise the blog or do anything to get the page rank or anything (meaning not doing all the things I've done for WritingMakesRich). Mostly because I have a short attenton span and I didn't wanted to distract myself from working on WritingMakesRich.

So basically the only effort I put into Inspired is putting the content in. And I'm not even doing it religiously. When I get an idea or when I get inspired by something, I make a post on the blog. So basically not much (if you think about it in the contemporary problogging way).

I started the blog in December. It has eight posts (including two entries I made in January). At the beginning of January I got a notification that my blog ranked #34 and I got paid.
Not much, mind you. Cents. But for 6 (then) posts? I think it's a promising start.

So check out Inspired. And if you decide to try the platform yourself do link me to it, so I can visit :)

Now if you excuse me. I have articles and press releases to write... *headdesk*

Good news, Better news and more news

Before anything, I have two published pieces I want to share. First one is my regular piece for Scribophile about putting new spins on old tales, it's mostly for fiction writers as that's who the Scribophile members are in majority. Second one is finally published article for AssociatedContent and it's 6 New Year's Resolutions for Freelancers. That's basically 6 steps to further your career. And at the same time my own plan of what to do this year.
I have to admit I'm quite proud of both of them, though both took a lot of editing.

Another thing for those not following me on Twitter. I found out today that WritingMakesRich has it's own pagerank. Those who speak Google know it's a very good news. Especially since it's 3/10. For a little blog of only two months it's not bad. Not bad at all :) I'm planning on writing an article on how I achieved that sometime during the weekend or the first free moment I have.

Which brings us to Better news.

I landed another writing assignment. This time to write Press Releases for a SEO company. It's not a big one, but because of the deadline being this Friday I won't be able to write much for my passive income sites. Which means it will have to wait for Sunday (after my weekend classes). With this additional work and busy time at the office (now I understand why they say being part-time freelancer is challenging) I will probably have to write my weekly material for Scribophile tommorow at least...

It's exhausting but I think I like being busy with work. At least I'm working towards my projected income for this year.

My AssociatedContent profile.

Paid for Reviews and Votes

Last few days has been very productive. I've written an article for AssociatedContent (which still haven't been published) and lately I've written seven different reviews for ReviewStream. And now I'll be waiting for all that material to get processed and published. To be honest I'm really frustrated with Associated Content as their submission procedure takes the longest of all revenue share websites I write for. I simply hope my newest piece for them will get published before New Year. It sort of seasonal content and I really don't want to wait an entire year to see it perform well.

In other news, I decided to do a little experiment concerning ReviewStream. It's a slow one, requiring at least two months.

See, I decided to test their 'every vote pays' policy. Every day, for the next two months, I will be voting on my reviews. I need 50 votes to receive the payment (at the moment $5). I'll be voting on all of my reviews as the FAQ state that votes only accumulate per each review (votes don't sum up, no matter how much I wish they would). So it is my understanding that once one of my reviews get 50 votes, I should receive in my PayPal that $5.

I do realize it seems like a lot of work for a little payout. But I already have over 10 reviews on the site. I open each in a separate tabs (thank gods for the tabs, I have no idea how I managed before them) and click vote in between other tasks. Like I said. It's an experiment. If it works, I get additional payments for my reviews. If not, no harm done, I'll simply stop voting.

I will keep you updated, so no worries.

Learn more about ReviewStream:
Experience with ReviewStream.com
Learn how to earn with ReviewStream.

In between

So I earn money for my writing. Easy to say. Even easier to conclude that the more I write the more money I should be able to earn. Well that's technically true. But at the same time, no matter how much I want to write, it will never be the actual amount that ends up, from lack of a better word, existing. Some days it will be more, some days it will be less. Like every other writer, I am not a robot. I don't have subscription to creativity (even though I would very much love to).

In my recent post to Inspired, I write about what you could do in between creating. It's short and to the point, because my opinion on the subject is short and to the point. If you don't have it in you to create anything, learn how to be better at what you do.

As a freelancer of any kind, you get paid for your time. So every time you're not working, not creating, not writing, you're losing money. Or so they say in those various self-help blogs and articles...

I see how that might be the case. Though I have to admit that since I'm not doing freelance full-time, I'm not that obsessed with money yet. Or at all. Nonetheless, I don't really like wasting time when I know I could somehow forward my career. But even though I can sometimes write 4000 words for paying clients, there are days when I can't put together a simple sentence... And those are the days I tend to procrastinate more than usual.

Don't get me wrong. I tend to procrastinate more than your usual freelancer. Mostly because I don't have this shadow over my head created by unpaid bills and stuff. But there's only that much blog posts I can comment on, that much fanfic I can read before I feel like I should be doing so much more... By then I usually try to write something and fail miserably.

And then I go read some articles about freelancing, seo, marketing and such. I even bought a book by selfmadechick on how to start a freelance business for under $50. I learned a lot from that one. Just like this past month I learned a lot about SEO and how it can affect the pageviews. See, I believe that there's no such thing as knowing enough. There are always people who know more, or are better at what they do. And I could learn from them.

That's why on my RSS feed, next to job listings I have freelanceswitch, about freelance writing and other sites with lots of tips on how to improve myself

Writing Update

I've been doing a lot of writing lately. So I figured, right before Christmas, I could probably share with y'all (you know, since I can barely move after cleaning all day).

Scribophile, a really great site I'm blogging for, published two of my articles so far. "Writing Bootcamp: Writing Whenever, Wherever, Whatever" which is a nice little piece which I commited to ease myself into the job and get to know the audience. The second article is "Of Editing And Evolution: Why You Should Find The Perfect Editor" which is actually one of the articles I had a lot of fun writing. And I think it shows. I've written one more article for them but it will either be published after Christmas or at the beginning of the New Year.

I have to say, so far the site has been a blast and I'm looking forward to writing more for them. I actually have few ideas in my head and I'm wondering whether or not should I write them down... We'll see how much of actual free time I have during Christmas.

In other news, the article I've written for Helium Marketplace just transitioned to Helium regular title. It's about the effect catnip has on cats. I have to say, researching for that particular title was a blast. I now know more about drug using cats more than I wanted to.

I've also submitted another article to AssociatedContent about how freelancers can further their career in the new year. Again, it will probably take ages for AC to process the article, but I think it's worth the wait.

Of Deadlines and New Year's Resolutions

So I have this love/hate relationship with deadlines. I love them because they force me to write, but at the same time I hate them because they force me to write...

Yes, I know it might sound slightly confusing, but I am perfectly capable of loving and hating something for the exact same reason. See, sometimes I need a push to do something. Deadlines provide me with that push.
But sometimes, I really don't have the muse to write anything but I have to force myself to do so, because... well, I'm on a deadline....
Getting into freelancing I was aware that I will have to make nice with the deadlines, because once I start getting work, I will start getting deadlines as well... Doesn't stop me from whining about it to my cat. Thankfully, my cat ignores me no matter what I whine about.

So that is my little rant about deadlines.
Next step: New Year's Resulutions.

Everybody I know always makes some sort of resolutions come New Year. I decided that I should do something similar regarding my freelance career.
Especially since soon it'll be Christmas and I will have some extra free time.

So here is the Great To-Do List for the year 2009:

1. Start using BizReef, Guru, Elance and oDesk. Complete profiles and start bidding on jobs that interest me.

2. Create a profesional website for my freelancing

3. Pay more attention to my blogs

4. Go back to writing for Helium, AssociatedContent, Ciao and ReviewStream.

Yes. Only 4 points. But when I look at them I see a lot of work before me. Especially since I also have a full-time job, school and family life to take care of.

But I'm sure I will be able to handle it all. Because I rule and it's Christmas soon. What with miracles and stuff :)

Happy Holidays everyone!

On a roll, baby!

So, AssociatedContent finally published the last article I had in the queue, the one about how to make a smooth transition from day-job to freelance writing. I myself am still in the middle of that transition, but I hope I will be able to into freelance writing full time at the end of 2009. Yes, it's a huge plan but I'm hopefull. Plus I do have a contracted day job till September 2009...

Apart from that, I also got my first freelance job. Remember how I wrote that I bid on some jobs and I had one i like best and hoped I'll manage to land it?

Well, the good news is that I actually did. I got an e-mail from the site owner and I'll be starting the job soon. Of course the moment I do, I'll give you lot a link. Mostly to show of, how awesome I am :P It's a meta-writing gig, so just right up my alley. I hope I don't have t tell you how excited I am...

On a slightly worse note, I didn't do much of actual writing. Yes, I a very ashamed of myself. Not even a short review and 've been watching some very review friendly movies lately... Maybe instead of reading stories online, I could go and write something... Procrastination is evil, let me tell you. But it feels so damn good...

New Month New Attitude

Okay, so maybe the attitude isn't all that new. I still have problems managing my time and actually telling myself to write instead of watching newest episodes of NCIS. But I really am trying to work on this one.

What else am I working on?
Well two things. Qassia and Inspired.

Qassia is a place I already wrote about. IT helps you get backlinks and improve the page rank of your site. And if you're a writer (or owner of any kind of website), you know how pagerank and promotion and improve your earnings and stuff.

Inspired, on the other hand, is a new themed blog I started. I want to share or sorts of inspiration and creativity boost. Ideas for work for all creative types. And not only writers (though as a writer I"m mostly focusing there) but also artists, filmmakers and people who create things for other people's pleasure. I missed having athemed blog and I want to make this one work. Especially since it's so close to my area of expertise.

In other news, Associated COntent finally published one of the articled I had in the publishing queue.

It's called Why Having a Blog Can Improve Your Earnings. Feel free to read it and tell you what you think.

I wrote more on that subject over at Helium:
Promoting your writing on the Internet

Read more from my Helium portfolio.

November

So November came to an end and I've decided to sum up what happened this past month.

I've written over 7000 words in reviews and articles. I was planning on writting 15000 words, but obviously it didn't work out. For December, I'm planning a more realistic number: 10000 words. This time I'm taking into the account all the free days I'll have because of the Christmas AND at the same time, I'm not assuming I'll write 500 words a day.

I wrote ONE article for Helium Marketplace. I was planning on writing more, but titles were completely out of my area of expertise. Researching legal matters online turned out to be slightly more difficult than I thought. So for now, I'll stick to something that gives me less problems.
The title I did write for is currently pending final decision. I'll let you know when the publisher decides which article (out of 34) they will buy.

I started to write for two new sites. Ciao and AssociatedContent. While I'm sort of indifferent to Ciao (it's nice enough though not brilliant), I am slightly irritated with Associated Content. I've written 3 articles for them, two of which are still pending. I am told after 3 first article are published, it should go much faster. But for now I'm not feeling much love.

I sent my bid for 3 jobs. One of which is really interesting and I will thank all the Gods if I actually get it. But this is somethin I started doing only recently, so I don't know when it actually start paying off. Though I'm checking ads every day. So keep your fingers crossed.

And finally:

I requested 2 payments. From Ciao and myLot. I should get them at the beginning of December.

All in all, while I think November could've been better, it wasn't bad either. I'm sure December will be better :)

Writing bids and other writing related things

So far I'm writing reviews for both Ciao and Reviewstream and articles for Helium and AssociatedContent. I also write for Helium Marketplace (I'm waiting for a decision on one of the topics I submitted my article to. Keep your fingers crossed).

But I decided not to limit myself to just those venues... I've read a lot about writing jobs that you can bid on and the client decides who they want to hire. So I decided to start submitting my bids to jobs that interest me.

Since I'm not very experienced in that area, I'm not sure how long one have to wait for the final decision and whether my bids are written the way they supposed to be.
But I'm not planning on giving up.

I did some research on what is expected and what should be written in a bid. But it's all theory and I need to get some first-hand experience. Wish me luck :)