Envy, Editors, and Efforts

I'm Envious of:

At Yahoo! Voices on Friday, the editors announced a brand new "Contributor Spotlight" award and the first winner (not I). The award recognition is certainly nice to receive I'm sure, but the $500 bonus has gotta be the bestest part of it! Though envious I am, it's inspirational too -- like... it's something that I could actually aspire to win someday. The first winner doesn't have a journalism or English degree, hasn't previously worked at or been published in newspapers or magazines. Just a regular person with an expertise in real estate, but without a professional writing background - YaY, an achievable award to GOal for!

Editors can be great, or not:

• YaY: I finished the 2nd of 2 test assignments for the Yahoo! Politics Featured Contributor (FC) program and was accepted! On my Yahoo! Contributor profile, there's now a snazzy "YFC Politics" badge - woohoo!! It means I'll get at least one guaranteed assignment each month that pays more upfront ($15) than regular assignments ($5-$10).
• Boo: Not long after I got the FC, I got a Finance article submission rejected as "topic not searchable enough". It was about getting a better discount for an online  subscription after cancelling a free trial. Well, at least it wasn't rejected for being badly written or something like that, I suppose. I may try resubmitting it to Yahoo! Voices instead of Yahoo! Finance, or I might use it as a blog post.

Efforts Effortless:

• My Very 1st paid Sponsored Tweet was tweeted!
  Made a whole 49 cents, but hey -- it's a start!! And a really easy, breezy tweet it was:

Need help choosing a home care agency? Watch this helpful video from @CareCornerAZ #homecare sponsored spnsr.tw/t1wWTG
— Marla Mayes (@MarlaMayes) May 15, 2012

        What I really, really, really like about this whole sponsored tweet thing:

1. Clicks on the link don't matter, ya get paid a flat rate just for the tweet!
2. The tweet content is provided, just tweek it a bit to suit your voice.
3. I don't actually tweet the tweet, it's auto-tweeted via their app.
4. I'm not pestering people with ad tweets all day, it's just tweeted once.
5. The flat rate price is "suggested", but you can set it at whatever rate ya want. Suggested rate seems to be sorta based on how many followers ya have -- mine just went up to 52 cents. 

• a Forbes editor actually replied to my tweet!

@MarlaMayes Sorry! bidding is closed. but thanks for the RT — Bruce Upbin (@bupbin) May 18, 2012

Thanks much for visiting & have a great Memorial Day long weekend! 
(F is gonna be for "Format" -- there's gotta be an easier way to get this blog post formatted better)