PWG Writers Archive: articles

Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Referrals: Another Reason I Like Writing for Seekyt

In my recent article "Earning Money Writing for Seekyt.com," I provided a summary of how Seekyt works as a site for writers and why it is one of my favorite sites to write for. However, I neglected to add one of the unique things Seeky does to encourage writers to support and share each other's posts.

We are each given a unique referral ID (mine is /referrerId/2158) which not only allows people to sign up as our referral if they click on our articles or links, but also allows us to refer someone else's article and attach our referral code to the end.

If a new writer registers a new account within 30 days of clicking on a link to someone else's article I shared with *my* code at the end, *I* will be credited with the referral. This is a great reason to share, not only your own content, but everyone's content and potentially make money doing it.

So, to summarize, Seekyt pays writers a percentage of all ad sales on our articles. We increase our ad share by writing articles, by referring new writers, by gaining new followers, and by interacting on the site in other ways. My earnings percentage is currently 72%. If I refer 10 people, I increase my percentage by 1%. If I refer at least 50 new members I will earn an additional 5%. So, I can earn up to 6% additional revenue on my articles just for sharing Seekyt with my friends, in addition to increasing my revenue share by writing more articles and increasing my followers.

Examiner remains my favorite writing site because I consistently earn a decent monthly income for my articles there, but I really like the options Seekyt provides its writers to earn money from the ads. I have done well writing there and feel like it provides an excellent alternative to writing for page views.

This is my Seekyt referral link if you want to use it. Be sure and follow me if you sign up. Seekyt pays bonuses for followers, comments and other activity on the site.

More Writing Tips:

Thank you for reading and thank you for sharing the link to this article with others. This article is © Kathryn Darden, all rights reserved, and is not available to repost on websites, blogs, discussion boards, Facebook, or to translate and post elsewhere without written permission. WRITERS: If you would like to apply to be a writer for Examiner.com, click here.

Post ID KD214

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Why Professional Writers Write for Pennies: A History of Recent Journalism Trends

Do professional writers REALLY write for pennies??? Why, yes. Yes we do. We just earn a lot more pennies than those who don't strive to be professional in their writing.

The trick to writing successfully for the web is to BE PROFESSIONAL.

It all started back in the days when print was king. Many of us could earn on average $450 per article writing for major publications in the 1990s. Some writers earned more--much more. Of course, we had to write 1,000 words or more to earn our lofty fee, as well as sometimes produce or pay for professional images, but it was well worth the time and effort.

Then the internet took the world by storm, followed by iPads and smart phones. Large newspapers and magazines--some of which had been around for 150 years or more--began to go out of business.

In addition to writing for several local newspapers and national magazines, I published a local monthly magazine for gospel music in Nashville from 1992 to 2008. I held on as long as I could, but eventually the print version went out of business. It just could not compete with instant news at your fingertips. The web version celebrated 20 years in 2012, and I do earn some pennies from Google ads and Amazon writing for myself, but I learned I could earn more pennies writing for other sites as well.

During the two years proceeding my own paper's demise, all TEN of the publications which I wrote for on a regular business went out of business, so suddenly, there were a ton of very professional writers on the market: writers, editors and publishers competing for fewer and fewer remaining jobs in print. Some went into other businesses. Some lost everything. And some of us learned how to successfully write for pennies. Pennies turn into dollars, you know.

I don't earn as much as I did when I was paid $450 an article... on second thought, sometimes I do. Some months I only published two or three print articles, and some months I have earned over $1000 writing for the web part-time. As mentioned in a previous post, I have been especially successful earning money writing for Examiner.com.

There are definite pluses to writing for the internet. For one thing, it is easier to write for the web. Internet articles usually only have to be 150 to 400 words long as opposed to 1,000 or more for print. For another, writing for several sites I now have my pick of topics and am not locked in to the specific columns I had to write before. In addition, I have chosen to write for sites where I earn residuals as long as I keep writing or checking in, so I am still earning those pennies on all the articles I have written for the web.

The trick to writing successfully for the web is to BE PROFESSIONAL and write about things that will interest more than just your close circle of friends. No one but your mother wants to read what you had for breakfast or how your toaster is working. Sure you can do that on your personal blog if you want, but you won't attract readers beyond your friends that way. If your friends give you enough page views to live on reading what your toaster is doing, more power to you!

You don't have to have an extensive background in journalism to be successful, but it helps to follow basic standards of quality so you can build your brand and your readership.

Here are a few articles that may help.

Writing Tips:

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

PWG Discussion: Journal Posts & Discussions vs. Articles

In visiting some of the other posts on PWG, I see quite a few that are journal posts: chatty, about me, what-I-did-today, what-I-am thinking kinds of posts, what my pet did, what my toaster did, how much PWG has changed since I last visited, etc. It looks like those posts are fine here, so this is not a complaint, but there is a difference between a journal post and an article, and if we are attracting readers by promoting our news, journalism, creative writing or other articles, they may quickly lose interest in Preferred Writers Group if the next post that they read is just journal-type chatter.

However, what if we prefaced any chatty posts with the word "Journal?" Like "Journal: What I Did Today," "Journal: My Thoughts" "Journal: What My Toaster Did" etc.? That way a visitor would know they were heading to a journal-type entry when they clicked on a post marked "Journal."

I would like to suggest the same for PWG Discussion posts--again, visitors are not going to be interested in our discussion posts. We, on the other hand, do want to read other people's thoughts, ideas and suggestions about this group. Maybe we could earmark our discussions to make it easy for our writers to find them, and easy for our visitors to avoid them. For instance, I used "PWG Discussion" on this post. We can also use the labels/tags "journal" and "discussion" to help earmark them.

We all want page views, but we absolutely WILL LOSE READERS if they come to read articles and hit upon group discussions and idle chatter or daily accounting posts from the other site some of you guys post about so much. If we just post for each other to read, that is a maximum 70-ish readers now--hardly enough to earn any income. We need to be attracting outside readers who will enjoy reading several articles while they are here.

Honestly, I don't want to promote my articles to my professional circles and then have them stumble on something stream-of-conscience here unless they know ahead of time they are about to read someone's journal entry. I know we are supposed to be "good connectors," but there are some posts I am just not going to share or feel obligated to comment on if they don't have a point worth passing along.

Maybe I am the only one who feels that way, which is fine. I am just testing the waters here anyway, and this may not be a good fit, but I thought I would toss my ideas out there and see what the rest of you think and at least give you something to chew on.

More Writing Tips:

Post ID KD214

Monday, February 17, 2014

Show Them What You've Got!

Your writing is an extension of you as a person. What you present to the world is what they will remember about you. I realize this is a subject that is not approached on many other sites, but I feel the need to make this a high priority here.

You see, I am also an editor on Fullofknowledge.com. Our standards there are very high. I do not want to be an editor here, I want you all to speak your mind, in your own voice, but do not hate me if I leave a comment on your article asking you to proofread it carefully.

I do this, not for my benefit, but for yours, and for every writer on this site! We are a team, and teams help each other out. Even though I do not have time to work with each of you one on one here, I still want to see you be the best writers you can possibly be. It is what I love so about editing.

You see, at Fullofknowledge, we don't just publish or decline. Our editorial team works with writers, so that they know where they need to improve, and can learn and grow from the experience. So, if you see me leave a comment about something in your article, please know that I do so with the utmost respect, and with the intention of helping...never hurting.

How you present yourself is important. The words you put forth speak for YOU! Make them the most well chosen words you can find, and you will see your readership grow. Make your subject matter interesting, and they will always come back to see more. Make your articles more readable, and you will have far more readers, and get far more views. Believe me, it is well worth the extra effort!

I have finally decided on the perfect subject matter for my writing here on PWG. I think many of my articles will include helpful tips for my friends in writing! So, stay tuned, if you want to be a better writer, and most important of all...always enjoy what you write, and others will as well!

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Are We all from Bubblews?

It is funny, however are most of us coming from Bubblews?

I think that is cool, so we can make money both places and share other places also. Make sure to let us know somewhere your username at bubblews so we can see if your on our connections list.

http://www.bubblews.com/news/2330772-notification-just-arrived-from-bubblews

http://www.bubblews.com/news/2352389-saturday-long-day-and-it-is-only-834-pm-pst

I really enjoy reading all of your posts here and learning about other writing sites,
I also write over at allvoices.com not often but when I think of a local story, a friend posts there about 20 times a day and for the life of me I do not know how he comes up with this stories.lol

You can check it out if you wish
http://www.allvoices.com/users/thedarlingdiva

So what other places do you all write at that is accepting all types of writers?

I am really trying to branch out with all of my other articles, however right now sports and local news are what I write mostly about, unless I do a few Spoken Word Poems. Sports has been my thing for the last 6 years.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Solivagus on Bubblews : 2/15/14

My Bubblews Posts for the Day

by solivagus

i'm giving you wood

1. The Start of Day 26 | Nightmares

Concerning the horrible dream I had prior to waking last night, and an open letter to the ex-boyfriends who were in it. BOTH of them, for some reason.

2. Where's Solivagus? REN FEST!

Concerning how excited I was to get up and out of bed and go to Ren Fest, which as You can see from future postings... didn't go as planned.

3. Review of PicLab App from iTunes Store

Not much to this one, it's a review for a fun app. If you have trouble finding things to use as images for your posts, and you don't want to use something from my blog, this is a good app.

4. Sweeten Healthy Eating with Honey and Cinnamon

Self explanatory but goes into examples of why you should and how I use them.

5. Why do you scare yourself at night?