Business and Society Articles

Out with the old, in with the robots. My time writing for NewsBreak is now over. The upstart news app used writers like me to get their bandwagon going, and now it has discarded us after becoming respectable in the realm of news. I can’t blame them when it comes to me, as I’ve been writing opinion pieces exclusively for the last year. I started out writing local news articles about Oregon, but changed my strategy because of time constraints. I would take news articles from Oregon and rewrite them basically; not with AI, just with my noggin. Some did well, others were stalled by their algorithm. I could never tell if an article would do well or not. All in all, I made more money with NB than any other writing effort online besides copywriting. This brings me a lot of satisfaction with my time there, but sadly, it has come to an end. Recently, they sent me an email explaining they are going to make all the contributors reapply to be a contributor, as their strategy has changed; something...

Investing in the writing piece and the unknown results. Unknown Results of Writing Piece If, for instance, I knew every article would reach 10k views and 7k reads, my approach would probably be different — I can hear some say, just visualize and believe, act as though it already happened, yet it hasn’t and that ends up being a powerful truth even with an optimistic attitude. Having confidence in the performance of an article is different than having confidence in the content within the writing piece. The writer could very well feel the piece was worthy and done well, even if it doesn’t do well according to their set performance standards when published. Let’s say this, writers on all levels are generally dealing with the unknown when publishing a writing piece. For those who are not assured a decent result because of status, position, and level in the industry (those who haven’t “paid their dues” maybe), the unknown can become a detriment to writing for any monetary gain or accolades. ...

Writing as an art provides valuable expression for society. While everyone has different reasons for writing, true artists shouldn’t write what others want. Some say, “Write what people want to read according to the trends,” which might expedite making money, yet isn’t a true artistic expression. What Art Is Art is an expression the artist wants others to understand or experience. True art expresses a unique and original message or meaning to others, as this is the artist’s work and contribution to society and community. Writing can be an art form, expression through the written word; an article is a piece of art, expressing the artist’s unique creation to others in society and humanity. Notes on AI Art Some may specialize in AI art as though it were written word art, yet without human expression, it can only be AI art at best. The imitation of art by robots doesn’t express what a unique human would, rather, it expresses the culmination of all human information and knowledge — see the ...

Our success is up to us. Success, as a general term to describe the results that constitute a success in a writer’s mind, as it meets or exceeded our expectations. And volume is how many articles/content pieces it takes for each writer to succeed with various levels of quality involved. Each writer will have their personal goals and ways to measure the results achieved through writing an article. Each writer has differing perspectives on what constitutes quality with a finished product. With these important variables in mind, let’s explore how many articles it might take with a theoretical estimation based upon experience and what I’ve seen in my decades-long online writing journey. Most writers can’t expect to attract a lot of views when writing only one article a month, or 12 a year. They may be able to stay in the game at the base line level and maintain some trickle of income, yet it isn’t the volume needed to reach that level of success to maintain. Still, we must first appreciate...

Focusing Distractions with Complexity With all of the options writers and content creators have now, finding the right one for each system sometimes takes experimentation. Flops and failures often come with such brimming efforts of zeal, yet the glimmer of hope remains in pictures of automated simplicity. In the beginning, things were simple; then came the expansion, the maintenance, building, creating, researching, and other such effort and time into what can only be called a writing system. Organizing this complex miasma of disparate platforms, the writer (insert content creator as needed) has become a blogger, marketer, promotor, maintenance tech, and organizing master. The actual writing is pushed to the side. Finding Balance Each writer organizes their system differently according to their needs and abilities. I’ve always admired someone who focuses on one platform and doesn’t get stretched too thin. We can get distracted by constantly expanding and trying new things. What’s neede...

Writing online entails considering how many impressions, views, visitors/reads, comments, shares, and reactions each article gets. These digital assets symbolize the money made from each article. How many views did that article get — that poem, story, blog post, picture, art piece? The number will determine how much money the article made. While most writers appreciate even one single read, this doesn’t pay much. On the high end, this might bring .02 cents. Usually, around half a cent, or $5 RMP. Different Writing Platforms and Efforts At Medium views don’t turn into a specific amount of money, rather they are merely an indication of possible money — reads are more important at Medium, as they correlate closely with any money made. Each read at Medium this month made me around that .02 cent mark! The reads at Medium might not be from members, so may not make us money. Still, on average, both views and reads equal a certain estimated amount for each Medium writer. At Vocal, they make it...

Using a writing philosophy that can’t fail. Writing always held a special place in my heart, likely because I was raised by a songwriter mother who encouraged my artistic efforts. I wasn't an avid reader at a young age, yet I like to create things. I remember creating a few role-playing games that no one would really play with me. I created a 9-hole hoola hoop golf course outside our home in the country while living in Tennessee, using Wiffle balls — had the course map to boot. Then, I remember writing my first story or book about three characters going to the big city — I won’t say the name of it because some uncreative hack will steal it before I finally get around to publishing it. Lastly, before I was in high school, I also wrote a few chapters for another book that was going to be a great novel. After all this initial creativity, I started reading fantasy books and other books required from school and found around the home. For instance, I read a Louis L’Amour book and Stephen...

February was the first month for me being monetized at NewsBreak and the second month for Medium. The results are in and they are drastically different. In this article, I’ll share the details and some thoughts about them. To make this easier with how both of these writing sites show stats, let’s compare the stats from Feb. 4 to March 4, or the last 30 days. NewsBreak Articles: 20 Views: 60k Likes: 1,104 Money made: $440 Medium Articles: 14 Views: 1,734 Claps: 124 Money made: $10.75 ----------------- Although my Medium account goes back to August 2018, I’ve only started seriously writing there since early Dec. 2022 (three months ago). I started writing at NewsBreak in late Dec. 2022. Here are some stats on my overall efforts at these platforms: NewsBreak Followers: 803 Articles: 44 Medium Followers: 417 Articles: 69 -------------- While I’m grateful for any money made on both platforms, the difference is fairly drastic. NewsBreak is a place where you can actually make decent money for ...

Maybe this is a perspective only older people can relate to.  When I was in high school in the mid-90s, I used a typewriter to accomplish my essay assignments that needed to be typed. This really wasn’t that long ago, yet how things have changed. Part of this change is people’s perspectives when it comes to being entitled to write online. Not only do they now expect to be published on sites like Medium, but also make money. And if the money isn’t enough for them to make a living they are critical of the entire platform, like it owes them something. I realize writers need to make money to live, so write a book or submit articles to magazines and other paying publications. Sign a book deal with a publishing house or self-publish, etc. There are so many different ways to make money writing now; the difficult part is everyone else is doing it too, which makes it hard to stand out and find an audience. Even on Medium, the competition is thick with so many different types of people tryin...

I remember one distinct moment during a career development course at a community college I attended 21 years ago when the professor asked us to stand up and do an exercise.  She asked the class to separate themselves into two groups; those who thought of themselves as leaders on one side of the classroom and those who thought of themselves as followers on the other.  This question came without warning at the beginning of the class, so we didn’t have time to think it through. The result was probably more sincere because of this suddenness.  For some context, the class consisted of about 30 students, mostly young adults under 21 YOA; I was about 21 years old. An interesting thing happened.  An Important Life Lesson in Social Perception The vast majority of the class went to the leader side of the class and only two of us went to the follower side. I was one of the followers along with another young man. How awkward; then the professor focused on us followers and ask...

Thinking back to 2014 I remember this exciting website that hit the scene called Bubblews. The theme was atrocious and the type of writing was mostly inane, yet the video game atmosphere and hopes of making cash drew many people into its playful bubble. It didn’t take me long to catch on to the most exciting money-making endeavor for online writers, although it did seem like I was late to the party considering how rapidly everyone moved up in social status with every view, star (like), and comment being compensated for payment through PayPal. Bubblews originally hit the scene in beta mode in 2012, which is why I probably felt a bit late coming to the scene in late 2014. They didn’t officially launch until July 16, 2014, according to Business Wire . The founders were 26-year-olds Arvind Dixit and Jason Zuccari who moved to San Francisco to launch the grand idea. To be fair, this was during an early time with internet adoption, only a couple of years after smartphones became ubiquitous ...

  With the internet changing so rapidly, being stuck in time with an archaic blog and writing to the obscure winds of vacant space within its outdated theme seems to be an exercise in futility at times. Yes, I can syndicate the content to places like Medium, yet what is the point of pointing them back to my blog anyway, and won’t that ruin the chances of the Medium article being indexed if by chance the site thought it worthy? All of these thoughts and more run through the mind of the old blogger. The crux of the issue has always been strategy and the lack thereof. Honestly, the majority of my writing efforts online have been committed to the strategy and technical aspects of blog design, building, and formatting. What a waste to spend the majority of my writing time trying to face the huge and ever-changing learning curve of building a blog and creating an online writing strategy. The importance of having a strategy of some sort is vital, yet in the back of my blogging mind, there...

Giving credit to whom it is due isn’t always the goal of an article or eBook. Many articles and eBooks online are actually written by someone other than the byline indicates. Byline writing means writing and getting credit for the work rather than ghostwriting (or content writing) and letting someone else get the credit. Most of you already know the distinction, yet I thought I would clarify what I meant. I have written around a thousand articles as a ghostwriter, mostly for business blogs. I worked through broker sites online and got paid around .01 to .05 cents per word. Essentially, I earned around $10 to $50 for each article. The biggest article I ever wrote paid $120 for a two-thousand-word article about elevators. At the time, I wanted to write for my blogs and as a freelance writer, but I needed to make money and I didn’t have time to develop my freelancing capabilities. I was grateful for the opportunity to refine my craft and make some money to add to my day jobs, yet what did...