I heard about the Moleskine notebooks years ago. I stumbled upon them while looking for programs for my tablet pc for taking notes while at university. The software choice was not huge and trying to find some templates I kept ending up on pages selling notebooks like Moleskine or similar single page templates for custom binders.

Back then I looked at it and wondered to myself, why the hell would I pay extra for this not-even-so-fancy notebook? Every now and again I used to keep diaries, and just wrote my thoughts down in simple little notebooks kids use in primary school. Paper is paper, I thought.

And then recently I got one for my birthday… Oh how wrong was I. There really is something special about these notebooks. The texture of the leathery cover - hard but flexible, and the smooth papyrus feel of the inside sheets have something inspiring about them. The tactile experience does in a way help me feel creative.

It really is not the same as typing away or even writing on your usual paper. The thin, soft pages with there yellowish tint do make you feel like an old-school artists doing your sketches or taking notes. The story goes that these notebooks were used by some famous names like: “Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline”, to quote the official website.

There are two extra features a Moleskine notebook comes with - a little string for bookmarking and, at least in my version, a pocket at the back. It’s a great way to put away small things like business cards or other little scraps you need saved quickly for later and/or kept together with your notebook.

Finally this leads to a quick mention of the Moleskine variety. The notebooks come in many styles, the flexible cover being just one of many options. Also the inside pages can be be blank, ruled or squared, just to mention some of the types.

Maybe just having one makes you a snob that tries to give them more meaning than they have. But maybe they really are a great experience for any kind of notetaking. I definitely prefer to think it is the later.

Staying on the topic of writing, I would like to share a few experiences with making money online using the pen.

Being a person who likes exploring different opportunities and simply enjoying writing, I decided to give it a try. After doing some extensive (a bit about that later…) research I found several places that looked reasonably reliable and established.

How Much Can You Earn?

I guess this is the most pressing question people might ask. And to disappoint all those hoping for riches straight away, most of the time the answer would be not that much.

Unless you have A LOT of time on your hands (like some of the mommy-bloggers seem to) and are willing to almost mass produce shallow, short articles spiked with keywords to attract the search engines rather than human readers, and possibly include what most would consider spam, than your outlook is pretty bleak.

However it is not as grim as it looks at first sight, and there are several established communities that are confirmed to pay regularly and on time. Another thing to bare in mind is that non-Americans seem to be at a big disadvantage, as the sites that offer payment up-front are mostly available only to US citizens. The difference is between gaining a minimum of about $20 for the article plus the traffic revenue, against just the later, which in most cases is fairly small and slowly growing.

Gain Authority and Readership

Most of these online writing communities advertise themselves as (apart from a means to earning some extra money…) a way to establish authority in the writing community and boost your readership. This would be quite a just cause were they true writing communities.

Unfortunately, as I will demonstrate using Triond as an example, the communities are mostly self absorbed and plagued by spammers. Despite claiming to be all about gaining authority each of Triond’s domains remains exclusive and the only place you can see all the articles written by one person is the main Triond website.

This would not be that strange if not for the fact that the themed websites have separate user profiles with not even a mention or a link to the main Triond one. This means if you write two articles under domain X, three articles under domain Y, and twenty under domain Z, someone who stumbles upon one of your X articles will have no clue that you have written so much more. Unless of course they are part of the Triond community already, and have the time to look you up (which also isn’t as straightforward as you might think).

You could argue that readers looking for gaming texts will not be interested in articles about make-up. However when one article is about diet, and the second about exercising there might be a connection. Even worse, you might be writing a series but due to the editors whim the first and third article land under domain X while the second goes onto Z. It happened to me so it’s not just theory.

That said, there are good writers and great articles on the website, however usually they are swamped by mediocre or even worse ones. And before someone jumps to conclusions, I don’t meant my own work, which is pretty lame writing for obvious reasons.

Generate the Traffic Yourself

So how about that aforementioned readership boost? Well as you have probably realized by now most of the users are trying to earn money themselves, as such they might wonder around every know and then, especially when presented with a catchy title.

Secondly you could create “friendships” and exchange article views in the typical I read your, you read mine agreement. Some go even further and create groups that not only read each other’s work but also superficially increase their article’s score in social bookmarking services like for example Stumble, or Digg, etc.

Other than that you could always master some ass kicking SEO skills, as the only alternative to cliques seems to be search engine traffic. Or even better just go around spamming loads of places with links, as well as sending them to your family and friends.

One of the reasons I even started considering these writing websites was that I wanted a place to just post my random articles. You know one day I would write about cats, the other day about diets, and on the third I might comment on the property market. Also to have the freedom of getting my writing exposed to the world without the need for doing much SEO. I wanted to concentrate on my writing and if anything maybe learn what seems to work and what does not by means of experimentation.

And that was one of the biggest annoyances I had with BrightHub. The other communities seem to be a lot more relaxed about how your content is doing. It obviously has it’s downsides, but means if you have a heart for an article it doesn’t matter it’s not going to be at the top of the charts.

BrightHub interested me for two reasons. Firstly it had mostly topic related to computers, technology and gaming, which was nice. Secondly it offers up-front payments for articles plus revanue share later on as well. And not only for Americans at that.

What I did not foresee was how much of a keyword Nazi they are. They give you a selection of topics, and if you don’t fancy anything from there of course you can write on your own, but you are obliged to provide a keyword research along with your proposal. Well if I wanted to do all that, I’d start a blog, duh…

Article guidelines

Many of these websites provide rules for user submissions. Usually a minimum number of words (commonly 350-400 and up), as well as content guidelines. Often officially you are not allowed to do marketing and spamming, some allow fiction and creative writing, others do not. Some do not mind controversial opinions, others will ban anything that doesn’t look politically correct.

Shouldn’t this promote good quality content, you might ask? Sadly not always. Many articles just grab an interesting idea, or news item and regurgitate it in about 400-500 words. Or even worse start of mentioning something interesting, but finish before stating anything substantial.

Before I got severely disillusioned, I sometimes browsed the latest, and hottest topics. However with a few outstanding exceptions (like this article about mad scientists, or some of the photo based ones can be great) most just had a catchy title, that got me interested and in the end didn’t deliver. It often seems like it’s just about hitting that word limit while sticking a good number of keywords for SEO purposes.

The World Of Spam

Also the no marketing or spam rule seems to be applied quite randomly. One of my enthusiastic reviews of a fancy brush I found, which I didn’t even have an affiliate link for got rejected as being a marketing article. It was quite a turn off considering I rarely get excited enough about any product to right a review of any kind in the first place. And to find one that really does what it boasts is even more of an occasion. (If anyone is interested the Tangle Teezer brush really does magic for curly hair…).

However at the same time texts about services for “making money online” - guess why the quotes yourself - are all over the place. The editors of some of the communities seem to not mind pay per click site advertising, offer and survey site promotion, etc.

Same topics over and over

Now to why the research actually took quite a while. Not only do the users of any single writing website fry in their own sauce, but they also tend to capitalize on more than one of these communities. This leads to either straight re-posting of the same content in multiple places (if the sites policies allow that, or even worse if you can plainly get away with it). Or alternatively the text gets slightly rewritten, which might help avoid plagiarism accusations, though does not really provide any additional value to the text itself.

A good example are the reviews of the writing websites themselves, usually written in positives, maybe with a few glitches mentioned for balance. Funny enough it often doesn’t matter on which website the review actually is presented. It usually is a case of all sites have reviews of all the other sites and themselves.

So when you reach the 50th review that mentions the same five things you already know and nothing more it can get really frustrating. This also means that most of the information is quite biased. And don’t even get me started when the community offers incentives based on referrals - getting an honest opinion is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Should I Write Articles Online?

So do I regret wasting my time with this affair? It hasn’t exactly been a moneymaker, not even for so called pocket money. But it did teach me a few lessons.

First of all I gained a bit more focus. Although I still feel that pushing for the word limit just for the sake of it is stupid, I found it to be an interesting guideline. After choosing a topic, if I run out of things to say after before 400-500 words and it is obvious there could be said much more it just signals to me I should go back to the drawing board and do my research again.

This does not mean every post has to be massive. There is place for short and sweet. But if you are trying to provide people with some useful information on a vast topic you cannot just skim over it. It’s a bit like reviewing a product by stating: I liked it, it worked. Or like a movie review with no personal insight, just listing of the people involved, a bit about the plot and that’s it.

Often the Internet gurus will say you should not write long posts. That people do not want to read. And sadly I even noticed this about myself, how I started to skim most of the content. Then I’ve noticed that there are things that I do read, front to cover even, and definitely longer than 400-500 words.

The reality was I would read and spend that extra time on articles that provided real value, real content. Not some regurgitated news with an opinion slapped at the front, middle or end, but an insightful story, personal experience, something truly new or just plain funny, something you can learn from or that gets you thinking or reflecting on your own about different topics. I’ve noticed that lists of “10 best this” or “20 greatest that” are good for skimming only.

Secondly getting disillusioned in itself has not been a good thing. It made me look a bit more realistically at certain aspects of writing. A bit less of happy-go-lucky approach, and a bit more research. Also some extra consideration of what people might be interested in reading.

This is not to say that writing should be done only with the reader in mind. But the truth is if you were writing just for yourself, you would just keep it in a drawer, wouldn’t you?

People have opinions, however not all of them express theirs freely. Even worse, those who do voice their strong opinions are often ostracized and showered with love / hate responses. But isn’t this exactly what that person wants? As some say - any publicity is good, no matter if it’s positive or negative.

I might have not searched for outright acceptance, but often tried (maybe a bit too hard) not to offend anyone. This unfortunately leaves you in a gray area, the nice guy everyone passes by. They might nod in agreement or ignore your opinion without protest, however there is nothing to prompt a response.

When you meet people of similar views you will probably agree, have a conversation, maybe exchange some arguments supporting your cause and pinning down your opponents. But will it leave you sleepless? Will it force you to take action and spread the cause more vigorously? Not really.

How to have an opinion?

As stated above we all have one, so actually we should rephrase the question as: How to have a strong opinion. Or take it even further: How to be perceived as having a strong opinion. Ultimately - how to generate human responses.

• Take sides and state your point clearly
• Avoid phrases that convey uncertainty
• Do not be afraid of negative feedback
• Be passionate
• Don’t be afraid of being wrong

Take a side

As long as you are sitting on the fence you are not gaining anything. Saying that this person is a little bit right, and that person is a little bit right too, will not make you look like a strong personality.

Taking a side allows you to focus on one point. It does not matter if you agree 100% with that side, it is obvious that the world is not black and white. But when you want to generate discussion and/or create readership making a stand is important. Playing devils advocate can be a fun experience and a good learning opportunity.

Do not over complicate

Once you establish the point you want to make be clear about what your are trying to say. Adjust the vocabulary, style and presentation to your target audience. If you are targeting teenagers it is pointless to use language from philosophical disputes, and vice versa.

Interestingly taking a side will often lead to being much more precise. This is due to the fact that you are not constantly trying to defend more than one statement, which leads to your thinking not shifting back and forth between arguments.

Use the right words for the job

If your means of communication is writing, then words are everything. Deprived of all the cues like body language, facial expression or voice tones all the weight lies in the right choice of vocabulary.

The DOs and DON’Ts:

• use pronouns like I and me
• instead of might or can or could use is, will be
• avoid expressions like I think or in my opinion
• do not hint or suggest things, make statements instead
  

This does not mean you have to be dead serious. Jokes, anecdotes and some humor can work miracles with your content.

It’s not that bad to burn at the stake…

One big obstacle is worrying about what will other people think or say. Some of us take a lot of things personally and it can be hard to take even constructive criticism, not to mention a full on bashing. There is also the fear of being misunderstood, and trying to explain everything to the greatest detail.

Being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc will not get you sympathy, but at the same time you cannot spend all your life making sure you do not step on anyone else’s toes.

In fact the fear of people not liking what you have to say is worse, than it actually happening. Once you get over the initial feeling of rejection it gets easier and easier. There are as many opinions as there are people in the world, and the sooner you realize this the better.

As mentioned before the negative comments, even when not constructive, still mean interest and emotion coming from total strangers. If anything you can be actually proud of yourself for being able to elicit this kind of reaction. When you only have (no matter how long list) of praises this does not encourage people to discuss the topic further. In fact it often are the negative remarks that encourage other people similarly minded to defend your point of view for you!

Passion is king

The common saying is content is king, both for readership and SEO purposes. Though if you lack passion in your writing you might hit your Search Engine targets, but not necessarily gain many readers. Real humans expect something more than dry paragraphs of keywords upon keywords, and in the long term they are your true audience, not the spiders. The important thing is that if you write passionately you can sneak in a few keywords to make the Search Engines happy while not upsetting the real readers.

There is always place for improvement

Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Curbing your opinions in case you might be misunderstood is not the way. Ask yourself a question. What would happen if it turned out a statement I made is wrong? Would the world collapse? No.

In blogging for example it can actually be an excellent learning experience. If you are wrong and someone points this out you can always take it in, update your views and/or your article.

It is however important not to mistake being wrong with having different opinions than someone else. If you mixed up facts - it’s only fair to update your knowledge. However you should never be pressured into changing your opinion just because some random, anonymous person on the Internet says it’s stupid…