I made some updates....

...here and on some other sites I write on. Take a look particularly at the Squidoo lens I've been putting together about making money online with writing, I think it's becoming a good resource full of information. Feel free to make suggestions!

http://www.squidoo.com/make-money-online-with-writing

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Most Recent Published Articles by Nicolette Stevens

As though I could actually keep track of how much I'm writing these days, LOL. My general approach to writing all kinds of articles right now is one of both pleasure and practicality. I enjoy writing, and right now I have some real time that it makes sense to devoting to honing that craft. Much of what I'm doing right now is really something like practice, for more serious projects I'd like to get into in the future. Still, I'm in a position where making money, any money, is a really good thing.

Sometimes the articles I write actually pay "decent money" these days, but a lot of those assignments are hit and miss and involve a kind of luck in networking. Someone sees what I am doing elsewhere, has a need, and a short term business arrangement is made that's usually pleasing to both parties.  Other articles, essays, blogs, and things I write either generate no money, or something small. Then again, every bit counts in this economy. There's nothing like the sheer joy I feel when I get paid for writing. Every time, even if it's just some small amount, I feel like dancing in my living room. Possibly in my pajamas, and in fuzzy slippers, while drinking coffee and typing and making money at the same time. ( Well, okay, I don't actually own fuzzy slippers or wear pajamas, but you get the idea ).

Here are links to a few recient projects:

Coco Robicheaux - New Orleans Blues Legend    ( AC Article ) 

Fun Things to Do For Halloween in Seattle ( AC Article )

Free Charity Cars- Pictures of the Car I Was Awarded    ( AC Slide Show )

Make Money Online With Writing ( Squidoo Lens ) 

Gas Works Park : One of the Best Parks to Visit in Seattle   ( A Hub on Hub Pages ) 


Creative Writing Techniques - The Basics and Benefits of Free writing    ( Helium Article )

How to Use Swagbucks to Win Cash, Gift Cards, and Other Prizes   ( AC Article )

Defining Self-Integrity  ( AC Article ) 

Increasing Page Views

There are many different ways to widen the audience of the people who read your writing. One way is to be involved in many different social networks, and cross post about similar interests. If you write articles on AC, Hub Pages, or other places this may give you opportunities to share you thoughts with a wider range of people. When making a post in a community about a topic you've written an article about, always include a link.

Regardless of where your work is seen, some articles or posts will get more interest than others. Some of that has to do with how your work shows up in a search engine, and many factors such as good use of keywords may play in. Other factors such as the popularity of a topic will play in.

Here's a good example. I wrote a couple of silly little articles about Halloween related topics a few weeks ago. I put some time into sharing good ideas, but I can't say that either piece was very weighty. Both received about five hundred page views within a day! One reason may be that it was the right time of year for people to be interested in articles about Halloween.

The first article was about "Fun Things to do for Halloween in Seattle" . I didn't expect it at first, but sometimes I get a lot of views when I write an article that is based on a certain locality. In the article I included more unique ideas as well as standard ones. For instance, Seattle has a number of great Ghost Tours- which would be a fun and spooky activity for a group of people at this time of year.

The second article I wrote had even more views than the first, and was about "Cool Ideas for Halloween Costumes with Thrift Store Finds" .  If you have a look you'll note that I included lots of different types of costume ideas. Including an array of related topics that fit key words and concepts may draw more viewers. "Halloween", "Costume Ideas", "Pirate Costume", "Greek Goddess Costume", "Costumes for Kids", and "Costumes for Adults" could all apply as keywords. An underlying concept that may draw more attention is the opportunity to still have fun, but do it on the cheap. In this economy many people are struggling to take care of basic needs, and may not have much money for things like entertainment. Those people effected will all be looking for less expensive ways to celebrate than they may have in other years.

Paying attention to these simple things made the difference between 50 page views over time and 500 page views in a day.

Juggling with 3 balls for Writers: Helium vs Associated Content vs Hub Pages

One topic I'm getting into a lot in this blogs is different online venues that allow writers to post and promote their own work with the potential of making money. Again, each of these places do things a little differently. On Associated Content you have several publication options, which includes upfront payment under some circumstances. On Hub Pages, the writer's earnings come entirely from ad revenue, and to make a little money you will have to sign up for those different services and activate them on your Hub pages account after you have posted several good hubs. AC is more journalistic, but hub pages can also get a lot of traffic and has a fun and artistically appealing interface for creating your 'Hubs'. Helium is another website that allows people who like to write to earn money from sharing their work.

It is possible to write for all three of these places, and several others, at the same time. It should be noted that to do it well you're not going to be able to focus on three or more at once unless you have time to treat it like a full time job. Over time, if you experiment with several and link some of your work together, you will up your traffic and earn more. If you are not already doing this and want to try one to begin with, I'd suggest that you join Associated Content first , look through the notes here, and then start experimenting with the other options. There are a lot of options, but AC is one good place you can start that I can verify payment from.

Creating Hub Pages

Since I'm experimenting with multiple online venues for writing, I finally posted to hub pages. I've researched a lot about Associated Content, Hub Pages, Helium, AmTurk, ODesk, and a lot of other places writers can submit their content to and potentially earn money. Each of those spots have different arrangements, and I've heard positive and negative reports on all of them. I think the best way to know is to try them all.

One thing I like about the interface hub pages uses is the capsule form of adding photos, text, videos, links and related information. They don't offer the same up front payment options that Associated Content does, but quite a few writers swear that it works well for them. To see the difference between what a hub page with pictures and what an AC article with pictures looks like, check out these two examples I put together.

Hub Page: Gas Works Park is One of the Best Parks to Visit in Seattle

Associated Content: Beautiful Places Near Seattle: Mt. Si and Mt. Terriniffe

Any thoughts on what you like more or less about the look and feel of each?

Back Up Your Writing : A Repeated Learning Experience

This morning's reminder is to back up what you write, submit and post- at least if it's something you might want to see again.

My example today comes from a much earlier post, where I talked about travel writing on a website and community called Ruba. It was a pretty neat idea, a social interface that allowed people to join and share travel photo's and tips, creating their own guides to favorite places in various cities. I remembered posting a lot of cool stuff there when I came across the post I mentioned it in here,and went back to that site to have another look. Instead of finding my profile, I found a note from the creators of that site that they've moved on to bigger and better things.

The site was so well put together that I thought it would be around for a while. Whoops! Oh, well. It's not like I don't remember all the places I wrote about, or couldn't put my own similar guides together without the use of a site like that- in fact, some of my articles on Associated Content are travel guides about fun things to do in some of the cool places I like.

But it does remind me to keep copies of everything I submit anywhere that could in some fashion be useful later. It's why I have a 'hidden' blog, where I keep copies of submitted articles, so I can go back and use the information in them for further research. It is also one more way to prove authorship, a time stamped record.

Get Paid to Write: Examples of Articles that Pay

A few days ago I submitted four more articles to Associated Content, all of which were accepted for upfront payment. They paid slightly higher than some of the previous articles I submitted, so I must be doing something right. I focused on things of local interest, useful information, and tips. The article I added photography to made the most, which is another thing to take into account. One thing I had to remind myself to do was convert my resource links to properly hyper-linked text, but that's fairly easy to do within the AC text editor.

Check out these three articles as examples of some that have been accepted for up front as well as performance payents:

Fun things to do Near the Space Needle

Ten Tips for Traveling by Bus

Beautiful Places to Visit Near Seattle: Mt Si and Mt. Teriniffe

Adding Slide Shows to Your AC Content

People like pictures, and often articles with pictures or slide shows on a theme get more hits than text based articles alone. If you are using Associated Content as a platform to share your writing, you can add slide shows made up of your own photography.

Here are some examples of slide shows I've put together. :-) :

Traveling by Bus
Civil War Reenactment
Greenfield Village Train Ride
Henry Ford Museum Exhibits

It can be useful to create slide shows related to things you write about, because you can inter-link them all. For instance, I've been writing a few articles about things to do in Seattle. If I were to go out to places I've referenced in some of those articles and snap pictures, it could make the presentation more dynamic through the use of photography. You don't have to be anything like an expert photographer to make this work, all you really need is a digital camera and a laptop. :-)

Another Day in the Life

My writing sample got accepted at Experts 123, and now I'm just waiting for them to approve my profile so I can post some articles and see what happens. I was particularly delighted, because they sent me back a very nice acceptance letter. Of course, I can't be sure if that's what they send everyone- but it's nice when someone compliments your style.

After reading some reviews by other folks, I decided to also give Bukisa a try. They are very similar to Associated Content in terms of submitting content, but the payments work a little differently. Unlike AC, they don't offer up front payments. However, the rate they pay on the number of page views is a little more than twice what AC pays.

I'm not sure which of the available online publishers is "the best" to be honest. That's one reason I'm trying as many of them as possible. Another reason is the concept of cross-linking. As long as the links are relevant and make sense, it can only help. Different people will find your writing in different online venues, and may follow the links if you have other related content.

For instance, I have a short article on making money with Amazon Mechanial Turk posted here and on Associated Content. It focuses on some of the pros and cons of using it. Say I wrote another related article, on how to get better qualifications and offers on AmTurk. I could post it on Bukisa, and then link it to my AC article and vice versa. In theory, people interested in the subject would likely go on to read the other article. Because each service caters to a different crowd, one could conceivably get a lot more exposure by publishing in multiple venues.

If you've never heard of Buksia before and want to try it out yourself, you can join here:

Buksia - Share Your Knowledge

If you stumble through here and have experience with these different places to publish your work, leave us a message and let us know what kind of results you've had with each. :-)

Video Game Reviws on Associated Content

I am experimenting with a lot of different topics and styles of writing on Associated Content. Video Game Reviews are popular, and games for PC and console game systems can be a lot of fun. I played with Sims 3- Ambitions for the first time recently, and decided to add a review of the game to my published content on AC.

The publishing menu for video game reviews on AC is set up nicely to help the writer add useful information. Here's my article about Sims 3 as an example of how to write a video game review on AC, if you'd like to check it out. I added information about the development and production; my thoughts on the game play, system requirements, information about game testing cheat codes, and links

Sims 3 Ambitions Review on Associated Content

Share Photography on Associated Content

Another thing you can do on associated content is share pictures through a slide show. Like with published articles, you'll get paid a small amount from people checking your slide show out. If you're using associated content, a slide show can be a good idea because people are often more initially drawn by vivid photo's. You may increase your page view for other articles by adding slide shows. Do take note of the rules about photo submissions, and have fun with it.

Here's an example, which is the first slide show I published on Associated Content. It shows some of the cool displays at Henry Ford Museum. Please check it out! :-)

Great Pictures from Henry Ford Museum! :-)

This week I've been playing with Associate Content a lot.  I've got to get back to eZine, Constant Content, AmTurk, and several others...lol The point of that is of course that the more you write, and the more places you use to share your work, the more likely you will be successful at freelance writing.

I'm becoming impressed with A.C. in ways I didn't expect. I had a major issue the other day when I discovered that another contributor had posted content of mine. The piece is something I wrote on amTurk, but it doesn't look like the contributor is the one who purchased the rights to it. Technically, it's not "stealing" my work, or plagiarism, if the person who bought the content was given full rights and sold them to someone else... but I'm not really sure what happened. What is certain is that on Associated content you are only supposed to post work you really wrote. Having the copyright to something does not give you the right to post something there that someone else wrote with your name on it. On one level it might not be plagiarism- but it is actually fraud, which is a felony. That person is now gaining "clout" because of writing that they did not originate. They can make money from the page views, and if the writing is good they could get and fraudulently accept job offers based on skills that aren't theirs.

This is making me edgy about using AmTurk, because to do well with it you have to accept lots of hits from many people who may have intentions and motivations that aren't disclosed. However, I did successfully make over a hundred dollars with amTurk in the last couple of weeks. It's also not something I just want to give up on yet.

What impressed me about Associate Content i that when I posted about it in the forum in a general way, I got a lot of helpful and encouraging responses from other writer's that use the service to publish and share their writing. There are many different ways to make money writing online, but this route also includes a nice community of other writers- which could be very useful. If you're trying freelance writing and haven't experimented with writing online with Associated Content, I encourage you to give this one a whirl. Click on the link below to sign up, and check out my articles when you have time! :-)

Associated Content: Writer's Market for Articles

Associated Content is another writer's market for articles that is worth checking out. You can earn money writing articles for Associated Content in a variety of ways. Some of the revenue for authors is performance based, and as more people take interest and read the articles you submit your earnings increase. They also offer assignments targeted to the writer's skills which pay specific amounts. If your writing is very good, they may select your work for up front payment rather than performance based payment. Like with Constant Content, you can make choices about weather you are sharing specific articles exclusively, or whether you'd like to retain the right to republish wherever you want.

To try it out for yourself, go to Associated content, create a profile, and start sharing your writing.



As I explore Associated Content, Constant Content, Ezine Articles and other organizations that help writer's promote their work I'll be reviewing the pro's and con's of each here. If you stumble through and have exeriences and ideas you'd like to share, feel free to comment.