Brain Drain and How I plan to avoid it.

Writing is hard work. That is for sure. Aside from the grammar, there are other things, which make writing hard for some of us. Paid content does not mix to well with the creative stuff. There is a better way to accomplish this stuff and I am anxious to figure it out here.

When I am writing paid content along with a mix of creative writing, most of the time the creative stuff is harder because my brain turns to mush. There is nothing like brain drain to zap the motivation out of you. I have come up with a new plan here and I am hoping it will work.

First, let me share my old way with you. I would do the paid stuff in the morning or after a nap while my brain was still fresh. However, after a few hours the brain drain set in and left me wanting to nap a few hours. After I got the paid work done, I would do the housework and then dive into the creative stuff. It failed, as I was not giving myself any real mental breaks to relax during working hours. Soon, games replaced the day and that certainly was not good.

Therefore, the new plan is something like this. Write one sponsored blog post of 300 or so words, and check out Facebook groups. Then I will write two blog posts for another article and then play a game on Facebook. I think the two-fer deal is working well this morning and I just might stick with it. I know I need to write at least 6 articles, and I am well on my way here. 

In the afternoon with a lunch break away from my desk I will come back and hopefully have some one on one time with my muse for the series I am writing. 

I am overworked and under paid

Freelance writers are seriously overworked and under paid, that is something everyone in the business can agree to.  Do you know what is worse? It’s when the freelance writer is trying to support a family and pay the bills on those wages.

It has gotten so bad, that as a single mom I have been looking for a job in the real world since early 2012. Without a car, even in this small town it is hard to get a job within walking distance. I am willing to walk a mile or two each day to make the money but there is nothing.  It seems silly for these places to insist you have a car, when it’s within walking distance.

Walking is healthier for you and its way better for our environment BUT business owners just do not seem to car.  Anyways that is not the point of this post.

The point of this is to show you the types of things a freelance writer does on a daily basis  in order to bring in that income.  Granted, every writer does not do what I do, but I know I work hard for the peanuts I get.

I begin my day about 6 am, writing for a content farm or some other website that tries to sell my articles for more than I would get at a content farm.  For the biggest content farm on the internet I could write 10-15 articles a day which would take hours. Sad part is the articles are 3 to 4 a piece and take ½ an hour or so to write up. Imagine working all day for 30 to 45 dollars for 10-12 hours a work but many of us do it because we need to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.

I also spend some time writing on different sites where I hope to snag a private client, that will pay me 20 bucks for 500 words, but those clients are so hard to find. 

I also write blogs which make money. Sometimes I have a private client ask me to advertise for them on one of my blogs but it does not happen nearly enough.  Of course, I have ads running on the blogs which may bring in some money but its a few pennies far and few between.

Then after I have earned my pennies on the web, there is housework or yard work depending on the day and season.  I keep reminding myself I am only one person, and not everything is going to be done in any given day.

Top 3 ways blogging beats content writing

Blogging beats writing content for editors who are slow to offer upfronts.  It is also more profitable and fun. When we content writers write articles, we sometimes stifle ourselves to appease the editors in hopes that they will give us a higher payment.  When you blog for yourself you have more fun. You search for the best key words and phrases and let the words flow from the fingertips.

Another way blogging beats writing content is you can schedule blog posts. With that content crap, you have to write every day to keep your portfolio updated.  If you are trying to engage a private client, sending them to a niche blog is way better then setting them to a scattered content writing portfolio.

Another way blogging beats content writing is the profits are only shared two ways instead of three.  Content writing at a content mill means you are sharing profits with Goggle, the site and then you get your tiny cut. I have seen click through rates of some of these key words and phrases trust me with 42 views and 1 click through at the rate of .25 cents sure beats that  1 or 2 cents you’d make at a content site. 

Content Farms Headed Out

Sometimes I am glad Google let loose with the Panda updates. It hurt my business a bunch.  What business is that you ask? Well I am one of those former content writers for a whole bunch of web sites.  When the panda updates hit I seen, my income drop a bit but as the updates continued I seen my income dropping further and further.  On one web site where I have written since 2007, I seen the biggest drop and it’s caused me to stop writing on that site.

Last February I got 200 dollars for page views, I rounded out the year with 30.07.  That is a drop of almost 170 bucks amonth. Not only did Panda hurt but also the web site ran every article on one page, where before if they were long enough they were two or three pages long. They pretty much cut out any upfront payments unless you go a beat.

All of the content sites are facing similar fates.  All of them are drying up which is hurting the former content writers, myself included.  Some of us have found private clients to write for, or having taken a job in the real world. More than fair share of us have begun to write eBooks and publish that novel we have been writing. 

I am a former content writer for those so called content farms.  I will stick with my blogs and fiction writing for now and pray for the best. 

Writing content for one of the sites, which pay upfronts or give page views, may seem like a great idea at first.  Trust me it may appear like a good plan on first thought but as many content writers have learned, content sites dry up quicker than you will believe and there goes a stream of income.  

I have written for Associated Content long before it was Yahoo Voices or the Yahoo contributor network,  been writing for pennies on Helium, Mahalo, eHow, Demand Studios, and Bukisa.   I used to make good money on all of them, until Panda hit.

The bottom line is if you are writing content for any of the content mills, your income is suffering. You are lining the pockets of the sites and those who run it. On the most profitable site, I make $2 bucks per every 1,000 views.  Sometimes I made $300 or $400 there a month, before changes came about.  Now that site is down to about 30 bucks a month.  I am struggling these days to make decent money. In my struggles, I have learned one thing.

If you have adsence you could be writing blogs and making more money than you do at those on those writing content sites. As long as your blogs are focused, you could see big profits.   I suggest opening a blog in your niche, use Google adwords to learn the best keywords. Begin writing these posts.

You will still be writing content but instead of the pay being split between the site, google and yourself, the profits will go to you and Google. Splitting profits two ways is always moiré profitable for you.  Now imagine if you had five or more profitable goals running. 

How to Profit off a blog

How to profit off a blog is something I have learned how to do, and I share that knowledge.  As a former content writer at the content, mills I saw the beauty of blogging long ago. When you update a blog often, you earn more money if it is the right niche. Visitors will return often because you update often and more visitors equal more money. 

Make sure the information is relevant and helpful so people will return. If you have good information, they will return repeatedly. Maybe they will post it on Facebook, or email a friend about your web site. Every bit of traffic helps if you are trying to profit off a blog.  Find the right keywords in your niche and write up the posts.

Add fun stuff, make your blog helpful or entertaining and they will return.  More visits means more profits for you and if that is your goal update often.  Updating often does not mean writing daily, although you could do that. The smarter blogger pre-writes posts and schedules them to be published a week at a time.  That is how to profit off a blog!  I hope this short blog post will help you on your road to profits or at least gave you food for thought. 

Pimping Content Page Views

If you are sick of pimping page views for articles, you have written on the content mills, this is the blog post for you.  Take that anger and make something positive happen. Begin to get profits off blogging. Get an adsence account and put your articles on line.  Of course, you need to make sure your posts are SEO’d or you will be writing for free, and that is a bad thing.

Every niche out there has a golden key word or key phase that will bring in the visitors, which means more visitors to your web site.  Find that golden key word or phrase and you will be set to begin profiting off your blog. Chances are if you are interested enough in a topic to write about it, then these are others who also enjoy that subject. Make your content engaging and people will return and perhaps bring a friend.

Of course, not all the visitors in the world will mean anything if your blog is filled with typos and grammar mistakes.  Type all posts in MS word to insure they are typo free, write good content, and keep the blog updated often. If you do these things perhaps, you will begin to see profits off your blogs.

Blogging for free

If you are wondering how to blog for free, this blog post will give you some great ideas. You can blog free many places, but some are much better than others are.

Wordpress will allow anyone to set up a blog for free. You can write on almost any topic but you will not really profit from this type of blogging.  The site does get a fair amount of traffic so if you want to spread the information you wish to share with lots of people, go for this option.

However, if you would like to enjoy what you write and profit then head to blogger.com. The traffic here is good depending on the topic. Best of all as you share your passion you can earn a bit of money. When you allow your adsence account to display ads on your blog here you might profit if someone clicks that ad.

The way I see this is, if I am going to write anything I would enjoy the profit no matter how small from visitors who may click on my ads.  Trust me a penny or two adds up, and some of these topics bring in ads, which pay way more than a penny or two. 

Create a book quickly

Article writers who have a lot of themed content on various web sites have enough for a book, if those articles are nonexclusive to the site you first put them on.

 If you write parenting topics, I bet you could group them together in sections to provide a parenting handbook.  There is a lot of completion out there for parenting topics so you would need to focus on a specific topic such as parenting a special needs child but it could be done.

Did you know that Amazon would allow you to upload a file free in there Kindle section? Of course it has to be the right type of file but that file with the right info could make you some serious.  The beauty of a Kindle book is that it does not need to be the size of a regular book as far as word count goes.    20k is a good minimum to start for an ebook. 

Gathering article ideas

When you are trying to gather your article ideas, the task can be overwhelming at times.  Make it easy for yourself by grabbing a piece of printer paper.  Draw a circle in the middle and put a topic there.  Let us say you were thinking about writing parenting articles about kids. In the circle, write the word kids.

Now draw six or seven lines off your circle in any direction. It is best to space these lines out so you can write in there.   Now you can write things associated with kids on the lines. Your words could be parties, behaviors, gift lists, lessons plans, fun activities, and potty training.   It is a simple trick but it works to get those creative juices flowing when you are gathering article ideas. 

Seasonal Articles

It is all about seasonal content. How early is too early to publish it. I have been a content writer for a long time. People seem to think I know what I am doing and often ask questions.  One of the questions I used to be asked a lot was about seasonal content.

The common school of thought on that one is when you see your local department store put up the displays that is when you get that same stuff published. When the local Wal-Mart gets the Easter Candy and decorations all displayed, get your Easter stuff published.  The same holds true for all seasonal articles. 

Panda Updates Sucked away my money1

Now that the continued Panda updates from Google have destroyed the websites, which earn income for lots of people. What are you doing to earn the money you lost?  Many freelance writers are doing ghost writing work, picking up private clients, starting more blogs and selling fiction.

I learned long ago that writing only for one web site would bite you in the butt in the end. For a long time now, I have been writing for upfront payments, gathering rev shares on five sites and blogs for pennies. I was even doing a bit of ghost writing for various web sites. 

Now I have begun to focus on the blogs. I have recently added a few niche blogs. Now I have them all bringing in money because I have placed ads on them. 

Writing online

I have been writing content on the web since early 2007. It sure seems like it could get easier as you go along.  In many respects, it is easier but in some aspects, it is also harder.

When I first started, I had to learn SEO so that those searching for the information could find it.  My grammar also needed some attention back then. I got the help I needed, and learned what I had to learn.

SEO works for some search engines but not for the majority of them now that the Google changes went into effect last February.  At first, it hit the so-called content farms, then blogs, and other web sites which including a wide array of music, and knowledge sites. 

It always seems like just when you are settled into one site, the rules for that site change.  Sometimes the rules are better but many times, it is a change for the worse.  The work at these sites also dries up and then you lose the income that you once got there.

That is why it is extremely smart not to put all your ‘eggs into one basket so to speak’ To recoup my loses at the content farms I am branching out to  more blogs, selling short stories and publishing books.