Odd and ends

[AuntieEmma[$]]

This is from the same newsletter I posted from before (and written in the same horrible unreadable format!). This time it's got a bunch of random stuff. Near the bottom, there is a list of sites that are seeking writers. I checked out the quiz site -- turns out they pay a grand total of 50 cents per question & answer set, so I'm not too enthused. (Though maybe I should look at the glass as being half full: 50 cents, for something that would probably take me about five minutes, is more than three times what I make at Epinions in a month. ). Anyway, thought there might be something here that might interest somebody.

-----------------------
To:
webwritingbuzz@yahoogroups.com


From:
"mysmys_99" | Block Address | Add to Address Book

Date:
Sat, 15 Dec 2001 22:23:31 -0000

Subject:
Content Counts: Web Writing Buzz Newsletter

Reply-to:
webwritingbuzz-owner@yahoogroups.com




------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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Content Counts: Web Writing Buzz Newsletter
For the Week December 15th-22nd, 2001
Sponsored by The Writer's Online Survival Guide-
the essential guide to getting work online in 2002.
http://mysmys.tripod.com/thewritersonlinesurvivalguide/


In this Issue:

*Feature Article- Where have all the web content sites
gone?
*Gifts for Your Career: 10 Things You Can Give
Yourself for the
Holidays!
*Job Section: Writing Jobs from Around the Web
*Job Hunt Highlight: Burry Man's Writing Center
*Sign of the Times: Ramen Noodles, anybody?
*Forward this to a friend!

************************************************************
Where have all the web content sites gone?
by Melissa Brewer (mysmys@home.com)
http://mysmys.tripod.com/thewritersonlinesurvivalguide/

Many web content websites have vanished or stopped in
their tracks in
the last few months.

It's quite amazing that this has happened, actually,
in the aftermath
of the September 11th tragedies -- more people than
ever are now
using the web to get vital news information in
real-time. (Family
members in my household now visit international news
websites to get
a different perspective on the events going on!)

Content is still around, websites still advertise for
content
creation jobs, and yet the websites for web writers
and the content
community have dissipated to a small, yet vital, few.

So, if you're looking for support, news, and training,
where should
you go? Here's a rundown of the surviving -- and
thriving -- websites
and communities for those of us who write online!

Web Page Content
http://www.webpagecontent.com/
Articles and products to improve web content
From the website: "75+ ways to make your web content
more usable,
readable, credible, accessible and profitable, and
attract more
traffic through search engines. New articles every
week or so." An
interesting mix of content and creation how-to's.

Contentious
http://www.contentious.com/articles/011210.htm
Amy Gehran continues to write her monthly articles on
online writing
and content creation at www.contentious.com. Meet with
her when she
travels to DC!

Online Content UK
http://www.onlinecontentuk.org
Online Content UK has moved up to fill the gap in the
UK content
scene. They are now hosting events, an online
discussion group, and
they plan on adding UK Content Creation jobs in early
2002.

Independents Day
http://www.independentsday.org/about_id/aboutid.php
From the website: "INDEPENDENTS DAY is a worldwide
project
celebrating independent content and design on the web.
It's supported
by an informal network of designers, artists, writers,
editors,
developers, and producers who create content and
design to enrich the
web."

Web Writer News
http://www.webwriternews.com
Emily Moorehead's website is packed with news,
columns, and resources
for web writers.

If I missed your website, which is a definite
possibility, please
email me your details at mysmys@home.com and I'll let
everyone know
you're out there! Don't miss her site!

************************************************************
Gifts for Your Career: 10 Things You Can Give Yourself
for the
Holidays
(Okay, if you have writer-friends, you can get gifts
for them too!)
by Melissa Brewer
http://mysmys.tripod.com/thewritersonlinesurvivalguide/

What would make your writing life a little easier? A
little empathy?
A lot more assignments? A little organization? Here
are 10 Free
things you can give to yourself or pass along to
somebody else to
simplify, expand, and increase the growth rate of your
writing
career.

Need a lift or encouragement? Give Yourself:

1. A Writing Buddy. That's right -- not a friend,
spouse, or editor
that reads your writing -- but a bona-fide writing
buddy to share
writing, heartache, and encouragement with. You can
post or answer
ads for legitimate writing buddies at
http://www.writerbuddy.com/classifieds/ .

2. Writing time outside of your normal environment.
Off the computer
screen and out of the house. Go sit in a quiet spot
and write with a
pen and paper. Go to the mall and sit in the food
court. Or, if
you're not productive in that kind of chaos, get thee
to a library!

3. Inspirational writing books. Chicken Soup for the
Writer's Soul.
The Well-Fed Writer. Get them used and cheaper at
Half.com.

4. The electronic poetry kit. An online version of the
magnetic
poetry kit, free! http://prominence.com/java/poetry/


Need More Work? Give Yourself:

1. Time to market yourself, seriously. Send out ten
email queries a
day. Go to yahoogroups.com and subscribe to every
writing-job-list
out there. Check your email every morning and respond
to the jobs you
want as soon as you read them.

2. A network. Join the local Chamber of Commerce or
email the web
design firms in your area. Let them know what you do
and how you do
it. Tell them you would like to set up a referral
network in your
area. If you know a client that needs programming or
website
expertise, you'll refer that client to them. Ask them
to do the same
to you. Forward them leads for their business that you
come across
online and let them know you thought of them.

3. Books or eBooks with markets for writers. (I have
one I've
written, you can scroll down to get the details-- but
any book will
do!) Go through them and pull out specific places
you'll seek out
jobs and gig. Don't buy a book and procrastinate --
send your queries
and resumes out, ASAP!

Need More Organization? Give Yourself:

1. Tax know-how. For US writers, April is much sooner
than we think.
Prepare yourself with the Writer's Tax Guide at
http://foolscap-
quill.com/wptg2001.html. Writers in the UK can go to
http://www.ukbizresource.com/article1006.html for
general tax
information for small businesses and Canadian writers
can get general
tax information here:
http://www.writersguildofcanada.com/...bulletin.html.

2. Office supplies. Special pretty pens and pencils. A
lot of writers
are office supply junkies at heart. Go to your local
office
superstore and invest in things you might need. Get
those filing
cabinets you've been wanting for years.

3. Submission-tracking software to keep track of
queries,
manuscripts, and replied to job postings that you have
sent out. The
software may seem a bit pricey, but you can try it out
free at:
http://dolphinsoftware.bc.ca/software/writers/


************************************************************
Writing Jobs from Around the Web

*About this section: We've literally spent several
hours searching
the web for these jobs -- all of them are from search
engines and
publications vs. job boards or other newsletters. (So
we don't fill
our readers inboxes with duplicates of another
publication!) Your
newsletter or website may reprint this list in its
entirety as long
as you attribute them to the Web Writing Buzz.

Adventure Travel Needs Writers -- it's a fellowship so
you must pay
an application fee!
http://www.adventuretravelabroad.com/listingsp3.cfm?
listing=8032&fkcountry=104

The Newsletter Company Seeks Freelance Writers
http://www.thenewslettercompany.com/...asso#freelance

Aspire Seeks Freelance Writers
http://www.nussu.nus.edu.sg/about/as...rtunities.html

Sabine Magazine Needs Freelance Writers
http://www.sabine-mag.com/ads/writers.htm

Orato.com's Writing Guidelines
http://www.orato.com/frames/guide.htm

It Pays to Learn Seeks Quiz Writers
http://itpaystolearn.com/guidelines.asp?ref_id=ACS953

Grub n' Boogie needs review writers (Orange county,
$30/review)
http://grubnboogie.com/corp/employment.htm

Science/Health Writers Wanted
http://www.life-enhancement.com/displayart.asp?ID=527

Girl's Life Seeks Freelance Writers
http://www.girlslife.com/writerguidelines.html

Genealogy Today Needs UK Writers
http://www.genealogytoday.com/uk/writers.html

Jewish UK Needs Writers
http://www.jewish.co.uk/contact.php3

Laissez Faire City Times needs freelance writers
http://www.zolatimes.com/constant/Writers.html

Paintball Magazine Needs Articles
http://www.paintball2xtremes.com/writers02.htm

************************************************************
Job Hunt Highlight: Burry Man's Writing Center
http://www.burryman.com

Burry Man's Writing center is centered in Scotland,
but has literally
the largest collection of writing-related resources,
articles, and
links to markets that I think I have ever seen. He
covers almost
every genre for writers in a clear, effective way that
will inspire
you to explore new markets.


************************************************************
Sign of the Times: 200+ Ramen Noodle Recipes
http://mattfischer.com/ramen/

One of my writing friends (I won't name names!) passed
this link on
as a "sort-of-a-joke" thing. :-) I'm not sure which is
worse; a
website with this amount of ramen noodle recipes or
the fact that
it's popular enough to have a long-standing web
existence! At least
the recipes are free...
Of course, I say, don't short-change yourselves--You
can get the
Online Writer's Survival Guide for 4 bucks instead of
spending a few
bucks to spice up your ramen noodles! :-) It's better
than being a
starving writing. 230+ job sources or 200+ ramen
noodle recipes? Let
your stomach decide!

You can view or purchase the ebook at:
http://mysmys.tripod.com/thewritersonlinesurvivalguide/


If you are sending the book as a gift for a writing
buddy, email me
to let me know when and where you want it delivered.
:-)

*Forward this to a friend!*

If you forward this email to a friend, let me know.
Send me their
email address or Yahoo name and if they subscribe to
this newsletter,
I'll be sure to send you a token of appreciation!


***********************************************************

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[realtraveller]

Beware: Itpaystolearn.com

I was taken in by this. I sent in a raft of quiz questions. Never got paid. They didn't have to. The fine print states that they can USE the questions you send in as "audition" questions and never pay for them. They pay only if they ask you to send in more.

Well, with writers sending in plenty of questions, when will they ever run out of material and actually have to pay for more.

Beware: This is a scam.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Realtraveller, thanks for the warning. I was actually sitting here thinking about it -- I had come to EA to get the link to take another look. I was trying to justify it to myself as a possibility, although my initial impression was that the money, at 50 cents per q&a, wouldn't be worth it. I had done trivia quizzes (not for itpaystolearn, but for somebody else) in the past at the rate of $500 for 300 q&a sets (comes out to $1.67 per q&a), and I had felt that wasn't worth it, money-wise, because it took a lot longer than I had expected -- so I thought that $0.50 would be out of the question. But the way I was trying to justify it was that what itpaystolearn wants would be much quicker to do, that it wouldn't take as long as trivia where you're hunting around for interesting, obscure facts, and I started to think, well, if I could do 50 or 60 q&a's an hour, that would be okay ...

Except that's probably not going to be possible, it's probably going to take a lot longer than that. Also, even before I saw your note, I thought it did have the hallmarks of ... well, perhaps not exactly a full-blown scam, necessarily, but something that was going to be trouble down the line -- because of the "audition" questions you mentioned, and because you have to register at the main site first, and because their info page just had this overall condescending, they're doing us a favor kind of attitude which always seems to go hand-in-hand, in my experience, with a bit of a rip-off mentality.

I did have a question for you, though. It says in their info that if your "audition" questions are good (and I'm sure yours were) that they'll contact you with a new, paying assignment. Did they ever do that? (If not, I can stop trying to justify this despite all my misgivings and put this thing to rest. )

[emeleel]

Gotta back up Realtraveller on this one. Apparently, many months ago when they were really hard up for questions, they did pay. Somebody here on EA, did, in fact get paid for a bunch of them. But when they opened up paying questions back, August I think it was, the next month, Sept, they opened up the audition process again. I sent in questions for 3 levels in Bible (each level is a separate audition) and I know they were good ones - I worked really hard to get good ones, make sure they weren't duplicates, and so on. Never heard a word back from them. Also, I hang out at the MyCoupons Reward Programs board, and I asked there 2 or 3 times if *anyone* had gotten a contract from September's audition. Nobody ever said they did. I honestly believe they just took our audition questions, threw them in the database, and sat back and rested on them.

Definitely a scam.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Thanks, emeleel. These warning stories are great, very helpful. Looks like it paystolearn, but it doesn't paytowriteforthem (groan) . Really, you and realtraveller have saved me the trouble of getting all set up for a project that's not going to come through.

[realtraveller]

I'm a huge trivia buff (meaning my head is full of useless fun facts). I spent about two days going through my reference books to verify each fact. I made the questions interesting and sometimes humorous. I'm no novice. I've been paid to write articles of "fun facts" for a legitimate paying publication.

I gave it a whirl. I gave them a chance. I made sure none of my questions were duplicates. (My questions were submitted in early September). I've never heard back.

P. S. Some of the questions on the site are obscure and frankly boring; even to a trivia whiz.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Thanks again for the heads up. Glad I heard about this before I put any more time into it.