It is a small world

Today, I gave my presentation in the Korean War/1950s class. We also had to create a two page handout for our classmates summing up our topic (mine was Robert Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers). In the interest of self-advertising, I chose to include my pen-name Morgan Drake inside of brackets enclosed by my legal first name and my last name Eckstein (which I actually use as part of my penname).

Turns out that one of my classmates (someone I have taken a couple of history classes with) is one of my online NaNoWriMo friends. It took her a couple of minutes to figure out where she seen the name Morgan Drake before---I tend to use it as my online handle everywhere---but she did make the connection.

After class, she properly introduced herself to me, and we talked a few minutes about the joys of attempting National Novel Writing Month while going to college. It is a really small world, isn't it? I wonder if she is on Facebook.

The State of Morgan Eckstein Economy 2011

I did my taxes on Friday, as evidenced by the above picture of the line at the post office (imagine what the line is like today---Happy Tax Horror Day 2011). It was slightly depressing. When I accounted for the payment that I am still waiting for (small payroll department problem), the difference between 2010 and 2011 business revenue was a whole six dollars. Gee, my writing business is growing by leaps and bounds, isn't it? Add in the increased costs of daily living, my tuition and textbooks costs going up, and the cut in the amount of grants and scholarships I recieved (and it is going to be even worse this year), and my personal economic picture blows chunks. When I consider the number of businesses that are closing their doors, alongside my personal finances, I find myself wondering where is this mythical economic recovery is? It is sure not happening in my own backyard. Is there anyway that those people who actually seeing an economic recovery (I am talking about you rich-cat CEOs) could pay some more taxes? Probably not---but I can hope, can't I?

The hazards and difficulties of online experimentation

One of the problems with online writing is that one occasionally has to experiement. One encounters a gap on one of the online writing sites, and one wonders why it is there. Is it because no one else sees it? Or no one looks for the information that you think should be there? Or is it too much work? Or not enourgh demand? Has someone tried it already and told everyone else it is not worth doing?

Depending upon my mood, I may or may not indulge my curious nature and write something to fit the hole. Of course, with online writing your definition of success tends to be eyeballs on the page. Often one finds themselves experimenting and wondering how long is a proper amount of time before one calls the experiment an utter failure.

It is a difficult call to make. Google takes time to index things. And if the subject is something that is only occasionally of interest, an experiment today that looks like a total bust can have a hot spot a year or two (or ten) down the line. For instance, this year I got a lot of hits on a state of union commentary I wrote when Bush was in office.

I am quite sure that no one was actually looking for that one; I am positive that they were looking for information about the most recent one that Obama did---one that I did not watch because I got no return from the Bush state of union address. *sigh*

Of course, the reason for the extra hits was the fact that the site that I had it on was being managed by a different company and now had a much wider audience share. Which is another thing that makes experimenting and writing stuff that fits into missing gaps so d*** difficult to decide when it is a success or not.

At the moment, I am kicking around all these questions merely because I am experimenting with trying to figure out why such a hole exists on one of the online pageview sites. The set of articles I am writing are on a special type of astrology (the "born on this day" variety). Based on the first couple of days' results, I would have to consider the experiment a complete bust.

Now, I can't give up the experiment yet. One, I have been writing online long enourgh to know that it is a strange market. Two, I really need to have some stuff like this in my portifolio if I ever want to work with a business or publication that does this type of articles. I figured that I need a sample of thirty days to prove that I can do this type of work.

It would actually be easier to do this type of writing for someone other than a pageview site. After all, most publications who do the daily horoscope routine require a smaller number of words per day. I figure I am having to do four to six times the words that I would have to do for a regular client. Plus my initial math, and yes I had to do math to prepare for wiriting of the set, can be reused---I never have to do the math ever again.

Nevertheless, based on the short term, it feels like I am wasting my time. Only time and Google will tell if that is really true or not.

QoD Selling books about enlightenment

Anyone who sells books about being 'enlightened' should first try that themselves, preferably with some kind of flame thrower aimed at their heads.   
       ----David Shaw (someone on Facebook)

Thanks Jim Logan

Ok, I am going to say something polite about Helium---hey, it could happen!

In the recent discussion about the new publishing rights policy, Jim Logan realized that the only way to keep up on the posts was to answer each person's questions and concerns directly in their own post (by using the edit function). And I would like to thank him for that---it made finding the answer to my concern quick and easy. It also made it easier to find his responses to other people's questions (some of which I was interested in).

(My concerns were about piracy and teaser paragraphs.)

Thank you Jim Logan for your prompt attention to my concerns. Even when I am upset with Helium, you prove to be professional. Thanks.

Helium response to the last Google update

In the last Google update, the search engine perimeters were changed to punish duplicate content. It was meant to down-rank the pages which were just reprinting what other people wrote. Unfortunately, I immediately realized that it was going to penalize everyone (if your work is pirated, then it too is a duplicate---even if it was the original). I also realized that this was going to mean a big change in the online writing envirnoment.

And today, I saw my first indication that what that change in the online writing envirnoment was going to look exactly the way I thought it would.

Helium, as of  March 24th, is now going to take exclusive online rights for one year on all new articles submitted. As always when Helium does a change, there are mixed reactions.

In my case, the reaction was "Well, thanks to Helium making me spend any time I have to write [for them] in maintaining my rating star, and tying any incentive earnings to having a writing star which I do not have, so lots of rewrites [leapfrogs] would be needed...it was going to be a long time before I ever write a new article for the site, and now it is going to be even longer."

Sure, one can submit an article to a ebook and/or print publication...oh wait, most of them have a web process. And there lays the rub. Welcome to the new ugly online writing envirnoment.

Thanks to Google, everyone is going to move towards requiring that all content submitted is exclusive. Soon, we will never be able to reprint any piece of work. Everything that we publish will have to be original content.

But we still going to be penaltized for writing duplicate material because of people who copy other people's material. The front page (the latest seven entries) of one of my other blogs is being posted elsewhere on the web...and I have not been able to do a damn thing about it.

And other thing, I like to occasionally use a paragraph from an article to advertise it...opps, I guess I can't do that anymore either. Welcome to the wasteland...hope that you didn't plan on doing this type of writing for a living.

QoD Elbert Hubbard on self-promotion

Everyone should advertise while they are alive. The man who does not advertise is a dead one, whether he knows it or not. Life is too short for you to hide yourself away mantled in your own modesty.
   ---Elbert Hubbard