Writing Diva

Write for Life123.com

 

I had almost given up on hearing from Life123.com. I contacted them back in August, stating my interest in applying to write for their site. A couple of days ago, I received and email from them saying they were interested in having me apply to write for their site.

Rise Through the Ranks
Anyone can fill out an application to become a Member of the Life123.com site. Once you become a member, you can submit your first article, and if it is approved by the Life123 Editors, you become a Contributor on their site. Contributors can submit a maximum 10 articles per month.

Once you've published 10 articles, and have at least 500 users viewing your articles, you get promoted to being a Writer. Writers can submit a maximum of 40 articles per month. Once you've written at least 25 articles for Life123.com, and have at least 2,500 users viewing your articles, you get promoted to being an Expert. Experts can write a maximum of 150 articles per month.

Life123 Retains Copyright
All articles must be original, and not previously published on the Internet. Life123 retains all online copyrights to your articles. But they have a non-exclusive copyright to other versions of the article. So in theory, you could submit your articles to a print publication, or bundle all your articles together and have them published in a book.

Life123 requires the articles to be between 300 and 1,000 words long. You are not allowed to add pictures or links to the articles.

Earning Money on Life123
I can't get into the details of how writers earn money on Life123, but it is based on unique page views. Each article you submit to Life123, that is approved, can earn a maximum of $20. It's not clear if the writers on Life123 are currently attracting a lot of readers. It is a fairly new site, but they claim to be receiving around 1 million unique visitors per month. Another site I write for gets around 8 to 12 million unique visitors per month, so I'm not sure if Life123 is big enough to attract enough readers to earn it's writers a decent return on their investment.

Testing Out Life123
I submitted an article yesterday afternoon, and received an email this morning stating they have accepted the article, which makes me an official contributor to the site. They don't require pictures or links with the articles you submit. In fact, you are not allowed to submit pictures or links.

The article I wrote for them didn't take very long to write, since I didn't have to take photos, upload photos, find related links to add to the article, etc..., like I have to do for some of the other sites I write for.

The Jury is Still Out
Here's a link to the first article I wrote for Life123, just FYI: Duathlons; Multisport Event for Non-Swimmers.

There is no obligation for me to write a minimum number of articles for them per month. I'll give the site a chance, and see if I make any $$ from it. Otherwise, I'll file the site under, not worth writing for.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Suite101 Opens Offices in France & Spain

N E W S R E L E A S E

For release: September 16, 2009

CANADA’S LARGEST ONLINE PUBLISHER SUITE101.COM GOES TRULY GLOBAL WITH LAUNCH OF WEBSITES AND OFFICES IN SPAIN AND FRANCE

Online magazine that shares revenues with writers becomes the first website of its kind in Spanish and French markets; adding to its presence in Germany and North America.

September 16, 2009 (Vancouver, BC, Canada) -- Suite101.com Media Inc. announced its expansion into Spanish and French-language countries this week with the opening of offices in Madrid and Paris, and the launch of online magazines Suite101.net and Suite101.fr.

The sites, with launch events happening in Miami and Madrid this week and in Paris on September 22, are the first of their kind for Spanish and French freelance writers. Writers earn dividend-style revenue for their published articles, work with professional editors, and retain all copyright to their work.

“This kind of online revenue-share journalism is a totally new model for writers of these languages,” explains Peter Berger, president and CEO of Suite101.com Media. “Our goal is to become a known outlet for Spanish and French freelance writers as an option alongside writing work at newspapers and magazines. We also want to reach experts who might not consider themselves writers.”

In Madrid, Eva Fontiveros leads Suite101.net as Editor-in-Chief with a team of editors in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, the US (Miami), and Venezuela. Jérémy Reboul is Editor-in-Chief of Suite101.fr in Paris, working with editors in France.

The Suite101 model is a success in North America where it has operated Suite101.com from Vancouver, British Columbia for over a decade. The English-language site publishes articles by 2,500 freelance writers and gets 17 million visitors a month, most of whom find the site while searching the Internet for information on a specific topic. Today Suite101.com is the fourth most-visited Canadian-owned web site (behind the Government of Canada and ahead of CBC.ca) in terms of monthly traffic, which has doubled in each of the past three years. A German-language site launched in 2008 went from zero to one million monthly unique visitors in ten months.

“Looking ahead we see immense growth in this business,” explains Berger. “Basically we create opportunities for writers and experts to write and publish, and we link them to readers who are hungry for reliable, trusted, well-written online articles.”

More About Suite101.com

Suite101.com is known in the online writing world as a respected site where freelance writers and journalists, as well as home-based experts, write and publish short, helpful, fact-based articles online. Suite101 features 20 sections such as Business & Finance, Film & TV, Health & Wellness, Travel, and Food & Drink. New articles are posted daily and advertising revenue from articles is shared with writers. This dividend- or royalty-style payment happens each month, even if a writer adds no new articles. In July 2009, a 29-year-old part-time Suite101 writer set a monthly earnings record of US$5000 from her articles on Suite101.com.

About Suite101.com Media Inc.

Suite101.com Media Inc. is a private Canadian company based in Vancouver, British Columbia with offices in Berlin, Madrid and Paris. It has been a successful consumer internet operation for over twelve years and has an international full-time staff of 28, plus over 40 editors working around the world. The company is co-owned by Burda Digital Ventures of Munich (the venture capital arm of Hubert Burda Media) and Vancouver-based Internet entrepreneur Dr. Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures, Nexopia.com and ex of Abebooks.com.

Suite101.com Media Inc. operates Suite101.com, Suite101.de, Suite101.fr, and Suite101.net.

Media Contact

Marci Hotsenpiller
Communications Director
Suite101.com Media Inc.
Tel: 250 650 6524
E-mail: marci.hotsenpiller@suite101.com

Write for Huliq

 I just received an email from someone over at Huliq asking if I'd be interested in posting up a guest blog. I've never heard of them, so I went to their website for further information.

Write for Free?
I personally am not interested in writing for them. You have to post up at least 15 blog posts before they would even consider paying you. Then it's just a share of the advertising revenue they generate on the site that they would share with you. And they might not even accept you into their revenue sharing program after you write the 15 articles. So basically, they just received 15 articles from you for FREE - are you kidding me!?!

Slave Labor
I write for multiple online sites at the moment. It makes more sense to concentrate on the sites I already write for, where I know I'm making $$. I don't need another site with a vague promise of revenue sharing in the future. Even if you are accepted into Huliq's revenue sharing program, they only pay you $1.50 per 1,000 pageviews for each of your articles. That's slave labor if you ask me. And if you are excepted into the revenue sharing program, they want you to write a minimum of 5 articles per week.

I'd love to hear from anyone currently writing for Huliq that is actually making money.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Here's the details of writing for Huliq, for anyone that may be interested:

Publish Your News On HULIQ, Get Paid

Is something important happening in your local community that you think would interest at least few hundred or thousand people?

Did you see a video news in You Tube or other video network that you think is worth to share with HUILQ community and the world?

Did you just take a picture that is worth thousand words?

Did you just read a news story and feel that the story may not be complete, or perhaps you have strong opinion or more to add to that story?

Did you just witness an event that you think needs to be properly reported?

If yes to any of these, would you please consider writing, sharing, uploading or reporting what you think may be helpful for other to know.

Let's share knowledge and information.

It is free.

Please, register here and share your news.

HULIQ Revenue Sharing Program

How Do I participate in the Revenue Sharing Program (RSP)?

The Revenue Sharing Program (RSP) is open to all authors who successfully publish 15 news stories with growing pageviews. After you have 15 approved news articles published at www.huliq.com please contact us and let us know so we can initiate the necessary steps for your RSP participation.

Please note: HULIQ team retains sole right on editorial matters of the site.

How much will I be paid?

HULIQ will pay $1.50 for every 1000 pageviews that your stories will generate. We can’t say how much will you be paid, but as your stories grow with the growth of your pageviews your revenue will grow.

How Long Will RSP Continue?

We plan to run this campaign as the driving force behind HULIQ’s growth. We do retain the right to halt the program or make adjustments to it as necessary if it's not working out in it's current form for whatever reason.

RSP Account Termination

We reserve the right to terminate your RSP account if it has been inactive and no article has been published in the past 3 months.

How often should I write news?

We would like our writers to have a compelling experience in our RSP program, therefore, we ask that they make a commitment to journalism and write at least five stories per week. However, the more your write the more you will earn.

Will you provide news sources and training?

Yes, once you contact us after successful publishing of 15 news stories we will review them and if we decide to accept them into the RSP program we will work with you closely to help you with the news sources and how to write news articles that will bring you the maximum amount of pageviews.

How would I receive payments?

We plan to make the payments via PayPal. Checks are possible if you are in USA.

Register Blogs on Blog Catalog

Although my Bike Diva blog is 1 1/2 years old, and my Run Diva blog is 8 months old, all my other diva blogs were started just a few months ago. At the end of 2008, I purchased the domain names for Tea Diva, Conspiracy Diva, Backyard Diva, Craft Diva, Cuisine Diva, Horror Diva and Writing Diva.

Blog Directories
Since most of the diva blogs are so new, I was looking for blog directories that would let me list all the blogs for free. I did a search on blog catalogs, and found a site called Blog Catalog.

Blog Catalog has a simple form that you fill out for each blog you want to register. Blog Catalog asks for the following information:

• Blog title
• Blog URL
• Blog country
• Blog language
• Primary category
• Secondary category
• 6 keyword tags
• Blog description

You can add one or two categories for each blog you are registering on Blog Catalog. For instance, my Bike Diva blog categories are Adventure-Outdoor Activity-Biking and Sports-Cycling. Blog Catalog is also a social networking site that lets you interact and follow other bloggers. You can also list all the online communities you belong to, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Verifying Your Blog
Before Blog Catalog will include your blog on their site, they must verify that your site exists, and you must place a Blog Catalog button or widget on your blog. There are 9 different buttons to choose from and 3 different widget styles. If you are using one of the widgets, you can customize it to match your blog. In lieu of adding a Blog Catalog button or widget to each site you are registering, you can add a meta tag to the home page of your blog.

I'd like to hear from anyone that is using Blog Catalog to list their blogs. The basic listing service on Blog Catalog is free. There is also a premium account option available on the site.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Write for Examiner.com

I'm always looking for freelance writing opportunities. Although I come from a print publication background, for the past two years I've been concentrating on on-line writing.A lot of the writing I do is sports related, so I research various opportunities for writing about cycling, running and multisport events.

I am the Herbs & Spices Feature Writer on Suite101. The writer's forums on Suite101 are always talking about other freelance writing jobs. I saw a link for Examiner.com and went to their website to check it out.

National and Local Examiners
You can write on a variety of local or national topics for Examiner.com. When I applied back in February, only a couple Florida towns were listed, so I applied to be the National Running Fitness Examiner. I got an email asking if I would like to be the Miami Running Fitness Examiner. I live 2 counties to the north of Miami, so I was a bit confused as to why they would want me to cover Miami. But they said that was just a general geographical location, and that they would be adding additional towns in the future.

I posted up my first article to Examiner.com on March 9, 2009. I am supposed to post 2-7 short articles per week. I cover events in the tri-county area; Miami/Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. I also occasionally list national running events and add reviews of running related products.

Pay Rate
Right now Examiner.com pays it's writers based on page views, which at the moment is 1 cent per page view. Not a lot, but if you write a lot of articles, and advertise your site, you can end up with pretty decent page views.

Each Examiner is assigned a mentor/editor. My editor sends me emails every week or so with lots of great tips for writing content that will attract readers.

Write for Examiner
If you would like to apply to be an Examiner, you can use me as a referral when filling out the application. At the bottom of the application, where it says I was referred by an Examiner, click the box that says find your Examiner, then fill in ID:5304 : Lynn Smythe : Miami Running Fitness Examiner.

Available Topics
There are a ton of available topics you can apply to write for on Examiner.com. Main topic headings include entertainment, business, family/home, life, news/politics, sports/recreation. Click on any of the main topics, and you will see a plethora of subtopics listed. I am the Miami Running Fitness Examiner, which is a subtopic of sports & recreation. And you can even suggest a topic if you don't see your area of expertise listed.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Free Paint.net Photo Editing Software

I've always used the free Paint program that comes preloaded on computers to manipulate my photographs. I've been buying a few computer magazines during the last month or so, because I want to buy a new laptop computer.

One of the computer magazines mentioned the program Paint.net. Paint.net is a free software program, that has a few more bells and whistles than Paint. I downloaded Paint.net to both my desktop and laptop computers and have been using it ever since.

According to the Paint.net website:

"Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials and plugins.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software

that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool."

I highly recommend Paint.net as a powerful, and FREE replacement for Windows Paint.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Magazine Writing for Freelancers

Back in the days before I discovered I could be paid to write for online sites, I used to write for a variety of print publications. By print publications I mean magazines, newsletters and books.

Some of the print publications I have had articles published in include Jewelry Crafts, Lapidary Journal, Beadwork, The Herb Quarterly, The Farmer's Almanac and BackHome Magazine.

I've also had a variety of articles published in various Llewellyn Worldwide publications including their yearly Herbal Almanac, Magical Almanac, Witches' Datebook and Witches' Calendar.

In future posts I will detail my experiences writing freelance articles for some of these publications.

In the meantime, check out the Magazine Guidelines Database over on the Freelance Writing website. This database contains writer's guidelines and contact information for over 750 magazines.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Freelance Writing Website

The Freelance Writing website is a terrific resource for freelance writer's to check out. This site focuses on writing jobs and articles for freelance writers. The main topics covered include writing contests, writing events, freelance writing jobs and discussion forums.

They keep a current list of freelance writing jobs posted from a variety of sites including elance, jobboard, ifreelance, writing career, simply hired, craiglist, get-a-freelancer, scriptlance and more. I appreciate this feature as I visit the site almost daily. Instead of having to check out 10 or more seperate websites, I can just visit this one site to see the current listing of freelance jobs.

There is also an entire section of writer's guidelines for over 750 print magazines. I appreciate this feature as I started my freelance career writing for print publications and have only been writing online for a few months. The print media news sections includes news on new magazine launches and editorial staff changes.

The articles for writers section includes how-to articles on creative writing, non-fiction writing, fiction writing, book writing, business writing, and freelancing.

I could spend hours on the Freelance Writing website checking out all the links and reading a variety of interesting articles. I have this site added to my bookmarks so I can check it out on a regular basis.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Work for Suite101

I've been a contributing writer on Suite101 since October 16th, 2007. I was contacted towards the beginning of November, 2007 asking if I would like to become a feature writer, after having 13 articles published.

Page View Payments
Suite101 pays writers based on the number of page views each of their articles receives. Suite earns revenue through Google Adsense and shares a portion of that revenue with their writers. All accepted writers start out as a Contributing Writer. Contributing writers must write a minimum of 10 articles during every three month period in order to keep their accounts active.

You have the option to apply for a Feature Writer position in one of their open topics after you have written a minimum of 10 articles. Feature Writers earn an additional 20% page view bonus. Feature Writers must write a minimum of 1 article and 1 blog on their featured topic each week as well as adding and monitoring discussions and polls on their topic. Featured Writers can continue to write articles on other topics but most of their time should be spent on writing for and promoting their topic.

Positive Feedback
Suite is one of the few onlines sites that actually gives you feedback. During the first few weeks of writing for Suite I was contacted a number of times by the Associate Editor and Food & Drink Editor on how to improve my article keywords, article titles and properly format my articles according to Suite standards etc. After my 13th article was published I received a 3 page in-depth email from the Associate Editor saying that after implementing various suggestions as outlined in the email that I could apply to be a feature writer.

Feature Writer
The Associate Editor mentioned that Suite101 was revamping some of their topics and said that they would be adding a Herbs & Spices topic to the Food & Drink section (I mostly write about herbs). But the editor also said she would consider me for Organic Gardening or Vegetable Gardening, both of which were open topics under the Home & Garden section. On November 28th I made my formal request to be promoted to the Herbs & Spices Feature Writer and the very next day I received an email approving my application.

Of the articles I had published prior to becoming a feature writer they were in all different categories. But many of them were cooking related so the Food & Drink editor emailed to say she would support my feature writer application if I ever decided to apply for any of the open Food & Drink topics.

Although Suite101 doesn't offer upfront payments for articles I am getting much higher page views over there than on any of my other online sites. And I'm hoping being able to add Suite101 Herbs & Spices Feature Writer to my resume will help me land future writing gigs with other sites/publications.

I'm not making tons of money yet but my PV's keep increasing. I posted up my 100th article on April 20, 2009. Feature writer's receive an additional 10% bonus after they reach 100 articles. So now I'm getting a 30% bonus on top of my regular share of ad revenue.

When I first started writing for Suite101, I was only making a dollar or two per month. Now I am making between $50 and $75 per month. I will continue to make money with Suite101 even if I don't publish any additional articles on the site. But the more articles you publish, the higher your page views and the higher your revenue.

Promoting Your Articles
In order to receive a high number of page views and thus earn more money you must spend quite a bit of time linking your articles to other sites and adding keywords for maximum SEO (search engine optimization). Being fairly new to online writing this took a bit of time for me to learn. But now adding appropriate keywords and linking my articles to various social bookmarking sites is pretty easy.

I mostly use Facebook and Twitter to promote my Suite101 articles. I also post a link to my articles on my personal blog: lynnsmythe.blogspot.com.

For additional information on writing for Suite101 visit their Writer’s Guidelines page. Suite101 currently receives between 8 and 12 million unique visitors every month.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva

Write for Know More Media

Here's a business based website that is looking for more writers to write for their blog network.

Write for Know More Media
Know More Media invites you to become a contributing author to our blog network specializing in business information and news. We seek topical experts who are also savvy at blogging and building online readership; you must be committed to growing the blog's traffic and understand how to network online. We want people who can write with a clear, strong, competent, and honest voice. If you have a passion, knowledge, or expertise in a certain business topic or industry, you may be an ideal candidate to become a Know More Media Author.

Get paid to write from anywhere you can find an Internet connection. Authors typically earn from $150 - $1000 per month, receiving a combined compensation for each article/blog post, blog traffic, and other earnings opportunities. All authors are expected to publish at least one post a day, 5 days a week, as well as perform the blog promotion and networking necessary for blog traffic growth and the success of online media.

Why become a Know More Media Author?
Make money writing!
Get instantly published.
Work from home or any location where you can connect to the Internet.
Establish your reputation as an expert in a field.
Expand your expertise on a topic.
Write what you want without supervisory editing
Increase promotion for your personal business endeavors
Hone and improve your writing and research skills through daily usage.
Take part in the future of online publishing and media—blogging.
Join a leading network of business experts.

What We Look for in an Author
Passion. You must love the topic—possess a passion for it. You must have a passion to succeed and grow your blog's readership and traffic. You’ll be writing on it extensively; if you don’t have a love for it, you will never endure. Plus, this passion will shine through in your writing; it will be infectious.

Business Expertise
You must be a personal expert in your topic or field. Know More Media is a place where information seekers come to find new information, new advice, and original opinions. If you can only re-hash what everyone else is saying on the topic, sorry, but you’re not a fit for us. We want expertise from its source—you.

Writing Ability
Superior blogging is both what you say and how you say it. Great writing is the ability to transform your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge into the written word in a lucid, concise, and entertaining manner. Can you edit out your own typos? Do you use proper grammar? Can you express yourself clearly? We don’t edit your content for you—you must be able to do it yourself.

A Voice
As we like to say, “It’s all about the voice.” Plain, boring, dry toast, just-tell-the-facts writing is not what we want. We want personality; we want uniqueness; we want you to have a singular, identifiable voice that people want to listen to.

Further Information
Visit the writer's guidelines page on the Know More Media website to find out more information including the blogging topics that are currently available.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Writing Diva