If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.
- Elaine Liner

I published my first novel, The Bleeding Hills in September of 2009, and currently I am working on my next book, American Male Prostitute. In fact, I have started two further novels at the same time, and they are on the back burner. I don’t lack ideas for books, and writer’s block, in the common sense, doesn’t exist in my world.

My version of writer’s block comes in form of not having worked on my second novel for several weeks. I spent some useless time on writers’ forums, and even tried to make some money through my blog. To put the result up-front, forums are a terrible waste of time, and I made $15 in two weeks by writing one lousy article on my blog. On the other hand, my novel American Male Prostitute is about making a career as a writer, and I will take the liberty of adding my experiences to the story of the main character, Stuart Berry.

Also, what I learned out of these few weeks is to stay put and concentrate merely on my own writing.

The Dream World Of Writers’ Forums

Many of us aspiring writers sign up for Online forums, either to pitch new ideas and wait for feedback, or to ask for advice, but foremost to “build a platform.” “Building a platform” is based on a very basic principle: If nobody knows you, nobody will buy your books.

I always put the term “building a platform” in quotation marks, because, in my very personal opinion, there is a lot of nonsense connected with the idea, especially when it comes to forums. Yes, it is imperative for each new – and even the established – author to maintain a web site and create some attention for his/her work. But forums, with very few exceptions, have close to Absolute Null impact on a writer’s career. Nobody else but other aspiring writers will read your entries. After months of playing with various forums I have decided to cancel all but one of my accounts – I’ll keep the one at AuthorNation.com, because it’s actually fun being there.

But even on AuthorNation.com you will be contacted by what I call the “forum sharks.” Forum sharks “attack” each single new member and ask to be their Online friend, forcing them to read their – usually useless – blabbering about their books and other writings, may it be infertility treatment, new paths to riches, or even poems that don’t rhyme (Sorry, maybe I am just plain old-fashioned, but, in my world, good poetry rhymes). You recognize the sharks by the vast number of “friends” they have, a number close to the total number of members on the forum. Their initial message is usually like “Welcome to the forum, and, by the way, please buy my newest novel…” They literally spend several hours a day to send their “friend requests.”

Then there are the semi-Gods, members who either have participated for several years (and at the same time wasted their time writing literally thousands of entries), or even accomplished to have their books listed on Amazon.com. Those members usually assume an elevated state of mind, thus assuming they have received the God-given right to lecture the newcomers. I once dared to challenge the effectiveness of reviews for an author’s career, and one of the semi-Gods blasted me for even posting such a ridiculous question. The last line in his entry was “Cut the crap!” His claim to fame was the publication of a Karate-Kid-replica novel that sold decently well on Amazon.com. Sorry, but I didn’t come here to be insulted by somebody who can’t handle a slightly provocative inquiry.

My advice to the novice writer: First, browse the Internet for information. Secondly, don’t buy books on writing; they’re just plain useless. Most importantly, read, read, read, and… read. Read Online newspapers, read Hemingway, or even Sarah Palin (Yikes!), everything works. This will be time well spent, and, if managed properly, will cost very little money.

Then, after all, write, write, and… write. Write about everything that comes to mind, especially topics you are passionate about. Put these writings on a blog. Continuous reading and writing will improve your writing style.

If you are talented and persevere, you will find success eventually. As a logical consequence, if you are not talented, you will not find success. Online forums play no part in either scenario.

Creating Income Through Your Blog

Yes, you can create income through your blog or web site. Is it a path to riches? In 99.99% of the cases, most certainly not. The exception may occur when you handle this as a business venue with a hot-shot web designer, a team of professional blog writers, and an abundance of financial freedom at hand.

In my best times, when I still wrote technical literature,  I made in average $80 per month through Google ads placed on various of my web sites. As you can see on this very blog (frogenyozurt.com) I am now using the Amazon.com Affiliate Program, which pays more per click than Google, but you only earn money when the user actually buys something from Amazon. I will not go into more details on affiliate programs such Google AdSense, and the Amazon Affiliate Program and how to incorporate them into your blog. Just check out their respective web sites, or google/bing/yahoo them.

There are certain parameters to make a living from a blog, and I, personally, don’t have the means (i.e. the time) to establish these parameters. First, you need to have content, content, content. You need to be specific, and you need to create hundreds of pages to attract sufficient attention, meaning, if you do this on your own, you should spend several hours a day writing on your blog. You also need to spend several hours per day promoting your blog. All this is not impossible, only very time-consuming, and, still, the financial success may kick in only after several years of maintaining the blog this way. Again, all the information you need (i.e. how to create and promote your blog) is freely available on the Internet.

One lane that I tried just recently was writing paid articles on my blog. I applied at three Online services that pay for articles on your blog, and – not surprisingly – I was approved in all three cases. I write “not surprisingly,” because they are desperate, and I will elaborate a little later on this. First, let me explain the principle.

The business model for these Online services is to provide hyperlinks to their clients’ web sites. To explain it in a nut-shell, search engines love hyperlinks, and the ranking of your web site will improve with the number of hyperlinks pointing to your site. Any expert will explain to you that it is not that simple. Search engines’ algorithms have been developed over many years, and they are very complex. It’s not all about hyperlinks, but also quality of the hyperlinks, and, after all, content, content, content. Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a science.

Anyways, as I wrote, there are Online services that hire blog writers, either to create content on their web site (so-called content mills – you write about repairing a dish-washer and similar topics), or to post on the writer’s own blog. They pay roughly between $5 and $25 per post, and, theoretically you can make a living from that when you work 25 hours a day (you accomplish that by skipping your lunch hour). The harsh reality is that you will make less than minimum hourly wages. Add to this that there is no big market for these services. Most of them are probably one-man businesses, who maintain professional looking web sites, but are desperate to make a living themselves.

As I wrote before I applied at three services, was approved three times, and I made $15 in two weeks. The idea was to create more content for my blog, and even get paid for it, maybe just enough to cover the grocery bill.

I made the $15 writing about Online casinos, not something I would like to promote, but I kept a professional attitude about it and wrote about Online gambling while sticking to the facts. I received my payment promptly the day after I submitted the post to my blog, and I went to restaurant.com to buy a $25 gift certificate for $15. My wife, my son, and I had a good time at the “Greenfield Grille.” So far there were no further assignments, but I kept my account with this service, since they treated me well and professionally.

I received yet another topic from another service. Payment would have been $10. The assignment was just down my lane; it was about a business involved with environmental protection, promising to reduce your junk mail and plant a tree in your name. I was proud to have written a very nice two-paragraph article as requested and provided the hyperlinks exactly as requested. The article was promptly rejected, because I hadn’t placed keywords as requested – actually, I did, but only as a tag inside the HTML code, still visible to search engines. The request was to insert the name of the business owner and the business itself into the post, all in small letters, not separated by commas or any other formatting that would actually make sense.

Well, one of my short-comings is that I refuse to deal with idiocy, and I really didn’t care for the tone they used. I have written many articles in my life and most of them underwent some necessary changes, but all this was managed on a professional level. I was willing to play nice for a small payment, but don’t like to deal with such an unprofessional attitude. I promptly canceled my account with them.

The third service works on the premise of bids, meaning you as the author have a look at “blog opportunities” and you place a bid. The payment level was as lousy as the rest, but, again, if it helps to get more content for my blog, then why not? There were three “opportunities,” and I placed a bid on all of them. After waiting for two weeks without any response whatsoever, I changed my e-mail reference to cancel@myaccount.com. They didn’t have an option to cancel your account with them.

Please excuse that I don’t offer any names or web sites – I wouldn’t want to promote these services. I found them all through googling.

As I said, I learned my lesson, and I will stay put and concentrate merely on my writing.