So, after one day online, my first article on Yahoo has a grand total of 21 page views. That apparently translates into something like 3 cents. That's pretty puny, and far worse than I'd imagined. Now granted, I finished the assignment way early, so its possible that once we're actually nearer to graduation days in late May and early June it'll get more play and maybe some pub from Yahoo itself. In which case, the 21 views represents only my own ability to market through Facebook and Twitter. And if that's the case, I can see how my own limited efforts have borne relatively few fruit.
I also have to consider the possibility that YAC is a long term game. That we'll pick up views over the long term instead of in one big burst. In that hope, I've typed up another quick assignment, so we'll see how long that one takes to get out, and what happens when it does.
But still. Three cents? Ugh.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
"Here Comes Louie!" - Writer's Notes
Something else I'd like to do here on Tales is to putout some Writer's Notes about the various articles and stories I get published. Since "Here Comes Louie!" is my first published (if not submitted) article to the Yahoo Associated Content network, it naturally gets the the first Writer's Note.
Naturally this post will make more sense if you go and read the article first. (And another page view won't do me any harm.)
Perhaps surprisingly, given the personal nature of what I wrote, this one came pretty easily. Even though its been twenty years, I can still picture the way the gym looked, the smiles on my family's faces as I approached, and the heat of the air. I remember being grateful for the lemonade, even as I found it almost sickeningly sweet, and I felt a degree of contentment at having accomplished something significant in my life. Once I got stated, it was pretty easy to get into a groove and just punch it out. The Then (Now) structure was one I've seen before, though I don't remember where. Just another one of those ingredients we pick up as we go, I suppose.
Another thing I can't remember, is my fellow graduates. Most of my closest friends from high school were either in the band, carry overs from my years at St. Raymond's, or in the Loyola gamer community, and most of those were in other classes. Ryan had transferred to a different school after our freshman year, Steve and Powell had graduated the year before, while Luke and Drew were sweating it out in the balcony with the rest of the band. Really, the only members of the Class of '91 I do remember are Tom Carney, another band friend, and Alec Gorecki, who I'd played endless games of chess with while we skipped out of our useless FORTRAN class together.
The other thing that those memories make me wonder is the obvious: Where did the years go? I can't believe it's been twenty years already. How can two decades go by so quickly? It's just a little baffling.
Naturally this post will make more sense if you go and read the article first. (And another page view won't do me any harm.)
Perhaps surprisingly, given the personal nature of what I wrote, this one came pretty easily. Even though its been twenty years, I can still picture the way the gym looked, the smiles on my family's faces as I approached, and the heat of the air. I remember being grateful for the lemonade, even as I found it almost sickeningly sweet, and I felt a degree of contentment at having accomplished something significant in my life. Once I got stated, it was pretty easy to get into a groove and just punch it out. The Then (Now) structure was one I've seen before, though I don't remember where. Just another one of those ingredients we pick up as we go, I suppose.
Another thing I can't remember, is my fellow graduates. Most of my closest friends from high school were either in the band, carry overs from my years at St. Raymond's, or in the Loyola gamer community, and most of those were in other classes. Ryan had transferred to a different school after our freshman year, Steve and Powell had graduated the year before, while Luke and Drew were sweating it out in the balcony with the rest of the band. Really, the only members of the Class of '91 I do remember are Tom Carney, another band friend, and Alec Gorecki, who I'd played endless games of chess with while we skipped out of our useless FORTRAN class together.
The other thing that those memories make me wonder is the obvious: Where did the years go? I can't believe it's been twenty years already. How can two decades go by so quickly? It's just a little baffling.
Working for Yahoo, Part IV
Oh, so that's why you do jobs from the assignment desk. It's because it goes through the system so much faster! In fact, here's my first assignment right here!
Readers of this blog may recall that I wrote my first article for Yahoo on Monday the 25th of April. I wrote my second one, picking "memories of your graduation." off the list almost at random, on Tuesday the 26th. So here we are on Thursday the 28th, and I haven't heard a thing about my first submission, but the second one is up already. Mind you, I'm locked into the lower pay scale without any up front bonus, but hey, its up and out there in a couple of days. That's not bad at all.
Of course, the real deciding factor will be page views. Will the fact that the assigned article is appropriate to the season and may therefore get more press from Yahoo itself give me enough page views to make a reasonable amount of cash from it? I still don't have a very good handle on how many page views the average Yahoo page gets. If I get 1,000 or so then I've made $1.50, which is a pretty shitty rate for a couple hours of work. Get it up to 10,000 and we're at $15, which is at least minimum wage. One hundred thousand means I'm looking at $150 which ain't bad at all. And a million or more, well, that's damn fine money.
Complicating the matter is the fact that each article is going to hang out online virtually in perpetuity, racking up more and more page views over time. So what I get in the first week may not be indicative of what I can get over the course of weeks, months, or even years.
On the other hand, my current ability to self-promote is somewhat limited. I figure I've got maybe a hundred or so Twitter Followers, Facebook Friends, and what have you. The Google Adsense tracker shows that my two blogs here generate 42-43 page views a day. Not bad for just starting out, but hardly even a drop in the bucket as far as Yahoo is concerned where views are measured in the thousands.
So there's a lot I don't know about this just yet. Hopefully sometime next week I'll start getting solid numbers from Yahoo and be better able to evaluate YAC as a money making venture.
But in the short term, hey, I've been published! That feels pretty good, no matter what.
Readers of this blog may recall that I wrote my first article for Yahoo on Monday the 25th of April. I wrote my second one, picking "memories of your graduation." off the list almost at random, on Tuesday the 26th. So here we are on Thursday the 28th, and I haven't heard a thing about my first submission, but the second one is up already. Mind you, I'm locked into the lower pay scale without any up front bonus, but hey, its up and out there in a couple of days. That's not bad at all.
Of course, the real deciding factor will be page views. Will the fact that the assigned article is appropriate to the season and may therefore get more press from Yahoo itself give me enough page views to make a reasonable amount of cash from it? I still don't have a very good handle on how many page views the average Yahoo page gets. If I get 1,000 or so then I've made $1.50, which is a pretty shitty rate for a couple hours of work. Get it up to 10,000 and we're at $15, which is at least minimum wage. One hundred thousand means I'm looking at $150 which ain't bad at all. And a million or more, well, that's damn fine money.
Complicating the matter is the fact that each article is going to hang out online virtually in perpetuity, racking up more and more page views over time. So what I get in the first week may not be indicative of what I can get over the course of weeks, months, or even years.
On the other hand, my current ability to self-promote is somewhat limited. I figure I've got maybe a hundred or so Twitter Followers, Facebook Friends, and what have you. The Google Adsense tracker shows that my two blogs here generate 42-43 page views a day. Not bad for just starting out, but hardly even a drop in the bucket as far as Yahoo is concerned where views are measured in the thousands.
So there's a lot I don't know about this just yet. Hopefully sometime next week I'll start getting solid numbers from Yahoo and be better able to evaluate YAC as a money making venture.
But in the short term, hey, I've been published! That feels pretty good, no matter what.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Working for Yahoo, Part III
Today, I submitted my third article for Yahoo, a business review. In this first week of work I'm looking to try a little of everything and see what pans out and what doesn't. I'm getting more used to the Yahoo text editor, though its still not my favorite. I'll probably use an outside word processor for longer works, but it seems like less of a hassle to do one and done articles in the editor.
I've also decided what to do about the mystery short story assignment. I have a couple of characters in mind to use, so I'll write a short self-contained story about them for Yahoo, while doing a longer piece that serves as a series introduction for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. With luck, EQMM will buy my story. With God's own luck, it'll be a hit and I'll get a regular writing gig out of it. Mind you, while I have a setting and characters, I still need to think up an actual mystery or two. That requires planning, and isn't well suited to my compose-as-I-go style that I've been using on my non-fiction Yahoo stuff. I may even have to write an outline, which is something I haven't had to do since I got out of school.
What a concept, eh?
I've also decided what to do about the mystery short story assignment. I have a couple of characters in mind to use, so I'll write a short self-contained story about them for Yahoo, while doing a longer piece that serves as a series introduction for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. With luck, EQMM will buy my story. With God's own luck, it'll be a hit and I'll get a regular writing gig out of it. Mind you, while I have a setting and characters, I still need to think up an actual mystery or two. That requires planning, and isn't well suited to my compose-as-I-go style that I've been using on my non-fiction Yahoo stuff. I may even have to write an outline, which is something I haven't had to do since I got out of school.
What a concept, eh?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Working for Yahoo, Part II
Today I approached my article for Yahoo Associated Content a little differently. There's an assignment board that becomes available after you log in. In it they have basic suggestions for articles that they want done. I'm not certain if only one person gets each assignment, if a small number of people can do it, or if anyone can get in on the action until the expiration date.
Regardless of which it is, I grabbed one, wrote it, and submitted it. One thing that I thought was odd, though, was the fact that unlike the articles that you submit on your own, the assignments always seem to be set to the minimum payment option with the least exclusive release options. Considering that these are articles that Yahoo itself is requesting, you would have figured it would be the opposite: exclusive to Yahoo but encouraged to be written by having the highest payment options.
Since it goes the other way, though, I can only infer that the "assignments" are more like suggestions of things to do if you're out of ideas to do on your own. So useful, but not really more profitable than your own work.
Mind you, I wrote it up anyway, just to see how it plays out.
But while I was looking over the assignments, I noticed one which surprised me. "Write a mystery short story." It surprised me because they explicitly said in their writing suggestions that fiction doesn't do very well on the network. What's more, the technical definition of a short story is a story over 1,000 words and less than 10,000. (Anything under 1,000 is considered a "short short" or "flash fiction.") Indeed, the writer's guidelines for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine suggest that 2,500 to 8,000 words is the ideal size for their use. Meanwhile, Yahoo's normal guidelines suggest that you keep your submissions in the 300 to 500 word range.
Complicating matters, I see that EQMM pays anywhere from 5 cents to 8 cents a word, but a submission is by no means guaranteed. Assuming that as as new writer I'll only get the 5 cents, and further that my hypothetical story is the minimum 2,500 word length, then I'd earn $125 on a sale to them. At the standard rater of $1.50 for every 1000 page views at Yahoo, I'd need more than 83,000 views to make that much on Yahoo. That seems like a lot, but I haven't had anything published by Yahoo yet, much less seen what the numbers are like so I don't know if it is or not.
Seems like a lot, though.
So while on the face of it, EQMM seems like the better deal, there's a catch. Its not a guaranteed acceptance. I'd have to submit it and then wait as much as three months or more to find out if the story was going to make any money at all. Meanwhile, I could write it up and submit it to Yahoo and have it making money sometime in the immediate future. And it would have to be soon, because the assignment for Yahoo expires in May, making the obvious solution of submitting it to EQMM first then dumping it on Yahoo if it isn't accepted a non-starter.
And of course, I'd have to actually write the story.
So what do you think? Write a mystery for Yahoo and take guaranteed money that's probably less than I could make at EQMM, and possibly a lot less? Or take the shot, go for more money, but without knowing if I'll get anything at all, with the three month wait? Or maybe just say no thanks, and keep doing YAC articles instead?
Any thoughts?
Regardless of which it is, I grabbed one, wrote it, and submitted it. One thing that I thought was odd, though, was the fact that unlike the articles that you submit on your own, the assignments always seem to be set to the minimum payment option with the least exclusive release options. Considering that these are articles that Yahoo itself is requesting, you would have figured it would be the opposite: exclusive to Yahoo but encouraged to be written by having the highest payment options.
Since it goes the other way, though, I can only infer that the "assignments" are more like suggestions of things to do if you're out of ideas to do on your own. So useful, but not really more profitable than your own work.
Mind you, I wrote it up anyway, just to see how it plays out.
But while I was looking over the assignments, I noticed one which surprised me. "Write a mystery short story." It surprised me because they explicitly said in their writing suggestions that fiction doesn't do very well on the network. What's more, the technical definition of a short story is a story over 1,000 words and less than 10,000. (Anything under 1,000 is considered a "short short" or "flash fiction.") Indeed, the writer's guidelines for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine suggest that 2,500 to 8,000 words is the ideal size for their use. Meanwhile, Yahoo's normal guidelines suggest that you keep your submissions in the 300 to 500 word range.
Complicating matters, I see that EQMM pays anywhere from 5 cents to 8 cents a word, but a submission is by no means guaranteed. Assuming that as as new writer I'll only get the 5 cents, and further that my hypothetical story is the minimum 2,500 word length, then I'd earn $125 on a sale to them. At the standard rater of $1.50 for every 1000 page views at Yahoo, I'd need more than 83,000 views to make that much on Yahoo. That seems like a lot, but I haven't had anything published by Yahoo yet, much less seen what the numbers are like so I don't know if it is or not.
Seems like a lot, though.
So while on the face of it, EQMM seems like the better deal, there's a catch. Its not a guaranteed acceptance. I'd have to submit it and then wait as much as three months or more to find out if the story was going to make any money at all. Meanwhile, I could write it up and submit it to Yahoo and have it making money sometime in the immediate future. And it would have to be soon, because the assignment for Yahoo expires in May, making the obvious solution of submitting it to EQMM first then dumping it on Yahoo if it isn't accepted a non-starter.
And of course, I'd have to actually write the story.
So what do you think? Write a mystery for Yahoo and take guaranteed money that's probably less than I could make at EQMM, and possibly a lot less? Or take the shot, go for more money, but without knowing if I'll get anything at all, with the three month wait? Or maybe just say no thanks, and keep doing YAC articles instead?
Any thoughts?
Working for Yahoo, Part I
So, after spending some time getting the other half of this blog up and ready to go, I got to work trying to find work.
To be precise, I wrote my first article for Yahoo Associated Content, and I made a pitch to The Escapist.
The latter really wasn't all that much, comprising as it did only a short email discussing what I wanted to write and what issue it was for. I'm hopeful that it will work out, but its my first pitch, so we'll see. Regardless, just perusing their Writer's Guidelines and making sure my email to them fit those guidelines was a pretty useful experience. Here's hoping they like my idea.
The more complicated process was submitting an article to the YAC. First, I had to decide on exclusive vs non-exclusive. The former supposedly makes it more likely I'll get an up-front bonus, while the latter let's me publish it elsewhere. Since this is a test run to see how their system works, I went with exclusive.
The second step involved choosing whether "Yahoo Partners" could also publish my article. Well, it would have been a choice if I hadn't picked exclusive in the first choice. As I had, that was already picked for me.
Next, I had to decide if I wanted to try for the Up-Front bonus. As far as I could tell, the only reason not to at least try was that it would take longer to go through the approval process. One to two weeks for Up-Front as opposed to one week for simple Performance Based. Since this is still a test run, it seemed best to give the Up-Front a shot. There's slightly more money available that way, since if they accept it for Up-Front, you get paid first and still get the Performance money afterwards.
Finally, after inputting some descriptive text, we get to the text editor. And frankly, its a bit of a pain in the ass. For one thing, it doesn't allow the auto-correct from my browser's spell check to function. I can see that there's a problem, but I have to fumble around trying to spell the word out myself or go look it up. Its not a big thing, but it slows me down, and I don't see a good reason to disable that functionality. Also, they demand proper sourcing for things, but the superscript and subscript functions in the editor are broken, if the Pre-Publication Preview is to be believed. Finally, the image adding is both cumbersome and inaccurate, especially since they don't tell you what pixel size they accept. They'll just let you put in whatever size picture you like, then crop it so it looks ridiculous. I tried to add a picture I'd taken that relates to the article four times and every time it looked stupid, so eventually I just went without it.
Mind you, I suppose the latter two problems could be with the Preview rather than the text editor, but since I can only assume that the Preview is how things are actually going to look, I had to make corrections based on what I saw.
Overall, though, the text editor didn't fill me with joy, but it was functional enough that I managed to get what I needed to done.
So now I've got an article submitted and another proposed. Tomorrow, I'll do more YAC work, and see what else catches my attention.
To be precise, I wrote my first article for Yahoo Associated Content, and I made a pitch to The Escapist.
The latter really wasn't all that much, comprising as it did only a short email discussing what I wanted to write and what issue it was for. I'm hopeful that it will work out, but its my first pitch, so we'll see. Regardless, just perusing their Writer's Guidelines and making sure my email to them fit those guidelines was a pretty useful experience. Here's hoping they like my idea.
The more complicated process was submitting an article to the YAC. First, I had to decide on exclusive vs non-exclusive. The former supposedly makes it more likely I'll get an up-front bonus, while the latter let's me publish it elsewhere. Since this is a test run to see how their system works, I went with exclusive.
The second step involved choosing whether "Yahoo Partners" could also publish my article. Well, it would have been a choice if I hadn't picked exclusive in the first choice. As I had, that was already picked for me.
Next, I had to decide if I wanted to try for the Up-Front bonus. As far as I could tell, the only reason not to at least try was that it would take longer to go through the approval process. One to two weeks for Up-Front as opposed to one week for simple Performance Based. Since this is still a test run, it seemed best to give the Up-Front a shot. There's slightly more money available that way, since if they accept it for Up-Front, you get paid first and still get the Performance money afterwards.
Finally, after inputting some descriptive text, we get to the text editor. And frankly, its a bit of a pain in the ass. For one thing, it doesn't allow the auto-correct from my browser's spell check to function. I can see that there's a problem, but I have to fumble around trying to spell the word out myself or go look it up. Its not a big thing, but it slows me down, and I don't see a good reason to disable that functionality. Also, they demand proper sourcing for things, but the superscript and subscript functions in the editor are broken, if the Pre-Publication Preview is to be believed. Finally, the image adding is both cumbersome and inaccurate, especially since they don't tell you what pixel size they accept. They'll just let you put in whatever size picture you like, then crop it so it looks ridiculous. I tried to add a picture I'd taken that relates to the article four times and every time it looked stupid, so eventually I just went without it.
Mind you, I suppose the latter two problems could be with the Preview rather than the text editor, but since I can only assume that the Preview is how things are actually going to look, I had to make corrections based on what I saw.
Overall, though, the text editor didn't fill me with joy, but it was functional enough that I managed to get what I needed to done.
So now I've got an article submitted and another proposed. Tomorrow, I'll do more YAC work, and see what else catches my attention.
Monday, April 25, 2011
"Where do you get your ideas?"
It is the question that, I'm told, successful writers get asked to the point of exhaustion. I wouldn't know, as I've yet to be very successful at writing, or really, much else. Nevertheless, I have given the question some thought and I've developed a theory.
To me, it seems, writing is very much like cooking.
In both endeavors, one brings together a number of influences. Meals that have been eaten and loved correspond to one's favorite books. A writer remembers, even if only subconsciously, certain phrase, scenes, or bits of wordplay that make an impression, just as a cook remembers the flavors of ingredients, both individually and in the way that they work together. A cook can learn a recipe from a book and do well, but it is only through experimentation and the occasional bit of random chance that new masterpieces are created. Likewise, a writer can take any number of creative writing classes, but its only by trying new things that we grow in our craft.
Both are, in effect, a way to synthesize our experiences into something new. But saying that means that we're influenced by the things we've read, seen, heard, and played. All of that goes into our writing, together with the things that have happened in our lives. So when someone (a theoretical someone, to be sure) asks me "where do you get your ideas?" the only true answer is, "I've lived for 37 years and counting."
So how does that factor into this blog? Well, an old friend of mine recently recommended that I should post something every day if I want to build and maintain an audience. And indeed, he's probably right. But I'm not certain I'll have anything insightful to write about writing every single day. I will certainly type up everything interesting that happens along the way, and I certainly expect to have a lot to say about my results once I start getting things out there, but I can also see a point where my posts could devolve into "well, I wrote a bunch of stuff, but it hasn't gone up yet, thanks for dropping by." And I don't want that. I'd like things on this blog to always be substantive and always about writing.
However, I also think there's room in my life to blog about the things that inspire me. The books I'm reading, the TV I'm watching, the games I'm playing. And about those topics, I have a wealth of information and opinion to share. So, to that end, I've created a second blog, A Writer After Hours. That one will be updated every day, or every weekday at the very least, with thoughts and commentary about the things that entertain me. Some of it will be current like the ongoing Game of Thrones TV series, and others more retrospective, about the things that shaped my tastes growing up.
So, if you have an interest in just the writing side of my life, stay here. If you're more curious about various entertainments, go there. If you like both, by all means, follow both. I don't mind a bit.
To me, it seems, writing is very much like cooking.
In both endeavors, one brings together a number of influences. Meals that have been eaten and loved correspond to one's favorite books. A writer remembers, even if only subconsciously, certain phrase, scenes, or bits of wordplay that make an impression, just as a cook remembers the flavors of ingredients, both individually and in the way that they work together. A cook can learn a recipe from a book and do well, but it is only through experimentation and the occasional bit of random chance that new masterpieces are created. Likewise, a writer can take any number of creative writing classes, but its only by trying new things that we grow in our craft.
Both are, in effect, a way to synthesize our experiences into something new. But saying that means that we're influenced by the things we've read, seen, heard, and played. All of that goes into our writing, together with the things that have happened in our lives. So when someone (a theoretical someone, to be sure) asks me "where do you get your ideas?" the only true answer is, "I've lived for 37 years and counting."
So how does that factor into this blog? Well, an old friend of mine recently recommended that I should post something every day if I want to build and maintain an audience. And indeed, he's probably right. But I'm not certain I'll have anything insightful to write about writing every single day. I will certainly type up everything interesting that happens along the way, and I certainly expect to have a lot to say about my results once I start getting things out there, but I can also see a point where my posts could devolve into "well, I wrote a bunch of stuff, but it hasn't gone up yet, thanks for dropping by." And I don't want that. I'd like things on this blog to always be substantive and always about writing.
However, I also think there's room in my life to blog about the things that inspire me. The books I'm reading, the TV I'm watching, the games I'm playing. And about those topics, I have a wealth of information and opinion to share. So, to that end, I've created a second blog, A Writer After Hours. That one will be updated every day, or every weekday at the very least, with thoughts and commentary about the things that entertain me. Some of it will be current like the ongoing Game of Thrones TV series, and others more retrospective, about the things that shaped my tastes growing up.
So, if you have an interest in just the writing side of my life, stay here. If you're more curious about various entertainments, go there. If you like both, by all means, follow both. I don't mind a bit.
Friday, April 22, 2011
A look forward...
So how do you make money on the internet? Well, there's porn, of course, but as an overweight man in his late '30s without unusual "endowment", that really isn't likely to happen. I'm no Ron Jeremy. I also haven't got much in the way of programming or web design skills, nor am I a talented videographer. So that means writing, which I at least know a tiny bit about. The new question is: who pays people to write online?
Well, there are a number of options, actually.
Amazon has a pretty sweet deal to publish your novel on the Kindle. If you price your work between $2.99 and $9.99, you can get as much as 70% of each sale, which is a nice ratio. Of course, you also have to find an audience, since you're not going to get much, if any, advertising for your work from Amazon. At least, not until you're blindingly successful and don't need the advertising as much anymore. Also this requires a completed work, which I don't currently have. Oh, I have ideas for novels aplenty (who doesn't?) but my actual attempts to write them down have been spotty at best. I do plan to keep plugging away, and with luck and willpower, hope to have something done sooner or later, but in the short term we can only consider selling a novel on the Kindle to be a long term project at best.
In the meantime, I have something else in mind. Yahoo's Associated Content, to be exact. Yahoo wants short articles in the 300-500 word range, and is willing to pay $1.50 for every 1,000 page views you achieve. On the face of it, that seems like an okay deal. After all, I wrote 782 words about my misgivings for the upcoming Old Republic MMORPG for fun on my LiveJournal that virtually no one reads. How hard can it be to write less than that about any number of topics that I know about? I suppose we'll find out, as I plan to give YAC a shot.
What else is there? Well, right here on Blogger I saw a little "Monetize" button. God knows I need more of that in my life, so I hit it and discovered it leads to AdSense. Considering the degree to which I've cultivated "Ad Blindness" in my own life, I might as well hit the buttons and see what comes of it. I don't have high hopes for it, since I myself rarely if ever click online ads myself, but every little bit helps.
What about traditional publishing? Doing things the old fashioned way, as it were. Typing up proposal letters or full short stories, submitting them with baited breath, then dying of suffocation because it takes weeks or months to hear anything back. How about trying some of that? I dipped my toe into that pond by offering to write, unpaid no less, for Tachyon TV. I had thought that it might be worthwhile to get an audience first before I tried to sell anything, and to get used to writing on a deadline for relatively low stakes. They seemed initially interested in my proposal but then I heard nothing after I submitted a writing sample. Their reply was that things were crazy just then and they needed to get things in order first. Fair enough, I suppose. And indeed, the site was silent for quite some time around then, though the self-conscious part of me whispers in the dark that they simply hated my writing sample. Who can say? I don't mind nothing having come of it, though, since it frees up time to write things that, in theory, pay.
(I don't hold a grudge towards Tachyon TV, by the way. Its a great site if you like classic British TV, and the Adventures with the Wife in Space feature where a longtime Who fan watches Doctor Who from the very beginning with his wife is a great read. I recommend it.)
There are a few magazines, online and paper, that still accept submissions. The Escapist, for example, has a calendar that allows you to see what issues are planned, when you have to have your pitch and your material ready by, as well as when it will be published. I plan to make a pitch to The Escapist and see what comes of it.
There's also Cracked. Of course you have to be genuinely funny to get things up on Cracked, but perhaps the humor of desperation could come in handy here.
Of course, this is Tales of a Fledgling Writer, so I don't believe I know it all. Or even a significant fraction, for that matter. I'm hoping to learn as I go, but I certainly wouldn't turn down any advice or options that I haven't found on my own yet. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments or by private message if you prefer.
Well, there are a number of options, actually.
Amazon has a pretty sweet deal to publish your novel on the Kindle. If you price your work between $2.99 and $9.99, you can get as much as 70% of each sale, which is a nice ratio. Of course, you also have to find an audience, since you're not going to get much, if any, advertising for your work from Amazon. At least, not until you're blindingly successful and don't need the advertising as much anymore. Also this requires a completed work, which I don't currently have. Oh, I have ideas for novels aplenty (who doesn't?) but my actual attempts to write them down have been spotty at best. I do plan to keep plugging away, and with luck and willpower, hope to have something done sooner or later, but in the short term we can only consider selling a novel on the Kindle to be a long term project at best.
In the meantime, I have something else in mind. Yahoo's Associated Content, to be exact. Yahoo wants short articles in the 300-500 word range, and is willing to pay $1.50 for every 1,000 page views you achieve. On the face of it, that seems like an okay deal. After all, I wrote 782 words about my misgivings for the upcoming Old Republic MMORPG for fun on my LiveJournal that virtually no one reads. How hard can it be to write less than that about any number of topics that I know about? I suppose we'll find out, as I plan to give YAC a shot.
What else is there? Well, right here on Blogger I saw a little "Monetize" button. God knows I need more of that in my life, so I hit it and discovered it leads to AdSense. Considering the degree to which I've cultivated "Ad Blindness" in my own life, I might as well hit the buttons and see what comes of it. I don't have high hopes for it, since I myself rarely if ever click online ads myself, but every little bit helps.
What about traditional publishing? Doing things the old fashioned way, as it were. Typing up proposal letters or full short stories, submitting them with baited breath, then dying of suffocation because it takes weeks or months to hear anything back. How about trying some of that? I dipped my toe into that pond by offering to write, unpaid no less, for Tachyon TV. I had thought that it might be worthwhile to get an audience first before I tried to sell anything, and to get used to writing on a deadline for relatively low stakes. They seemed initially interested in my proposal but then I heard nothing after I submitted a writing sample. Their reply was that things were crazy just then and they needed to get things in order first. Fair enough, I suppose. And indeed, the site was silent for quite some time around then, though the self-conscious part of me whispers in the dark that they simply hated my writing sample. Who can say? I don't mind nothing having come of it, though, since it frees up time to write things that, in theory, pay.
(I don't hold a grudge towards Tachyon TV, by the way. Its a great site if you like classic British TV, and the Adventures with the Wife in Space feature where a longtime Who fan watches Doctor Who from the very beginning with his wife is a great read. I recommend it.)
There are a few magazines, online and paper, that still accept submissions. The Escapist, for example, has a calendar that allows you to see what issues are planned, when you have to have your pitch and your material ready by, as well as when it will be published. I plan to make a pitch to The Escapist and see what comes of it.
There's also Cracked. Of course you have to be genuinely funny to get things up on Cracked, but perhaps the humor of desperation could come in handy here.
Of course, this is Tales of a Fledgling Writer, so I don't believe I know it all. Or even a significant fraction, for that matter. I'm hoping to learn as I go, but I certainly wouldn't turn down any advice or options that I haven't found on my own yet. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments or by private message if you prefer.
A look back...
I've always dabbled in writing. Like most writers, I'm an avid reader, and that reading led me to try to write now and again. In college, for instance, I wrote a series of short stories, then accidentally formatted the disk they were on. At various points in my life, I've picked up my pen and tried to put words to paper. Or rather, in this electric age, put keyboard to word processor.
Those times almost always coincided with stress in my life. When I flunked out of the University of Illinois, for one example. When my father was in the hospital for a heart operation for another. When I was happy and content with a reasonable job and things to occupy my free time, on the other hand, my writing output dropped to almost nothing. It seemed as if the creative part of my brain only woke up as an outlet when times were tough for me.
Perhaps this is another one of those times. In July of last year, I lost my job. I'd like to say that I went on a desperation fueled rampage of drinking and hedonism, because that makes for a better story. But the truth of the matter is that I sank into lethargy instead. I lived off my savings, played video games, and watched TV. Occasionally, I picked away at a a novel I've been claiming to write for years, but little real progress was made. Eventually my savings dried up, and I found myself faced with the stark reality that I needed to do something.
Anything.
So I've turned to my longtime hobby, writing. This, then, is my as-it-happens narrative about trying to make money through writing on the internet. There have been fortunes made and lost on the wild wild web, but all I'm looking for is enough for a car payment. Let's see if it can be done, and if so, if I'm one able to do it.
Those times almost always coincided with stress in my life. When I flunked out of the University of Illinois, for one example. When my father was in the hospital for a heart operation for another. When I was happy and content with a reasonable job and things to occupy my free time, on the other hand, my writing output dropped to almost nothing. It seemed as if the creative part of my brain only woke up as an outlet when times were tough for me.
Perhaps this is another one of those times. In July of last year, I lost my job. I'd like to say that I went on a desperation fueled rampage of drinking and hedonism, because that makes for a better story. But the truth of the matter is that I sank into lethargy instead. I lived off my savings, played video games, and watched TV. Occasionally, I picked away at a a novel I've been claiming to write for years, but little real progress was made. Eventually my savings dried up, and I found myself faced with the stark reality that I needed to do something.
Anything.
So I've turned to my longtime hobby, writing. This, then, is my as-it-happens narrative about trying to make money through writing on the internet. There have been fortunes made and lost on the wild wild web, but all I'm looking for is enough for a car payment. Let's see if it can be done, and if so, if I'm one able to do it.
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