Five Pieces of Advice for Triond Writers Looking to Make Profit

In this article I will look at how you can publicize your articles, what makes a well written article, and some of the dangers of writing for profit.

Stumble upon, Delicious, Digg and so forth

Most site sharing services’ TOS’s Specifically prohibit you from advertising websites in which you make a profit. It doesn’t matter if you are actually providing good content for the service; you are still in violation of their TOS, which can lead to all your activities coming to a close as you are unceremoniously banned.

Saying that, there are no rules against others people submitting your work. If you have good friends willing to submit, then by all means ask them to. But remember one very important thing- if they provide poor content, their reputation suffers for it. If you are a true friend, you will NOT pressure them into submitting your work for you. Let them decide if it is good enough and go from there.

Stumble users in particular can be very, very antagonistic (thanks to Poprock-Kiss for this information). If just one of them thinks your site is a moneymaking scam, or a shoddy piece of work thrown out before it’s ready, they will thumbs down you, then probably get their friends to do the same. If you’re a scammer, then pretty much every website you’ve ever submitted will get the same treatment. If you’ve been using stumble to advertise, then you MAY get lucky, and suffer only an attack on that one site.

If you are going to use these sites, then respect the community by providing content that you have not published. This will demonstrate that you do follow the ideals of the service, and are not using it as a cash cow. Reasonable users will then “overlook” a few self promotion articles if you are providing content to the community. The golden rule is this:

Site sharing services are not your advertising tool. You have no right to advertise on them. If you do, you take matters into your own hands. ALWAYS submit other content and take an active part in the community to demonstrate to others you are not abusing the service.

The Best- First And Last

There’s an old saying, “Always save the best for last.” This doesn’t work when writing to make profit. If you can’t maintain quality throughout, then you need to put it in two places, the start and end. If someone starts reading your work and gets bored, they will not carry on.

Keep them interested for the first 200-300 words or so though, and they will more than likely finish reading it. You’ll need to do all sorts of things to keep them reading, trick them into thinking there is little text by adding pictures and embedded youtube videos, make the article personal, try to make it sound more interesting with the title and introduction. But above all, WRITE WELL. All the tricks in the book won’t help you if the reader doesn’t find your article easy to follow, or if you’re spouting bullshit for half of it. There is no such thing as free money, and if you want to get paid, you need to put in the effort. You owe it to yourself, and more importantly the readers.

Also ensure you end well. Users will decide whether to comment/ Click I like it / submit to site sharing services, AFTER they have read your article. Generally (but by no means universally), readers will decide how they felt about an article based on the feelings they had finishing it, especially if they did not read it through properly, or skimmed it.

One example of this in action is my article documenting my travels through the war cemeteries of Flanders; Walking with the dead. For me, this article represented writing from the heart, and I harnessed that by ensuring my feelings came through within the article. I tried to involve the reader, to tell an interesting story and help them learn a little about the brave sacrifices of the soldiers of the Great War. I played this up heavily at the start, showing how this was a personal story (Why do you think gossip magazines sell so well?), and again at the end by allowing my true feelings and thoughts to be put to paper. This emotional involvement, hopefully involves the reader.

We all publish articles we’ve not put much effort into. Some are just funny little skits, some we really couldn’t be bothered with but wrote to keep up momentum. While it’s fine to publish these, be careful about advertising them. Poor quality reflects on you poorly as a writer, plus they will sink like an iron brick on site sharing services. Filler does not make good content, and in the worse case scenario if advertised, will result in a negative backlash (see above about the stumblers.)

Because of this, a good ending is more likely to get you more publicity. Golden Rule number two:

If you are going to advertise the article, ensure the quality of your work is high. Put extra effort into the start and finish of any article you publish.

Write what you know about

Bullshit can be smelt a mile off. If you are attempting to write a serious article, then do your homework. For opinion pieces or comedy, this isn’t so important, but you’d be surprised what people pick up on. For example, in my article “Five Great Science Fiction Villains“, the very first comment was correcting me on something I’d missed out. Granted, I was writing from a different perspective, but the example remains. Even in offbeat pieces, people get annoyed by incorrect information. And that can mean the difference between a stumble/digg/bookmark, and a slap in the chops.

You can also help make your articles more interesting and demonstrate your knowledge by providing links to your sources. Hyperlink to places you found extra information, embed videos that are relevant to the article. These things help the reader feel more involved, and make them feel your article has more “worth” as you have provided them with the tools to help them learn more on the topic. They will respect you more for that, and you will reap the rewards because of it. Again an example: “Five Fantastic Video Game Development For People To Get Excited About

Notice how I provide extra information at the end of each section, as well as embedding videos in the articles themselves. Embedding videos is very useful as it helps prevent “reader fatigue’ (gives the reader a break), as well as providing more information- and they help disguise the amount of text. Golden Rule Number Three:

Write what you know about. Don’t lie. Spice your articles up by adding links to external resources in new and interesting ways.

Some things sell better than others

You can’t sell fresh air. Some articles, no matter how much you advertise them just won’t sell well. On Triond, the most popular articles seem to be “Top 10 x.”, or “World’s blank-iest blank.” Lists and top tens. Sometimes if you want to make money you need to accept that your thoughtful and interesting piece about life in a poverty stricken slum just isn’t going to sell well. Quality is also a major issue as I have mentioned before. You can provide the most interesting top 10 list of all time but if you’ve not written it properly- it will fall like a lead balloon.

Interestingly, what works for some people doesn’t work for others. This probably goes back to the quality issue. One person may be able to write the most entertaining top 10 list in the world, yet be incapable of writing an informative piece on the impacts of the Iraq war. A person who can do well at the latter, may find they can make just as much from that as the person making a top ten list. You’ll need to experiment to find your comfort zone. Golden Rule Four:

If you’re writing for profit, then write profitable articles.

Karma

As a Buddhist I believe in the principle of Karma, but this is often misunderstood in the general public. Karma is not some strange force that deals out punishment to bad people and rewards to good people; it’s more of a philosophy. The old phrase “You reap what you sow” best describes it. For example, if you treat people badly, they will treat you badly. If you look after people, then you’ll find that when you need it, they’ll look after you. It’s no mystical force, it’s common sense. I’ve found this to be true in my life- for the most part (There are some exceptions where trying to be good to people has left me severely boned), and it remains very true for you, a content provider.

Treat your readers with respect, even if it is for no other reason than they are the means by which you get your pay cheque. If you provide your readers with quality content, help them grow and learn, or even simply amuse them, it will come back to you as good fortune. In this case, you will have fans who will come back and help advertise your articles by sending them to friends, adding them to site sharing services, providing good feedback, or even just giving you a pat of the back for a job well done. All these things will help you write more, and write better content. The snowball effect continues, and in the end you are left much better off, having helped to enrich/amuse/teach others along the way. And hey, you might make a friend or two while you’re at it. It’s not ALL about the money you know…

Golden Rule Five:

Treat your readers with respect

Closing advice:

Write! For Buddha/God/Vishnu/Satan/Odin/Jesus/Science’s sake, write! Sitting around here all day reading my work isn’t going to get you anywhere. Now get out there and write me a killer article! And submit it to me, I want to see it! Whenever I write a piece of advice about writing, I always include this little bit. There is no substitute for experience. You must find your own path, you must make your own mistakes, and you must find what works and what doesn’t for yourself. Reading all the advice in the world will not help unless you put finger to key, now get to it and give me a masterpiece!

So, the Golden Rules are:

• Site sharing services are not your advertising tool. You have no right to advertise on them. If you do, you take matters into your own hands. ALWAYS submit other content and take an active part in the community to demonstrate to others you are not abusing the service.
• If you are going to advertise the article, ensure the quality of your work is high. Put extra effort into the start and finish of any article you publish.
• Write what you know about. Don’t lie. Spice your articles up by adding links to external resources in new and interesting ways.
• If you’re writing for profit, then write profitable articles.
• Treat your readers with respect.
• Don’t just sit there, Write!

For more advice on writing, visit this link.