I have been working my behind off lately to work up a portfolio for my application at Demand Media for an "Expert" position. I needed to show off that I could teach concepts on video, that I had a personality that translated well on screen and that I could work professionally on-air. I had to show a knowledge of social media, including twitter, bloggin, and Facebook, and that I had enough background knowlege that I could star in a diverse series of videos.
I spent so much time worrying about it before I submitted the application that I found myself up late, stressing, worrying... and I shouldn't have. I submitted my application finally on Friday afternoon, and this morning I was accepted. I was so excited! I bounced. I yelled. I called my husband at work. I congratulated myself on building such a fantastic portfolio up.
I discovered through the portfolio making process that I really loved making videos. It took me back to when I was teaching crafting classes regularly. I felt connected and inspired. But there's a hitch.
I discovered today that the Expert position is unpaid.
Seriously? Unpaid? They've been paying me for my writing for a year now, and then get me all excited about the prospect of this position, get me to work up a portfolio for it, then inform me it's unpaid. Seriously?
Technically, they didn't "inform" me at all. I spent all day going over and over their training materials trying to find the pay rate today, and finally asked on the forum. Another "Expert" clued me in.
I think I'll continue to make the Youtube videos. I'm sure that I will, but unless I can find a local videographer willing to split his fee with me, I don't know if there's a point being "talent" for them. At least with YouTube I might make some Adsense revenue eventually!
Showing posts with label DMS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DMS. Show all posts
Monday, 7 November 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Creatively Techie
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| Probably akin more to this |
The truth is, when he starts talking in acronyms I know I'm in trouble. I know a lot more about computers than many of my friends and family do, so when he talks about setting up permissions on his server I'm good. When he goes into coding talk, I'm completely lost, but attempt - usually - to look as though I'm still paying attention. Mentally, I'm preparing a shopping list for the craft store in my head. Oh, right I need to get more of the 931 embroidery floss and I should look for a nice fluffy yarn for that scarf for Mom's birthday, maybe some homespun?.... Then I glance over at him and am getting the glare. I've glazed over again.
Still and all, the talk has made some sort of a difference to me. Recently, some of the basic templates at one of the companies I work for were redone. Everyone else went "Meh, it looks mostly the same." Me? I went "Oh my god, look at all those rounded corners, that took hours!" Because yeah, it does. Not on graphics, but on tables and style sheets, those rounded corners are a real pain to get working correctly. How do I know? There was a Saturday devoted to that on the new website for my husband's IT business, Effortless IT.* You see, I finally convinced him that always giving away his services is counter-productive.Just as I'm about to start giving away my own services, by creating free teaching videos for crochet instead of being paid for classes and lessons. I do this with a higher intent in mind, of course. As mentioned in a previous post, I am working on building up my application to become an "Expert" at DMS. I am still looking for ideas for future videos, by the by, if you have any suggestions.
The fun part of it all is, my creative outlet has become writing about a computer network/IT guy much like my husband. In fact, very very much like my husband. The wife in the story might even be kind of like me. Her dad is definitely my dad. While the story is fictional, the people are people I know. It's the first time I've written something truly lifted from real people since a crazed fan/stalker thought sure my fiction was "real" back when I was in college and managed to look up and call my parents somehow to talk to them about it. Talk about creepy.. and the only similarity in that case was that my story was about a girl who went to the same college as me. If you're interested in an excerpt, click the "Read More" below.
Do you write about real people in your fiction, slightly altered from their own reality? Has it ever had repercussions for you?
*[[Thanks to learning when the glassy eyed stare starts, he's getting really talented at talking about tech subjects in a way that non-techies can understand. Check out the blog on his site to see what I mean.]]
Monday, 24 October 2011
Writing Through Hard Times
One of my intentions on starting this blog, was to talk about what it's really like to be a writer who creates internet content. I haven't done that in a while.
I think that everyone knows that someone out there creates the web pages they surf every day. I don't think they give much thought to how that's done, or who the (wo)man behind the curtain might be. When you get a newsletter in your email box from a retailer, do you think about who composed it? When you do a quick google search to figure out how to baste a turkey when it's tented with foil, do you also research the credentials of the person who wrote the article?
There's a problem on the internet today, and that is the proliferation of bad and incorrect content. It's something google has tried to address with their new Panda system for search engine optimization. This algorithm not only rates the page that is returned in a search result, but evaluates how many ads are on the page, as well as the quality of content on other random pages on the site. This has led to some interesting results.
One of the primary websites that I write for through Demand Media Studios is eHow. When eHow started out on the web, it had a bad reputation for poorly researched and poorly written content. It was similar to sites like Associated Content, where anyone can set themselves up as a writer, write whatever they like, and generate a stream of income based on ad clicks from their pages. It resulted in a huge number of pages that were complete garbage. When Demand Media Studios took over, they did so replete with trained writers and editors who would fact-check and correct basic writing issues, with the intention of creating a better type of content for readers. It seemed to work, until Panda came along.
What Panda has done in general is to make pages such as eHow and Mahalo fall in their rankings. The problem with this is, of course, when it comes to Demand Media Studios, they are making less money. That means they can spend less to create new content. So how do they fix this?
Well, for Demand, it meant rolling out a program called First Look, which allowed the highest rated writers on their site a first chance to grab the few titles they are still releasing. Over the last few months, the titles have gone from a tidal wave, to a river, to a trickle, to a dry desert where everyone sits and clicks F5 all day hoping that the mirage on the horizon is real, and eventually a title will show up to be claimed.
I'm lucky. I'm in the small percent that made it into First Look. I want to feel proud about this, but I'm conflicted. Other writers are getting evicted from their homes, are unable to feed their children, are having vehicles repossessed. Granted, I got a little late on a couple of bills when the titles dried up, but it was nothing serious, and now that I'm finding titles again, I'm able to catch up. Others are so depressed about their financial situations that they are hinting about suicide on the Demand forums. They might just be drama queens. But might is the operative word, and it's a little scary to think that those ten titles I grabbed fresh off the title editor's desk might have made the difference in someone else losing their home. Or their struggle with depression and their life.
I deal with guilt now, whenever I write a title. I also deal with a huge amount of fear. If my scores drop below a 4.0, I'll be booted from the First Look program. Titles are graded on a five point scale, and many copy editors have admitted to never giving out a five, because they think an article would have to be perfect to earn that, and no article is ever perfect (it's actually supposed to indicate "excellent" while a four is to indicate "above average", a three "average", a two "below average" and a one "poor"). My heart races as I go over every article. Did I leave an extra space after a period there? Did I use a serial comma here? And if I did, will the editor like it or not? While Demand requires that we write in AP style, not all editors actually edit in AP style. More than once I have had editors add serial commas and mark down my score because I didn't use them when AP style dictates that they not be used.
There are also some scary, vindictive copy editors out there. From the stories on the forum, I am not the only one who has run into them. Rather than risk a rejection when I get a rewrite from one of them, I let the article expire. This happened recently, and it hurt my heart to let a title go when there are so few out there for the grasping and I need the money. Still, a rejection hurts your scorecard more than an abandoned rewrite does, and that is also a part of your grade; the number of articles accepted immediately, the number of rewrites, the number of abandoned rewrites, and the rejections. I'm lucky enough to have never had a rejection, but my abandoned rewrite percentage hovers at about 5% because of my fear of them.
I try not to talk about editors much, because I'm worried that they'll read it and edit me more harshly in the future because of it. Demand is terribly unbalanced that way, because writers never know the identity of their editors. They can see our names - and occasionally an editor will use my name in the notes, which is both nice and scary at the same time. They post on the same forum, so I'm careful with my words, though I have made a comment or two about how to address craft type articles so as to get them through (write like you're addressing a first grade art class, for instance) that might have been misinterpreted. Fear. Suspicion. It's everywhere at DMS now.
Does this lead to better writing? I don't know. For me, it leads to obsessive researching and writing that almost makes the pay for the articles not worth the hours I spend crafting them.
DMS is starting to move into a new direction, with experts instead of just writers. How that is going to pan out is yet to be seen, though I'm working on setting up the kinds of resources I need now, to be in place so I can apply for an expert position. This blog is a part of that, as is my brand-spanking-new Twitter account, and my facebook fan page. If you are a fan of this blog and you twitter or facebook, I would appreciate your support. My twitter username is CraftyDivaKat, and I go by the same on facebook, with the page located here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafty-Diva-Kat/180386195377438?ref=ts&sk=wall
Also, if you have any requests for videos or how-to articles on some of the things that I do, including crochet, needlework, knitting, scrapbooking, altered books and more, please let me know with a comment here, a post on the facebook page, or a tweet. I'm starting a series of basic crochet instruction videos soon, including eventually a tutorial on making fishnets out of stretchy sock yarn, something I've had many requests to teach. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
I think that everyone knows that someone out there creates the web pages they surf every day. I don't think they give much thought to how that's done, or who the (wo)man behind the curtain might be. When you get a newsletter in your email box from a retailer, do you think about who composed it? When you do a quick google search to figure out how to baste a turkey when it's tented with foil, do you also research the credentials of the person who wrote the article?
There's a problem on the internet today, and that is the proliferation of bad and incorrect content. It's something google has tried to address with their new Panda system for search engine optimization. This algorithm not only rates the page that is returned in a search result, but evaluates how many ads are on the page, as well as the quality of content on other random pages on the site. This has led to some interesting results.
One of the primary websites that I write for through Demand Media Studios is eHow. When eHow started out on the web, it had a bad reputation for poorly researched and poorly written content. It was similar to sites like Associated Content, where anyone can set themselves up as a writer, write whatever they like, and generate a stream of income based on ad clicks from their pages. It resulted in a huge number of pages that were complete garbage. When Demand Media Studios took over, they did so replete with trained writers and editors who would fact-check and correct basic writing issues, with the intention of creating a better type of content for readers. It seemed to work, until Panda came along.
What Panda has done in general is to make pages such as eHow and Mahalo fall in their rankings. The problem with this is, of course, when it comes to Demand Media Studios, they are making less money. That means they can spend less to create new content. So how do they fix this?
Well, for Demand, it meant rolling out a program called First Look, which allowed the highest rated writers on their site a first chance to grab the few titles they are still releasing. Over the last few months, the titles have gone from a tidal wave, to a river, to a trickle, to a dry desert where everyone sits and clicks F5 all day hoping that the mirage on the horizon is real, and eventually a title will show up to be claimed.
I'm lucky. I'm in the small percent that made it into First Look. I want to feel proud about this, but I'm conflicted. Other writers are getting evicted from their homes, are unable to feed their children, are having vehicles repossessed. Granted, I got a little late on a couple of bills when the titles dried up, but it was nothing serious, and now that I'm finding titles again, I'm able to catch up. Others are so depressed about their financial situations that they are hinting about suicide on the Demand forums. They might just be drama queens. But might is the operative word, and it's a little scary to think that those ten titles I grabbed fresh off the title editor's desk might have made the difference in someone else losing their home. Or their struggle with depression and their life.
I deal with guilt now, whenever I write a title. I also deal with a huge amount of fear. If my scores drop below a 4.0, I'll be booted from the First Look program. Titles are graded on a five point scale, and many copy editors have admitted to never giving out a five, because they think an article would have to be perfect to earn that, and no article is ever perfect (it's actually supposed to indicate "excellent" while a four is to indicate "above average", a three "average", a two "below average" and a one "poor"). My heart races as I go over every article. Did I leave an extra space after a period there? Did I use a serial comma here? And if I did, will the editor like it or not? While Demand requires that we write in AP style, not all editors actually edit in AP style. More than once I have had editors add serial commas and mark down my score because I didn't use them when AP style dictates that they not be used.
There are also some scary, vindictive copy editors out there. From the stories on the forum, I am not the only one who has run into them. Rather than risk a rejection when I get a rewrite from one of them, I let the article expire. This happened recently, and it hurt my heart to let a title go when there are so few out there for the grasping and I need the money. Still, a rejection hurts your scorecard more than an abandoned rewrite does, and that is also a part of your grade; the number of articles accepted immediately, the number of rewrites, the number of abandoned rewrites, and the rejections. I'm lucky enough to have never had a rejection, but my abandoned rewrite percentage hovers at about 5% because of my fear of them.
I try not to talk about editors much, because I'm worried that they'll read it and edit me more harshly in the future because of it. Demand is terribly unbalanced that way, because writers never know the identity of their editors. They can see our names - and occasionally an editor will use my name in the notes, which is both nice and scary at the same time. They post on the same forum, so I'm careful with my words, though I have made a comment or two about how to address craft type articles so as to get them through (write like you're addressing a first grade art class, for instance) that might have been misinterpreted. Fear. Suspicion. It's everywhere at DMS now.
Does this lead to better writing? I don't know. For me, it leads to obsessive researching and writing that almost makes the pay for the articles not worth the hours I spend crafting them.
DMS is starting to move into a new direction, with experts instead of just writers. How that is going to pan out is yet to be seen, though I'm working on setting up the kinds of resources I need now, to be in place so I can apply for an expert position. This blog is a part of that, as is my brand-spanking-new Twitter account, and my facebook fan page. If you are a fan of this blog and you twitter or facebook, I would appreciate your support. My twitter username is CraftyDivaKat, and I go by the same on facebook, with the page located here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafty-Diva-Kat/180386195377438?ref=ts&sk=wall
Also, if you have any requests for videos or how-to articles on some of the things that I do, including crochet, needlework, knitting, scrapbooking, altered books and more, please let me know with a comment here, a post on the facebook page, or a tweet. I'm starting a series of basic crochet instruction videos soon, including eventually a tutorial on making fishnets out of stretchy sock yarn, something I've had many requests to teach. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Why?
Why do I blog?
Back when I was first married, I was an avid LiveJournal-er. I had bunches of friends, very few of whom I knew in the "real world" and wrote every day on what it was like to be a newlywed living in a new country under a pile of ice and snow. I laid my struggles bare, and trumpeted my triumphs to the world, and I loved it. I loved the comments and the feeling of community, the expression of thoughts, ideas, dreams and painful moments as well.
Back when I was a high schooler and college student, I journaled in real books. Cloth covered and leather bound, filled with a multitude of variously coloured pens, occasional drawings and horomone-induced rants and raves, they chronicled mood swings and lost romances to what I was sure would be enthralled archaeologists reading them in the next century.
After our "year of hell" in which my husband and I lost our daughter and our home in different incidents, I started journaling in a "real" book again, though it was an art journal this time. It healed me, in many ways, because I kept track of all the reasons life was still beautiful.
Recently, my husband and I have been talking about why I found it hard to make friends in the past (in Grande Prairie) and why it's been easier since I've been in Strathmore. I think that part of it has to do with being more willing to talk about myself, where in the past I've had a very hard time opening up to people. I'm able, however, to open up very easily in writing. So in a way, this is kind of practice for me. Opening up about my writing is new to me. Of course, writing internet content is new to me as well, so why not double the new? I miss journalism, and I miss fiction writing, since I don't seem to have the time for it that I used to, but it's easy to blog in the little caught moments during the day. It keeps me in practice, when I'm writing mountains of articles about things I don't really care about very much, both in writing from the heart and opening my heart.
I think much of what I've written has been critical of the companies I write for, but I am grateful for the chance to write for pay again, too. I'm a little nostalgic feeling about Mahalo - I ranted about them a lot, and it's a little bittersweet that they're closed down for now. Of course, until they pay me correctly (they still owe me back pay) I'll probably remain more bitter than sweet. I'm angry that they seem to make policy changes - like on how they pay writers - without notification and you are left to sort out what happened yourself. I'm angry that 75% of the emails I sent to my manager were never replied to, especially when I was having a problem and needed an answer, such as with the pay issue. I'm sad that they can't seem to get themselves together, because most of the "management" people there seem like genuinely nice folks.
I feel less connected to people at DMS, probably because I don't participate much in the forums. Yesterday, while trying to remedy that, I came across a post on the forum referencing another site, which is essentially a rant site about DMS. Okay, so I'm familiar with "mean girl" forumnations. Oh too familiar in some ways, but I was genuinely surprised that there was one at DMS, since for me, they've been the most positive experience I've had writing content (at least so far). I was shocked at the number of people that talk about DMS being a scam or the fact that they are making money off of a writer's hard work. This is nothing new in the world; everywhere I've worked I've had folks above me who made more money than I did, often for doing less work than I did, and have taken advantage of my willingness to work for a wage. I don't think it's something you can escape from. When I worked for a publishing company in the past, it was the same thing. Yeah, sure, it was "real" journalism, which what I'm doing now isn't, not in any meaningful way. But the publisher made more money than me. I was asked to cover things (review art openings or plays) more for people who were big advertisers than for people who weren't, and occasionally I was asked to write articles about specific things that I wouldn't have chosen as my own topics. That's the way life is.
I suppose I sound a little Pollyannaish - oh heck, lets go all the way Pollyanna, and play the glad game. I'm glad I have a chance to write for pay. I'm glad I can work from home or from places I travel to with my husband when he's travelling for work. I'm glad to have money. I'm glad to do something I like. I'm glad that places like DMS exist, and I'm glad I can contribute to them. I don't think that I'm a "part of the problem" or a bad person or a bad writer for writing for them, though that appears to be the consensus of some people who don't write for them. Yep, they're a content farm. Yep, a lot of the content they produce is fluff. Yep, there's a demand for it. If I'm not filling that demand, someone else will be, why not do my best to create quality in the content that's out there?
Back when I was first married, I was an avid LiveJournal-er. I had bunches of friends, very few of whom I knew in the "real world" and wrote every day on what it was like to be a newlywed living in a new country under a pile of ice and snow. I laid my struggles bare, and trumpeted my triumphs to the world, and I loved it. I loved the comments and the feeling of community, the expression of thoughts, ideas, dreams and painful moments as well.
Back when I was a high schooler and college student, I journaled in real books. Cloth covered and leather bound, filled with a multitude of variously coloured pens, occasional drawings and horomone-induced rants and raves, they chronicled mood swings and lost romances to what I was sure would be enthralled archaeologists reading them in the next century.
After our "year of hell" in which my husband and I lost our daughter and our home in different incidents, I started journaling in a "real" book again, though it was an art journal this time. It healed me, in many ways, because I kept track of all the reasons life was still beautiful.
Recently, my husband and I have been talking about why I found it hard to make friends in the past (in Grande Prairie) and why it's been easier since I've been in Strathmore. I think that part of it has to do with being more willing to talk about myself, where in the past I've had a very hard time opening up to people. I'm able, however, to open up very easily in writing. So in a way, this is kind of practice for me. Opening up about my writing is new to me. Of course, writing internet content is new to me as well, so why not double the new? I miss journalism, and I miss fiction writing, since I don't seem to have the time for it that I used to, but it's easy to blog in the little caught moments during the day. It keeps me in practice, when I'm writing mountains of articles about things I don't really care about very much, both in writing from the heart and opening my heart.
I think much of what I've written has been critical of the companies I write for, but I am grateful for the chance to write for pay again, too. I'm a little nostalgic feeling about Mahalo - I ranted about them a lot, and it's a little bittersweet that they're closed down for now. Of course, until they pay me correctly (they still owe me back pay) I'll probably remain more bitter than sweet. I'm angry that they seem to make policy changes - like on how they pay writers - without notification and you are left to sort out what happened yourself. I'm angry that 75% of the emails I sent to my manager were never replied to, especially when I was having a problem and needed an answer, such as with the pay issue. I'm sad that they can't seem to get themselves together, because most of the "management" people there seem like genuinely nice folks.
I feel less connected to people at DMS, probably because I don't participate much in the forums. Yesterday, while trying to remedy that, I came across a post on the forum referencing another site, which is essentially a rant site about DMS. Okay, so I'm familiar with "mean girl" forumnations. Oh too familiar in some ways, but I was genuinely surprised that there was one at DMS, since for me, they've been the most positive experience I've had writing content (at least so far). I was shocked at the number of people that talk about DMS being a scam or the fact that they are making money off of a writer's hard work. This is nothing new in the world; everywhere I've worked I've had folks above me who made more money than I did, often for doing less work than I did, and have taken advantage of my willingness to work for a wage. I don't think it's something you can escape from. When I worked for a publishing company in the past, it was the same thing. Yeah, sure, it was "real" journalism, which what I'm doing now isn't, not in any meaningful way. But the publisher made more money than me. I was asked to cover things (review art openings or plays) more for people who were big advertisers than for people who weren't, and occasionally I was asked to write articles about specific things that I wouldn't have chosen as my own topics. That's the way life is.
I suppose I sound a little Pollyannaish - oh heck, lets go all the way Pollyanna, and play the glad game. I'm glad I have a chance to write for pay. I'm glad I can work from home or from places I travel to with my husband when he's travelling for work. I'm glad to have money. I'm glad to do something I like. I'm glad that places like DMS exist, and I'm glad I can contribute to them. I don't think that I'm a "part of the problem" or a bad person or a bad writer for writing for them, though that appears to be the consensus of some people who don't write for them. Yep, they're a content farm. Yep, a lot of the content they produce is fluff. Yep, there's a demand for it. If I'm not filling that demand, someone else will be, why not do my best to create quality in the content that's out there?
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes....
Life has so many twists and turns. Today, Mahalo fired all their guides. Okay, maybe fired is a little harsh: they are "restructuring" and all guides have to write a little treatise on what their areas of expertise are. Then, there'll be a month long pause in content creation, while the bosses decide who is worth keeping and who isn't. I have a feeling that most people are going to fall into the "not worth keeping" area, partially because I think many, many of the pages on Mahalo are written poorly. They are trying to shift toward hiring area experts instead of quality writers, which I think is a step halfway in the right direction. Many of the pages suffer from poor grammar and style, which is partially because they don't pay the kind of compensation necessary to have a stable of highly qualified writers. They also have such narrowly defined pages that it can be difficult to write quality copy that fits the minimum word requirement and fulfills the title of the page.
I'm not too worried. I panicked, at first, then realized I still have DMS to write for, where I get paid more anyway. And if Mahalo doesn't keep me, it'll be their loss I suppose. Funny that I preferred them when the pay was less.
For my petition to keep my job, I have to write about two areas of expertise and explain why I'm an expert. I'm considering Education and Hobbies for my two, though Food and Drink might be a good option as well, since they seem to produce quite a few cooking pages. My problem with that is, while I love to cook and have plenty of personal experience in the area, I don't have any education in that area, nor do I have proof that I'm an area "expert". For Hobbies, I can point to classes I've taught and workshops I've participated in, things of that nature. On the other hand, I don't think I've seen a single hobby page up in the queue since I started there. They must be highly searched areas, since DMS has many many hobby type pages, several of which I've written for them, and DMS creates titles based on search engine stats. Hmm.
Speaking of hobbies, I've been working more on my own designs. I designed a scarf for my dad for his birthday in January, which I neglected to take a picture of (maybe I'll have to convince him to take one of him modeling it), and of course the laptop bag I recently posted. I've also finished a cotton summer sweater which turned out beautifully and which I will hopefully eventually photograph as well. It was inspired by a halter design I saw, though I changed nearly everything about it, including the material used to make it.
My latest design is a nice little short-sleeved shrug. I had some lovely grey yarn, though not a lot of it, very soft and pretty and perfectly suited to a lightweight spring/summer shrug. I searched and searched for a pattern, but nothing fit the idea I had in my head, so I went ahead and designed one myself. I love that ruffles have come back into fashion with such a flourish - I'm a girly girl at heart and the recent push for ruffles and rosettes makes me happy. That's what inspired the lettuce edge ruffle border on the shrug.
While these pictures don't exactly do the item justice (it looks much better on) I hope that the subtle stripes on the back and the sideways garter stitch on the sleeves shows up a little bit. The back was worked top to bottom in knit and purl stripes, while for the sleeves, I picked up stitches along the edge and worked them in sideways garter stitch for a different look. The bottoms of the sleeves are finished with two rows of single crochet, as I find unfinished knit edges to be a little... well, unfinished looking. The ruffle edge is also done in single crochet. Mixing styles with both knit and crochet brings the best of both worlds to garments, in my opinion. I need some tips for photographing things better, though, if anyone has some to share!I'm going to use the leftover yarn from this project to either trim a matching scarf or make a rosette for my hair. Maybe both. We'll see.
I'm thinking my next project might include granny squares. They have a lot of nostalgia for me. Maybe pinks and greens for a spring scarf, done in sport weight, a shiny yarn like luster sheen. Or possibly crochet cotton, wagon wheel granny squares for another spring and summer shrug or sweater. It's hard to decide! I still haven't finished that teal tank sweater, and really, really ought to. The pattern stitch is small and complicated, and making a garment mostly in single crochet on a tiny hook takes a long, long time. And lots of sport weight yarn, too.
I'm not too worried. I panicked, at first, then realized I still have DMS to write for, where I get paid more anyway. And if Mahalo doesn't keep me, it'll be their loss I suppose. Funny that I preferred them when the pay was less.
For my petition to keep my job, I have to write about two areas of expertise and explain why I'm an expert. I'm considering Education and Hobbies for my two, though Food and Drink might be a good option as well, since they seem to produce quite a few cooking pages. My problem with that is, while I love to cook and have plenty of personal experience in the area, I don't have any education in that area, nor do I have proof that I'm an area "expert". For Hobbies, I can point to classes I've taught and workshops I've participated in, things of that nature. On the other hand, I don't think I've seen a single hobby page up in the queue since I started there. They must be highly searched areas, since DMS has many many hobby type pages, several of which I've written for them, and DMS creates titles based on search engine stats. Hmm.
Speaking of hobbies, I've been working more on my own designs. I designed a scarf for my dad for his birthday in January, which I neglected to take a picture of (maybe I'll have to convince him to take one of him modeling it), and of course the laptop bag I recently posted. I've also finished a cotton summer sweater which turned out beautifully and which I will hopefully eventually photograph as well. It was inspired by a halter design I saw, though I changed nearly everything about it, including the material used to make it.
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I'm thinking my next project might include granny squares. They have a lot of nostalgia for me. Maybe pinks and greens for a spring scarf, done in sport weight, a shiny yarn like luster sheen. Or possibly crochet cotton, wagon wheel granny squares for another spring and summer shrug or sweater. It's hard to decide! I still haven't finished that teal tank sweater, and really, really ought to. The pattern stitch is small and complicated, and making a garment mostly in single crochet on a tiny hook takes a long, long time. And lots of sport weight yarn, too.
Monday, 17 January 2011
The Angry, Angry Author
Today has been a major "angry author" day. I'm not kidding, from the time I woke up this morning, all I've had is interaction after interaction that makes me incredibly angry. Maybe it's the planets in the wrong alignment that have me reacting this way, because I feel like I'm overreacting by being angry (and my poor husband seems to be very very sure I'm overreacting). Then I realized - hey! I have a blog! I can go vent about it!
First thing I woke up to this morning was a note that if I want to be paid for my blog entries, I need to have three more in today for the current month. Buh? It's only the 17th, how can that be? Well, see when Mahalo says "month" they mean "four random weeks that have nothing to do with a calendar month". Only, they don't actually TELL you that. Yesterday ended week 28 of the Mahalo "year", and apparently was the last day of a Mahalo "month" as well. It makes me kind of feel like I'm living in an alternate universe with a different way of spinning around the sun. This probably wouldn't have bothered me if someone had maybe told me ahead of time. But then again, maybe that's asking for a little too much. I mean really, I'm sure "psychic" is a requirement of all writing jobs, no?
So okay, whatever, I can deal with randomly numbered months. But then I learn that the work that I did during the hourly paid IRC shifts has to be finished on our own time. For free. Going in, I was told to get three done an hour, which was pretty much impossible because they were all a wreck, but I was told time was the most important factor. So, okay, I did what I could to update the pages in twenty minutes each.
Turns out, the goal is actually to bring the page up to current Mahalo gold standards. It would have been really helpful to be told this beforehand. It also would have been helpful to be told that any further edits would have to be done for free, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. The parts I'm told that I have to edit are the parts that the original author of the page completed rather than my own work, so it's not as though my updates are a problem, it's that they want me to work as an editor. Without getting paid. All told, it's going to take me a minimum of four hours (probably more like six) to do these edits. And I have to make all my other minimums this week, but I cannot take any more IRC shifts until I finish all the edits on my previous shift work. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage this without becoming bitter and resentful. Oh, wait! I'm already bitter and resentful so I guess it doesn't matter.
Third, someone with access to my spreadsheet deleted one of the pages I did this week. Why? I have no clue. But today was the deadline for payday. When I alerted the management to the issue, I was told to replace it, and since my page scores were high, I'd be paid through for it as it would surely be fine as it was. That I appreciated, and it definitely made me feel (slightly) better, but I'm curious as to why someone would delete the page. It seems really weird. It made me wonder if they do that regularly and writers don't catch it, and then just don't get paid for all their pages. Suspicions, I have them.
Next, two of my DMS articles came back for rewrites today. One, I was pretty sure would come back. So why did I submit it? Cause I got too close to the deadline and didn't have a choice - it was submit it, and get it sent back, or let it expire and waste the work I put into it. So, I'm not upset about that one. I'm upset about the one that was rejected by someone who obviously shouldn't have chosen the article to copy edit.
The article title was "How to make a Beaded Choker Necklace" and that's what I wrote. I got back edit requests, including asking me to explain what a choker necklace was and what made it different from long necklaces (really? REALLY?), what memory wire is (okay, maybe not everyone knows that), to put in every step that it was a choker necklace I was making (uh, really NO WAY, I'm not going to say "Open the jump ring with your flat nose pliers. To make your choker necklace. Slide the pendant onto the jump ring, and close the ring with the pliers. To make your choker necklace. NO WAY). Lastly, they asked me not to use references that led to commercial, bead selling websites. BUH? My resources were three books. No websites. I don't know if the copy editor was just having a bad day or is just not very bright, but they peppered their notes to me with their own grammatical errors which made that inner editor in me snicker madly.
I may finally have my first article to sell on Constant Content! I don't think there is any way to write an article that satisfies what this copy editor wants without writing an article I'd be severely embarrassed to have my name associated with.
What's an angry writer to do?
First thing I woke up to this morning was a note that if I want to be paid for my blog entries, I need to have three more in today for the current month. Buh? It's only the 17th, how can that be? Well, see when Mahalo says "month" they mean "four random weeks that have nothing to do with a calendar month". Only, they don't actually TELL you that. Yesterday ended week 28 of the Mahalo "year", and apparently was the last day of a Mahalo "month" as well. It makes me kind of feel like I'm living in an alternate universe with a different way of spinning around the sun. This probably wouldn't have bothered me if someone had maybe told me ahead of time. But then again, maybe that's asking for a little too much. I mean really, I'm sure "psychic" is a requirement of all writing jobs, no?
So okay, whatever, I can deal with randomly numbered months. But then I learn that the work that I did during the hourly paid IRC shifts has to be finished on our own time. For free. Going in, I was told to get three done an hour, which was pretty much impossible because they were all a wreck, but I was told time was the most important factor. So, okay, I did what I could to update the pages in twenty minutes each.
Turns out, the goal is actually to bring the page up to current Mahalo gold standards. It would have been really helpful to be told this beforehand. It also would have been helpful to be told that any further edits would have to be done for free, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. The parts I'm told that I have to edit are the parts that the original author of the page completed rather than my own work, so it's not as though my updates are a problem, it's that they want me to work as an editor. Without getting paid. All told, it's going to take me a minimum of four hours (probably more like six) to do these edits. And I have to make all my other minimums this week, but I cannot take any more IRC shifts until I finish all the edits on my previous shift work. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage this without becoming bitter and resentful. Oh, wait! I'm already bitter and resentful so I guess it doesn't matter.
Third, someone with access to my spreadsheet deleted one of the pages I did this week. Why? I have no clue. But today was the deadline for payday. When I alerted the management to the issue, I was told to replace it, and since my page scores were high, I'd be paid through for it as it would surely be fine as it was. That I appreciated, and it definitely made me feel (slightly) better, but I'm curious as to why someone would delete the page. It seems really weird. It made me wonder if they do that regularly and writers don't catch it, and then just don't get paid for all their pages. Suspicions, I have them.
Next, two of my DMS articles came back for rewrites today. One, I was pretty sure would come back. So why did I submit it? Cause I got too close to the deadline and didn't have a choice - it was submit it, and get it sent back, or let it expire and waste the work I put into it. So, I'm not upset about that one. I'm upset about the one that was rejected by someone who obviously shouldn't have chosen the article to copy edit.
The article title was "How to make a Beaded Choker Necklace" and that's what I wrote. I got back edit requests, including asking me to explain what a choker necklace was and what made it different from long necklaces (really? REALLY?), what memory wire is (okay, maybe not everyone knows that), to put in every step that it was a choker necklace I was making (uh, really NO WAY, I'm not going to say "Open the jump ring with your flat nose pliers. To make your choker necklace. Slide the pendant onto the jump ring, and close the ring with the pliers. To make your choker necklace. NO WAY). Lastly, they asked me not to use references that led to commercial, bead selling websites. BUH? My resources were three books. No websites. I don't know if the copy editor was just having a bad day or is just not very bright, but they peppered their notes to me with their own grammatical errors which made that inner editor in me snicker madly.
I may finally have my first article to sell on Constant Content! I don't think there is any way to write an article that satisfies what this copy editor wants without writing an article I'd be severely embarrassed to have my name associated with.
What's an angry writer to do?
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Fear and Loathing in Grammar-land
I have a few spelling and grammar bugs that get to me. One is when people type "loose" when they mean "lose". Another is misuse of the term "literally". Really? Really friend? Your ass literally froze off? What are you sitting on while you type???
Okay Katie, breathe, breathe....
Anyway, we've all run into those forum posters who correct some poor distracted person's misuse of the apostrophe or "teh" typos. I have never, ever in my life, seen that run as rampant as it does on the Demand Media Studios forum for writers. I just watched a thread about the rejection appeal process get completely hijacked by an "imply vs. infer" dogfight. I guess that's what happens when you throw a bunch of writers and copy editors into a pit.
So, speaking of rejection appeals... Everyone fears the rejected article, especially me. Especially since at DMS you only have one chance at a rewrite before something is rejected. For many writers at DMS, rewriting isn't even an option; they would rather let the rewrite expire than risk having a rejection on their record. (By the way, I'm not so nervous, as I haven't had any rejections, and my rewrite requests have always been really simple. My last one was "This is twice as long as required, please remove half the content". Ack! But an easy fix.)
When I first started at DMS, one of the other writers there gently guided me toward a site called Constant Content. It is the preferred site, it seems for reselling rejected orphan articles. I registered immediately in grave fear that I would soon have multiple articles on the market. I haven't taken a job there or sold an article there yet, but I may soon.
Along with allowing writers to put articles up on the site for purchase, Constant Content allows site owners to put up writer-wanted listings for content articles they need. These often pay extremely well - I've seen $100+ articles listed on a fairly consistent basis. The trouble is, you're essentially writing on spec. You write the article, and so do the other twenty people who saw the ad and want the bucks, and you all submit. The client chooses the one that suits their needs the best, and pays that person. The others are left to possibly re-list their articles back on Constant Content, or just suck it up and accept the loss.
If I really needed another source of income, I might try some of the articles. Some have really sparked my interest, especially those on Photoshop techniques, since Photoshop is one of my favourite "toys" but I have been struggling - since I've been sick off and on since Christmas - to meet my minimums at Mahalo and write the titles I really like over at DMS before they expire (once you claim a title, you have to write it within the week or it returns to the queue for someone else to claim). Not to mention that this week, I started a new phase at Mahalo.
I left training four weeks ago. Once you're done with training, you move into a separate group of spreadsheets which, unfortunately for me, had wayyyy less options in the way of titles. Most are video How-To, like "How to say tomato in Korean" and things of that ilk. I thought they would be easy and fun until I did two of them and found myself scratching my head trying to figure out how on earth to meet the minimum word requirements of a page based on a twenty second video of someone repeating a Korean word. All of the other titles were cities, so I've been learning an awful lot about relatively obscure American cities. Like that Gainesville, Florida has the largest bat house in North America, or that Duluth was founded by some French fella named du Lhut. Apparently no one could spell his name. Too French I guess. Or hey, didja know that there is a museum devoted entirely to the history of the RV in Elkhart, Indiana? You can learn more about Elkhart here: http://www.mahalo.com/elkhart-in if you're so inclined.
So now, after four weeks, I start doing updates. This is hourly paid work, and you're required to do at least three 2-hour shifts per week. Guides get paid $8.50 an hour and senior guides get $10 an hour, which isn't terrible for work from home shifts. And you get to write about stuff like what happened on the Bachelor that night or who wore what to the Golden Globes. It's a little more fun than writing about the downtown revitalization project in Greenville, SC, but if you're so inclined to READ about it... http://www.mahalo.com/greenville-sc
Okay Katie, breathe, breathe....
Anyway, we've all run into those forum posters who correct some poor distracted person's misuse of the apostrophe or "teh" typos. I have never, ever in my life, seen that run as rampant as it does on the Demand Media Studios forum for writers. I just watched a thread about the rejection appeal process get completely hijacked by an "imply vs. infer" dogfight. I guess that's what happens when you throw a bunch of writers and copy editors into a pit.
So, speaking of rejection appeals... Everyone fears the rejected article, especially me. Especially since at DMS you only have one chance at a rewrite before something is rejected. For many writers at DMS, rewriting isn't even an option; they would rather let the rewrite expire than risk having a rejection on their record. (By the way, I'm not so nervous, as I haven't had any rejections, and my rewrite requests have always been really simple. My last one was "This is twice as long as required, please remove half the content". Ack! But an easy fix.)
When I first started at DMS, one of the other writers there gently guided me toward a site called Constant Content. It is the preferred site, it seems for reselling rejected orphan articles. I registered immediately in grave fear that I would soon have multiple articles on the market. I haven't taken a job there or sold an article there yet, but I may soon.
Along with allowing writers to put articles up on the site for purchase, Constant Content allows site owners to put up writer-wanted listings for content articles they need. These often pay extremely well - I've seen $100+ articles listed on a fairly consistent basis. The trouble is, you're essentially writing on spec. You write the article, and so do the other twenty people who saw the ad and want the bucks, and you all submit. The client chooses the one that suits their needs the best, and pays that person. The others are left to possibly re-list their articles back on Constant Content, or just suck it up and accept the loss.
If I really needed another source of income, I might try some of the articles. Some have really sparked my interest, especially those on Photoshop techniques, since Photoshop is one of my favourite "toys" but I have been struggling - since I've been sick off and on since Christmas - to meet my minimums at Mahalo and write the titles I really like over at DMS before they expire (once you claim a title, you have to write it within the week or it returns to the queue for someone else to claim). Not to mention that this week, I started a new phase at Mahalo.
I left training four weeks ago. Once you're done with training, you move into a separate group of spreadsheets which, unfortunately for me, had wayyyy less options in the way of titles. Most are video How-To, like "How to say tomato in Korean" and things of that ilk. I thought they would be easy and fun until I did two of them and found myself scratching my head trying to figure out how on earth to meet the minimum word requirements of a page based on a twenty second video of someone repeating a Korean word. All of the other titles were cities, so I've been learning an awful lot about relatively obscure American cities. Like that Gainesville, Florida has the largest bat house in North America, or that Duluth was founded by some French fella named du Lhut. Apparently no one could spell his name. Too French I guess. Or hey, didja know that there is a museum devoted entirely to the history of the RV in Elkhart, Indiana? You can learn more about Elkhart here: http://www.mahalo.com/elkhart-in if you're so inclined.
So now, after four weeks, I start doing updates. This is hourly paid work, and you're required to do at least three 2-hour shifts per week. Guides get paid $8.50 an hour and senior guides get $10 an hour, which isn't terrible for work from home shifts. And you get to write about stuff like what happened on the Bachelor that night or who wore what to the Golden Globes. It's a little more fun than writing about the downtown revitalization project in Greenville, SC, but if you're so inclined to READ about it... http://www.mahalo.com/greenville-sc
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Writing on Demand
The first freelance company I started with was Demand Media Studios (DMS). They require a college education in English or Journalism for general writers, or a specific degree to write for sites requiring legal, medical, or parenting expertise. I applied as a general writer, and was accepted pretty quickly
Once you're accepted, you're given access to a massive amount of style guides, example articles, and a forum full of people willing to help. You also have access to a library of titles, the size of which will vary depending on what kind of area you're writing for. My area seems to have, on average, between 8,000 and 9,000 titles available. You're immediately able to claim up to three titles. Once you write three that have been approved by the editorial team, you're able to claim up to ten titles at a time, and can claim more as soon as your articles are submitted instead of waiting for editorial approval.
I liked the clear guidelines. I'm a rules girl, and if you give me nice clear, concise rules I'll follow them for ya. I did have a little difficulty getting used to using the active voice always, as I'm a big passive voice fan. I think it's the people-pleaser in me - I hate to sound like I'm giving orders! Still, with the help they offer it wasn't hard to adjust. The pay is plenty reasonable - most articles pay around $15, though some are as little as $7.50 and some as much as $35, and at this point they take me between 45 minutes and an hour to write, including research. At the start it took me upwards of two hours as I got used to the style and voice requirements and the "forbidden words". It's hard for me not to say "easy" or "fun", but I'm getting there!
The most difficult thing in the start was realizing how little I was getting paid per hour for the work I was doing. Piece work can be difficult when you're learning, but it just takes a little determination and knowledge that you'll cut down on your time as you learn what sites make great sources for what kinds of articles, and how to construct the article parts in the way you're required to. I also was disappointed in the types of titles available. Automotive articles are a huge portion of their work base, and while I suppose I am capable of researching and writing about anything, I really found little inspiration with most offerings. You only get one chance at a rewrite if a copy editor doesn't like your article, and while they will send you notes on what they want changed, if you have questions about it, there is no way to contact them. I have had a few articles, particularly at the beginning, returned for rewrites, but usually it was a case of me slipping into passive voice, using words that weren't allowed, or something of my own oversight, such as picture captions that were longer than is allowed (12 words). It's not common now for me to have a rewrite, and I've never had a rejection after a rewrite, so this hasn't been much of a problem for me. The problem I have had, interestingly enough, is copy editors adding typos to my articles. This has happened to me twice, and it was on articles that went straight to publication after editing, so I didn't have a chance to change it.
For the positives, DMS makes it easy for you with a very intuitive submission document that checks to be sure you've included everything you need, such as captions for pictures and key words for the article. It also has an automatic plagiarism checker which, from reading the forums, some people have real issues with, but I've not had an article flagged by it, so it doesn't bother me in the least. From what I'm told, it's significantly more sensitive than the plagiarism checkers available for free on the Internet, even when those are set to the highest degree of sensitivity, so if you are just reworking phrases from someone else, you're likely to get caught pretty quickly. There are no minimums, and no maximums, so you can write one article a month or ten a day, as apparently some people do. You can take time off without notifying anyone, without losing your job, unlike some agencies that require weeks of notice in advance or have a maximum number of weeks off you can take. There is a large library of licensed photos you can choose from, and while all articles need at least one, you can add more to jazz things up. You get a byline, so if you want to refer potential clients to your work, it's clear that it's your own.
Overall, while I really love DMS, I thought I needed a backup in case there was a week where I just couldn't find any titles to write. It was a smart move, as I have had three to four day lags where I couldn't find a single title out of thousands that I wanted to write.
Once you're accepted, you're given access to a massive amount of style guides, example articles, and a forum full of people willing to help. You also have access to a library of titles, the size of which will vary depending on what kind of area you're writing for. My area seems to have, on average, between 8,000 and 9,000 titles available. You're immediately able to claim up to three titles. Once you write three that have been approved by the editorial team, you're able to claim up to ten titles at a time, and can claim more as soon as your articles are submitted instead of waiting for editorial approval.
I liked the clear guidelines. I'm a rules girl, and if you give me nice clear, concise rules I'll follow them for ya. I did have a little difficulty getting used to using the active voice always, as I'm a big passive voice fan. I think it's the people-pleaser in me - I hate to sound like I'm giving orders! Still, with the help they offer it wasn't hard to adjust. The pay is plenty reasonable - most articles pay around $15, though some are as little as $7.50 and some as much as $35, and at this point they take me between 45 minutes and an hour to write, including research. At the start it took me upwards of two hours as I got used to the style and voice requirements and the "forbidden words". It's hard for me not to say "easy" or "fun", but I'm getting there!
The most difficult thing in the start was realizing how little I was getting paid per hour for the work I was doing. Piece work can be difficult when you're learning, but it just takes a little determination and knowledge that you'll cut down on your time as you learn what sites make great sources for what kinds of articles, and how to construct the article parts in the way you're required to. I also was disappointed in the types of titles available. Automotive articles are a huge portion of their work base, and while I suppose I am capable of researching and writing about anything, I really found little inspiration with most offerings. You only get one chance at a rewrite if a copy editor doesn't like your article, and while they will send you notes on what they want changed, if you have questions about it, there is no way to contact them. I have had a few articles, particularly at the beginning, returned for rewrites, but usually it was a case of me slipping into passive voice, using words that weren't allowed, or something of my own oversight, such as picture captions that were longer than is allowed (12 words). It's not common now for me to have a rewrite, and I've never had a rejection after a rewrite, so this hasn't been much of a problem for me. The problem I have had, interestingly enough, is copy editors adding typos to my articles. This has happened to me twice, and it was on articles that went straight to publication after editing, so I didn't have a chance to change it.
For the positives, DMS makes it easy for you with a very intuitive submission document that checks to be sure you've included everything you need, such as captions for pictures and key words for the article. It also has an automatic plagiarism checker which, from reading the forums, some people have real issues with, but I've not had an article flagged by it, so it doesn't bother me in the least. From what I'm told, it's significantly more sensitive than the plagiarism checkers available for free on the Internet, even when those are set to the highest degree of sensitivity, so if you are just reworking phrases from someone else, you're likely to get caught pretty quickly. There are no minimums, and no maximums, so you can write one article a month or ten a day, as apparently some people do. You can take time off without notifying anyone, without losing your job, unlike some agencies that require weeks of notice in advance or have a maximum number of weeks off you can take. There is a large library of licensed photos you can choose from, and while all articles need at least one, you can add more to jazz things up. You get a byline, so if you want to refer potential clients to your work, it's clear that it's your own.
Overall, while I really love DMS, I thought I needed a backup in case there was a week where I just couldn't find any titles to write. It was a smart move, as I have had three to four day lags where I couldn't find a single title out of thousands that I wanted to write.
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