The Zemanta Button Says Get Inspired

How am I supposed to work under these conditions?  It's a cold, dreary, majorly windy day outside and inside I have a comfy couch, 2 warm, fluffy dogs and an afghan.  And on my desk I have my choice - 3 brand new books that just arrived this morning... or 3 days worth of articles to write for a client.  Now I ax ya, which would YOU choose on a day like today?

What's a girl to do on a day like today?  When I woke up this morning it was with the best of intentions.  I was going to put on a pot of coffee, take the dogs out and then dive right into my work.

But the weather outside is frightful, and my couch and dogs and afghan are so delightful!  And these books!  How can I work with 3 brand new books sitting on my desk?  The covers are still shiny and they've never even been opened yet.  They're sitting there begging me to come, snuggle up on the couch and READ.

I'm afraid if I don't heed their call I'll just get all involved in my work again, being the work-a-holic that I am, and I'll never get around to reading these crisp, new books.  How can anyone who enjoys reading even think about work at a time like this?!

Unfortunately, I'm such a book lover that they don't even have to be new to pull me away from my desk.  Right this very moment there are two old-time favorites sitting on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker.  One by Stephen King and the other by Koontz.  Both already in the process of being read - again. While they're not quite as near at hand as the 3 new books, I hear them calling out to me all the same.

And let's not even get started on the emails I need to answer today.  I know there are at least 2 from editors, asking if I'd like to write a couple of book reviews.  I'd LOVE to dig into these books, too.  More new books, by new authors, about new and interesting characters, begging me to come, snuggle up and READ.

How am I supposed to work under these conditions?  How am I supposed to stay motivated to work on articles about laminated kitchen counters and copywriting when I have all of these lovely books doing everything within their power to pull me to the couch, where I can snuggle up with the dogs and the afghan and settle in for a warm, cozy, lazy day of reading?

Oh.  Yeah.  That works, too.......

I believe in every drop of rain that falls....

Image via WikipediaMy name is Donna Anderson, today is Friday, January 21, 2011, it's 5:30 am, the temperature outside is in the single digits and there are 4 inches of brand new snow on the ground.  Seems like a perfectly fine day to start the new year to me, so here we go.  Happy New Year and good riddance to 2010!

I'm not going to go into all of the gorey details of 2010 but suffice to say it was horrible and I never want to go through anything like that ever again.

However, they say God doesn't close a door without opening a window (which seems pretty ridiculous on a day like today) and so far, it's been my experience, that the air smells wonderfully fresh and clean after the rain.  For example, two computers were stolen.  But one needed a new graphics card and a memory upgrade and the other was riddled with difficult to remove viruses.  Insurance paid to replace only one but who works on more than one computer at a time anyway?

The car was destroyed in a wreck but it was getting old and just a little tired and needed some work.  Insurance paid to replace that, too.  Yes, I have a car payment again, but I would have had to do some extensive repair work on the other car, anyway, so I still would have been out a chunk of money.

During the ensuing recovery period after the wreck I lost a lot of clients and took down my blog which was developing quite a following and was full of lots of fresh, informative content.  I've been thinking about putting it back up and a lot of people are asking me to do just that.  But here's the thing:

That blog was a big time suck.  I sometimes spent 4 hours, 6 hours or even 8 or more hours, working up those blog posts.  And, while the people who came to that blog enjoyed reading those posts and learned a few things about Internet Marketing, and some even became my friends, my time would have been much better spent promoting my writing to people who would have actually paid for it.

So the blog is down and after much consideration I think it will stay down.  Long live Beamer and the 'Dome, Rest in Peace and all that other happy horse shit.  This is a New Year and it's time to make some changes.

The loss of clients was, in the beginning, a major cause for panic.  I'd worked long and hard to develop that list and what's a freelance writer to do with no clients to market to?  But looking out that window toward the horizon I realized that article and ebook writing was never my goal anyway.  I'm basically starting all over again but aimed in the right direction this time.

I kind of like this new home.  I'm nothing if not tenacious, like a Timex watch I take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.  And cats?  Well, cats suck.  I'm not a cat person.  They're cold and sneaky creatures, not to be trusted and no matter what you think, they are NOT using that litter box all the time.  Just wait until the next time you vacuum behind the sofa.

You'll find no tips on 'How to Make Money Online' here.  You may occasionally find a tip or two about how to make money writing or how to make money with Examiner.com or how to write an ebook.  But they'll be the exception rather than the rule this time around. 

It's no longer my goal to help you make money working online.  It's been my experience that you're very happy to come here and read my tips and take my freebies and you might even buy a few articles, as long as they're dirt cheap and they'll pass Copyscape.  But it's time to get serious and start reaching for my own stars, thank you very much.  And my goal was never to become a teacher or an article whore.

Hence, this new home.  I'll be coming here to blog now, about whatever is on my mind at the moment.  I wrote an article once about how difficult it is some days to just get started writing and one of the best ways to get over that hump was just to start.  Start writing anything and after 10 or 12 minutes you'll feel the engine kick over and you'll be off and running for the day.  That's what I'm going to use this blog for.

So who knows what you'll find here from day to day.

For anyone interested, I'm currently working, in between articles and ebooks, on a series of articles about the Kennedy Assassination.  After a series of articles I wrote for Examiner.com, I was contacted by an ex-FBI agent who had some involvement in the case and I promised him I'd get his message out to the world.  I plan to have these articles ready for publication by Saturday or Sunday and some will be published at Examiner.com.  The others I'll be either selling to the highest bidder or putting out for syndication.  

So, you see, I'm still here and I'm still writing.  The wallpaper has changed and so has my direction.  But it's all good.  I've got plenty of windows left, God.  Bring it on!

How to Make Money Writing for Examiner.com

Today I want to talk to you about making money online writing articles for Examiner.com.    I know I’ve covered this before, but that was back when the ‘Dome was still standing and I want this on the record again.  So bear with me and I think you’ll get something out of this post.

Let me just start off by saying that I think that anyone who’s spending any kind of time writing articles, whether it’s to promote their own sites or to sell to clients, should be taking a serious look at becoming a writer at Examiner.com.  

And here’s why:
Examiner.com is NOT an article directory – Examiner.com is a news site – like Yahoo News or MSN or Celebitchy, etc.  There’s a world of difference between a news site and an article directory.   Let’s take a look at how they each work:

How do Article Directories Work?

You write a 400 or 500 word article and submit it to ANY directory – Ezine, GoArticles, even Squidoo.   With some of those directories you’re going to have to wait and see if they’ll even accept your article for publication – for example, Ezine.  And even if you use a program like UAW to mass submit to hundreds of directories, there’s still a better than good chance that most of them are not going to accept your article.

Now, assuming you HAVE used a mass submitter program and you’ve sent that article out to 1000 article directories.  Do you really know where it’s going?  Yes, it’s probably going to 5 or 6 – AT THE MOST – key article directories, like Ezine, etc.  But the other 994 articles are going out to blogs and websites that are using auto-POSTERS to pull content for them so they don’t have to write it themselves.

Most of those 994 sites are sitting dead in the water somewhere – I know, I’ve used an autoposter on a few dozen blogs myself and those few dozen blogs are NOT getting any of MY attention right now.  In fact, if the domain names expired tomorrow I probably wouldn’t even be aware of it.  And a lot of those 994 sites only publish a snippet of your article.

The fact that I have no idea what those blogs even look like anymore should also tell you something else - their quality sucks. Let’s face it – if they were quality sites they’d be making me money and I’d be paying attention to them, right?  So obviously, they’re duds and NOBODY IS READING THEM.  And in case you’ve been asleep at your desk since the beginning of May, Google has stopped giving credit for links that come from crappy blogs and websites.

Each of those blogs is chock full of articles – some of them might even have been written by YOU.  Yet, no one is visiting those blogs because I’m not worried about the quality and I’m not promoting them in the search engines.

ERGO – Even though that report you got back from UAW or whoever you’re using says they submitted your article to 1000 blogs, websites and article directories, it may actually only have been published at a dozen sites and most of them suck.

Now, one MORE thing to consider about article directories…

Do you know who IS reading your articles at Ezine or the other directories?  Searchers who do organic searches looking for information.  That’s right – they go to their little Google search box and type in their keyword and they find your article on the index – that is IF you’ve submitted to a high PR directory or promoted the article yourself.

Now, assuming you’re somewhere near the top of the index, and assuming you’ve written a quality article that only gives enough information that the reader is compelled to learn more, and assuming you’ve written a resource box with a strong call to action – the searcher will end up at your website.   But that’s ALL a big IF.  What if that reader doesn’t like your article?  What if they want more information and continue to search other articles – some of them NOT yours?  What if they’re a publisher and they only looked at your article because they need content for their own blog?

Don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not completely against using article directories and article marketing to promote your website.  In fact, I still think it’s one of the best ways to generate targeted, organic traffic for free.   And believe me, I’ll be delving into article directories here, too.

However, Examiner.com is better.  Here’s why:

Greater Visibility -Submit an article to an regular directory and if you want it to make it to the top of the index you’re going to have to promote it yourself.  In fact, the directories are counting on you to do just that.  And Examiner.com is, too.  However, Examiner also is a much bigger name in the news industry AND they’re aligned with Google News.  So what, you ask?  So this…

When a searcher is looking for just basic, everyday, lah-dee-dah information, they go to their search box and enter the keyword.  When they want cold, hard facts and RELIABLE information, they do NOT say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll go see what Ezine has to say about the price of tea in China today.”  No.  They go to their favorite News site.

In other words – searchers do not go to Ezine and search for information.  If they end up at Ezine at all, it’s because YOU’VE done the work to promote your article high enough on the index that they could easily see it and click on it.  On the other hand, I, like bajillions of other searchers, have Yahoo News, Google News, MSN and now Examiner.com bookmarked and I go there every morning to see what exciting events happened while I was sleeping.

More Authority -The simple fact that you’re writing is being viewed on a respected News site adds that much more authority and credibility to your name.

Greater Exposure – Examiner.com is aligned with Google News and they submit newsworthy articles throughout each day.  Granted, if you’re a local Examiner, as most are, it’s a little more difficult to get your articles accepted by Google.  However, it’s not impossible and you’ll have the added benefit of the additional traffic that the National Examiners bring to the site.

You Get Paid – Obviously, one of the key benefits for writing for Examiner.com is that you get paid for all of your page views.  It’s a small amount, like .007 cents per page view.  But I have only 2 categories right now that I write for and I’m up to making over a dollar a day and it’s only my third month.

There are additional incentives to increase your income – you can recruit new Examiners, you can find someone to sponsor your articles, etc.  And when you work all of this together, PLUS start building up an archive full of content, it’s not hard to make some money with Examiner.com.  My first month I made $45 and my second month I hit somewhere around $250 – not sure yet, the reports aren’t in yet and the site’s been in a little bit of a disarray lately due to a CMS changeover.

But think about it - I’ve written around 80 or 90 articles in less than 3 months and made almost $300.  Have you ever made that much off of your Ezine articles in that amount of time?  For one thing, Ezine doesn’t pay you to write.  And for another, well… we’ve already discussed the difference in traffic.  $300 in less than 3 months – and I have nowhere to go but up!

Perhaps the BEST reason for writing at Examiner.com…

At Examiner.com, you’re writing for YOURSELF.  Yes, Examiner is making money off of the traffic that you bring in.  They have to.  The have a platform to pay for.  BUT – you write what you want to write and you can link where you want to link.  For example, one of my categories is Berea Food Examiner.  If you click on that link, you’ll go to my page and you’ll see an ad for Halloween Mart in the corner.  That’s MY affiliate banner.  And not only am I making money with affiliate sales, but I’m also being paid a premium on my articles this month because I have a sponsor.

How did I find that sponsor?  It’s ME!  I paid for my own ad.  It cost $29 and for that $29 I get to run my banner for a month AND I’ll make $40 just for writing 20 articles – about anything I want that has to do with Food in Berea.  So I’ve already made a profit with my advertising.   Obviously, I’ll attract more targeted traffic if I write about Halloween food, which I fully intend to do.  But I’ve also set up a Halloween Blog.  I’ll be starting a series of Halloween articles at Examiner this week and I plan to link back to the blog, too, along with that affiliate banner.

I could go on and on and on…

But I won’t. If that’s not enough information to at least make you want to learn more, then just let me tell you THIS:

I’ve only been writing for Examiner.com for 2 1/2 months and I’ve just requested my third category – and this one will be a National Category, meaning even greater exposure, traffic and income potential.  During this 2 1/2 months I haven’t submitted a single article anywhere else because I SEE the potential with Examiner and I want to get an archive built up as quickly as possible.

Am I going to make it my only source of income?  Heck no!  Even I know not to put all of my eggs into one basket.  But I will be making it my main source of TRAFFIC.  And if I make a few hundred – or a few THOUSAND – dollars a month off of it in the process, so much the better.  And yes, there ARE Examiners out there making $10,000 a month – JUST WRITING FOR EXAMINER.