How I got here

I came here a week ago, last Sunday. My reasoning was primarily monetary. I’m a former newspaper journalist. A laid-off journalist. And we all know newspapers are dying. It’s not easy finding a job, though I keep busy working on a novel. So, I looked around the Web at all the different sites that tell you you can write and make money. I settled on Triond for two reasons: 1.) I can write whatever I want. I don’t have to wait for someone to assign me stories, and I don’t have to wade through a list of other people’s story ideas. 2.) I can write as much as I want. Sure, I have to wait for the stories to be published, but again, I don’t have to wait to be assigned stories.

I have to admit, I was turned off quite a bit by how little Triond pays, but I also thought that was to be expected. For the most part, Triond’s users are not professional writers (or photographers or video makers) so they don’t get paid a professional wage. I mean no offense against anyone not a professional writer, but business is business.

After my first week here, I have made 88 cents. I average about 8 articles a day, probably with about three hours of work a day. Was it worth it? To be honest, time will tell.

Why everyone else is here

From what I’ve read on the forums and in some articles, there are three reasons for most users to turn to the Triond site. 1.) People come here just for the camaraderie. They enjoy chatting with other people on the forums and making new online friends. 2.) Others come here in hopes of learning through critiques of their work. 3.) Some people come to Triond to make money.

All of these can be good reasons for joining with Triond. For the three types of people I mentioned above, was it worth it? They would each have to voice their own opinion, but below are some of mine.

The forums at Triond

Can you make new friends in the Triond forums? Of course you can. I wouldn’t say I’ve made any great friends, yet, on Triond, but there have been a handful of other writers who I’ve written back and forth with and who I’ve come to respect somewhat.

But honestly, for the most part I’ve found the forums to be a mess and a nightmare. People are rude to the point of obnoxiousness, and there is far too much harsh language. I’m no prude. I cuss like a sailor all the time in the real world, but I expect more in an online forum. Maybe it’s because most of the other Internet forums I participate in are pretty nice places. Triond has some of that, but there’s more than enough nonsense going on; there are even hints of scamming and SPAMming going on.

I strongly suggest someone at Triond corporate needs to begin moderating the forums. It doesn’t even have to cost anything. I’m sure there are some long-time users who would gladly fill in every once in a while as moderation police. I realize moderating is a no-no idea for a lot of people on the Internet, and they start screaming “censorship!”; to them, I say it’s time to grow up. More and more the Internet is becoming entangled with the real world. It’s time people began treating it that way. Just because you’re on the other side of the planet doesn’t mean you can’t show some common courtesy, especially to people you don’t even know.

As they are, I don’t use the Triond forums much. I don’t plan to. As the forums stand now, I think your best bet is to ignore those forums. There’s just too much garbage there. But I have to admit I have found some help there for getting around on Triond, and I’ve met a few pretty good folks there.

But if you think I’m being a stick in the mud about the forums, that’s fine. Go cuss my name in the forums. I probably won’t even know about it, and if I did, I’m not likely to comment.

Working on your craft

I think using Triond to get feedback on your work is fantastic, but beginning writers need to be adult about the criticism they face by putting their material out there for everyone to see. To be fair and honest, I’ve not noticed a lot of prima donnas on Triond. Most people seem sincere about getting opinions of their work. That’s great, and I applaud everyone being brave enough to place their stories and photos and videos before others. It can be frightening, especially for beginners.

Triond can be a great path to getting started, but will you make it rich on Triond?

The BIG question

It seems like every day I get an e-mail or private message or see on the forums where someone is asking “Can you make money on Triond?”

The answer: Of course you can.

The reality: But you’re probably not going to get rich. You’re probably not even going to be able to turn Triond into a full-time job. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not very likely.

I average about 8 articles a day on Triond. If I pushed it a little, I could probably average 10 to 12. If I pushed it a lot, I could probably average about 20 to 25 articles a day. But I’ve been a professional writer for 20 years. From what I’ve seen in Triond articles and forums, most people seem to feel 3 articles a day is a big deal, and it probably is for those just starting and/or who haven’t been writing for a long time. But the reason I bring all this up about average stories per day is because it would take a heck of a lot stories on Triond for one person to be able to make a living just writing on Triond.

I mean a LOT of stories. Not one hundred stories. Not even one thousand stories. Probably something more like ten thousand stories, maybe even more. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And I can go ahead and guess now that a number of you are going to be skeptical of my numbers. Go ahead. Be skeptical. Write a thousand stories and see if you can live off it.

Of course all of us have different needs for a living wage. One person might only need $15,000 (U.S.) a year to survive, while others might need $50,000. That obviously affects how many stories on Triond you would need to make Triond a career for you.

But let’s do a little math, just basic stuff. Let’s say you’ve written a whole bunch of articles for Triond and you average about 10 cents a month per article. Admittedly I’ve only been here a week, but I think 10 cents a month is about accurate; some of your articles might make 25 cents a month, but others are only going to pull in maybe 2 cents a month. So, I’ll stick with the 10 cents average, thinking its safer to average lower and more conservatively. So, at 10 cents a month you’d need one hundred articles just to make 10 dollars a month. Then you’d need one thousand articles to make a hundred dollars a month. And ten thousand articles to make a thousand bucks a month.

And that’s only if you can live on a thousand dollars a month. If you need a higher, more professional wage, you’re probably going to have to have twenty thousand or thirty thousand articles floating around on the Triond Web pages. And that’s just a livable wage for a professional writer, not a big, get-rich wage.

So, the answer is: yes, you can make money on Triond, but you’re probably not going to be able to live on it unless you have someone else keeping you up for a very long time and you can write a whole bunch of stories every day.

What can be done?

So, you still want to try and make money on Triond. Maybe you just want enough money every month to buy a few video games, or to pay the electric bill, or to save up for Christmas shopping. While you might not get rich on Triond, there are some things you can do to increase the number of hits your articles get, and thus the money you bring in every month.

Write, write, write

Write a lot of articles. If you can average 3 a day, at the end of a month you’ll have almost a hundred. That won’t guarantee you’ll be rolling in the dollars, but it’s a good start. The more content you have out there, the more chances you have of getting hits on your work. And the more articles you have available, the more readers will begin to notice you, and they’ll be more likely to read your other articles, too. Also, the more articles you have published, the higher your chances are of one of those articles making it to the section fronts on Triond’s pages, and in my experience that helps to improve the number of hits you get.

Marketing

Marketing is a dirty word to a lot of people, but it has to be done to improve your chances of being read. Simply posting on the Triond forums can help some, but I suggest you need to be more proactive in your marketing. Start a blog, and include links to your Triond articles. If you are a Facebook or MySpace member, use your sites there to promote your work; if you’re not a member of either or both of those sites, go join up. Use online sites such as Diggand StumbleUpon and Twitter to help promote your work.

In my one week of experience, Twitter has been the best promoter of my work. Digg and StumbleUponhave helped a little, but not much. But I probably need to spend more time on those sites making friends and adding links. But so far, Twitter is a big boast for my article hits. Facebook and my personal blog, tyjohnston.blogspot.com, have done pretty good, too.

Write well

You don’t have to be Shakespeare. Heck, I’m not the greatest writer in the world. You think I’d be unemployed if I was? But at least I can put coherent words and sentences together and I’m halfway decent about mistakes (not that I don’t make any … I’m sure there are some in this article, but I’ll get to fixing them). But writing well will increase your readership; readers don’t want to feel like they’re reading the work of an incompetent. If your writing is decent, readers will appreciate it. If your writing is exceptionally strong, more readers will flock to you.

Some last advice

Okay, here’s where I point out a few other things I’ve noticed that can help you get more hits on Triond. First of all, what you write is just as important as how much you write or how well you write. Poetry and short stories don’t seem to get a lot of hits, and thus little money, on Triond. In general, how-to articles and Top 10 lists do pretty well. A lot will also depend on the specific topic. From what I’ve seen, articles on games will net you a lot of readers, but not a lot of money. Travel and pet articles don’t seem to gain as many readers, but they pay better. You’ll just have to try out different strategies, then see what works best for you. Also, I tend to stay away from writing dated articles, such as news stories, because while they might get a lot of hits for a few days, I figure those hits will dry up soon; I prefer more general articles I feel will continue to have some appeal to readers down the road. But that’s just me.

The adventure continues

Now it’s on to week two. Will I still be here in another week? Probably, but who knows? Maybe I’ll land a new job and be too busy to come to Triond often. Time will tell. But maybe, just maybe, Triond will start paying me enough to hang out here more often.

And that 88 cents I made in the first week? Most of that was made in the last three days. That means the amount of money I’m making is going up. I made 25 cents in the last day. 13 cents the day before. 10 cents the day before that. It’s adding up more and more each day.