Writing About Sayings

Go ahead, search for “Cool Sayings,” or “Random Sayings,” or “Inspirational Sayings,” or “Cute Sayings,” or “Funny Sayings”, even “Irish Sayings.” There are literally hundreds of websites devoted to collecting quotes and sayings for just about every topic imaginable. It is a very crowded field. And, why shouldn’t it be?

There are many reasons for writing online sayings collections, not the least of which is the fact that it takes no creative effort. In effect, every “sayings” article is a collection of a hundred small, acceptable plagiarisms. There is sometimes creative material added, but the large bulk of the work is not one’s own. So it can be easy to do. When writers try to come up with ideas for articles on websites for writing online such as eHow, Triond, or Suite101, it can be easier to just write about sayings instead.

Writing about sayings does have its drawbacks, however. In general, all mass-targeted articles that do not contain sales pitchse are usually used to gain revenue from banner ads. However, compared to more lucrative a topics such as structured settlements, insurance, or investing, the relative value of the ads is low. The Google Keyword Tool is useful in getting information about ads in keywords, and there are many ways to calculate residual income from articles.

Furthermore, the average article about sayings is expected to be long. Poetry, for example, is not expected to be long. So although the level of original work is not high, the level of overall work can end up being longer than other categories.

There is a certain kind of warped creative process when it comes to writing about sayings. For example, one can be creative in a way by creating collections of quotes by controversial people, such as Robert Ingersoll or Richard Dawkins. Picking the speaker allows one to advance a kind of message implicit in the very mentality of the person you are quoting – in the cause of Dawkins and Ingersoll, this message could be, “There is no God,” or “We’ve disproved God,” “Hey’ve we’ve created a New Atheist philosophy”.