Jumping for Joy: My 1st Big Freelance Writing Success

Ever wonder if you can really make money writing articles? I've been trying to do just that -- for about nine months now -- mostly freelance writing for the Yahoo! Contributor Network (YCN). I've had some modest success here and there, but then had to take a break during July (family-in-the-hospital stuff). When I got back to writing again in late July, I had my first big breakthrough success with one article.  

Like the omg! oMG! OMG! the page views just soared in one day big success!

Like 180,000+ page views! Like $200 worth of page views!

I was so stunned and giddy that I wasn't able to concentrate enough to write much afterwards - LoL! Here's the scoop on what happened:

Getting Freelance Writing Assignments for Yahoo! Sports:

• I grabbed an open assignment from the YCN assignment desk for the Olympics (Archery TV schedule). Although tedious, it was easy to write. The Yahoo! Sports editors accepted and published the article, so YaY!
• Picked up another Yahoo! Sports assignment from the YCN desk the following week. Several college football articles were offered like team profiles, stadium guides and such.  I tried a few of those, but they just didn't work well for me - like I had writers block or something. Then I tried again with something fun: my Florida Gators Tailgating Guide.
• Then a steady stream of Olympics assignments appeared in the assignment desk all the way up to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and well, really... throughout the whole thing. Again, I grabbed several assignments and tried, but just struggled to get much of anything together for most of the topics (athlete profiles, venue guides, etc.). Except for one topic that almost seemed to write itself...

Writing the Article:

• So my big blockbuster success article was about the Olympics closing ceremony traditions. 
• It was fun to write about because I love the Olympic ceremony shows and I learned some fun things I didn't know before when doing the research. The words seemed to just easily flow into the article.  
• The Yahoo! Sports editors had given an example to use for the format. I followed the example, but added a separate "Fun Fact:..." sentence below each paragraph in the subheadings. The editors must have liked it.... 

Waiting is the Hardest Part:

• The editors accepted it pretty quickly - YAY! The upfront was a whole $5, but I was hoping that since the Olympics coverage on Yahoo! was the hot feature thing at the time, that my article would get some substantial views. Like 10K or more page views to break my previous 8.5K page views. 
• On Sunday, the day of the closing ceremonies, I was surprised and excited that it had received almost 20K page views. I assumed the numbers would then trail off after that. 
• On Monday, the page views skyrocketed to around 180K+. The best part? I get a $200 page-view-performance bonus!  Stunned and giddy, I couldn't concentrate enough to write much for at about a week or so afterwards. 

It got better after that too! I soon got several "targeted assignment" offers to write for the U.S. Tennis Open. I accepted several of them and when I went to start writing one, noticed that the editor's example to follow that was given in the assignment was my very own Olympics article - how frickin cool was that! 

So writing freelance articles for Yahoo! Sports  -- my new favorite writing venue! I've read in the YCN forums that there's a reason why page views for sports articles are consistently better - but I'll share more about that next time.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog & please feel free to comment and share your writing successes or goals in the comments section.  

Image: speedy2 at sxc.hu

Instagram down is Instrumental for weekend foodie humor Inspiration

Oh the irony -- it's Happy Social Media day today according to Mashable, but storms took down Instragram & several other biggie websites's servers last night. Some reports indicate they'll be down for several days... Meanwhile, many folks are spazzing over it's site downer state...  TechCrunch.com has a great article on the bestest of the best Instagram down jokes on Twitter. 

Although "Instagram" was the number 1 Google Trends search topic this morning (and doesn't that just go so totally coincidentally swell with my need for an "I" blog topic?)... unfortunately-for-me I don't use Instragram, so I don't have much of a personal first person withdrawal or infuriated commentary article to write about it. 

Then again, maybe it is fortunate-for-me because it's apparently been down since last night (which is why it's the hottest search on Google Trends), so I'm at least not having severe withdrawal or anything... 

If you're like me and had heard the Instagram name but don't know much about it, TechCrunch.com has an interesting report about how Facebook bought Instragram recently and speculated about how the site's use of cheapo network architecture (i.e. hardware & systems) contributed to it's lack of emergency preparedness for power outages.    

No idea how much revenue the downed websites lost, or whether their presumed business insurance covers that sort of thing, but being from hurricane-central-Florida, our local grocery stores have emergency backup power generators installed for power outage emergencies. That sort of emergency power outage planning thing just seems so common sensical for 24/7 bigtime social media sites like Instragram and the other sites to do. Amazing they apparently didn't. 

Anyway... I only wish I could have written an article for Yahoo! News about this whole thing today, but there's no news assignments in the assignment desk, sigh.... 

So what heck, let's give this keyword optimization and trending hot topics theory a go on my blog and let's see if there's any improvement in page views or blog ranking or something - LoL!)

Related Social Media Posts & Articles:
Factbox: Facebook Fails Again with Unannounced Email and Find Friends Nearby App Changes
Facebook Popularity: Narcissism or Proactive Self Marketing??
Pinterest: Invited but Can I 'PinIt' to Earn Extra Cash?

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)

Dogs, my Dad, and a Ditzy chick

So last week, I had some nice surprises with my articles on Yahoo! Voices, Yahoo! Finance, and Yahoo! News!

Dogs
My article about how I manage to keep my dog from the shelter despite being broke got featured on the Yahoo! Voices front page for a day and a half. That's a frickin big deal in Yahoo! Contributor land!! It increased my page views too, from less than 50 to an additional 3.8K page views - YAY!

Dad
Ok, so this next one is a stretch - but I'm in the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) for a reason! I got a very nice compliment on twitter from another Yahoo! Contributor for my Yahoo! Finance article about my Dad's seemingly odd refinance of their house for another 30 years.

btw: if you've stopped by from the Bloggers Comment Club and/or the IWSG and follow me on twitter, if I haven't followed back and/or added you to my lists - please give me a shout out on twitter. Thankfully, my twitter followers are growing, but I can't remember who's who - so sorting followers by lists helps. I try to make sure that I retweet everybody, so lists helps me that way too. Thanks!   

Ditzy chick
Then, I got a special assignment to write a political article for Yahoo! News that was a test assignment to potentially become a "Featured Contributor" and it was accepted - YAY again!! I call it the Ditzy chick of the week in politics article - LoL! 

It did reasonably well for page views, 3.8K worth. That's not as many page views as the other one I blogged about, but it's pretty respectable. I've had a few that were much much lower. I've read that some Yahoo! News articles can get into 6 figure page views, but that seems to be when they're featured on the Yahoo! front page slides. I can wish!

So last week was a pretty darn good week with my writing for Yahoo! I didn't get as many articles published as I wanted - I'm going for 5 a week, but I did get 5 submitted so I'll just have to catch up this week by submitting more articles earlier in the week.  

And this is my 4th blog post this month, so I've already exceeded last month's one whole post - LoL! So hopefully I can stick to my goal for transitioning between blogging and article writing. So far, so good. 

On to E for the next post... hmmm, that's gonna be a tuffy...

Comments for Cash (or Coins)? Yep!

A few years ago, I used to post comments a lot on websites like HuffPo, local newspaper articles, and such. I had no idea that people could get paid to post until I noticed other posters bashing the forums "paid trolls". I even asked a few times how a person could get that job. Got no answers. 

I thought they must be joking... like, get paid for posting comments, really??? Ever since then, I've sometimes noticed comments that seem a little too... oh I dunno, either a little too polished or too enthusiastic or too something... 

So I became more convinced that there really was some paid commenting going on out there in cyberland. But when I searched for how-to, all I found at the time was things like "oh, sponsors will notice you in the forums and they'll contact you" type of advice. 

Then lo and behold, I recently came across a blog post about that very thing. Sure enough, there's places to go that will hire you to post comments in forums and wherever commenting goes I suppose.

Doesn't seem like they pay a whole lot, but it's something that seems easy enough to do for quick and easy extra cash. 

I haven't tried it yet, mainly because I'm focusing on articles and blogging for now. But I'll do a few paid surveys when I need a break now and then. I tend to get tired of surveys after awhile, so I might signup for the paid posting thing next time.  

Anna of the RealWaystoEarnMoneyOnline blog recently posted about her own experience with Postloop and has a list of Paid Forum Posting sites in her directory too. 

Have you ever tried commenting for cash, a.k.a. paid posting in forums? If so, any tips are most welcome! 

Ok, so YAY, I've got A B C down on the alphabet post trail, next up -- D is for... maybe Dollars or Doubts or...

How I Make Extra Cash Working from Home (part-time)

First Person: I'm on Unemployment but I'm Still Working
Earning up to $58 a week by self-employment or part-time work is allowed without any reduction in unemployment aid in my state, Florida. This is how I've earned extra pocket cash during unemployment.

In Florida, an extra $58 per week can be earned without any reduction in unemployment benefits. Who knew? I certainly didn't during my first two months of unemployment last year! Read More

Backstory

I was only on Unemployment for 3 months and only earned extra cash for a couple of weeks before I returned to work (part-time) and Unemployment comp ended. The point of the article was that I could have earned extra cash for the whole frickin 3 months if I'd only known! 

The article mentions 3 ways that I've earned extra cash (other than writing): odd jobs, paid surveys, and mystery shopping. There were some snidely comments, mysteriously gone now, noting that the article should have included links to the legitimate paid survey & such sites.

I agree, they shoulda, but the Yahoo! article format stuff has limits on how many links (3-ish) in an article and where the links are going to & such. So the below links are to legitimate sites that I have earned cash from and know first-hand are legit and are not affiliate links (just because I haven't yet figured out the how-to for that yet).

Also, scroll down on the right side to my Blog Roll to find several great "Work from Home" blogs that have done a lot of research of the many options available - site links included. For those asking, these are my favorites:

Paid Surveys:

• Opinion Outpost 
• Ipsos i-Say

Tip: Recommend Survey Police for checking up on the latest Paid Surveys scoop, reviews, & they have a very active discussion forum. 

Mystery Shopping:

• Market Force
• CRI 

Tip: Mystery shopping isn't as easy as it might seem, so try the above sites first if you're new to it. They provide easy & free online shopper training and you can try several types of shops before getting credentials. 

Tip: For love-it mystery shoppers, graduate to the Volition site and Job Board which is popular industry-wide with companies and shoppers actively looking for shopper gigs as well as useful tools and tips. 

Tip: Professional certification is not required for most mystery shops, but can be helpful in some cases to get preferred assignments. If you decide mystery shopping is for you, professional (paid) industry association membership and certification options are found at the National Association of Mystery Shoppers web site.