How to Get Your Blog a Book Deal

Blogging is a lot of different things to the people who blog. I saw a recent post somewhere that said you are not a blogger unless you do research before you start a blog and figure out how to bring in traffic. I wish I could remember where I saw that, but I do remember that the blog itself was crap. It was dry, boring, offered no new ideas or points of view and was heavily invested in bringing in as many people as it could. It will never be like
Passive Aggressive Notes. This site is funny and interesting without demanding anything of its readers. The blogger has just been signed to a six-figure book deal based on this blog.

Postcards From Yo Momma is a site everyone can relate to. Unfortunately, not everyone can relate to the book deal that the blogger will only describe as "comfortable."

The Julie/Julia Project was one woman's attempt to cook 536 of Julia Child's recipes in one year and to blog about the experience. It not only led to a book deal, the movie starring Meryl Streep is now in production.

Stuff White People Like is a weird blog that's about just what the title suggests. It's hard to classify exactly what the point is other than just to highlight weird stuff. The blogger started the blog as a whim to amuse himself. He was recently given a $350,000 advance from Random House based on his blog.

What do these blogs have in common? They were not thoroughly researched ahead of time. They did not cajole people into reading them and they were started in the spirit of fun and self expression. Those are the best blogs and those are the ones that get books deals. So, go out and do that. The Web has enough dry blogs that are calculated toward making a profit through keywords. Seriously.


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Boring Writing vs. Interesting Writing

By the title, I don't mean whether it's boring or interesting for the reader. Writing all day, every damn day makes you appreciate when a topic is just interesting enough to keep you from throwing things to keep yourself awake but not interesting enough to make you freak out. Why would something interesting be bad? Perhaps an explanation is in order...

I have ghostwritten a number of boring topics. If I told you the topics, just listed them, they would bore you. Now imagine writing on topics like that for hours when you know that Charmed may possibly be on or maybe there's still a Cadbury egg in the pantry that you missed. It's rough.

So, an interesting topic should be a lot better, right? Not remotely. A too-interesting topic can keep you researching way past the point that you should. That makes the writing process go on and on and on. This means less money, fewer opportunities for new projects and glaring spouses. I first noticed the glare this evening when I showed him the third giant insect native to a specific African jungle. I was already half an hour past the information I needed and was still going. That's what an interesting topic can do.

The ideal topic is one that is interesting, but not fascinating. It's easy to research, but the Internet isn't crammed full of information about it. And lastly, there should never be too damn many pictures of it.

Travel Writing Tips From Paul Kilduff

Ruinair is a humorous travelogue around Europe - I have visited about 25 countries in Europe in the past 3 years and here are my tips for some pithy travel writing;

Don't write about the same old things to see and do in your destination. Instead find one theme or common thread. If I was writing about my home town of Dublin I would not go to Trinity College nor the Guinness Storehouse. Being me, I would only go see all the U2 sights in the city including a trip to Windmill Lane Studios, Bono's nice home in Killiney etc.

Don't try to make everything funny. Very often in vaguely humorous travel writing, less is more. Don't end every sentence with a bon mot nor every paragraph with a punchline. Try to leave the reader wanting more. Very often readers will find their own humour in different aspects of your writing and not everyone will share my own bizarre sense of humour.

Pray that something goes wrong. If everything goes to plan then it's not very interesting for a reader so hope for a missed flight, a wrong train connection, a lost wallet.

John Cleese once said that Fawlty Towers was only funny because everything went wrong all the time i.e. guests dying, loose rats, kitchen fires and a lack of Waldorf salads.

Use the tourist office. When I arrive in a city I make first for the official tourist office and I grab all the free literature I can. And I book an official city walking tour. It's amazing the amount of anecdotes and unique info you can glean over two hours from someone whose full time job is to know all about your destination. Ask them questions. Tip well too .....

Omit the boring stuff. No one wants to read about meals in restaurants, drinks in bars, rooms in hotels. People want to read about something new and different. I edit a lot. If in doubt I leave it out.

Don't write about the weather. First of all it's not very exciting and secondly it will jar at a later date. If you write about freezing winds in the Artic, chances are your reader will be on a beach on the Costa del Sol, or when you write about searing temperatures in Monaco, your reader will have received the book as a Christmas present.

Read extensively in the travel writing genre to see how others do it. I read Bill Bryson, Tim Moore, Pete McCarthy, Charlie Connelly, Tom Chesshyre and Tony Hawks.

Don't research destinations on the web before you go. This is not called travel writing. It's called cut and paste plagiarism and it does not lend itself to originality. Read one good guide book for a basic orientation of your destination. Check your facts out later on reputable web sites but only after you have been on your trip and written a first good draft.

Don't rush your writing. I make rough notes on loose A4 pages in pen when I travel (usually on the reverse side of my Ryanair flight itinerary which I dare not lose). I don't bring nor do I even own a dreaded laptop. When I return home I wait a week before I write anything on my home PC. If something in my notes no longer seems valid or relevant or funny then I don't use it. I keep only what I like seven days on. Maybe that's why some folks say that Ruinair works. Good luck.

About the writer-

Paul Kilduff was born in Dublin, Ireland. He began writing fiction in 1996 and finished his first novel in 1998. Square Mile was published in 1999, The Dealer in 2000, The Frontrunner in 2001 and The Headhunter in 2003, which were published by Hodder & Stoughton in London and by Muelenhoff in The Netherlands.

He decided to write a travel book a couple of years ago and was extremely fortunate shortly afterwards to be abandoned in Malaga airport for ten hours, where he had the germ of an idea for Ruinair - an epic tale of human endurance on Europe's low fares airlines. Ruinair was published in February 2008 by Gill & Macmillan Ireland and entered the Irish non fiction bestseller list at no 1 where it has spent eight weeks to date.

Article Timer Report and Guest Post Tomorrow

The timer I reported about a few days ago is working very well now. It has increased the amount I'm making per hour and therefore per day. With the cost of groceries and gas right now, I think writers need all the help they can get. If you know about how long an article should take, the timer can keep you aware that the chosen amount of time is ticking. It took about two days to get used to, during which I nearly strangled it and I'm pretty sure I threw it once. Anyway, it is now working so well that articles are taking even less time than I'm allotting them. That gives me a minute or two in between articles to look through YouTube and The Onion.

Tomorrow I'll have my first guest post, from Paul Kilduff. He has held the top position on the Irish non-fiction chart for six weeks for his travel book Ruinair. As a fiction writer, he wrote a number of popular thrillers and now has transitioned into nonfiction travel writing. It looks like the topic tomorrow will be travel writing. Making travel writing interesting means writing about the most interesting parts of travel and of the destination. That sounds easy, but isn't. How do you find those interesting tidbits? Paul Kilduff's post tomorrow will tell you all about it.

You Know You're a Writer When...

I've seen that discussion a lot. When can you call yourself a writer? Is it when you first get paid? Is it when you make a living writing? Is it when you just love writing? I don't know. I don't really have time to contemplate it much because I'm too busy writing.

Anyway, it occurred to me last night that one of the criteria may be writing all day for pay and then spending your free time writing stuff to amuse yourself. Yeah. That's how I have fun. Don't pity me too terribly.

There are a lot of little 'net corners where you can amuse yourself. And if you use a pen name, no one ever has to know that it's you. I've given up who I am on HubPages now, but I'm betting you'll never find me on Triond or, well, let's just say I get around. If you want to have a little fun, express something that isn't popular or just try to stretch your writing skills a little bit, try HubPages or Squidoo. You don't have to use your actual name on either one, unlike Suite101 or the like.

Journalism, Free Stuff and Ethics

In journalism school we were taught never to accept free stuff from anyone so as not to compromise our objectivity. At the first paper I worked for we were warned never to accept anything at all. We couldn't even allow anyone to buy us a soda for fear of becoming impartial or appearing to be so. Well, I'm not with a newspaper anymore- I got something free!

I write for BellaOnline, the second-largest site for women. One of the benefits of writing for Bella is supposed to be getting free crap from people who want the items reviewed. I've been happily writing for the site for eight months without getting anything free- until today. I was sent a free book to review for the Bella Classic Rock site. Ha! Does getting a free, pristine hardcover book mean that I have to review it positively? Hell no. I'll read through it and say what I think of it. I may be accepting free stuff but I still have a few journalistic ethics floating around in this little head.

In news that's probably a little more important than my free book, Thomson Reuters is downsizing 140 journalists. If you look at the article closely, you will see that Reuters has clearly gone insane. Papers and news agencies always think that the reporters aren't as necessary to the operation as the support people. They are cutting 140 jobs but creating 50 new ones in "web video." So I'm thinking, hey- they will probably do what my last paper did and hire tons of sales people because they think it'll boost revenue. Nope. They also cut hundreds of sales jobs.

Great. So they'll have fewer reporters, fewer sales people and will rely on "more commentary and analysis" for revenue. Personally, I'm sick of commentary. Everybody thinks they have to comment on the news all time. Can't we just have news without all the comments? Oh, I think I just commented on the news...

StumbleUpon Brings Amazing Traffic

I check my stats a couple of times a day. They're always kind of sad, but hey- people are actually looking at the stuff I write so I can't really complain. Today, by the time I woke up, 135 people had looked at one of my sites. That particular site is not one that I market or really promote in any way and gets very little traffic. I mainly keep it to amuse myself. So how did it get so many hits in one morning? Well, you read the title, so you probably already know.

I checked the stumble through the url on my statcounter, wondering how many stumbles it had. It had just one stumble. One! That's pretty powerful social bookmarking. Reddit and the like have never done much for me, but Stumbleupon seems like it's actually worth the time. If the site had three or four stumbles, imagine that traffic that would be coming in.

Unfortunately, to sign up to stumble sites you have to download all kinds of stuff from the site. I'm not willing to do that and I don't think they should ask that of people. They should not be getting control of my computer just so that I can recommend sites. Bravo to those brave enough, though. It seems like a great traffic mover.

I don't usually admit that I write this site, and I might take this paragraph out of here once I come to my senses, but here's the one that was stumbled. It has a great review on stumbleupon, which made me smile. Yeah, it's kind of a mean site, but I mean every word of it.

Freelance Writing Roundup

It's been a wild week in my own little freelancing land. I got the Suite101 promotion a week ago and today got an Editor's Choice Award for an article that I wrote over the weekend. I had planned it as part of a three-part series on libel law. I can't imagine where the time will come from to write the other two parts, but here's hoping. The award, by the way, is a check mark that sits next to the title. Oh well, I do appreciate it. (I would also appreciate cash.)

I also got a new little frenemy to help out around the computer. I sent off for a tiny timer that I could set for the specific amount of time that I think an article should take. Then, I can frantically stare at it as the minutes wind down and I'm only halfway through. Hoorah! One of the best parts of the evil, pressure-inducing Timer From Hell is that it keeps me on track (and angry). It also came with the following instructions:

Widely use in Entertainment, Examination, Beauty House, Kitchen, Sunbathing...etc. Big Screen to show the correct time in Minutes & Seconds.

Yup, it was a cheapie from China. The interesting part, though, dear friends, is that it was actually a lot easier for me to send off to China for some Chinese merchant to package up a timer and send it across the ocean via Air Mail to my house than it would have been for me to get in the car and go to Target. Modern life is weird.

It Pays to Write for TV

Weren't TV writers just striking to get more money? It seems like those poor souls were being shafted from increasing their meager earnings. It's enough to make you cry. Well, until you read this. Did you read it? You probably shouldn't have. This guy, creator of some of the worst shows in the history of bad shows, is making an insane amount of money for it. And not just insane- crazy, ridiculous, howling-at-the-moon kind of money.

I don't mind Family Guy that much, but have you seen American Dad? Come on. I could take off my socks, put them on my hands and do a puppet show with them and it would be more interesting than American Dad. This is the unholy crap that's making money right now while my unique, creative (yes, I'm biased) children's book can't get an agent to represent it. Maybe I should add in an unfunny alien and wooden characters who stand still and yell for half an hour? For $100 million, I might be willing. Well, maybe not.

100th Post and Suite101 Promotion

This is my 100th post here on my 'lil blog. I'm not sure where I thought I was going with the blog when I started, other than simply chronicling my exploits in freelance writing. I think I've done that and had some fun along the way. Thanks for reading!

I just found out that I was made a feature writer at Suite101 yesterday. Yes, I'm just finding out. Apparently the email got caught in the hinterlands and I never saw it. The promotion to feature writer comes with extra exposure for my articles as well as a small raise in pay. I was interested in moving up to feature writer but had been too nervous to even email about it. I assumed they would send the email around the office for a laugh and try to send me a nicely-worded rejection that gave no hint of their shared joke. But in the end, they actually approached me about it.

Suite101 takes its content very seriously and there were still a few things they wanted me to do to get ready for the position. After reading my stuff obsessively every day trying to figure out if it could be made better, I finally emailed and said that I thought I was indeed ready. Three days later and they actually chose me. Weird. Maybe I don't suck? It's hard to tell when it's your own writing. I don't know if I'll ever get past my own suspicions of suckage.

Guest Blogger Later This Month

I've never had a guest blogger before, but I now have one scheduled for May 23. The guest will be Paul Kilduff, a successful author of several thrillers. He now has a non-fiction humor book out, which the virtual tour is promoting. Here's a synopsis:

"Stung by a ten hour delay and a E300 fare to Spain on his native “low-fares” airline, Dubliner Paul Kilduff plots revenge – to fly to every country in Europe for the same total outlay, suffering every low-fares airline indignity. Armed with no more than 10kg of carry-on baggage, he endures 6.00am departures, Six Nations-style boarding scrums, lengthy bus excursions, terminal anxiety and cabin crew who deliver famed customer service."

I've actually been to Dublin, and I can imagine how bad it can get. Traveling can be complicated in Ireland, particularly if you're five months pregnant and you start crying once you realize that there's no food in Ireland besides roast beef and you hate roast beef. Um, not that I ever did that or anything. I'm sure they do have other food there. Don't they? Maybe that can be something Mr. Kilduff can answer.

Kidding, kidding. It looks like the topic will be transitioning from fiction to nonfiction. So many authors end up making that switch, it should be interesting to hear about how the two differ and whether the fiction-writing process influences the writing of nonfiction.

Quick Blogging Job Available

I don't usually post freelance jobs, but this one I thought was pretty cool. Today.com is a site that is becoming known for its free blogs, kind of like Blogger. However, they are now hiring quite a few bloggers to write blogs on the topic of their choice. I haven't worked out just why yet- I think t may be to get the Today.com name out there in the public realm quicker than simply waiting for people to show up and start blogs. Anyway, the blogging positions are super easy and pay adequately for what they entail.

The application link is: http://today.com/apply. They pay for one post a day, though you can write more than that if you like. The pay isn't fantastic, but the posts only have to be 150 words, so it's actually pretty lucrative given the time involved. I was hired the same day that I applied, so the 30-day warning is to be taken with a grain of salt.

The blogs use Wordpress, so it's pretty straightforward. Mine was up and running within a few minutes with no trouble at all. I'll add a link here to the blog whenever I get around to it.

Virtual Book Tours

I was contacted the other day by an agent who represents a popular Irish author and asked whether I would be interested in hosting him here on Ye Olde Blogge for a virtual book tour. A what? Book tours have gone virtual? Indeed they have, as I soon found out.

Digging around the Web I found out that the virtual book tour is the current hot thing in book marketing. Who knew? I certainly didn't, as no one wants to publish my books- especially since most of them aren't yet finished. The virtual book tour is pretty much what it sounds like. The author "travels" around to different sites and gives interviews and/or writes guest blog posts over a set period of time. It's a great concept, really. The expense of traveling around the country, or to multiple countries, has to be prohibitive for most authors and publishing houses. The big guys might get the old fashioned paid promotional trip, but the little guy can forget it. The virtual tour levels the field just a little.

Of course, I don't know how much my blog would really help. I'm not exactly on the big-time blog map. I'm not exactly this guy, this guy, or, God forbid, these people. I would be happy to be a pit stop along a tour, though. A chance to pick a popular author's brain is a priceless experience, even if my own books sit in notebooks and Word files forever and ever until the word is colonized by Reptilians.

Pandering With Keywords

I've written a lot about keywords both as a ghostwriter and under my own name. I just recently published this keyword article on Suite101. I'm starting to wonder, however, how important keywords really are.

Most of the keyword information out there is just anecdotal- search engines do not tell you to have any word repeated over and over. They do not specify keyword densities. Yet, everyone believes that if they just have the right keyword density, they will rank better. Based on my own anecdotal evidence, I'm starting to wonder if that's true. I suspect that it may once have been true but that search engines got hip to the keyword density race and scraped it in favor of content that sounds more natural.

In my own experience, and I do Internet research for hours each day for various writing projects, keyword density doesn't do a heck of a lot. I pull up articles every single day that fleetingly mention a topic once and yet are featured on the front page of results. I've also seen that I rank in the top one or two results for several search terms, and I have never put any term in this blog with an eye toward keywords or keyword density. Some of the most obnoxious blogs in the world are ones that peg a niche and flood it with keywords, or worse- awkward keyword phrases.

What does look like a better way to get a ranking is to continually add to a page or a website. The top-ranked pages are almost always ones that are new or that are added onto frequently. If you really want to get a better ranking, I highly recommend taking the time to add onto your site every few days or even more often. And don't worry about keyword density- there's no proof that search engines do.

Freelance Bidding Sites vs. Freelance Job Sites

This is a post that I've had in mind for awhile but wasn't sure I should post. But, in the interest of sharing useful information and helping other freelance writers, I feel the need to write it. Let me preface by saying that I don't mean any disrespect to any one site, nor do I think that there's anything wrong with any site or its intentions.

There are those who visit freelance writing sites that post jobs regularly and apply to the many jobs that are listed. There are several interesting jobs sites that post jobs daily or every few days. I have heard from several people that they get most of their clients from those sites. I also hear that there are people who have gotten lucrative gigs from them. However, that has not been my experience and I don't think it's the norm. I believe that the people like me who have had nothing but bad luck with them are afraid to say anything because it will make them look like a loser. Well, so maybe I'm a loser, but here's why I don't see those sites as worthwhile for serious freelancers:

There are one or two sites that I visited every single day for close to a year. Every day I gathered the urls of the jobs I would apply to. I spent literally an hour or more a day just applying to those sites. Sometimes this would take several hours. It took months of this before I was offered anything from a client that I found through the site, and even then it was extremely low paying.

About 90 percent of the time I got no response whatsoever from the people I applied to. About five percent of the time I got a form email saying that the position had already been filled. These emails were often sent within one day, meaning that the jobs were assigned very quickly and with little consideration for quality. The first person offering a cheap rate was chosen. After talking to countless freelancers, both people on the jobs sites and those who had gotten jobs through them, I found that this was certainly the case. Most of the ones who had gotten gigs got them within hours of them being posted. So, to even be considered for many of these, it's necessary to apply immediately with the cheapest possible price.

Compounding that problem, I later found out that many of the people applying were offering to do the projects for even less than was offered, and the prices offered weren't that great in the first place. And even worse, I found out that the jobs listed on one of those sites had hundreds of people apply to them the first day they were listed. So, to get them, you had to check the jobs sites constantly, since there was no set time that the jobs are listed. Then, you had to offer as little as possible immediately and compete against hundreds of people doing the same thing.

What happened the other five percent of the time? I got scammed over and over again. I either got a form letter inviting me to pay to join some job list or I got added to a newsletter about working at home. The jobs that looked like they paid a lot, the ones that I was most interested in, were most often scams. When I did hear from someone about a project, they either asked me for free work as a "test" and wouldn't accept the samples I already had (scam), or they would offer me much less than they'd advertised because, as they said, so many people had applied with cheaper prices.

After about a year of this, I'd had enough. I can't count how many hours I'd spent on those sites, looking for jobs, sending hundreds of cover letters, resumes and samples. I can't count how many times someone had made it sound like I would get a project, only to find out that it was a scam.

There are people who get projects through freelance job sites. I know there are. But, I'm no amateur. I have a four-year degree in journalism and years of experience in print and Web writing. I have a good resume, countless references and a nice writing sample site that offers hundreds of Web article samples. If I couldn't get one decent project in all of that time, there's something wrong. After almost a year, when all was said and done, after the communicating and emailing and checking and trying, I got one paid project. That project was extremely low paying and I did it only briefly because the pay just didn't make it worthwhile. One. Project.

Meanwhile, at the same time I was spending an hour or two a day looking for projects on Elance and RentaCoder. I got countless projects through those sites and got clients that stuck with me for months or even a year or more. I bid a fair price, not always the lowest, and competed with far fewer people. A lot of competition for a project was about 20 or 30 people, a far cry from the hundreds that competed for each of the job site jobs.

So, why did I even both with the job sites? I certainly wish I hadn't bothered. I wish I could have seen how useless it was and how much time it wasted. I wish I had that time back and could use it for the actual paying work I got through bidding sites. I think part of the problem was certainly that I heard from so many people that they got great projects through the sites. I never heard a bad word about them and never heard people telling stories like mine. I thought there must be something wrong with me and that I should try harder, apply faster and keep going. I'm over it. I think there are a lot of people out there who had similar experiences with those sites and were too afraid to admit it. They're afraid it will make them look like bad writers who couldn't score a project because they were terrible. Let me tell you, I'm no Dickens, but I'm far from terrible. And, I've seen some terrible writers talk about getting projects through there.

So, I don't think it has anything to do with being good, bad or ugly. I think it's simply a skewed supply and demand system that is no longer worth the time for a serious freelancer. Perhaps it once was, before everyone found out about the sites and rushed them, but no longer.

This isn't to say that smaller job sites aren't still worthwhile- some of them are. But, for the larger sites, their useful time has come and gone.

The Weirdness of Ghostwritten Blogs

Blogs are proliferating so rapidly because they a) are fun to read b) rank better than just about anything in search engines and c) provide a personal way to get information. When you read a blog, you get the information from a real person, or group of people, rather than from a faceless website. You build up trust in the person you're reading week after week. I personally think that's the main draw- you get to know these people through what they write and how they deliver their information. So, what if the whole thing is put on?

I'm mainly a ghostwriter, meaning that I'm undead and float around. Ok, it just means that my name doesn't go onto most of what I write and often someone else's name does. It can be irritating to see something you slaved over being published with someone else's name on it, but that's the nature of the biz. The buyer pays, they own the work and they can put Bozo the clown's name on it if they so choose. The only time it really feels weird is when this occurs with a blog. I've ghostwritten several blogs now and I still find it strange. I enjoy it, blogs have been some of my very favorite jobs, but it's still a little odd.

Imagine that one of the blogs you read every week isn't really written by the name that's on it. Imagine that there is no one by that name- the name was made up by the blog owner who then pays the ghostwriter to create a personality to go along with it. That personality posts information in the blog week after week as readers come around and start reading it regularly. Pretty soon they feel like they know that fictitious person and trust what they're saying. Since I've been doing this I keep wondering- how many of the blogs I read are ghostwritten? How many of them have the owner's name on them when the owner has never written a word? And, how many have an entirely fake name attached to them? I'll bet I've made you wonder now too...

Creative Writing and Writing Jobs

Anyone who writes for a living is a writer, I believe. Sometimes I wonder, however, how much of my job is really writing and how much is marketing? Most of what I do as a web writer is work for hire- someone tells me how long the work should be and what it will be about. Sometimes I cam given keywords to add, and more often than not I am given a title. So, when I put it all together, can that be considered writing or marketing? After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that it's writing. I am not a marketer by trade, and yes, writing strictly-defined articles can be considered creative writing.

What you write, even if you are given a very detailed guide about what to write, is extremely colored by your own skill and attitude. You can make anything funny, sad, sympathetic or straightforward and unbiased. The particular path you take is a footprint you leave behind. Sometimes I think that having to work within such tight constraints and still being able to make the material alive and interesting is a harder creative process than writing whatever the heck you want.

I need writing jobs to turn to for money, and I do consider them to be creative writing in their own way. However, once in a while the need to strike out in my own creative direction hits me and I have to follow where it leads.

Not Looking for Work

It can actually happen. You can get to a point in freelance Web writing where you don't have to actively search for work. It took awhile, but I am so grateful that I don't have to search for a couple of hours every day before I start the actual work.

How it Happens:

The first step is to have a visible Web presence. I have a writing sample site, Squidoo lenses and a couple of blogs to keep my name out there. Clients write to me through the sample site or the lenses and ask me about rates and tell me about their projects. Most of them then disappear, perhaps believing me to have too high a price, perhaps simply capturing my email for the purposes of evil. But, some offer little projects that I can do without having to search out the gigs.

I also frequent a fabulous writing forum full of women writers. I regularly do projects for some of those ladies and have had nothing but good experience with them.

I have a profile on Elance full of good feedback and a portfolio full of writing samples. I get invitations for projects through Elance as well as scoring regular clients through the site. Many of my regulars are people that I first worked with through Elance.

I write directly for a company. I've been writing for a specific content company for almost a year. That work is there all the time and brings in a steady check. I'd like a second company to contract with so that I have two meaty checks every month instead of a bunch of small ones. Perhaps soon.

I write directly for websites. Suite101, AC and others pay me residuals that add up to a small passive income. If I wrote more for them, I'm sure it would be a more impressive amount. My payments are small, but it's a good revenue stream.

I make a little from this 'lil blog. I haven't done it as much lately, but I've made a little money by writing sponsored posts for various companies. There are people out there who do quite well by blogging and using paid posts.

When self employed, having different income streams is incredibly important. If you don't have a boss who will write you a check for the same amount every month, you can't rely on one single source of freelance income. Keep the work diversified and keep your name out there and there will come a time when you no longer have to hit freelance job sites.

Selling the Rights to Web Articles

For Web writers, the issue of rights can be a sticky one. When writing for magazines or anthologies, many writers keep the rights to their work after giving up the first print rights or first North American rights. I see a lot of writers who are transitioning into Web writing and are shocked at the idea of giving up all rights. But, that's what work for hire is. You are hired to write on a specific topic and the article that results is transfered to the buyer. The writer has no rights in those cases.

Personally, I have no problem whatsoever with giving up rights to an article when I have been paid for it. The only time I don't want to give up rights is when the site or client in question is paying on a profit-sharing basis. I write for several sites that pay based on pageviews or a portion of the revenue generated by pay-per-click ads.

If you want to write for a website and keep the rights to your work, there are several that allow it. Suite101 allows its writers to keep the rights to all of their articles but asks that the articles not be reproduced elsewhere for one year. BellaOnline has the same one-year policy.

I wrote for Triond for a while to test the revenue possibilities. The possibilities are bleak at best. I recently found out that Triond lets its writers keep all rights to the articles they post there. Therefore, I am going to take some of my articles from there and transfer them to HubPages, which has the same rights policy.

If you write for AC, you have the option to publish your work exclusively or non-exclusively. If you choose the non-exclusive route, you can publish the work anywhere else you desire. One way that I've found to make the most of that arrangement is to publish non-exclusive items on AC and then to offer the re-print rights on Constant Content. I have sold several re-print rights there, and though they don't go for much, it's been a nice sideline.

Back Again

When you're self employed, it can be pretty rough to take even one week off. I was out for eight days and had to prepare for it for weeks, taking care of work plus advance work plus notifying people plus planning and packing. I did work for regulars in advance, but had to end up turning away some work because there simply wasn't any way to take on more work at the time. I hate to turn away any work, but there are only 35 hours in a day.

Vacation!

I was in Orlando visiting the parks during my vacay, and it was a very different experience than it had been the other times I've been over the past 20+ years. Back in the day the park were insanely crowded with American families that rushed the park with their kids and grandmas. Since 9/11, the parks have been far less crowded. Chatting with employees last year I was told that the Disney park empire had not recovered since that time and that the parks were getting desperate to attract tourists. People have been much more hesitant to fly and the international tourists they had were simply not showing up.

This year was a whole new ballgame. I've never, ever seen the parks so full of international tourists. Actually, I've never seen anywhere so full of international tourists. I've been all over Hawaii, I've traveled through Japan, much of Europe, most of the major cities of the U.S., the Caribbean and Canada. In all of those travels I have never seen such a mix of cultures as I did during this trip. There were several days when we could count on one hand how many times we heard people speaking English. We heard Russian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Hindi regularly. There were also quite a few Scandinavian, Eastern European and Arab languages being spoken.

The whole experience was interesting in the mix of cultures and the variety of languages we were exposed to. But, it was sad in a way. The many languages kept families to themselves, each family group talking only to each other. There was none of the camaraderie that used to be present. While standing in the many lines, families used to talk, commiserate, compare notes, etc. I can only think of one time that we stood next to an English-speaking family during the entire week this time- and even they weren't American. Ironically, that was on St. Patrick's Day and the family was Irish.

Why the International Set?

I think the reason for the cultural shift was twofold: the failing dollar and the recession here at home. Americans aren't able to afford the trip, but to those outside the U.S., it's practically free. The question I had was why so many people had come from Europe and Japan- they have their own Disney parks. It might have simply been a good excuse for an exotic vacation abroad.

Cult Morons

On another note, while leaving Orlando, the traffic was horrific. We figured something odd was going on, as police cars and TV news trucks crowded the highway. A wreck? A shooting? No. It was a-holes. The people from that cult that protests funerals was randomly protesting outside a Catholic church. Why? Judging from the signs they were holding, they think Catholics are gay. Apart from the insanity of protesting nothing in particular, they caused us to be quite late on the way back. I won't name the cult or its leader because I don't want them getting more publicity. They are insane and stupid people who should never be taken seriously by anyone.