Sunday, October 30, 2011

Book Review - Stealing the General

If you love stories about railways and/or the American Civil War. The Book Stealing the General is well worth the read.

Book Review - Stealing the General

Saturday, October 22, 2011

HubPages On the Back Burner

For a few weeks now HubPages has gone to the back burner in my life.

At the beginning of September things got a little busy for me.

  • With possible changes at work, I was looking into other areas to move my employment future.
  • I was also looking into going to graduate school to take a Master of Arts in History.
  • I also had some health issues which were taking up lots of time and effort.
So for a while things got a bit hectic.

The employment issue worked its way through. I have found and plan to start my graduate studies in a few weeks and the health issues seem to be receeding.

So what has happened to my HubPages account, well basically being dormant does you as a writer no favors. It took about one week for my readership of hubs to fall from four digits to double digits per week. The world of the the online writer should have the Roman slave whispering in the ear of the vain, self impressed writer, "Readership is fleeting." much as they warned the heroic general of his glory in victorious battles.

My Hubscore has also slumped a little, though with less variation than when I posted articles. At it's height it was at 96, now I slowly fluctuate in the 84-87 area.

My evergreen posts remain the most viewd, blindness, history and money are always popular. My experimental writing fairs less well.

So for the budding writer, be aware once started you must be able to keep up some sort of output. My Yahoo! viewings continue to rise steadily, so look to adding variety to your publishers

Don't spread yourself too thin, but make work specific to various publishers. That way when life, as it tends to do, interferes, you can weather the threat of reduced income.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Halfway to the First Millenium!

Today I passed the 500 views mark on my Yahoo! Contributor Network pages.

This comes a little over three months after my first post on July 6, 2011.

Since then I have made 43 posts and earned a few dollars from a couple of posts which were paid up front. Those upfront payments don't count towards views, so I have 40 posts counting towards views.

Yahoo! Contributor Network pay out after each 1,000 views, so if I gain views at the same rate, we are looking for a payout around January or February 2012. That payment would give me $1.50.

I reckon that on average a post takes an hour, to produce so $1.50 for 40+ hours work over about six months and you can see that is not a lot of money.

This is not a grumble though, it is just to show the reality. I have produced a post every four days or so. That is not too many and I have produced several poems, not the best payers over all. A couple of restaurant reviews, those got the up front payments, political opinions and recipes. How to make money at the library was my best viewed work at this time, with over 10% of all views.

So if you are looking to make cash online writing is a good source, but you need either lots of time or lots of good content, to produce rapid results.

To read Make Cash at the Library CLICK HERE!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Amazon Is Back in California

A few days ago, Amazon.com e-mailed me to ask me to return as an affilliate.

They claimed that the California Online Sales Tax Act was repealed by Governor Gerry Brown.

It appears repealed is a little strong of a term. Other sources say the Act is merely suspended in lieuu of a possible Federal Sales Tax Bill.

If the Federal Sales Tax passes it will supercede the Califfornia tax and if the Federal Tax fails Amazon will peobably pay the California tax.

Given that the Federal Sales tax may be argued unconstitutional and fail it seems possible California Sales tax will be paid by Amazon in the future, but it may be several years or a decade or more before we actually find out.

Until then I will resume my affiliate status, but continue to consider any income from that as extra pocket money. Of course now I also have to pay additional business taxes for a licence to be a fully legal affilliate.

Oh Well, nothing ventured nothing gained.