“The RoseBouquet”

If you are a writer from whom the articles just flow, and you want to know where to go online to be published - better still, to get paid for your writing, then I have some advice for you.

Recently two different friends said they were posting articles on http://www.helium.com/ but getting disappointed in the lack of attention and payment. I went to investigate that site and do some research. Ah-ha, shades of Suite101.com revived! (It still exists, and there are others. See this page for some outside reviews of how suite101 treats their writers; Suite101 is looking for writers).

When I first came on the web in 1999 I stopped to read anything and everything for and about writers and writing. I met a number of people who became my subscribers, who loved to share about their articles posted on sites like suite101. There were others, but that’s the name that pops back in my memory now. I was already busy writing content for my sites and ezines, but I recall when Angela Hoy the Editor/publisher of Writers’ Weekly urged writers not to give away their writing at such sites. They were doing a disservice to all writers generally. Much as I wanted to get paid for my writing, I was willing to give it away for free too, just so as to build up my reputation as a writer. That where a lot of beginning writers are at, and it explains why helium and suite101 attract hungry writers.

Eventually I came to see Angela’s wisdom in this. Those sites do not screen for quality, and though some promise to pay you it is the site owners who are raking in the cash. As soon as I did a google search for related sites ones commenting on helium.com I found this blog with some bitter insights; Guedelbouy blogspot

I don’t want to shoot down my friends, and I don’t want to say “stay away” from such sites, because you can use them to your advantage in some circumstances. But I would advise you to do some serious research so that you use the best ones, and you know how to use them to your benefit.

Writing is a good and worthy skill. If you are going to give it away, treat it like a fine gift, and don’t toss it into a pigstye to be trampled. Rather take time to research and learn how to use your writing like a sharp tool in your hand to accomplish much good, and yes, to support yourself financially.

There are also many article directory sites. They were popping up faster than popcorn last year, but the first one I ever encountered was Marketing-Seek. Rozey Gean was the first online person to correspond with me. She’s streamlined her site tremendously, but I know she screens the articles on her site carefully, and that’s a safe place to post your articles, and for publishers and website owners to go get good content. However, she doesn’t pay you.

Another very good one is IdeaMarketers.com Marnie Pherson, the founder and operator of that site is a prolific Christian writer herself. Just watching how she markets her books is an education.

These women will both tell you that when you post free articles and offer them to others to use, you are really using your articles as long ads to win you visitors to your web site. It’s a very effective and free promotional tool. You write professional quality articles, and make sure that in your short bio description at the end, you put a link to your website. When people read your article and are impressed with your knowledge, they click that link to learn more about you, and voila, you have a warm visitor to your site, where you may have a book to sell them.

If you really want to make money with your articles, you need to put them on a professional-looking, domain-site of your own, and place Google’s AdSense ads (no cost to you) strategically on your web pages. Then, depending on the keywords in your articles and their value to advertisers with Google, you will earn money from the clicks visitors to your site place on those ads. (I made $200 that way last year, and expect to get that and more each month once I have my new SBI site up and flourishing!)

If you have enough written on any one topic to create an e-book, you can sell it from your site as an info-product and make money as your own publisher! Or simply put them on web pages, and let the AdSense ads be your quiet income stream.

You can also sign up (again for free) with appropriate affiliate sites, and place links to their products on your web pages that have related keywords. When your visitors click on those links and purchase the affiliate owner’s products, you will get a commission. Of course, this hardly amounts to anything until you build up traffic - lots of visitors to your site. If only one in a hundred is going to click and buy, you need to have hundreds of visitors daily to your site.

This is where many site owners are now becoming article writers and posting them on as many of those article directories as they can. Because it’s free advertising, right? Do you see how it is the prolific writers who can win best at this game?

That’s assuming that you will take the time to research and study how it is all done, and take the time to build a good, profitable themed site. Once you understand how to do this, you don’t have to limit yourself to one site. Repeat your success.

If you are not such a great writer, or the words don’t flow easily for you, you will need to team up with a good writer friend, and work out a mutually acceptable agreement, so that you run the system, and the writer provides the content.

If you really like the idea of an article directory or database site, and if though you don’t think you can write well, you do recognize good writing… then here’s another idea. Go to ArticleDashboard and download the free software to set up such a site on your own domain. Let other writers submit articles to you, and you just sit there to read and screen them. Make sure you plaster effective ads all over your web pages, and you can make money off of other writer’s articles.

As your research and grasp of modern publishing opportunities increases, you may want to consider self-publishing. Here’s a couple of sites with some excellent and very frank information; FonerBooks and ParaPublishing (a great reference site!)

You may also want to check out Print-on-Demand publishing, but research that carefully because there are con-artists in that new field too by now. I found thirty of them when I settled on Booklocker. I’m sure there are many more. But this topic can be a different article.