Freelance Writing & Blogging

Friends Let Friends Blog Angry

I have to admit, despite a rough year that's still ongoing, I've really enjoyed this freelance writing blog recently. About two weeks ago I received a couple of thoroughly unpleasant and bitter e-mails from former acquaintances who weren't shy on hurling the insults. This led to an important decision on my part as both a writer and a blogger: should I let it go, or should I air out a public response giving my personal feelings on being a freelance writer?

I decided to blog angry, and my rant on being proud to be a freelance writer turned out to be the most well received blog post I've ever had - even though this writing blog has been around for over a year now. This made me smile. Not only did my angry rant hit a chord with many other people, but it doubled the amount of people following me on Twitter, flooded my inbox with positive support, and while 12 comments is a joke to many people - it doubled my old record. Even includes a great back and forth with Lissie from Passive Income Online. Despite her objections to the contrary, Lis is becoming something of a mini online celebrity for those of us who don't believe in A-lister bullshit and really want to learn how to make money online. She has a great sense of humor, and I've enjoyed being able to chat with her. It's good to have friends online.

Did my long ranting blog post give any useful information? In a round about way, yeah. First of all, at the end somewhere in those last two not angry sentences, a very important lesson about being proud of who you are and what you do hopefully came through. I'm proud to be a successful freelance writer. Any freelance writer who is not is going to quit. Really, it's only a matter of time. Just try telling someone you're an Internet Marketer or a Writer, and wait all of 0.2 seconds before seeing a sneer, an arrogant look, or a blank unimpressed face. You must have thick skin, and you need to be able to ignore the armies of naysayers who would LOVE to make you a little bit more miserable.

So I encouraged people to have a thick skin, to have confidence in themselves, and to have pride. It takes a lot of courage to break away from the masses and to work on making your own destiny.

Besides, as angry as I was, all things considered I was pretty mild. At this point, nowhere near Allyn Hane's Rant on Online Scammers. His language isn't even PG-13, so don't open that link at work :) But if you're not familiar with Allyn, he's a big time talent and his videos are really encouraging, as well as enjoyable. It's grade A stuff. If you're looking to move beyond freelance writing to the actual nuts and bolts of making money online (without ripping people off by flogging crap) then he's one of the guys out there you need to keep track of.

But maybe some of the best lessons from my last freelance writing blog post, which actually had very little to do with teaching about freelance writing, are the lessons that aren't abundantly clear. Why did this blog rant get me more followers on Twitter, a huge e-mail response, and a whole lot of comments from new people interested in past posts?

Because say what you will about blogging angry, but my personality definitely comes through in that post. This doesn't mean that all my other posts where I'm the kind patient teacher isn't true. I hope to help out readers who come to this blog. That said, I take pride in being a freelance writer, as the last post indicates, and in anger I decided to through down the gauntlet instead. I wasn't a jerk (well, not a complete jerk), but the rant was honest, heart felt, and the gauntlet thrown down. A lot of people apparently really appreciated this "in your face, won't back down, tell it as I see it" attitude.

After all, who hasn't had a day where they felt that way?

Who doesn't have a friend they love because he/she simply won't take crap from other people?

I think this is the tone that blog post really hits, and that's why it was really a hit. Remember, personality matters when it comes to writing online. This is especially true with blogging. If you don't know what your voice is, then experiment and learn what your voice is. Maybe it's calm but quirky. Maybe it's random and chaotic. Or maybe it's steady and open to teaching...you know, with an occasional roar when someone's picking a fight :)

The next post will be coming soon, and will really reflect a lot of the changes that have been going on with my business model as far as writing goes. During this last recession, normal freelance writing (which usually does very well during recessions) crashed in a lot of ways. Now more than ever, job to job freelancing is harder to do and has less security. Passive income by writing online and learning SEO and Internet Marketing - that should be the goal for every person looking at a freelance writing because that's where the security is.

Until then, thanks to everyone for reading, and remember:

Friends don't let friends blog drunk . . . but friends DO let friends blog angry!

Sounds like I'll have to do a spoof video in the future on that. Later.

Master Dayton Blog Update

Master Dayton Blogging Update

Well it's been almost a full month since I last updated the blog, and I am sorry about that for the many people out there who I know have been following this blog and have been waiting for another post. I won't get into the personal details, but in the beginning of July we had to deal with a major family emergency/tragedy, and while facing this family always comes first. I won't go into details beyond that, but it's going to be very hard (God willing the worst any of us will ever have to face) and I will be continuing this blog because normalcy is like humor and faith - you need it most when it seems the most impossible to hold onto.

There has been a lot going on with the writing career that's encouraging. I think the freelance market is definitely beginning its turnaround. Things are still much harder than they were a year ago, but it's not nearly as bad as it was 6 months ago. Even though I did virtually no work at all in July, my residual or passive online income increased almost 70%. I took a few hours to study what I did at the end of June to see if there was something I was doing that might have explained that sudden surge. To my pleasant surprise, the answer was yes. While writing for many different websites, the numbers seemed to show me that in all my experimenting I had stumbled upon what potentially could be one heck of a winning combination - especially when writing for passive or residual income - which makes this particularly interesting and exciting to me.

Right now I'm not going to reveal it because I want to do some very focused testing over the next two months to see if my initial findings still hold up. The good news is that if this works, it's geared far more to writers who learn only a little bit of SEO or Internet Marketing as opposed to Internet Marketers. I know for me and many other online writers, learning the SEO is difficult and somewhat frustrating (I mean we're writers - we want to write, right?). If my testing holds up, you'll still need to know some basic SEO and keyword research, but once you have the basics down you'll be able to focus 90% of your effort on writing. I know if you're naturally more inclined to writing then this would definitely be a bonus.

So that's good news. I'm on the verge of making the $100 monthly threshold for AdSense. While I'm always getting paid bi-monthly now, just hitting that $100 every single month is a major mile stone that is really encouraging. Plus, you just can't complain about an extra Franklin every single month for work that has already been done. My eHow earnings also went up about 68% in the past month, and I just finished a major Power Point project that netted me about $440, with a second one now on the way - just in time for that major dental surgery I need later this month.

I also just picked up some really high paying freelance work this week, and have some leads on some more possible freelance work that might turn into steady gigs. If a few things go right, then maybe fall will be able to turnaround 2009 for me at least financially, if no other way. So in short, there will be many more updates to come, and I plan to continue to add more great information to try to help everyone out. If you're new here, take a look at older posts - I try my best to give away a lot of really good freelance writing advice, especially aimed at beginners, so please feel free to comment on anything you find useful, as well.

So that's it for now. More website reviews, writing advice, and the results of my upcoming two month experiment all coming soon. Good luck writing to everyone, and please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Freelance Writing: Why Is Full Time Residual Online Income so Hard?

Freelance Writing & Online Passive Income

Why Online Passive Income is Too Hard for Most Writers and Why They're More Likely to Become Mutant Super Villains Than Online Gurus

Freelance writers and would be freelance writers, yes, you read that title right. Let's be frank here: most writers are incredibly stubborn whether they have accomplished something or not. Or most would-be writers are stubborn. The ones who choose to learn, adapt, and change thrive. The others who don't call us hacks or liars when we say you can make a living writing online for money. But even beyond this, there is a difference between writers who always work extremely hard and never make much beyond the $20-30,000 a year range while working 70 hour weeks and wonder why things never get easier, and then there are the online freelance writers who learn to make really good passive income and have the freedom of time, place, and income that most freelance writers dream of, but never achieve.

So what's the difference? It rarely is the best writers who accomplish the dream freelance writing life style they envision, and many times it's not even the smartest. Why is making passive online income so damn hard?

Well I'm going to show you, using numbers of mine back when I had absolutely no clue whatsoever what I was doing and hadn't found any number of great blogs or mentors to learn from. A lot of these numbers will look familiar to struggling freelance writers, and underscores why you are more likely to work yourself to the point of mutation (and if you're going to I suggest going for telekinesis - the Fire Starter thing is so 1980's) than you are to make a full time living off of passive income if you're a stubborn writer, or one who simply doesn't understand how residual income works.

We'll call the old writer and his numbers "True Noob." This isn't meant to be mean, it was just a pretty accurate description. He's going to try to build passive income using AdSense (mostly through Hubpages & Xomba), Constant-Content usage rights articles, Associated Content's PPV, and Squidoo. Okay, the one thing the writer did right was thinking about multiple income streams. That way if one site folded down the line, all the hard work wouldn't disappear with it.

So at the time the writer figures out what each article, hub, or lens is making on average per day based on the passive income already coming in. This writer knows pretty much nothing about article marketing, back links, and hasn't found Justin's SEO blog or Court's Internet Marketing blog or Grizz's Make Money Online blog. So True Noob is swinging and missing, but credit where credit is due, he's persistent and does the numbers.

The numbers he comes up with: out of 200 Associated Content articles, he makes 1/2 cent per day per article in passive income. Constant Content with 100 usage rights articles makes about $1 per day with a little over 100 articles, Squidoo lenses make about 2.4 cents per day per lens, hubs make about 2.3 cents per day per hub, and Xomba articles make about a penny a day on average & ehow does the same, although he is just getting started there.

These are all mathematical averages, and depressingly low numbers. And to freelance writers who don't know anything about marketing their work or SEO, this probably sounds closer as opposed to the much higher numbers that writer who know what they're doing are reporting.

So based on how many articles (or hubs or lenses) True Noob can write in one 12 hour work day, he figures out how long it would take him to get to $100 a day passive income, assuming the numbers he had so far were accurate reflections. He then tried to figure out how long it would take working 12 hours a day, EACH and EVERY day, all 365 days a year.

For Associated Content, this was 4 years, 207 days. That's if he worked each and every day 12 hours a day, one article an hour.

For Constant Content, this was 5 years, 175 days.

For Squidoo, this was 3 years, 294 days.

For Hubs, this was 3 years, 348 days.

For Xomba, this was 2 years, 103 days.

If you're trying to translate that into normal 40 hour work weeks, take the numbers given and multiply them by 2.2, more or less. And then you're probably still hitting low.

These are unrealistic numbers for a life time. If you want the article break down for that, it's 20,000 articles for Associated Content, 8,000 articles for Constant Content, 4,167 Squidoo articles, about the same in hubs, and 10,000 articles on Xomba.

Not good and not a chance. If True Noob seriously tries this, he's more likely to develop multiple tumors that press into usually dormant areas of the brain, creating the ability to read minds, move objects, or possibly start fires with no more than an angry thought. At this point, becoming a super villain and fighting for world domination is more likely than ever making $100 a day in passive income.

But some of you are asking, "Wouldn't you have to be a total idiot to be able to write 10,000 articles and not make solid passive income." Most definitely. Or at least ignorant.

Some of these numbers are off. There are many problems with this idea. With that much sheer writing, even by accident True Noob is going to hit some "home run" articles that hit well above average and earn well above the average. Second, there are other options like ehow that this writer didn't even know about.

But this idea of just making it by sheer effort is idiotic, and these numbers prove it. So what's the difference? Knowing just a little bit about marketing, SEO, and learning about the real ways to make money with AdSense will boost earnings way up dramatically. Instead of just throwing up articles on any and everything, use keyword research and SEO to earn a LOT more per article, hub, lens, or whatever else. Also keep in mind, that True Noob figures out keyword research, and suddenly less time is wasted with useless articles that will never make serious (or any) passive income, while every article after that will make a lot more.

That's part of writing online. If you are an online freelance writer who wants to be able to make a full time living on passive income (a la "The 4 Hour Work Week"), then you MUST learn SEO, keyword research, and how to make money with AdSense.

Could someone make a full time living on passive writing income with Squidoo, Hubpages, ehow, Xomba, Associated Content, and the other sites? Sure, but it's a lot harder and knowing SEO and keyword research is still critical. There's no way around that.

Anyone who is trying the results by volume approach like the old True Noob, here's one last bit of evidence. When I really had no idea what I was doing, 140 articles on Associated Content made me about $13 in passive income a month. When I began to learn about SEO and keywords, I took one single article on AC and got it 4 back links. The result? That one article makes me $10 a month in passive income each and every month. Now if every article you wrote made $10 a month or more in passive income, 300 articles or less would make you over $36,000 a year in passive income. That's much better than 10,000 or 20,000 articles. One good article a day that earns that much, and the back links, can get you where you want to be.

Is it "just that easy" to get that level of articles? No, it's not. You have to do the research, write the article, collect the back links, and then sometimes you have to wait for the articles to age and gain authority. But it is far more plausible.

Learn about AdSense, and you can do even better. Have multiple income streams, and learn SEO and keyword research, and you will definitely be on your way to the freelance writing dream. Either that or try it the old way, sprout some horns, grow some awesome telekinetic powers and wreak havoc. But either way, it's easier to just learn SEO and keyword research. Even a basic knowledge of these skills can be a godsend for a prolific writer.

Making Money with Adsense: Freelance Writers Beware the Smart Pricing Mark!

Passive Income for Writers: Some AdSense Warnings

Freelance writing takes some time and effort to break into, and for most of the last three years and change the majority of writing for money that I've done has been the "normal" type where you write, get paid, and that's more or less it. A lot of this has been online writing and ghost writing because there's an extremely high demand for both, and anyone who knows my story, from near bankruptcy to the car accident that busted both my legs to some periods of homelessness (or near to it) can see why sometimes I worked for less because I needed cash now. Somewhere in the middle of all that mess I figured out how to become a great freelance writer (enough to make a living writing) and returned to and finished grad school despite a really negative environment, considering my situation.

There is another type of freelance writing that online writers can do to make money, and that's earning passive income. While writers can make passive income with some more traditional writing at websites like ehow and Associated Content, but this doesn't offer the same level of passive income that more Internet marketing based writing can make. The one program that is almost the definition of passive income is Google AdSense.

The early disclaimer: I've been getting into AdSense part time for only a few months. So I'm nowhere near a Guru or Expert level, but I've followed the advice of some of the AdSense/SEO experts who share their secrets and make a full time living with AdSense (I'll include their links later in this post) and even with the relatively little time I've been at it, I've seen their strategies work first hand and the percentages for me shooting up like crazy.

Many people give up on AdSense after a few months, and online forums are littered with "I only made $1 in a month" or "I made only $5 in four months," stories of people quitting, thinking there was some magic bullet to passive income. AdSense, and most of what it takes to build actual automated income, is going to fall more under Internet Marketing as opposed to Freelance Writing. Part of the reason is people have unrealistic expectations early on. Check out this great blog post about quick easy ways to make money to really get a good sense of how the beginning process of making money online takes place.

Does a freelance writer have an advantage? I think yes, if he/she knows who to learn from and can adapt quickly to the style needed to maximize writing earnings. If a person refuses to learn how online search engines, traffic, and Internet Marketing works, then $1 a month only, or $5 a year might be all that a person can make from AdSense.

As part of the agreement to be part of Google AdSense, there are a lot of stats I can't reveal, but I can give you a look at monthly earnings:

• May - $0.00 (didn't even have traffic every day - I was a total noob)
• June - $1.21
• July - $3.99 (pathetic, but sadly more than many make)
• Aug- $12.40
• Sept- $22.95
• Oct- $28.52

Now before anyone starts scoffing: I did virtually no gathering of back links until recently, until September it was all from one blog I barely wrote any posts for, and a lot of the later stuff was from joining Hub Pages, which splits impressions and clicks. How much time do I spend on this passive income? Not nearly enough. Maybe 1-3 hours a week, and after doing a lot of reading, I realize most of what I've done the past few months is wrong. But this is encouraging, because I'm just short of averaging a dollar a day, and that's if I don't do anything.

Unless I Get Smart Priced.

"Smart Pricing" is when you fall below a certain percentage of clicks per impressions. Based on conversations I've had with friends and other online sources, the general consensus seems to be that the smart price line is probably around 2.00%. This is the point where instead of being worth 25, 58, or 70 cents (and yes, I was a newbie starting out, so I chose areas where the pay outs aren't as good as they could be) a click, they're suddenly worth 3, 4, or 7 cents a click. Not good.

Smart priced, I'd only be looking at $6-12 a month if I never did anything and never improved my stats. Without smart pricing, I should be able to earn $35 or more in automated income. For never doing any work, and having yet to come close to dominating a niche, this isn't bad. Knowing what Justin, Vic, and Grizz teach, I know how to go about doing this.

The problem is, let's say hypothetically Mr. MD has sites that are getting more and more traffic, but for some reason the click numbers are declining at the same time. Even though Mr. MD's total history with Google he is still above that hypothetical 2% line to get the better compensated clicks, there are a lot of people noticing, like Mr. MD, that if at the beginning of a month there are a few bad days to pull you down below 2%, then you get smart priced.

That means a really bad start to the month can badly dent the earnings numbers.

As far as I can tell, aside from a few very out of the way forums, no one has talked about smart pricing as a monthly thing. This is something to keep in mind, especially when trying to start from the beginning. This is the quick note to new freelance writers looking for passive income: be aware of this stumbling block, and don't let it get you down, and don't let it scare you off.

If anyone knows of other "hypothetical experiences" detailing this same finding for the month, let me know in the comments about other things you've "heard." As far as my hypothetical friend Mr. MD, he's going to keep plugging away and applying the lessons learned from the experts to figure out what he's doing wrong and fix it. Hundreds or even thousands of people make a full time living out of AdSense, so he knows he can, too!

That's an update on another potential nugget of knowledge that could help you if you decide to go into the Google AdSense program. Best of luck, and here are the links to these guys' blogs:

Grizz's Make Money with AdSense Blog

Vic's Make Money with Niche Stores

Justin's Make Money Online Site

If you want to learn how to make money online with AdSense, blogs, affiliate marketing, and niche stores, these are the guys you need to learn from.

Next time: Helium.com review, and a possible stay of execution. I'll get more into their recent announcements and why that might barely be enough to keep me from blasting their site to the netherworld of the Internet...maybe.