Frustrated my search engine wasn't giving me the results I wanted, I rashly typed in "how to run an internet business." First result was a common sense article from AC.com, and then in the box of similar articles was one on how to make money in online writing. My husband is US Navy, and I have frequntly had my emails returned to me because they exceeded the 15 KB limit. That's a plain text email 15 KB limit, no html allowed. (If you've gotten this far in my introduction, I'm sure you have no problems believing I am verbose.) Light bulbs, bells, and whistles all went off in my head that maybe this could be an option for me to kill some time.
The article on freelance online writing listed this website, AC, and Helium. Honestly, the article was a bit on the simple side, but I figured if this could get published than I at least have a chance. It was intimidating, the thought of relinquishing my rights to my writing... at first. Then I realized anyone could copy and paste my blog or wikipedia contributions, and they didn't even have the decency to pay me peanuts first! But, in the article ConstantContent was described as the Holy Grail of writing sites and supposedly rejected "greaty writen articles." Since the skeptic inside thought this all to be a scam anyway, I started off with Helium and gingerly attempted AC.com.
On Helium I jumped into the deep end big time. I started with the contests, especially the Travel channel. I quickly became disenchanted by the chore of rating, and now have a new found appreciation for every English teacher I have ever had. Plus, being rated lower than an article with typos and misspellings in the lead is quite a shot to the ego. Or just proof most raters flip a coin. I quit the effort and started submitting "crap", and then thought well if I am not enjoying this what's the point? But I have $0.70 to help soothe my pain.
AC.com was a better hit, both articles I submitted, one exclusive and one non exclusive garnered up-front payments. I did that as a test, and my non-exclusive article beat the exclusive article's upfront payment by $0.50. It wasn't going to pay any bills, but it was comforting to know my musings had monetary value. It inspired me to give online writing more thought and careful attention.
But, it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out if your articles consistantly receive upfront payment then the work is probably not challenging enough. It didn't help that I noticed people who were very poorly ranked on Helium were regurgitating their articles word-for-word on AC.com. The coup de grace was when I ripped apart and retooled my #1 out of 14 ranked article, submitted to AC.com as nonexclusive (it was a very different article, but too many similar components for me to be comfortable calling it unpublished anywhere else), and less than 24 hours later I received a rejection notice from the editor. I was told the reasoning was the subject matter was too readily available and that they had published too many articles with same subject recently. So I did a content search on the subject, and what was the first result? The number 8 article from Helium, exactly as it is there, with a spelling mistake in the lead!
Since you are all here, and not there, it is probably safe to assume I am not sharing a unique story. Hopefully, my experience brought back memories and a smile or two at the epiphany. It has taken me about 2 days just to figure out the mechanics of this site. At first I was frustrated it's a little challenging to navigate, and I was going to complain it needs to be more user friendly. But don't change it! I have decided this is probably a great safety feature against the people who just sit at their computers, type anything off the top of their heads, and call it an "article."
I admit I am intimidated by the 3 article submission threshold. I found a requested topic I am passionate about, asked in Q&A if the opportunity is still available since it was posted over a month ago, and wrote my first article exclusively for Constant Content. It's 1400 words waiting in my "To Be Polished" folder where I will fine-tooth comb it tomorrow. If the opportunity isn't available, I'm confident my article could be picked up by another customer. Or, it's a great piece I could break down and handle sub-subject matter more in-depth. I'm excited and want to submit it right now, but that would grossly violate my time away from my work rule of at least 8 hours if there is no firm deadline. I've worked on a university newspaper where you don't have that luxury, but now that I am a little more mature, I relish the opportunity to edit my writing. Thank God I wrote under my maiden name there, because the articles are archived online!
Thanks for reading my introduction. I love writing for the purely intrinsic value of someone else cares. Online writing is the best, replies give the author instant gratification! The hardest aspect I find so far is I am still mastering the art of keyword writing. It goes against the very grain of what we are taught from elementary school to use variation and creativitity to keep the reader enthralled. Now, one must first use the same subject word or closely related words to first spark the interest of the search engine, and then use variation only around those words to keep the reader interested. It's a precarious balancing act and so far an intriguing game to play while writing.
Good luck to all and I hope this is a writing community I will be a good fit for.
Always Smiling,
Elizabeth