Those who have been in the writing/publishing business a long time say that changes are frequent. They aren't thinking about the digital revolution that's going on right now, or the drop in cost to self-publish and how that is causing more people to self-publish. They are thinking about the changes people make moving from job to job within the publishing industry.
One man I met at a conference in 2006 is now on his third or fourth publishing job since then. He was an acquisitions editor at the time. I had been following his blog for a couple of years, and he was the one person I wanted an appointment with. I got that appointment. He didn't think my book was right for his publishing house, alas.
Shortly after that conference, he left that editorial position and started his own literary agency. He did that for two or three years. Then he got a job with a publisher that was essentially helping self-published authors provide print books. It wasn't exactly a vanity publisher; it was one of the more ethical companies in that end of the business. I was never quite clear what his role was with them. Recently I learned he is now once again an acquisitions editor with a different publishing house.
That seems to be somewhat typical if perhaps a little to the extreme. Upward mobility in this industry seems to involve changing companies as much as it does moving up in the ranks of a company. The person you meet when they are an editor at Publisher A will become a slightly more senior editor at Publisher B by the next time you see them. So that is why they ("they" meaning industry insiders) encourage networking.
This has happened to me during my work for Buildipedia.com. I started writing for them in the second half of 2010. I did several feature pieces and some news articles. I had several conference calls with the editor, pitched a lot of ideas to him, and he accepted some. Then in November 2011 he left. He hadn't accepted anything I'd proposed for about six months at that time. I immediately pitched something to the new editor, a regular column on construction administration. She said it was quite timely in terms of their developing business plans, and we turned it into a twice monthly column.
Then, in early June she said the ad revenue in that part of the site wasn't coming in as they'd hoped, and they were cutting it back to once a month. I received a contract for the July one, due July 20. Then, a couple of weeks ago she sent out an e-mail that she was leaving and giving the new editor's name. I turned the column in on time to the new editor last Friday, up till now receiving no reply. Buildipedia's normal practice was to publish my column the next Friday, but I see today it's not yet published, nor have I heard from the new editor.
So perhaps the gig is lost. Or maybe she's just very busy in the new position and hasn't had time yet to look at my column. Either way, I think it is probably a lost gig. That's too bad. The columns were easy to write, drawn out of my 38 years of experience in engineering and heavy construction. And it was good money for Internet writing.
Maybe those two former editors will land somewhere in the e-zine industry, I'll cross paths with them again, and have new opportunities to write articles. Or maybe not, and I'll just concentrate on my books and short stories. And I'll finally find the time to write a few articles for Decoded Science, as I promised I would.
It's a changing world, and publishing is sure a changing industry, just based on people alone, not even counting technology.
Showing posts with label freelance writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freelance writing. Show all posts
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A Two Year Assessment of Freelancing
Tuesday I conducted an interview for an article I'm writing for Buildipedia.com. A professor at my alma mater, the University of Rhode Island, is conducting research into using asphalt pavement for collecting solar engery. He's also looking into research for related things, but the solar energy from pavement interests me the most. I wrote an article on this subject last November for Buildipedia, and recently pitched a follow-up article to them, which they accepted. Only after the first article was published I learned that my school was also conducting this research.
So I conducted the interview, want to conduct another one with the professor at Worcester Polytech, the one I've had such a difficult time reaching, but the article just isn't coming to me. I'm now two days behind my deadline, and I should be writing the article (pending additions from the second interview), but it's just not coming. Why?
I don't think I'm a journalist, nor really an article writer. I started pursuing freelance work back around February 2009 as a means of building a platform to improve my chances of having a book accepted by a traditional publisher. That's the advice given by Cec Murphey and other pro writers: write articles, lots of them, then try your hand at books. I started my writing career backwards, I guess.
In these two years my articles have appeared in three print publications, and two on-line publications. Including all the ones I wrote for and posted at Suite101.com, it's somewhere around 150 articles in those two years. What have I benefited from that? It's a resume, I suppose, showing a potential book editor some stick-to-it-ness on my part. Maybe it shows some flexibility, writing on engineering, history, poetry, stock trading, genealogy, and environment. None of that could hurt.
But I don't enjoy it a whole lot. I'm not good at cold calling, so contacting by phone or e-mail people I don't know to ask them about some fact I need in the article is not a fun thing. Even talking with an engineering professor was not pleasing. It wasn't unpleasing—just kind of neutral, kind of blah. The article writing itself has been okay. I don't get the thrill of word crafting an article that I do from a poem, or from a scene in a novel. I don't feel the enjoyment that developing a complex fiction plot gives me.
So why do it? When I have two active book projects, two or three more immediately on heels of that, and things to learn and do related to the books, why keep writing articles? One reason is, while the writing itself leaves me somewhat flat, I get a feeling of accomplishment at the completion. I can look back at those 150 articles and have some satisfaction at a body of work. Another is the original reason: to build a body of work that may some day be considered a platform that will impress a book acquisitions editor. I'm pursuing self-publishing now, but could always make a reverse decision at some point and pursue traditional publishing. This all might come in handy then. And I'm making some money at it, enough to fill the tank and pay a bill every month (though recently it's trailed off a bit).
I guess I'll keep freelancing, but it's unlikely I'll seek to expand the markets beyond those I'm currently for. A few articles a month, mixed in with novels and non-fiction books, should give me variety of research and writing, and portfolio. But I'll revisit this decision often over the next six to nine months.
So I conducted the interview, want to conduct another one with the professor at Worcester Polytech, the one I've had such a difficult time reaching, but the article just isn't coming to me. I'm now two days behind my deadline, and I should be writing the article (pending additions from the second interview), but it's just not coming. Why?
I don't think I'm a journalist, nor really an article writer. I started pursuing freelance work back around February 2009 as a means of building a platform to improve my chances of having a book accepted by a traditional publisher. That's the advice given by Cec Murphey and other pro writers: write articles, lots of them, then try your hand at books. I started my writing career backwards, I guess.
In these two years my articles have appeared in three print publications, and two on-line publications. Including all the ones I wrote for and posted at Suite101.com, it's somewhere around 150 articles in those two years. What have I benefited from that? It's a resume, I suppose, showing a potential book editor some stick-to-it-ness on my part. Maybe it shows some flexibility, writing on engineering, history, poetry, stock trading, genealogy, and environment. None of that could hurt.
But I don't enjoy it a whole lot. I'm not good at cold calling, so contacting by phone or e-mail people I don't know to ask them about some fact I need in the article is not a fun thing. Even talking with an engineering professor was not pleasing. It wasn't unpleasing—just kind of neutral, kind of blah. The article writing itself has been okay. I don't get the thrill of word crafting an article that I do from a poem, or from a scene in a novel. I don't feel the enjoyment that developing a complex fiction plot gives me.
So why do it? When I have two active book projects, two or three more immediately on heels of that, and things to learn and do related to the books, why keep writing articles? One reason is, while the writing itself leaves me somewhat flat, I get a feeling of accomplishment at the completion. I can look back at those 150 articles and have some satisfaction at a body of work. Another is the original reason: to build a body of work that may some day be considered a platform that will impress a book acquisitions editor. I'm pursuing self-publishing now, but could always make a reverse decision at some point and pursue traditional publishing. This all might come in handy then. And I'm making some money at it, enough to fill the tank and pay a bill every month (though recently it's trailed off a bit).
I guess I'll keep freelancing, but it's unlikely I'll seek to expand the markets beyond those I'm currently for. A few articles a month, mixed in with novels and non-fiction books, should give me variety of research and writing, and portfolio. But I'll revisit this decision often over the next six to nine months.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Posts in Real Time
I have been away on a working vacation from February 17 until today. I attended the annual conference of the International Erosion Control Association, where I delivered three papers, met a lot of the leadership, and attended my first meeting as a member of the Professional Development Committee. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were all business. The other days were driving and vacation.
Before leaving, I took time to write a few posts for the blog, and scheduled them to post about every two days. I also wrote one from there and posted it for later appearance. I like that feature of Blogspot, something I never used before, and which turned out to be incredibly easy. It lets me keep the blog fresh while being unable to write and post.
During the trip I had a fair amount of reading material with me, but found less time for reading than expected. I had volume 4 of the Annals of America, which is my first source for documents for Documenting America. I read the first item in the book, a report from 1797 by Moses Austin, father of Stephen F. Austin, of a trip he made from Virginia to the Ohio River valley and even to St. Louis and a little beyond. The document was fascinating, and I have written two chapters from it, one during the trip and one today, typing both of them this evening. The book is now up to 29, 275 words, so is still coming along.
I also had a notebook with various writings of John Wesley in it. I read some in that, both on the trip and today, but found it more difficult reading. Still, I have pretty well identified some material that will form the basis of a chapter in my Wesley small group study, so the reading, if limited, was profitable.
The week ahead looks very busy from a writing perspective. I have to prepare and send an invoice for some writing I did, the first of those I've had to do. That's a tomorrow noon thing. The editor for Buildipedia asked me to try to move forward an article I thought I could take till next week to do. That's a tomorrow evening thing. Despite some new troubles at Suite101 concerning changes Google recently made in their search engine algorithms, I'd like to write at least two articles this week for Suite. They will be Tuesday and Friday things.
And, while away on the trip I learned from Facebook posts that a woman in our church is a writer, excited about recently having sold some of her writing. I contacted her, and she is interested in seeing a writers group formed at church. I know of five others who in one way or another have either written things or have expressed an interest in doing so. This will be a Wednesday thing, I think, to see what can be done about organizing this group, with an eye to begin meeting maybe in April.
So the week looks full, and I hope on Saturday I can make a report of incredible productivity. Of course, I'll be writing here before then.
Before leaving, I took time to write a few posts for the blog, and scheduled them to post about every two days. I also wrote one from there and posted it for later appearance. I like that feature of Blogspot, something I never used before, and which turned out to be incredibly easy. It lets me keep the blog fresh while being unable to write and post.
During the trip I had a fair amount of reading material with me, but found less time for reading than expected. I had volume 4 of the Annals of America, which is my first source for documents for Documenting America. I read the first item in the book, a report from 1797 by Moses Austin, father of Stephen F. Austin, of a trip he made from Virginia to the Ohio River valley and even to St. Louis and a little beyond. The document was fascinating, and I have written two chapters from it, one during the trip and one today, typing both of them this evening. The book is now up to 29, 275 words, so is still coming along.
I also had a notebook with various writings of John Wesley in it. I read some in that, both on the trip and today, but found it more difficult reading. Still, I have pretty well identified some material that will form the basis of a chapter in my Wesley small group study, so the reading, if limited, was profitable.
The week ahead looks very busy from a writing perspective. I have to prepare and send an invoice for some writing I did, the first of those I've had to do. That's a tomorrow noon thing. The editor for Buildipedia asked me to try to move forward an article I thought I could take till next week to do. That's a tomorrow evening thing. Despite some new troubles at Suite101 concerning changes Google recently made in their search engine algorithms, I'd like to write at least two articles this week for Suite. They will be Tuesday and Friday things.
And, while away on the trip I learned from Facebook posts that a woman in our church is a writer, excited about recently having sold some of her writing. I contacted her, and she is interested in seeing a writers group formed at church. I know of five others who in one way or another have either written things or have expressed an interest in doing so. This will be a Wednesday thing, I think, to see what can be done about organizing this group, with an eye to begin meeting maybe in April.
So the week looks full, and I hope on Saturday I can make a report of incredible productivity. Of course, I'll be writing here before then.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
A Chapter Here, An Article There
So far this weekend has been productive. I wrote and posted one article at Suite101.com. I don't think it's one of my better articles, but it's up and available for making money. I wrote a chapter in Documenting America. This was with research and writing complete in one day. I also did a little bit on another chapter. If I can complete the other chapter, and rewrite the third chapter to expand to full length, I will, with this blog post, have completed my writing goals for the weekend. I could then go and work on the research for two Bible studies. I've already done quite a bit on one of them Friday night and last night.
Well, my other writing goal was to research e-self-publishing some more. I left some things hanging on Friday. I'm pretty sure I don't have the whole story concerning what to do with the mechanics of eSP. I found a good reference for that today, and will read it later. Events are moving in the right direction for this. I took some pictures yesterday to serve as a basis for the cover of "Mom's Letter". Hopefully they will work out. My goal for publishing that remains around March 1.
I have two other reasons for making this post. I want to test the feature for "scheduled posts" on Blogspot. I knew this was possible, but never saw how to do it until Friday. So I'm going to schedule this to post ab
out an hour after I finish it, just to see how it works. The other is I want to post a couple of figures of my statistics for Suite101, for page views and earnings. Friday evening I merged several spreadsheets, so that I have graphs covering my entire time there. I'll post them below, or at some place on the post. One is page views, per day and the seven day moving average. As can be seen, my page views are not going up even though I ad articles. The other shows the amount I make per article per month. This is also not going up, indicating that my articles are not gaining revenue over time, but in fact may be earning less revenue as they age. It's perhaps too early to tell what I should do about this. For now it's just data tabulated, graphed, and waiting for analysis.
Well, my other writing goal was to research e-self-publishing some more. I left some things hanging on Friday. I'm pretty sure I don't have the whole story concerning what to do with the mechanics of eSP. I found a good reference for that today, and will read it later. Events are moving in the right direction for this. I took some pictures yesterday to serve as a basis for the cover of "Mom's Letter". Hopefully they will work out. My goal for publishing that remains around March 1.
I have two other reasons for making this post. I want to test the feature for "scheduled posts" on Blogspot. I knew this was possible, but never saw how to do it until Friday. So I'm going to schedule this to post ab
out an hour after I finish it, just to see how it works. The other is I want to post a couple of figures of my statistics for Suite101, for page views and earnings. Friday evening I merged several spreadsheets, so that I have graphs covering my entire time there. I'll post them below, or at some place on the post. One is page views, per day and the seven day moving average. As can be seen, my page views are not going up even though I ad articles. The other shows the amount I make per article per month. This is also not going up, indicating that my articles are not gaining revenue over time, but in fact may be earning less revenue as they age. It's perhaps too early to tell what I should do about this. For now it's just data tabulated, graphed, and waiting for analysis.Monday, January 31, 2011
The Storm is Almost Here
The winter storm that is so much in the news is bearing down on us. The winter storm warning from the National Weather Service starts at 6:00 PM tonight for us, so that probably means we'll start getting some frozen stuff around 8 PM. The forecast has called for sleet, ice, snow, mixture—it keeps changing. That's to be expected as the time nears and the computer models come together. The best guess right now is we'll have a half inch of ice followed by 3-5 inches of snow.
Rather than negotiate the hills of Bella Vista tonight, I'm going to stay in Bentonville with my mother-in-law. Here apartment is about 3 miles due north of the office, on flat streets. If need be I could walk to work from there. Tomorrow should be the worst, with an inch of snow on top of the ice at the time of morning commute, snow still falling. She doesn't have a computer or Internet, so I'll probably stay at work late, or perhaps go to the library until it closes.
The storm is hitting at work and in writing as well. I have to have one of my flood studies re-submitted by Thursday. I worked on it some Saturday, and am in good shape with the computer modeling; now need to have the CADD tech do the mapping and pull a brief report together. It would be a snap except yesterday our 18-inch diameter water transmission main advertised in the newspaper, so today we should be deluged by contractors coming by to obtain drawings and specs—which aren't ready. Hopefully they will be by 10 AM. Plus I really, really, really need to make major progress on my Rogers flood study. I'm so close to being able to run the first computer model. Four hours of undivided might do it.
In writing, I will be a journalist this morning. I have phone interviews scheduled with two DOT officials in two states, for information on my article for Safe Highway Matters. That's due on Wednesday, and since this is the first time I've written for them, I'd like to get a draft in Tuesday. It's only a 400 word article, but short doesn't necessarily mean easier. Then I have an article due for Buildipedia the following Wednesday, and another the Wednesday after that.
Meanwhile I'm working on Documenting America and on articles for Suite101.com. Both of these are discretionary, of course. I could drop them at any time. But if I did, I would in effect be saying, "I don't have what it takes to be a writer." So I keep going, keep my schedule a whirlwind, hoping that I get to the point where I have something more than freelance articles published. Having decided to go the e-self-publishing route, this year is the critical year. More on that in future posts.
Rather than negotiate the hills of Bella Vista tonight, I'm going to stay in Bentonville with my mother-in-law. Here apartment is about 3 miles due north of the office, on flat streets. If need be I could walk to work from there. Tomorrow should be the worst, with an inch of snow on top of the ice at the time of morning commute, snow still falling. She doesn't have a computer or Internet, so I'll probably stay at work late, or perhaps go to the library until it closes.
The storm is hitting at work and in writing as well. I have to have one of my flood studies re-submitted by Thursday. I worked on it some Saturday, and am in good shape with the computer modeling; now need to have the CADD tech do the mapping and pull a brief report together. It would be a snap except yesterday our 18-inch diameter water transmission main advertised in the newspaper, so today we should be deluged by contractors coming by to obtain drawings and specs—which aren't ready. Hopefully they will be by 10 AM. Plus I really, really, really need to make major progress on my Rogers flood study. I'm so close to being able to run the first computer model. Four hours of undivided might do it.
In writing, I will be a journalist this morning. I have phone interviews scheduled with two DOT officials in two states, for information on my article for Safe Highway Matters. That's due on Wednesday, and since this is the first time I've written for them, I'd like to get a draft in Tuesday. It's only a 400 word article, but short doesn't necessarily mean easier. Then I have an article due for Buildipedia the following Wednesday, and another the Wednesday after that.
Meanwhile I'm working on Documenting America and on articles for Suite101.com. Both of these are discretionary, of course. I could drop them at any time. But if I did, I would in effect be saying, "I don't have what it takes to be a writer." So I keep going, keep my schedule a whirlwind, hoping that I get to the point where I have something more than freelance articles published. Having decided to go the e-self-publishing route, this year is the critical year. More on that in future posts.
Friday, January 28, 2011
A Little Bit of Progress
I have two main writing tasks at present:
On Documenting America I'm making good progress. Last night I finished chapter 21. Unfortunately this took me a lot longer than I wanted, due to letting myself get caught up in the tentacles of research. This chapter is about the wilderness conditions the first settlers encountered on coming to America. The source is one I found in my 20 volume set of The Annals of America, an Encyclopedia Britannica product I picked up for $25 at a thrift store. Back before the Internet, that was my source for original documents. Now, of course, so much is on the Internet I don't have to rely on that for original documents. But I still use it to find things and make decisions on what document to base a chapter on.
The document in question is a 1711 letter written by Rev. John Urmstone, a missionary/pastor in North Carolina, to his sponsoring organization, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Annals have only an excerpt of the letter, and gave no biographical information about Urmstone. The excerpt was suitable for my purposes. Urmstone described the harsh conditions and the work he had to do just to survive, work that supposedly would prevent him from his work of propagating the gospel. However, the excerpt seemed to have a whiny tone, so I wanted to see the full letter if I could.
Through a simple Google search I found plenty. I didn't find the whole letter (thought Wheaten College has it on microfilm if I want to drive eleven hours each way), but I did find a longer extract of the part in the Annals and I found extracts of two other parts. What I found was a lot of information on Urmstone. Rather than take too much time to write it out, here's what one of his colleagues wrote about him to the same person in England: "Mr. Urmston is lame and says he cannot do now what he formerly has done, but this lazy distemper has seized him by what I hear ever since his coming to the country." Wow! Not exactly a glowing recommendation.
So, that, and the other biographical information I found, puts the entire body of writing by Urmstone in question. His letters to England over ten years were constant complaints about his situation: no servants; little meat; unproductive land; slaves too expensive; wicked parishioners; etc. His description of the North Carolina wilderness is probably accurate, and I can still use is at the document for a chapter. But how much more interesting it is given the knowledge about the original writer. I shall have to have a later chapter on Urmstone, maybe one about how not everyone came to America for religious liberty reasons. Some, like the good reverend, really came for economic gain.
In all of this, I spent way too much time on research. I managed to pound out the chapter last night, not yet in polished form. But what should have taken me four hours took seven. Maybe the extra three will form the basis of an other chapter, maybe not. But I've got to get more efficient in my work if I'm ever going to finish the book.
- Complete as many chapters as possible in the first volume of Documenting America.
- Complete the article I'm under contract to write for Safe Highway Matters.
On Documenting America I'm making good progress. Last night I finished chapter 21. Unfortunately this took me a lot longer than I wanted, due to letting myself get caught up in the tentacles of research. This chapter is about the wilderness conditions the first settlers encountered on coming to America. The source is one I found in my 20 volume set of The Annals of America, an Encyclopedia Britannica product I picked up for $25 at a thrift store. Back before the Internet, that was my source for original documents. Now, of course, so much is on the Internet I don't have to rely on that for original documents. But I still use it to find things and make decisions on what document to base a chapter on.
The document in question is a 1711 letter written by Rev. John Urmstone, a missionary/pastor in North Carolina, to his sponsoring organization, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Annals have only an excerpt of the letter, and gave no biographical information about Urmstone. The excerpt was suitable for my purposes. Urmstone described the harsh conditions and the work he had to do just to survive, work that supposedly would prevent him from his work of propagating the gospel. However, the excerpt seemed to have a whiny tone, so I wanted to see the full letter if I could.
Through a simple Google search I found plenty. I didn't find the whole letter (thought Wheaten College has it on microfilm if I want to drive eleven hours each way), but I did find a longer extract of the part in the Annals and I found extracts of two other parts. What I found was a lot of information on Urmstone. Rather than take too much time to write it out, here's what one of his colleagues wrote about him to the same person in England: "Mr. Urmston is lame and says he cannot do now what he formerly has done, but this lazy distemper has seized him by what I hear ever since his coming to the country." Wow! Not exactly a glowing recommendation.
So, that, and the other biographical information I found, puts the entire body of writing by Urmstone in question. His letters to England over ten years were constant complaints about his situation: no servants; little meat; unproductive land; slaves too expensive; wicked parishioners; etc. His description of the North Carolina wilderness is probably accurate, and I can still use is at the document for a chapter. But how much more interesting it is given the knowledge about the original writer. I shall have to have a later chapter on Urmstone, maybe one about how not everyone came to America for religious liberty reasons. Some, like the good reverend, really came for economic gain.
In all of this, I spent way too much time on research. I managed to pound out the chapter last night, not yet in polished form. But what should have taken me four hours took seven. Maybe the extra three will form the basis of an other chapter, maybe not. But I've got to get more efficient in my work if I'm ever going to finish the book.
Friday, January 21, 2011
The Freelance Writing Report
I wrote yesterday that I had a good day of writing, being at home due to the snow storm. That continued into the evening, as I completed the research on the next chapter of Documenting America, and wrote most of it. I also did the work I needed to do on Life Group class teaching prep. I haven't quite finished typing the handouts yet, but I'll get that done after work. So the day started well and finished well.
I thought it was time to make an overall report on my freelancing activities. Here it is.
I originally shifted to freelancing as one plank in a "platform" to present to editors or agents to whom I would shop my books. Now that I'm considering e-self-publishing my books, as I have discussed in recent blog posts, the platform doesn't count for as much. My freelancing doesn't generate fans of my writing. Yet, I think I'll keep with it for a while. It never hurts to learn to write to deadlines, to figure out when something is done rather than to endlessly revise, to learn how to please an editor, and to make more and more contacts.
I thought it was time to make an overall report on my freelancing activities. Here it is.
- Suite101.com: I'm up to 120 articles there, having posted 4 so far in January. I'm working on a series of genealogy articles right now. After that I may get back to stock trading articles. Beginning with the month of December, we now receive data on which articles actually earn money. I'll watch these new stats for a few months to see if there's any pattern, then maybe change up my article mix. The month of January is on track to be my biggest revenue month there, though I'm earning a paltry $0.14 per article per month. I do it because I enjoy it, seem to be somewhat good at it, and, well, I just want to.
- Buildipedia.com: I had another article posted there today. I'm not quite sure how many this is, somewhere around 15 I think. I need to get my records up to date for them. Yesterday I sent the editor an e-mail, pitching 5 more articles. He's interested, and we'll talk next week. I'd like to do an average of two articles a month for them. They pay pretty good, and I think the exposure I get there is excellent. They also seem to be growing, which can't hurt. I'm also getting articles by assignment for them, which is nice. The whole query-go-round for freelancing is not particularly enjoyable for me.
- I reported yesterday that I had been approached by an editor about writing an article. The publication is "Safe Highway Matters". Today the editor and I agreed via e-mails that I will write the article. I'm waiting for the exact assignment details. This may well be a one time gig, but having an editor come to me, based on writing of mine she saw on-line, is sweet. And maybe in the future she'll need another article. Or maybe some editor will see my writing in that publication, and....
- I have given up trying to find print publications to write for. I won't say I'll never go back to seeking that publishing outlet, but for right now, no. The pay wasn't much better, the query process stinks, and my limited experience shows they don't pay on time. For now, I'll stick with on-line publications. It has been a good, professional experience for me.
I originally shifted to freelancing as one plank in a "platform" to present to editors or agents to whom I would shop my books. Now that I'm considering e-self-publishing my books, as I have discussed in recent blog posts, the platform doesn't count for as much. My freelancing doesn't generate fans of my writing. Yet, I think I'll keep with it for a while. It never hurts to learn to write to deadlines, to figure out when something is done rather than to endlessly revise, to learn how to please an editor, and to make more and more contacts.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Snow Day Writing Report
It's 4 PM. I'm at home, at my dinosaur computer in The Dungeon, writing away. Yesterday the forecast was for snow starting around 11:00 PM, 3-5 inches accumulation, or maybe 4-7 inches, depending on who you believe. I e-mailed my boss to say I wasn't going to be in on Thursday, and I reported on Facebook that I was going to read, research, and write till my fingers were raw, my arms and shoulders tight, my butt numb, my eyes blurry, and my head hurt. Okay, I didn't actually mention the butt numb part on FB, but I was thinking that.
The storm gave us only a little over 3 inches; it was over by 11 AM. With that little, I probably could have driven the 15.6 miles to work with no problem, so possibly I wasted a vacation day. But I get plenty of vacation after 20 years with the company, so I don't mind. And it wasn't wasted at all. It was kind of a dry run for what a day might be like if I had a real writing career, where I wrote full time. Now, it wasn't a true dry run, because knowing I have the day job to go back to tomorrow, I didn't stick to writing quite as faithfully as I should have.
But write I did. And research. The day began with a couple of chapters in Ezra. Devotional, yes, but also part of my research for To Exile and Back. From my reading chair, I discussed stocks with Lynda, and I began to draft a genealogy article for Suite101.com. Then I came to The Dungeon. First I proof-read and reconsidered the Documenting America chapter that I wrote yesterday. It still seems good. I polished it a little and consider it done. Then I wrote and posted the article on Suite101.com. That brings me up to 120 articles there.
Upon publishing, I saw an e-mail in my Suite inbox. It was from an editor of a transportation newsletter. They need a writer with a civil engineering background to work on the feature article for their next newsletter issue. Would I be interested? I quickly said e-mailed her yes, and suggested a phone call. Then I went upstairs to listen to the weekly conference call Lynda joins each Thursday noon for stock trading. During the call I worked in ideas for new articles for Buildipedia.com. After the call and lunch I returned to The Dungeon and fired off an e-mail to the Buildipedia editor. He quickly replied that he's interested, and asked for a phone call next week.
About that time my computer bad stuff protection program decided to do something, so I pulled out a volume of The Annals of America and chose the next subject for Documenting America, read it, and began to formulate a chapter about it. I next went to the daily writing blogs I follow, and found a great new post on Jon Konrath's blog.
During all this activity, I came upon about six ideas for posts to this blog. I think the next step will be do get those down on paper so I don't lose them. I might be posting here with greater frequency for a while. The internal but public debate about e-self-publishing continues, along with some other subjects.
For the rest of the day, I'll finish reading a couple of blogs, plan and perhaps draft the Documenting America chapter, maybe work some on either the harmony of the gospels of on my baseball novel. Oh, I need to prepare for teaching Sunday school, and write some student sheets. I don't know if I'll look to do any recreational reading or not, but perhaps.
The storm gave us only a little over 3 inches; it was over by 11 AM. With that little, I probably could have driven the 15.6 miles to work with no problem, so possibly I wasted a vacation day. But I get plenty of vacation after 20 years with the company, so I don't mind. And it wasn't wasted at all. It was kind of a dry run for what a day might be like if I had a real writing career, where I wrote full time. Now, it wasn't a true dry run, because knowing I have the day job to go back to tomorrow, I didn't stick to writing quite as faithfully as I should have.
But write I did. And research. The day began with a couple of chapters in Ezra. Devotional, yes, but also part of my research for To Exile and Back. From my reading chair, I discussed stocks with Lynda, and I began to draft a genealogy article for Suite101.com. Then I came to The Dungeon. First I proof-read and reconsidered the Documenting America chapter that I wrote yesterday. It still seems good. I polished it a little and consider it done. Then I wrote and posted the article on Suite101.com. That brings me up to 120 articles there.
Upon publishing, I saw an e-mail in my Suite inbox. It was from an editor of a transportation newsletter. They need a writer with a civil engineering background to work on the feature article for their next newsletter issue. Would I be interested? I quickly said e-mailed her yes, and suggested a phone call. Then I went upstairs to listen to the weekly conference call Lynda joins each Thursday noon for stock trading. During the call I worked in ideas for new articles for Buildipedia.com. After the call and lunch I returned to The Dungeon and fired off an e-mail to the Buildipedia editor. He quickly replied that he's interested, and asked for a phone call next week.
About that time my computer bad stuff protection program decided to do something, so I pulled out a volume of The Annals of America and chose the next subject for Documenting America, read it, and began to formulate a chapter about it. I next went to the daily writing blogs I follow, and found a great new post on Jon Konrath's blog.
During all this activity, I came upon about six ideas for posts to this blog. I think the next step will be do get those down on paper so I don't lose them. I might be posting here with greater frequency for a while. The internal but public debate about e-self-publishing continues, along with some other subjects.
For the rest of the day, I'll finish reading a couple of blogs, plan and perhaps draft the Documenting America chapter, maybe work some on either the harmony of the gospels of on my baseball novel. Oh, I need to prepare for teaching Sunday school, and write some student sheets. I don't know if I'll look to do any recreational reading or not, but perhaps.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Freelancing - Can this Rose Bloom Again?
It isn't all as bad as the title of this post sounds. Actually, my Buildipedia.com writing goes well. I had a conference call with the editor this afternoon, and he gave me another assignment. Don't know if it will be a $100 or $250 article, but I suspect the former. Ah well. But, with the articles already turned in and in the queue to publish, I've earned in the four figures there in just two months of publishing, three of writing. This new one and the one on asphalt pavement solar collectors will make it all the more. Can this continue? I hope so.
Unfortunately, Suite101.com does not go as well. Page views have recovered. They are up 46% in September over this time in August. September revenues, unfortunately, are barely ahead of August. I guess students clicking on my history and poetry articles don't click on ads. Oh, for the detestable flat belly ad to come back, and a bunch of anorexic high school girls viewing my poetry articles to click on it!
There's something I'm not getting about web writing for profit. For fun, yes; all my articles are enjoyable to write. But either I'm not getting the concept of search engine optimization, or writing to lead people to click ads, or finding profitable niches. The graph I've added to this article is a new stat I'm tracking, page views per article per day, for 2010. It's now below where this was in 2009.
I could accept this easier if my page views were strong and growing. But they are not. In this blog post I gave the same stat. Comparing the two graphs you can see I'm no where near the peaks I was at late last year. If I grasp for a silver lining to this cloud, it's that I'm about equal or a little ahead of last September based on page views per article per day. I guess I can get motivated for a while based on that.
The most disappointing aspect of freelancing is complete absence of any work other than these two gigs. The one I thought I had in March fell through. I find solace in that it wasn't for much money. I don't want to do more content writing. If I have to freelance to build a platform so that someday I can sell a novel or non-fiction book, I need more than what I've got. Why don't I have more? Mainly time, I suppose. Time to find and study markets. Time to formulate ideas geared to those markets. Time to prepare dynamite pitches. Could I get work—even print work—if I could find the time to pursue it? I think so, though of course I have no guarantees.
So maybe the bloom hasn't come off freelancing so much as it isn't reforming on life in general, as measured by time to do what I want to do. Not much I can do about that, I suppose, except to carry on and hope for a window, somewhere, sometime, that allows for a bit more of what is needed for a writing career.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Oh for a Holiday Weekend
Labor Day weekend is upon us. My supervisor, the CEO, usually comes around early afternoon and tells us we can leave early, somewhere around 3:00 or 3:30 PM. I usually don't, but might do so this time. While it's a holiday, with one extra day, I have much to accomplish. Here's a sampling.
- We had a strong rainstorm last night, and one of the skylights leaks in our living room. It was a slow drip, but it followed the ceiling slope to the wall and then down the wall. We protected the carpet right away, but now I have to deal with this. Water in the living room, water in the basement. What's a homeowner to do?
- Speaking of water in the basement, we are in a testing phase right now. Had the plumber out yesterday. He couldn't find any water, but wants us to watch it for a while before we do the ceiling re-installation and then the carpet installation. Another week at least with The Dungeon torn up.
- Speaking of The Dungeon, I'm going to at least clean up the mess in it this weekend. We put down plastic sheets to catch the sheetrock and dust, but the sheets were so old that they kind of crumbled. Who knew? So I'll get them out and vacuum up all the stuff that fell through the sheet cuts.
- Speaking of cuts, it would be nice if I could finish taking out that leaning tree this weekend. The cut I made through the large branch that is preventing the tree from falling is mostly through the branch, but it closed up under the weight and I've got to start a cut from the other side. Weather is supposed to be good this weekend for working outside.
- Speaking of working outside, I'll have a little grass to weed-eat, and maybe I'll take out those two bushes Lynda wants taken out. That will take an hour. And a few other bushes need trimming. Another hour.
- Otherwise, I have two Buildipedia articles under contract that I need to finish or at least work on. I have three others under contract that I should start on. And it would be nice to write two for Suite101. Ideas are on my mind; I need to help them find an outlet.
- Otherwise, I plan on reading, reading, reading. 150 or more pages in the book I'm working on, three or four newsletters, one Geographic, and one Poets and Writers.
- And last, it would be nice to begin work on the next Bible study that's on my mind. Actually, I started it last Sunday, but quickly saw it was a lot more work than I had envisioned, and so laid it aside.
Friday, July 23, 2010
A Few Thoughts About Internet Content Sites
The battle is raging concerning the type of writing known as Internet content sites. That's the type of site Suite101.com, where I write, is. The pejorative term applied to them is content mill or content farm. Some call them content aggragators. I think I'll stick with content site for now.
Those who consider themselves journalists run down the content sites based on: low quality of the information provided; low quality of the writing; low pay for writers; lack of editorial input; and quick turn over of writers. Where are the editors, they ask, who will make sure the story/article is "balanced" and complete, and that the writing is good? Where are the fact-checkers, they ask, who verify that the information given is actually correct?
These are all valid concerns. I can only speak for my experience at Suite 101. Management there says that about 20 percent of those who apply to be writers are actually accepted. Articles are to be 400 to 800 words. Writing is to be based on SEO-search engine optimization--so that people can find the articles. Quality of writing is a secondary concern, but it is not ignored. Suite has no fact-checkers, relying instead on the writers to do it right. Suite is constantly advertising for new writers, and consequently have a lot of educational tools to bring new writers up to Suite style.
Suite does have editor input. I've had about 10 of my 106 articles either flagged for correction or had the editor make minor changes. But I've seen lots of other articles go by with misspellings, grammar errors. Some have poorly constructed sentences, and poor organization of information within the article. Suite 101 definitely has quality issues.
Yet, the site provides a service that seems to be wanted: information. Information that is easily found electronically. Information that may be shallow, but tells just enough that the reader goes away satisfied.
America has changed, perhaps not for the better, but it has changed. Writers need to change with it. Print publications will be with us for a while. Perhaps fewer of them, and maybe more specialized, but they will be with us. I'm not sure the average information reader really cares much about the quality of the writing. Sure they will notice horrendous grammar, but many other things an editor would fix for a print publication seem to be of no consequence to a reader.
Content sites--or maybe they would be better called "Information sites"--are part of the new information supply dynamic that is being tested through the search engine Internet. Whether this is a temporary thing while the world transitions from print info to electronic, or whether it is the future, I don't know. I know that I'm trying it for now, with no plans on quitting any time soon.
Those who consider themselves journalists run down the content sites based on: low quality of the information provided; low quality of the writing; low pay for writers; lack of editorial input; and quick turn over of writers. Where are the editors, they ask, who will make sure the story/article is "balanced" and complete, and that the writing is good? Where are the fact-checkers, they ask, who verify that the information given is actually correct?
These are all valid concerns. I can only speak for my experience at Suite 101. Management there says that about 20 percent of those who apply to be writers are actually accepted. Articles are to be 400 to 800 words. Writing is to be based on SEO-search engine optimization--so that people can find the articles. Quality of writing is a secondary concern, but it is not ignored. Suite has no fact-checkers, relying instead on the writers to do it right. Suite is constantly advertising for new writers, and consequently have a lot of educational tools to bring new writers up to Suite style.
Suite does have editor input. I've had about 10 of my 106 articles either flagged for correction or had the editor make minor changes. But I've seen lots of other articles go by with misspellings, grammar errors. Some have poorly constructed sentences, and poor organization of information within the article. Suite 101 definitely has quality issues.
Yet, the site provides a service that seems to be wanted: information. Information that is easily found electronically. Information that may be shallow, but tells just enough that the reader goes away satisfied.
America has changed, perhaps not for the better, but it has changed. Writers need to change with it. Print publications will be with us for a while. Perhaps fewer of them, and maybe more specialized, but they will be with us. I'm not sure the average information reader really cares much about the quality of the writing. Sure they will notice horrendous grammar, but many other things an editor would fix for a print publication seem to be of no consequence to a reader.
Content sites--or maybe they would be better called "Information sites"--are part of the new information supply dynamic that is being tested through the search engine Internet. Whether this is a temporary thing while the world transitions from print info to electronic, or whether it is the future, I don't know. I know that I'm trying it for now, with no plans on quitting any time soon.
Friday, June 25, 2010
A New Writing Gig
On June 16th I reported that I had applied for another on-line writing position, something to counter my Suite101 writing and perhaps earn some real money from my writing. I said that I was waiting for "the other shoe" to drop, meaning for something to go wrong in life, since something always seems to go wrong when I try to ratchet up my writing. The day the other shoe did indeed drop, which I wrote about on June 21st.
Well, I now have the chance to see if that other shoe is as big as it seemed the day it happened. Today I heard back from the site, and they have accepted me as a contributing writer. The site is buildipedia.com. It's a site dedicated to the engineering-architecture-construction industry. Heavy on building issues, it also deals with the infrastructure engineering and heavy construction that consumes eight to nine hours of my weekdays, and some on weekends. The pay is very good for web writing. In fact, the per/word rate is better than for that genealogy article I had in a national print magazine last August.
Next week I'll be discussing the contract and expectations with the editor. It seems they want me to write in three areas, two different types of articles. And some of it will be article ideas that I generate myself. That will be fine with me. Each article will be similar length as those I write for Suite (or a little longer), but it appears they will take more research. The word-smithing requirements should be about the same.
So, I'll keep everyone posted here, and let you know what happens. I'm trying not to get too excited, for this may be a more involved process than I think it is. For right now, though, it's a good way to head into the weekend.
Well, I now have the chance to see if that other shoe is as big as it seemed the day it happened. Today I heard back from the site, and they have accepted me as a contributing writer. The site is buildipedia.com. It's a site dedicated to the engineering-architecture-construction industry. Heavy on building issues, it also deals with the infrastructure engineering and heavy construction that consumes eight to nine hours of my weekdays, and some on weekends. The pay is very good for web writing. In fact, the per/word rate is better than for that genealogy article I had in a national print magazine last August.
Next week I'll be discussing the contract and expectations with the editor. It seems they want me to write in three areas, two different types of articles. And some of it will be article ideas that I generate myself. That will be fine with me. Each article will be similar length as those I write for Suite (or a little longer), but it appears they will take more research. The word-smithing requirements should be about the same.
So, I'll keep everyone posted here, and let you know what happens. I'm trying not to get too excited, for this may be a more involved process than I think it is. For right now, though, it's a good way to head into the weekend.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Reversal of Fortune
Well, the article that BiblioBuffet accepted is now rejected. A week after acceptance they e-mailed me requesting changes, saying, "You do have a wonderful topic here. But...it needs to be more you and less a college assignment." I tried. I looked at it slowly, reading it over and over, finally coming up with a "patch", an addition to it where I used words for the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence to express my feelings. No good, according to the editor. I received the e-mail this afternoon: "While I do find [your essay] well written it is missing...passion. I still see nothing of you in it. ...There's nothing that tells me...why you...or care about it. I am afraid I am going to have to decline to run this essay. ...I urge you to continue with your writing group. Perhaps in a year or you might wish to try us again."
"A year." That in itself speaks volumes.
Oh, well. But to what do I ascribe this failure? I'm wondering if the uber-objective viewpoint required by Suite101.com has caused be to think only in that mode and have trouble with the personal point of view and with creative writing. That's a possibility. Or maybe I really want to write college essays rather than creative pieces. That's a possibility. Or maybe I just don't have it. Whether or not I turn out to be the hero of my writing career...blah, blah, blah.
Oh, well. Tonight, being in a bachelor mode with Lynda in OKC, I went to Barnes & Noble after work. I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and last time I was there didn't find anything I really had to have. Tonight I picked up a remainders copy of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Six hundred and eight-six glorious pages of his letters, plus index; a fair number of footnotes, and I love footnotes. This will be enjoyable reading for me, even given ACD's spirituality issues. Into the reading pile with it; should get to it in late 2011.
I also looked in three writing magazines and culled some ideas. I'm wondering now how to approach my freelancing, or if I should just go back to novel and Bible study writing and see what I can do there. The good news is I made a whole $0.30 at Suite101 on Tuesday. Two tanks of gas per year for 72,000 words. Either I'm crazy or obsessed.
"A year." That in itself speaks volumes.
Oh, well. But to what do I ascribe this failure? I'm wondering if the uber-objective viewpoint required by Suite101.com has caused be to think only in that mode and have trouble with the personal point of view and with creative writing. That's a possibility. Or maybe I really want to write college essays rather than creative pieces. That's a possibility. Or maybe I just don't have it. Whether or not I turn out to be the hero of my writing career...blah, blah, blah.
Oh, well. Tonight, being in a bachelor mode with Lynda in OKC, I went to Barnes & Noble after work. I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and last time I was there didn't find anything I really had to have. Tonight I picked up a remainders copy of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Six hundred and eight-six glorious pages of his letters, plus index; a fair number of footnotes, and I love footnotes. This will be enjoyable reading for me, even given ACD's spirituality issues. Into the reading pile with it; should get to it in late 2011.
I also looked in three writing magazines and culled some ideas. I'm wondering now how to approach my freelancing, or if I should just go back to novel and Bible study writing and see what I can do there. The good news is I made a whole $0.30 at Suite101 on Tuesday. Two tanks of gas per year for 72,000 words. Either I'm crazy or obsessed.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
A Freelance Success
Good evening, all you faithful readers. I'm just back from writers guild, where I shared my long poem "A Woodland Acre" from my poetry book Father Daughter Day. I'm going through that book four pages at a time (four pages is our limit). Last week this stopped me in the middle of the poem. This week, however, two of our members were gone, and two who were there were not there last week. So they had me read it all from the beginning. Good reviews.
Tonight I had an e-mail from the editor at BiblioBuffet, and on-line magazine featuring reading and books. One of my February freelance submittals was an article titled, "When the Vehicle Will Be Worthy of the Spirit," about the beginning of Carlyle and Emerson's correspondence. They are going to publish it in their guest column section, probably a month or so from now. The pay is small, but there is pay. I don't know what the exposure will be, but it can't hurt. It's possible that, after a few guest columns, I could become a regular columnist at an increased pay. Once the article goes up I'll post a link on Arrow. I worked hard on that article, and to have it accepted is gratifying.
Every small writing success puts me on the upward track of the roller coaster. Or is it the downward track (the metaphor being reversed of the real life experience)? The one that is more pleasurable. There are enough rejections in writing to cause misery and despair that you need to latch on to the few successes and ride the wind with them. Hmmm, was that enough metaphors to mix?
So I'm happy tonight. I'll probably read twenty pages in the Coulson book, four pages in an alumni mag, and who knows what else. A couple of articles for Suite 101 are turning over in the gray cells.
Oh, today was also good because I finished my paper for my March 31st presentation, only one day behind the deadline. Also I finished a work related article on erosion and sediment control at construction sites that I'll probably submit tomorrow. It's not a bad article, somewhat of a rebuttal of an article a year ago in that mag. I suspect there's no pay involved, but it's another credit. Oh, and I had a lunch meeting with a woman I met at the Dallas conference. She is with a business right here in the area, and it looks as if she'll have some work for CEI. Not right away, but it would be nice to get enough business to justify the cost of the trip.
So, all in all a good day. I'll take 'em any chance I can.
Tonight I had an e-mail from the editor at BiblioBuffet, and on-line magazine featuring reading and books. One of my February freelance submittals was an article titled, "When the Vehicle Will Be Worthy of the Spirit," about the beginning of Carlyle and Emerson's correspondence. They are going to publish it in their guest column section, probably a month or so from now. The pay is small, but there is pay. I don't know what the exposure will be, but it can't hurt. It's possible that, after a few guest columns, I could become a regular columnist at an increased pay. Once the article goes up I'll post a link on Arrow. I worked hard on that article, and to have it accepted is gratifying.
Every small writing success puts me on the upward track of the roller coaster. Or is it the downward track (the metaphor being reversed of the real life experience)? The one that is more pleasurable. There are enough rejections in writing to cause misery and despair that you need to latch on to the few successes and ride the wind with them. Hmmm, was that enough metaphors to mix?
So I'm happy tonight. I'll probably read twenty pages in the Coulson book, four pages in an alumni mag, and who knows what else. A couple of articles for Suite 101 are turning over in the gray cells.
Oh, today was also good because I finished my paper for my March 31st presentation, only one day behind the deadline. Also I finished a work related article on erosion and sediment control at construction sites that I'll probably submit tomorrow. It's not a bad article, somewhat of a rebuttal of an article a year ago in that mag. I suspect there's no pay involved, but it's another credit. Oh, and I had a lunch meeting with a woman I met at the Dallas conference. She is with a business right here in the area, and it looks as if she'll have some work for CEI. Not right away, but it would be nice to get enough business to justify the cost of the trip.
So, all in all a good day. I'll take 'em any chance I can.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Hobnobbing Over - Now on Information Overload
I arrived back in Bella Vista about 10:30 PM Friday night. Grandson Ephraim (visiting us with our daughter, the young business woman) was in bed and daughter Sara was out. I unpacked quickly and went to my reading chair beside Lynda's reading chair. It was as if I never left.
Except my mind was, and still is, full of things to do at work as a result of the conference. I attended a full schedule of technical sessions. Most of them were good, though, as with any conference, a few did not live up to the publicized expectations. I ducked one technical session to attend a meeting of the Professional Development Committee. As I told them, if I were a member of the organization, and if I were active at the committee level, this is the committee I would gravitate towards. It was quite interesting to see them at work. I learned they have a program to review abstracts and papers for the next conference (Feb 2011), and it appears I can join this program, even as a non-member, and get free conference registration next year.
My mind is full of things CEI needs to do better with our designs to prevent erosion and control sediment. We do some things well, but have large areas for improvements. This is especially true in our construction specifications. We have very poor construction specs as far as erosion and sediment control are concerned. We rely on the State construction general permit, which is not a construction spec. It hasn't bitten us so far, but that is probably because enforcement is so lax.
My mind is full of papers I would like to write and present at the next conference. I began, evenings in the hotel, making some notes. I'm up to four papers I think I could write, although two of those probably need to be combined into one. Three abstracts to submit would be enough, I think. If they were all accepted, that would almost be too much to present at one conference. Still, I should probably pursue that many and see if I could spread them out over a couple of conferences.
My mind is also full of articles I would like to write about some of this stuff. So much of it is of general interest that I think I could translate the knowledge I have and expanded during the conference and crank out ten to fifteen articles in three weeks. Whether they'd be money-making articles I don't know, but they would at least fulfill dual roles as writing credits and professional credits. Among the exhibitors at the conference were five magazines or publishers. I was able to speak to four of them. None of them pay freelancers, relying instead on the writers' desires to obtain professional credits to submit work. Bummer; I don't know if I want to pursue professional credits like that.
Well, on to other things for the evening. Coulson's book awaits me, as do the Carlyle-Emerson letters and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. If I can't make any money writing at least I can enjoy reading.
Except my mind was, and still is, full of things to do at work as a result of the conference. I attended a full schedule of technical sessions. Most of them were good, though, as with any conference, a few did not live up to the publicized expectations. I ducked one technical session to attend a meeting of the Professional Development Committee. As I told them, if I were a member of the organization, and if I were active at the committee level, this is the committee I would gravitate towards. It was quite interesting to see them at work. I learned they have a program to review abstracts and papers for the next conference (Feb 2011), and it appears I can join this program, even as a non-member, and get free conference registration next year.
My mind is full of things CEI needs to do better with our designs to prevent erosion and control sediment. We do some things well, but have large areas for improvements. This is especially true in our construction specifications. We have very poor construction specs as far as erosion and sediment control are concerned. We rely on the State construction general permit, which is not a construction spec. It hasn't bitten us so far, but that is probably because enforcement is so lax.
My mind is full of papers I would like to write and present at the next conference. I began, evenings in the hotel, making some notes. I'm up to four papers I think I could write, although two of those probably need to be combined into one. Three abstracts to submit would be enough, I think. If they were all accepted, that would almost be too much to present at one conference. Still, I should probably pursue that many and see if I could spread them out over a couple of conferences.
My mind is also full of articles I would like to write about some of this stuff. So much of it is of general interest that I think I could translate the knowledge I have and expanded during the conference and crank out ten to fifteen articles in three weeks. Whether they'd be money-making articles I don't know, but they would at least fulfill dual roles as writing credits and professional credits. Among the exhibitors at the conference were five magazines or publishers. I was able to speak to four of them. None of them pay freelancers, relying instead on the writers' desires to obtain professional credits to submit work. Bummer; I don't know if I want to pursue professional credits like that.
Well, on to other things for the evening. Coulson's book awaits me, as do the Carlyle-Emerson letters and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. If I can't make any money writing at least I can enjoy reading.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sleeplessness
After sleeping [cliche alert!] the sleep of the dead Wednesday night, which followed a day of mostly sleeping while my body fought the stomach bug, last night, Thursday night, started sleepless. To find the cause(s) that set my mind going so strong I guess I need to retrace the day.
But most of all I saw writing projects, many of them. I saw a whole host of articles at Suite101, including rising page views and revenues. I saw my short story published. I had a vision of teaching a poetry writing class [this one is on-going, nightly], asked to do so based on my Suite101 articles on poetry. I saw Father Daughter Day published and a huge success. I saw the e-zine/magazine I'd like to publish, Technophobia, published, and a wild success. I saw my newspaper column, "Documenting America", syndicated and a wild success, with spin off books as a result. And I saw myself writing for Examiner.com as the Northwest Arkansas Christianity Examiner, again with wild success.
All of this because I managed to get eight hundred words and change coherently put together and published, after a sickness-caused dry spell of a month. No telling what visions of failure will do.
So at 1:15 AM I got up, had a bowl of cereal with real sugar and cinnamon, watched a little of a news program replay, found a Writers Digest I hadn't read yet and read an article about religious publishing wars (which turned out to be a bit misleading based on its title), and went back to bed around 2AM. Sleep came at some point, not sure when. The alarm at 6AM seemed a lot louder than normal.
- At work my weight was down to an 11 month low. I'd have been disappointed if it wasn't, after what I went through Tuesday night/Wednesday.
- Also at work, I took a stand against a bad practice I feel another engineer was doing, refusing to approve something for submittal to a State agency, and that felt good.
- By the end of the work day I (think I) figured out what is wrong with my flood model, which caused FEMA to reject it. Today I get to put that theory to the test. Unfortunately it's going to be tedious work, model revision cross-section by cross-section, tweak upon tweak, plus adding about three cross-sections, which is tedious in itself.
- At home I had a good evening playing with Ephraim, giving him his bath, reading stories, and rocking/singing him to sleep. He's responding well to what I have him do.
- After that, I completed an article for Suite101.com and posted it, the first article I posted since Dec 17. It felt good, and it's the first of a cluster of four or five articles on the same topic that should go fairly easy.
- Then I left the Dungeon, came upstairs and read 16 pages in my current reading book, The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. I'm not yet half-way through its 680 pages, though getting close to that milestone.
But most of all I saw writing projects, many of them. I saw a whole host of articles at Suite101, including rising page views and revenues. I saw my short story published. I had a vision of teaching a poetry writing class [this one is on-going, nightly], asked to do so based on my Suite101 articles on poetry. I saw Father Daughter Day published and a huge success. I saw the e-zine/magazine I'd like to publish, Technophobia, published, and a wild success. I saw my newspaper column, "Documenting America", syndicated and a wild success, with spin off books as a result. And I saw myself writing for Examiner.com as the Northwest Arkansas Christianity Examiner, again with wild success.
All of this because I managed to get eight hundred words and change coherently put together and published, after a sickness-caused dry spell of a month. No telling what visions of failure will do.
So at 1:15 AM I got up, had a bowl of cereal with real sugar and cinnamon, watched a little of a news program replay, found a Writers Digest I hadn't read yet and read an article about religious publishing wars (which turned out to be a bit misleading based on its title), and went back to bed around 2AM. Sleep came at some point, not sure when. The alarm at 6AM seemed a lot louder than normal.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Back On-Site, and a Writing Lesson Learned
This morning the street superintendent of Centerton called. He needed me at a construction site. He was modifying something I "designed" a year ago and he wanted me to look at it. I put designed in quotes because this wasn't a rigorous engineering design. A culvert wasn't draining properly; erosion downstream had exposed a water line; wingwalls obstructed proper flow of water; he was tired of waiting for the highway department to fix it. So he and I met on site and I drew a sketch of what needed to be done. He hired a contractor and had it constructed. It has worked fine.
Well, sort of fine. The erosion control measures worked like a charm, save in one location they didn't complete. The culvert drains as it should now. But a problem he has noticed since is that the flow entering the culvert, from the east and west and which turn and flows south, don't work well together. The flow from the west is so much more than from the east that it overwhelms the smaller flow and creates backflow in that direction, over-topping the highway three hundred feet east. He wanted to put in a diversion wall and let the two flows get into the culvert with less co-mingling. I helped them lay it out, and hopefully it will accomplish what he wants.
I say hopefully, because once again this is not rigorous engineering. I get to do that this afternoon as I re-evaluate a flood study and respond to FEMA comments. But this approximate engineering is something I'm not as comfortable with. There's no way to know if this will work until the next rain storm allows us to watch it in operation--and it needs to be enough rain to have the ditch flow at lest two feet deep. One of these half-inch rainfalls won't do that. Much better to engineer something that works according to the laws of science and mathematics. Something I can reasonably predict how it is going to perform. Oh well, billable hours are billable hours. I shouldn't complain.
It's sort of like the difference of writing for a residual income website and a pay up-front website. On the latter I know exactly what I'm getting for what I have to write. For Suite101 and its residual income payment model, what I get paid is totally dependent on how many ads are clicked, which is somewhat dependent on what subjects I write about. It's also dependent on how well I optimize the article for search engines. Maybe, over several years, it will amount to more than I would make writing for up-front pay; maybe not.
I'm working on my SEO abilities, but frequently find that butting up against what I consider to be good writing. So far, with one exception insisted on by an editor, I have always come down on the side of good writing. I hope I always will.
Well, sort of fine. The erosion control measures worked like a charm, save in one location they didn't complete. The culvert drains as it should now. But a problem he has noticed since is that the flow entering the culvert, from the east and west and which turn and flows south, don't work well together. The flow from the west is so much more than from the east that it overwhelms the smaller flow and creates backflow in that direction, over-topping the highway three hundred feet east. He wanted to put in a diversion wall and let the two flows get into the culvert with less co-mingling. I helped them lay it out, and hopefully it will accomplish what he wants.
I say hopefully, because once again this is not rigorous engineering. I get to do that this afternoon as I re-evaluate a flood study and respond to FEMA comments. But this approximate engineering is something I'm not as comfortable with. There's no way to know if this will work until the next rain storm allows us to watch it in operation--and it needs to be enough rain to have the ditch flow at lest two feet deep. One of these half-inch rainfalls won't do that. Much better to engineer something that works according to the laws of science and mathematics. Something I can reasonably predict how it is going to perform. Oh well, billable hours are billable hours. I shouldn't complain.
It's sort of like the difference of writing for a residual income website and a pay up-front website. On the latter I know exactly what I'm getting for what I have to write. For Suite101 and its residual income payment model, what I get paid is totally dependent on how many ads are clicked, which is somewhat dependent on what subjects I write about. It's also dependent on how well I optimize the article for search engines. Maybe, over several years, it will amount to more than I would make writing for up-front pay; maybe not.
I'm working on my SEO abilities, but frequently find that butting up against what I consider to be good writing. So far, with one exception insisted on by an editor, I have always come down on the side of good writing. I hope I always will.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Submittals Made
Well, just over half way through November and I'm met my submittal goal for the month. Yesterday morning I completed an article that qualifies for a current Suite101 contest for their writers. Yesterday noon I researched magazines where I could submit some poems. I found close to eighty mags suitable for what I wanted to send. I narrowed it down to two start-up mags. Last night, after writers guild, I completed this research, and decided to submit to Four Branches Press. I selected five poems (the upper limit) and fired off the e-mail before I could change my mind. They don't pay except in contributor's copies and a subscription, so this is mainly to get a publishing credit.
At writers guild last night, only four of us attended, and only three had material to share. I brought the first four pages of Father Daughter Day. I had been sharing with them my baseball novel, but no one in the guild except me seems to know the first thing about baseball, so I decided to shift to FDD. Of course, only two of us who attend regularly know anything about poetry, so this might not be best either. Still, although over the years I've shared with them two or three poems from the book, I've never shared the book from beginning to end. Their comments will be interesting. Last night comments were limited to "very nice."
Also yesterday I began researching other on-line markets to write for. Right now at Suite101 I'm averaging only $7 per month (though Nov. appears to be higher than that), and I've got to make some more money. I went through this before, looking at Examiner.com, and decided I couldn't commit to that. But maybe there's another site I can write for. Stay tuned.
At writers guild last night, only four of us attended, and only three had material to share. I brought the first four pages of Father Daughter Day. I had been sharing with them my baseball novel, but no one in the guild except me seems to know the first thing about baseball, so I decided to shift to FDD. Of course, only two of us who attend regularly know anything about poetry, so this might not be best either. Still, although over the years I've shared with them two or three poems from the book, I've never shared the book from beginning to end. Their comments will be interesting. Last night comments were limited to "very nice."
Also yesterday I began researching other on-line markets to write for. Right now at Suite101 I'm averaging only $7 per month (though Nov. appears to be higher than that), and I've got to make some more money. I went through this before, looking at Examiner.com, and decided I couldn't commit to that. But maybe there's another site I can write for. Stay tuned.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Turkey Soup
Since I made my last post, on Wednesday, I've had a couple of good days. The arthritis flare-up has waned significantly. That flare-up may have been caused by certain contraband items I ate on Tuesday, which taste wonderful but apparently are not good for my body and which will remain nameless. Wednesday, Thursday, and today I've eaten right: no snacks, no sugar, NO CHIPS, no evening snacks, no anything except home-prepared food of reasonable calorie levels, adequate fiber, and lots of taste.
I also walked on my noon hour each day, a little over twenty minutes each day. I'm still trying to figure out what route I should walk and for how long, in the vicinity of our new building. I miss the parking lot with its nine laps to the mile. My weight is down a few pounds since Wednesday; I'm back on track toward reaching my weight loss goals for the year.
At work I found I had excellent powers of concentration. Yesterday and today most of my time went to a street widening project in Bentonville, for which public bids will be received on Thursday next and the final changes must be done my Monday. Today's work was tedious: going through the utility relocation sheets twice and counting all the pipe, fittings and valves on the water lines. It's grunt work, normally assigned to a junior level person. Actually, it was done by a junior staffer, and based on bidder questions I was pretty sure it was botched. So I checked it in detail, and sure enough found way too many errors to let it go by. So I took it upon myself to do the material take-off and, hopefully, get it right.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with turkey soup? In the process of having more energy and focus, I wrote three articles for Suite101.com. Two I wrote yesterday, one on an engineering/construction topic and one on stock trading. These were in line with my general strategy of writing articles with "evergreen" content. That is, they will be as applicable to a search on any day of the year. This is as opposed to articles of seasonal interest or current interest (per a news item). So all of my 61 articles at Suite were evergreen. Until today.
I decided to dip a toe into the seasonal article market. I decided to put my expertise with turkey soup as the basis. Each year I render the bones and make soup. It's almost down to a routine. I don't use a recipe, just add ingredients according to how I think they will work.
For my article, I used a strategy for trying to coax people to click on ads, whereby my revenue comes. First I checked "turkey soup" in a Google Adsense tool to see what the popular search words were and the amount advertisers are willing to pay for ads associated with those words, and ranked them. I checked the title on the Google sandbox and verified that it would attract appropriate ads. I used the best key word phrases in the title, subtitle, and internal headings. I found four copyright-free, apt photos, and used some more key word phrases as their captions.
But, the other strategy: I did not give a recipe for turkey soup. If I did that (which I could have even though I don't use a recipe), the reader would be satisfied and not bother to click on an ad. But, if I can convince the reader that it would be a good thing for them to make turkey soup on Thanksgiving, and leave them short of a complete recipe, maybe--just maybe--they will be enticed to click on an ad for a recipe, and I'll get some revenue.
We'll see how this strategy works. The article has some good ads attached to it right now, though none specifically for "turkey soup recipes". The ads change regularly, however, and vary depending upon the IPA of the computer. Right now it ranks on the first page of Google for some of the keyword searches, even in first place for a couple. Oh, it also qualifies for a Suite 101 contest going on right now for writers. Today so far it's had six page views, which is not bad for an article's first six hours. Stay tuned.
I also walked on my noon hour each day, a little over twenty minutes each day. I'm still trying to figure out what route I should walk and for how long, in the vicinity of our new building. I miss the parking lot with its nine laps to the mile. My weight is down a few pounds since Wednesday; I'm back on track toward reaching my weight loss goals for the year.
At work I found I had excellent powers of concentration. Yesterday and today most of my time went to a street widening project in Bentonville, for which public bids will be received on Thursday next and the final changes must be done my Monday. Today's work was tedious: going through the utility relocation sheets twice and counting all the pipe, fittings and valves on the water lines. It's grunt work, normally assigned to a junior level person. Actually, it was done by a junior staffer, and based on bidder questions I was pretty sure it was botched. So I checked it in detail, and sure enough found way too many errors to let it go by. So I took it upon myself to do the material take-off and, hopefully, get it right.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with turkey soup? In the process of having more energy and focus, I wrote three articles for Suite101.com. Two I wrote yesterday, one on an engineering/construction topic and one on stock trading. These were in line with my general strategy of writing articles with "evergreen" content. That is, they will be as applicable to a search on any day of the year. This is as opposed to articles of seasonal interest or current interest (per a news item). So all of my 61 articles at Suite were evergreen. Until today.
I decided to dip a toe into the seasonal article market. I decided to put my expertise with turkey soup as the basis. Each year I render the bones and make soup. It's almost down to a routine. I don't use a recipe, just add ingredients according to how I think they will work.
For my article, I used a strategy for trying to coax people to click on ads, whereby my revenue comes. First I checked "turkey soup" in a Google Adsense tool to see what the popular search words were and the amount advertisers are willing to pay for ads associated with those words, and ranked them. I checked the title on the Google sandbox and verified that it would attract appropriate ads. I used the best key word phrases in the title, subtitle, and internal headings. I found four copyright-free, apt photos, and used some more key word phrases as their captions.
But, the other strategy: I did not give a recipe for turkey soup. If I did that (which I could have even though I don't use a recipe), the reader would be satisfied and not bother to click on an ad. But, if I can convince the reader that it would be a good thing for them to make turkey soup on Thanksgiving, and leave them short of a complete recipe, maybe--just maybe--they will be enticed to click on an ad for a recipe, and I'll get some revenue.
We'll see how this strategy works. The article has some good ads attached to it right now, though none specifically for "turkey soup recipes". The ads change regularly, however, and vary depending upon the IPA of the computer. Right now it ranks on the first page of Google for some of the keyword searches, even in first place for a couple. Oh, it also qualifies for a Suite 101 contest going on right now for writers. Today so far it's had six page views, which is not bad for an article's first six hours. Stay tuned.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Venture Out and Project Explorer
At Suite101.com, I've now been posting articles for four months. Posted my 56th article there last night, and have one in mind to whip out today. These average about 750 words each, so that's about 42,000 words, I figure. That productivity on my novel would have put me more than halfway through.
At Suite we have a forum--a message board--where writers, editors, and administrators interact about Suite, writing in general, and occasionally the competition. Some Suite writer will fairly regularly post something about "Oh, my revenues are so low!" Yet when they say what they've earned they are miles and miles ahead of me. I'll post how low my revenues are and tell them they are actually doing fairly well.
It seems I've selected to write in topics that simply don't generate much ad revenue: civil engineering, American history, poetry. I have a few articles in other topics, but most are in these. After my last post about low revenues, a friend on the board, Donald, presented a challenge to me, himself, and others with low revenue. Break outside of our boxes, he said. Find a new topic to write in. Write one article in it, track what happens for a month, and report weekly to the forum. He called it the "Venture Out and Project Explorer" challenge. Only three of us accepted it.
Searching for other categories/topics to post in, I decided maybe I could do something from my stock trading experience. I'm not trading now, leaving that to my better half to do, but I've taken a bunch of training and have traded off and on for five years, and we have a couple of books and other references I can use. Why not? Would articles on stock trading generate ad clicks? I figured it was worth trying.
I selected Bollinger Bands as my first topic in the VO&PE program. This is a technical indicator of the range a stock price is likely to trade in. I did my research in our technical analysis books. I checked Google Adsense to see how many monthly searches were made for that term and how much advertisers are willing to pay for ads for web pages with those key words, and determined both were high enough. I checked the Google Sandbox (don't ask me how it got that name), and found there were adequate numbers of ads ready to go for that kind of article. So I wrote the article and posted it on Wednesday, Oct 21, 2009.
Now, the statistics that Suite 101 give the writer does not include how much each article earns. We get: daily page views; page views accumulated for three months; daily revenue; accumulated revenue; page views per article; and details on how our articles were access (i.e. a search engine with the search term used, another web page, or Suite internal). So I'll never know whether my Bollinger Bands article earns a bunch of money or not. But what I can know is that Wednesday I had record page views, and I had a revenue spike to my second highest day so far.
Neither of these is definitive. It could be coincidence that the revenue went up. And the page views were not that much higher than the previous record, and they were down on Thursday. But, if the revenue stays up, maybe--just maybe--I've found something I can write on that will generate a little income. If I could earn every day the amount I earned on Wednesday, that would be almost twelve tanks of gas in a year.
And that would be fine.
At Suite we have a forum--a message board--where writers, editors, and administrators interact about Suite, writing in general, and occasionally the competition. Some Suite writer will fairly regularly post something about "Oh, my revenues are so low!" Yet when they say what they've earned they are miles and miles ahead of me. I'll post how low my revenues are and tell them they are actually doing fairly well.
It seems I've selected to write in topics that simply don't generate much ad revenue: civil engineering, American history, poetry. I have a few articles in other topics, but most are in these. After my last post about low revenues, a friend on the board, Donald, presented a challenge to me, himself, and others with low revenue. Break outside of our boxes, he said. Find a new topic to write in. Write one article in it, track what happens for a month, and report weekly to the forum. He called it the "Venture Out and Project Explorer" challenge. Only three of us accepted it.
Searching for other categories/topics to post in, I decided maybe I could do something from my stock trading experience. I'm not trading now, leaving that to my better half to do, but I've taken a bunch of training and have traded off and on for five years, and we have a couple of books and other references I can use. Why not? Would articles on stock trading generate ad clicks? I figured it was worth trying.
I selected Bollinger Bands as my first topic in the VO&PE program. This is a technical indicator of the range a stock price is likely to trade in. I did my research in our technical analysis books. I checked Google Adsense to see how many monthly searches were made for that term and how much advertisers are willing to pay for ads for web pages with those key words, and determined both were high enough. I checked the Google Sandbox (don't ask me how it got that name), and found there were adequate numbers of ads ready to go for that kind of article. So I wrote the article and posted it on Wednesday, Oct 21, 2009.
Now, the statistics that Suite 101 give the writer does not include how much each article earns. We get: daily page views; page views accumulated for three months; daily revenue; accumulated revenue; page views per article; and details on how our articles were access (i.e. a search engine with the search term used, another web page, or Suite internal). So I'll never know whether my Bollinger Bands article earns a bunch of money or not. But what I can know is that Wednesday I had record page views, and I had a revenue spike to my second highest day so far.
Neither of these is definitive. It could be coincidence that the revenue went up. And the page views were not that much higher than the previous record, and they were down on Thursday. But, if the revenue stays up, maybe--just maybe--I've found something I can write on that will generate a little income. If I could earn every day the amount I earned on Wednesday, that would be almost twelve tanks of gas in a year.
And that would be fine.
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