Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

I mentioned AssociatedContent as a potential opportunity for writers to make some steady income online in a post last year. Have any of you tried it? For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a website that invites you to write about — well, just about any topic you can imagine that you’d want to write about. Assuming your article (they also accept videos and audio files, I think) is accepted when you submit it, you can earn 1) upfront payment and/or 2) what they call “performance payments,” i.e., a percentage of their ad revenue earned when people view your content and click on ads AC places within that content.

Pretty simple, it seems. As you can imagine, the “upfront” money is pretty small for content they buy, but nearly every type of paid writing you do online is sadly underpaid.

But the beauty of this site — AC, as it abbreviates itself — is that you get to choose what you’re writing about. Looking at tv deals and want to write a review about what you’ve found out in the shopping process? You can do that. Interested in something like paranormal/ghost hunting stuff? You can write about that, too. Are you a specialist or authority in a particular subject matter? Yup, there’s plenty of room for that at AC.

I’ve determined I’m going to go there first thing tomorrow morning and publish my first AC content. With a bit of steady effort, I think I could easily eclipse my “earnings” from this site and my other blogs.

What’s been your experience with AC? Care to leave a comment and tell us about it?

On one of the three forums I visit regularly, this one related to affiliate marketing, there’s a discussion thread started by someone everyone there respects. This person has been doing affiliate marketing more or less full-time for several years and just explained in this discussion thread that he’s selling off his websites and shutting down his affiliate marketing business to start a new full-time “off line” career.

He said he’s simply reached a point in his life and his family’s life where “retiring” from affiliate marketing for a serious, regular career (he did not explain what that career is) was best for him and his family — citing the unpredictable and changing nature of affiliate marketing in the last couple of years.

That started me thinking about the very idea of retirement or retiring as a writer. Would that mean I quit writing? Would that mean I might continue writing but not doing it for publication?

Assuming you’re reading this as a writer, how do you think about retirement and your writing? If you’re successfully publishing and making either a part-time or full-time living from your writing, can you imagine a time when you would no longer, BY CHOICE, do your writing?

I emphasize that “by choice” aspect because I can envision no longer writing if I literally, physically or mentally (or both) could no longer write.

But choosing not to write? That’s a bit harder. For one thing, writing is on many levels a sort of “life insurance” for me: Writing keeps me young, keeps me hopeful, keeps me alive in many ways. And I’ll bet there’s every chance that writing seems a lot like that to most of you reading this, too.

In recent months, one of my all-time favorite writers died, Robert B. Parker. If you’re a mystery fan, I highly recommend his Spenser series of novels. Mr. Parker, whom I never had the privilege of meeting, was a consummate pro. I read a story about him after his death that said he felt like one of the luckiest writers alive. He was teaching English at a small university and wrote his first novel, sent it off to a publisher with a short note something like, “I wrote this and wondered whether you’d be interested in buying it.” The story said that book was bought by the first publisher he sent it to — and every novel he ever wrote was sold quickly. Most of them were best-sellers.

Robert Parker died the way I think I’d like to go: He had a sudden heart attack and literally died at his keyboard working on a novel. (Well, I’m not thrilled about the heart attack part; I’d rather just doze off, nestled down on the sofa for a nap, and wake up in Heaven. Yeah, that’d do it for me.)

I wouldn’t know how to “retire” as a writer, would you?

Here’s a little tip for bloggers, mostly for those who post comments on blogs; SPECIFICALLY for those of you who try to sp*m this and other blogs with idiotic comments just to get a link back to your money-making scheme or cr*p-filled website. Don’t waste your time: Most blogs run on WordPress software, which automatically makes all links in post comments into “nofollow” links.

There’s a tremendous lot of misunderstanding about Internet links and their “nofollow” or “dofollow” status. I’ll tell you right up front that I’m confused about a lot of it myself. But simply put, here’s the deal. “Dofollow” links from a website/blog back to your website supposedly benefit you by making your site seem to be more authoritative, or more important. But “nofollow” links supposedly bring no benefit to your website.

So here’s my suggestion. If someone has taken your money for a piece of junk script that lets you sp*m a million comments on a million blogs — you probably are wasting your time and money in so many ways I wouldn’t be able to tell you. If someone has taken your money for an idiotic waste-of-time “training course” on making money online, etc., by sp*mming tons of blogs with your worthless sp*mmy comments — you’ve wasted your time on money on that, too.

Here’s another suggestion: If you REALLY want to make money online by writing and you are willing to learn what to do and then work hard to do it, go to that Keyword Academy link I’ve put at the right-hand top of each page on this website. If you’re going to spend your time and money on something, you really ought to try something that’ll work.

But then, if you’re one of the people who crawls around the Internet just looking to rip off others with your idiotic sp*mmy comments, I’m guessing 1) you aren’t bothering to read this, 2) you’ll not accept or try what I’m saying here anyway, and, 3) you’re too lazy to actually try to earn some money on the Internet, but want to find a way to cheat or steal it from others.