That said, I’ve been getting paid to write since 2009,
and wanted to share some of my insights. I know, I know – who really cares?
Everyone on the Internet is an expert about something or another, and they all
think that what they have to say is the most important thing ever. I don’t. So,
why am I writing this? The other day I was reading a post on places to start
out as a freelance writer. I rarely comment on articles, but this time I felt
the need to. My little addition to the post in the comments section started to
take on a life of its own, so I thought, “Why not just write my own post?”
Then came the ideas. There’s a scene in the movie
“Baby Mama” where Tina Fey is talking to Greg Kinnear about her
somewhat-genius-/somewhat-crazy/mostly-moronic ideas that strike her in the
middle of the night. When she wakes up she has little notes stashed near her
bed that she’s written things such as, “electric toilet” and “make everybody be
twins.” I don’t go as far as writing them down (I probably should), but I do
tend to have these types of ideas in plenty. Sometimes I actually act on them
(like the time when I bought a super-fancy photo printer from amazon when I had
the idea that everyone I knew could send me their digital baby photos and I’d
make personalized scrap books – yeah, I have lots of nice photos of my child
and the dogs hanging around the house now, but no scrap books) and sometimes
they just stay in my brain (like the time I decided that my dogs should have
their own blog). So, when I imagined what writing about writing looked like, it
took on a life of its own.
This brought me to one question, “Where to start?” I
suppose the beginning would be the logical place.
Why did I start writing? I actually started writing
for money when I had a brief, but amazingly interesting, job helping to
organize a research project for the Child Life department in a children’s
hospital. That writing couldn’t be more different from what I do now. It was
all academic, totally not relatable and very journal-y. The grant for that job
ended, and I was working as a museum-based art teacher. So much fun, but not
much money. I, like just about every other mom, wanted to put some balance back
in my life (and have enough money to afford the fancy shampoo, after paying for
diapers, wipes and a zillion little baby socks) by working from home. I kept my
museum job, but looked into writing for money too. I started a blog. It lasted
for all of one day before I deleted it. I found a revenue share site. That
lasted for years.
If you’re wondering what a revenue share site is—it’s
a website that allows you to contribute content, and then get paid by splitting
the ad revenue. At the time (these were the pre-Panda days) SEO seemed simple
and with some targeted keywords I was off and making a few hundred dollars a
month just by writing down my lesson plans and sharing what I knew about early
childhood arts education. Some of top writers at this site made full-time
incomes (mind you, this was a very few). Then Panda came, and Google
effectively killed my (and many other revenue share writer’s) income. That’s
ok. At this point I was still learning how to write online, and the community
message boards on this site were what I really needed to get a grip on what I
was doing.
What next? Armed with my ‘published’ articles, I
headed off to one of the biggest content mills out there. If you don’t know
what a content mill is – it’s a website that ‘hires’ (you’re never a real
employee, so they have no obligation to give you any work) writers to create
lots and lots of content for typically very little money. They want everything
to be uniform, so there are usually truckloads of rules, editorial guidelines
galore and various ways to make you into a crazed lunatic while making what
amounts to less than minimum wage. For quite some time I made a very nice
living off of a content mill. Then I was basically fired (technically they
couldn’t fire me, as I wasn’t a real employee). I don’t really blame them. What
I wrote for them sucked. The titles were ridiculously inane and my heart just
wasn’t into it. Seriously, I wrote articles with titles such as “Places to Put
Your Purse” and “Is that a Beaver in My Backyard?” Guess what? No one should
ever, ever, ever google “Where can I put my purse?” If you can’t figure out
where to put your purse without Internet instructions, there’s a bigger problem
than not knowing where your bag goes. I spent months churning out sometimes as
many as 10 600 word articles a day while watching the Real Housewives of
somewhere or another. If you’re considering applying for a ‘job’ at a content
mill, go ahead. You’ll make easy money, get paid possibly two times a week and
build up a resume. While I have less-than-great things to say about the mill
where I worked, it did pay the bills and in many ways it jump-started my
career.
Now what? I’ve got to say that I’m not a fan of the
uber-lengthy article. I usually lose interest, so I don’t blame you if that’s
what you’re doing about right now. With that in mind, you’ll have to wait until
my next installment to see what happens next. Ok, so it’s not exactly a cliff
hanger (no I did not pretend to be pregnant with the content mill’s baby just
to win back my place, nor did my evil identical twin start writing under my
name – yes, I watch way too much Days of Our Lives). But, it may help you out a
bit if you’re a beginning freelance writer.
20181107 orf
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