Another One Bites the Dust... well, TWO actually

The online writing business continues to be "not much of anything."

One-time (and short-lived) Bubblews "alternative" CGP Gallery has shut down. Or maybe been shut down by WordPress for deceptive practices. Or maybe they didn't pay their bills... not surprising, either way. The site reeked of "making promises we can't keep," so the demise was almost inevitable.

Meanwhile, one of the "serious" writing sites-- Zujava-- has announced that it will be closing down in July. I always liked Zujava-- it had a nice clean interface, and would only accept "real" writers who put up quality content.

Unfortunately, the wheels sort of fell off when Zujava ran into trouble with Amazon Associates and lost their affiliate account, meaning that contributors were left without one of the primary ways they could earn income from the site. Things never quite recovered, and the flow of new content more or less stopped.

Whereas I never really got very deep into publishing on the site, I was able to "triangulate" from my four published articles that the entire site was barely taking in $200-300 a month in ad revenues... to be divided up among 4000-odd articles. Basically, a handful of change. There's a limit to just how much "serious" writers are willing to create content and get nothing in return.

At this point, I am sort of "soured" on the whole writing online for money experience. I will continue to add some content on HubPages, and I will probably transfer my Zujava content there... but that's about the extent of it. I am somewhat worried that HubPages is now pretty much "the only came in town," and especially as it relates to better quality content. That's a bit scary.

I definitely need to make sure I have backup copies of all my articles there.

Monthly Report: May 2008

Well, it's time for another monthly update.

My sources seem a bit scattered. Yes, some comes from AdSense. And basically, my income from HubPages comes from the AdSense account I attached to that. What's a bit depressing about that is that since AdSense doesn't pay out till my account balance reaches $100, it could be five years (or more!) before I get paid.

I have been writing a bit about my efforts on Helium, this month. One thing I don't much care for with that site is that it really doesn't have very good "reporting" utilities.

If I want to see my traffic and income for last month, that can't be done. There's a "month to date" report, but unless you sit there with "your finger on the trigger" at the last moment of the month, you can't use it. You have to get to $25.00 before you can cash out, anyway... so retrieving numbers would mainly be so I could share them here.

I haven't really mentioned that I write at Gather, either... mostly because that side rewards you with "points," rather than cash. Sure, you can exchange your "points" for Amazon Gift cards which are "same as cash" but I've decided not to include that here.

Anyway, I'm going to stick to what I can directly track to my efforts. In May 2008, income from AdSense was $0.85, coming from 578 page impressions. Not exactly breaking any records here...

Monthly Report: April 2008

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."
~Steve Furtick

I have always related to the above quote because it reminds me of the way we compare ourselves to-- and typically fall short of-- other people's success stories. We learn about "writing online for money" and then read about someone who has monetized their blog to the tune of $10,000.00 a month and we go "oh wow!"

I've already been doing this gig for about 10 years, and whereas these grand result may be true... they are only true for 1-in-50,000 who start down this road.

Most almost all writers' results are more modest negligible.

And for that same reason, they stop.

"Well, I thought at least I'd be able to make $1,000 a month!" they say, at the end of their 6th month of making $8.77.

Anyway, this being "The Lazy Writer's Blog," I thought I would start publishing candid monthly updates, neither hiding anything nor "exaggerating,"

You know, "just the facts, ma'am."

So, without further ado, the results from the month of April 2008 were as follows:

Ad revenue from Google Adsense: $0.59.

No, I'm being dead serious, here. This is the sum total from last month. I guess there's no place to go but "up," from here. Stay tuned for future reports!

Of course, as I start expanding my horizons and writing on other "revenue sites," those will be added in.

How I Admire those... Ambitious Writers

There is a part of me that envies those writers who seem to be "making it" by having blogs, web sites, articles and content "all over creation."

I wonder where they get the energy to do all that.

One of my challenges in becoming a "serious" writer is (and always has been) that I generally lack the ambition and drive to create a lot of content. It's not that I am lacking in ideas... I'm just not a very "energetic" person, and I really never was.

On some level, I feel slightly envious of those who are able to do all these things.

I have a lot of viable ideas, and I often feel like I could be "One Of Them" if only I had the stick-to-it-iveness to carry my plans to completion. For example, I had some really nice ambitions for my Inner Reflections web site... but I have barely managed to get the "HSP Section" completed, and it's a constant struggle to not make the site look perpetually abandoned and out-of-date.

Of course-- in complete fairness-- I've never had the financial wherewithall to be able to just "take a month" to do nothing but create a "writing empire." I'm lucky if I can "afford" to steal 20 minutes now and then to write a short blog post like this one. So I guess what I am really envious of is being able to feel something other than "totally exhausted" when I have completed the daily task of "making the money to pay for electricity and food."

I expect what holds many writers back is precisely the fact that writing is so often a "long term" income proposition... you "write now" and then gradually get paid over a long period of time. That's both the beauty-- and drawback-- of royalty income.

Is this REALLY possible?

I have been exploring the possibilities offered by a couple of revenue sharing sites, HubPages, and Squidoo.

As is the case with many new things I "have to learn," I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the seeming complexity of both sites' writing interfaces. Being a writer with ADD and a tendency towards perfectionism, it can be a real struggle for me to "get started" on anything until I have a full and complete understanding of "how it works."

Part of this stems from growing up in an environment where anything that even remotely resembled "crap" (a.k.a. "less than PERFECT") was deeply frowned upon.

It's problematic for me because I tend to have quick and fleeting ideas about what I want to write about... but it takes me hours to "polish" a thought enough to feel good about releasing it to the public. And by then the idea is half gone, anyway... a bit like the way we wake up with dreams, but have forgotten most of them by the time we get to our first cup of coffee.

Anyway, I have started on HubPages... put up a few initial articles I am not unhappy about.