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Handling Rejection Productively

March 8th 2010 20:08

(I realize it's an offensive picture. I'm an offensive kind of guy.)

So, today I got my first rejection ever, from any site (including constant content grammar nazis). It was for a "list" on Demand Studios. What list? Atlanta Dinner Cruises. Let's think about the initial problem. Atlanta is landlocked. Ok, I got around that by adding nearby lakes and adding a riverboat. One of my problems was my intro mentioned the Chatahoochee River which is the only one in Atlanta and featured a paddleboat dinner cruise for that river without (oh my god!) taking the time to spell out Chatahoochee for the 3rd time.

The editor said it was puzzling to not include the name of the river which led to the rejection. Am I the only one who thinks that if someone is smart enough and can afford a dinner cruise in the first place, they'd probably know what the name of the only river in the area would be?
(How much SEO do you need for "atlanta dinner cruises" really?)

I guess not.

Either way, I've been thinking about handling this in a productive way. I really don't care personally about the editor's comments. I try to look at things like that objectively and now I know next time to either A) Skip stupid topics that I know are stupid or B) Do what they want me to do no matter how stupid I feel it may be.

So that's that. My two options for that particular site and that particular format. No harm, no foul.

What got me thinking is I know many people who have been rejected entirely by Demand Studios and rejected so many times by Constant Content, they won't even mention that site anymore.

So what should one do when faced with rejection? Let's take a look!

1. Blow off steam. Load up your favorite game and ruin people's lives. If you play Call of Duty, grab a sniper rifle and go to town. Play Farmville? Sell those stupid cows. You know you hate them anyway. What about penguins making icecubes? Sell those bastards.

2. Take a break from that site. If all your eggs are in one basket, you're doing it wrong anyway. Put some time into a different or new endeavor. Know of some lame product people might buy? Slap up a spiderweb of Squidoo lenses touting how that product "claims" to be the best thing since Diet Coke (I don't care for sliced bread).

3. Ask a site for advice that will make you feel so stupid for asking, whatever your rejection could have been will look like a Grandmother's kiss on the cheek. Yeah, sounds strange but if you feel more like an idiot for something else, a rejection doesn't feel so bad.

4. Start a blog about how much you hate a specific site. Put Adsense on it. Don't limit it to one site, let the hatred spew! Hate your mailman? Hate your apartment by the train tracks? Someone, somewhere will comment on that.

5. Evaluate the feedback on your article and apply it in the future. Sounds like a no brainer but people take things too personally. On the Internet, who you are and who is judging your stuff doesn't really matter does it? I know the Internet is serious business but it doesn't have to be. Relax, see what they said, and make a note of it. Now, if they reject you later for following that advice, let the DDOS attacks fly.

Personally, I'm just going to divert my attention to a different site for the rest of the day and start fresh tomorrow. Right after I shoot 100 people in the face with a grenade launcher.

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Self-Motivation 101

March 7th 2010 19:22

Self Motivation 101

Motivating yourself as a freelance writer or any other work at home person can be very difficult. You wake up, sit in your PJ's until Noon doing nothing, and before you know it, the entire day has been wasted and you've made jack squat.

Remember the goal when working at home? A lot of us forget after a few months or years. The goal is to make at least a part-time income if not more. I'm still hovering around the $2000/month mark which is acceptable for where I live but I have to admit I'm a lazy ass and I'm really working hard to implement motivators into my work schedule.

If you find yourself just sitting around watching TV, snacking, and playing games all day, hopefully you learn something from this post.

1. Schedule, Schedule, Schedule!!

If you treat your work at home job like a real job, you'll do better than a lot of people right away. This is one of the hard parts to grasp. If you wake up at 7AM, get a shower and some breakfast and actually get dressed, you'll feel ready to go. If you wake up at 10AM, haven't shaved for 4 days and just plop down with Facebook, you're doing it wrong (and a lot of us are!).

The easiest thing to do is tape a big piece of hard paper right to your monitor with a schedule you think you can handle. Here is a good sample schedule for what I might do:

7AM-wake up, get ready for work, get kids to school
8AM-Warm up by creating 1-2 Squidoo lenses about some new product that's probably in my Inbox and ignored (join affiliate programs for that).
9AM-Should be good and warmed up. Big money time. Whip out a few DS articles, Mahalo tasks, Associated content articles, or get work done for a private client.
10AM-same as above
11AM-Break time. I told you I'm lazy. Time to level my Priest in WOW, Play some Xbox, eat lunch.
1PM-(this is my peak time of day) Get as much work done as possible before 3pm when kids get home. I can usually do 6 DS articles in this time which amounts to $90.
3PM- My schedule is useless with so many kids around.

I know I've put up a schedule before but I can't stress the importance of it. There are alternatives that might work better for you.

2. Motivators

What this boils down to is rewarding yourself for a job well done. Let's say I'm dying to play the new Final Fantasy game but dang it, I have bills to pay! Should I do the bare minimum for extra game time? No, that's tempting but not practical. What I like to do is something like this:

Goal-I want to play Final Fantasy for 2 hours.
Requirement-I MUST complete $60 worth of work.

This setup does very well for me as a gamer. Any gamer knows certain days of the week are better than others for writing or web work. If you play WOW, Tuesday morning is maintenance until Noon. That gives you a lot of time to get plenty of work done as long as you don't spend that time on Facebook or something.

3. De-motivators

I'm going to blame Facebook for this one. That's because it appeals to people of all ages. I can't assume all my readers are desperately trying to unlock the best sniper rifle in Call of Duty:MW2 right? Facebook is like alcohol, a little bit each day is just fine but when you start to overdo it, the rest of your life is going to suffer. "You sit in that dirty diaper! I'm tryin to harvest my rice dammit!!". See, that's just not cool. Checking Facebook after each task you do seems perfectly ok but not if "checking" ends up being 20 minutes. Use your judgement.

Kids can be huge in this area. If you have little ones, you will lose the motivation to get work done quite often. You can only take so many crappy diapers, banshee screeches or "he hit me"'s before you throw your hands up and storm away from the computer. Even if you have a spouse at home, you know they are worthless and probably don't help in that area do they? Daycare is an option but then you are basically burning your money.

4. The Ultimate Goal

A friend of mine uses the "Ultimate Goal" motivator to get more work done each week than I do in a month. What they do is have a list of bills on a legal pad next to their mouse pad. As they work, they subtract what they make from each bill until they get to 0, then move on to the next bill. Once all the monthly bills are done, they add money to a section called "Bahamas". Last I checked they were at about $800 (they use 2 paypal accounts) in their Bahamas fund.

I envy that a lot but once my bills are paid, the rest is absorbed into "diapers" or "laundry soap".

5. Just Do What Works For You

I realize not everyone who reads this works at home full time. Maybe your spouse has a good job and you just work for fun money. Maybe you are a single Mother and if you don't find a way to make $1000/month you're screwed. Everyone has different goals but motivation should remain the same.

Once you figure out how to motivate yourself, you WILL succeed working at home no matter what you do. If one method doesn't work, try another one.

I still recommend Action Machine Pro (too lazy to link) if the price has dropped. It helps keep me on task when I actually turn it on!

Good Luck!

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5 Steps To Help You Make A Full-Time Income Now!

January 15th 2010 16:56

I've been working full-time as a freelance writer/web guy now since 06. (I did work weekends in a deli for a while for free food/store discounts).

I did get some negative feedback from my last top 5 list by saying pure English speakers were usually better than those who have English as a second language. I wasn't being discriminatory and of course there are exceptions but go look at the GAF writing area or even Digital Point to see what nonsense is being posted as English. Some may be structurally ok but just not something someone would ever read. That's all.

Now to the list!

1. The Work

Obviously, the first thing is to find a job online that pays well enough. Right now, that place for me is probably Demand Studios. They pay $15 per short 500 word how to, how does, and other types of articles. It's great. I'm kicking myself for avoiding them for so long as my last published piece with them was back in early 2008. I make a lot on the side too so make sure you spread your name around as much as possible. Don't forget about the wahm forums.

If writing isn't your thing, get going on transcription, building little niche money maker sites, or turn your hobby into your job. Like making dog houses? Sell em!

2. The Schedule

Working at home can be de-motivating. I'm a gamer. It's very hard for me to sit in front of the computer 1/2 the day and not click on Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, or Dragon's Age. If you schedule 4 hours of "work only" time, stick to it. I've been doing 1 hour blocks. I allot 1 hour for Demand Studios ($45-$60), 1 hour for website stuff, 1 hour for looking for new work, and 1 hour for trolling the Bidding sites to see what's out there. Yeah, I only work 4 hours a day at the most.

Really, I'm fairly lazy so what I usually do is work enough to make between $75-$100 per day. Takes a couple of hours, and I'm done before the kids get home from school.

3. Doing the Work

This is the same as the schedule right? No. While working online, it's easy to simply NOT do your work. Who's going to punish you? Some guy 1/2 way around the world? Who cares right? Well, eventually you'll get a reputation as "unreliable" no matter what your excuse is. The secret here is easy. Don't take on more than you can do. That 10 article per day job may pay very well but I guarantee after about 20 articles on heartburn, you won't have it in you do keep going at that pace. I burn out quickly though maybe.

4. Improving your Skills

You may think I'm an idiot the way I write on here. Well, this is more like a casual warm-up for me. I do have a few errors slip by and that's ok. It's a blog, not an academic research paper! Improving your skills should be in two areas. General English (spelling/grammar) and typing.

If you know your English skills are iffy, study online. There's tons of games out there to help. Same goes with typing. Find a fun game. I prefer "Typing of the Dead" where you shoot zombies with letters.

5. Work part-time. Yes, I said it. If you simply aren't pulling in enough to live comfortably, find a place you think you'd like to work and apply. I prefer grocery stores and video stores because usually you'll get a discount. I love 10% off my grocery purchases and miss that job a lot.

These are pretty basic and I think I've gone over them before. Just keep at it and you should be just fine.

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Become a KGB Agent

January 7th 2010 23:41

Some of you may have worked for ChaCha once upon a time or maybe got rejected when applying. KGB works pretty much the same way.

People text questions, you claim them, and answer them.

Pretty straightforward really. This is a great secondary job for writers because we are sitting here anyway. Might as well get a little extra on the side.

You can take the test here: http://542542.com/agent

Then you get an e-mail in the next few days with more information.

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Top 5 Reasons You Aren't Making A Full Time Income At Home

December 26th 2009 18:26

About 1/2 the people I know who work at home simply aren't making a living with it or are skating that fine line between paying bills and sacrificing their cable or other wanted amenities. I'll be honest here, there's no reason for that. Let me tell you the top 5 reasons you aren't making enough money working at home.

5. You are working for the wrong sites. There are a lot of sites out there that WILL pay you for writing. The problem is, some of them are truly terrible. IRA is a good example of this. I worked for them for a couple weeks when I first started doing this. I loved it. I made a guaranteed $35 or so every single day for 10 easy articles. The problem is, those articles are 400-500 words and typing 10 of them every day can get so boring, you'll end up wishing harm to whoever is requesting 10 articles about dog mittens or solar pool heaters. That's also less than 1 cent/word unless they've changed lately. Take a look at what they charge customers for that stuff here: www.guestprofessor.com. Yeah, you are getting screwed.

4. You are too lazy. I personally fall into this category. I'm lazy. I don't particularly like to work in any way, shape, or form. There's nothing wrong with that but it can be the difference between $1000 a month and $2000 a month. Don't just work to skim by, work to make a significant upgrade in your lifestyle.

3. You are underselling your skill set. You may not be selling it at all! Everyone has one particular field they excel in. Quilting, Xbox games, Parenting, etc. You know something and know it well. If you see an ad requesting 25 "high quality" articles on something that matches your niche, aim to impress with your bid. Don't say "I've been a writer for 10 years", say "I've organized a local scrapbooking group in my town's local library for the past 3 years and know all there is to know on that subject. This will show a potential client that you know your stuff, won't have to research or rewrite it, and will probably work fast.

2. You aren't looking at the competition. If you are using a bidding site or have your own website, you have to see who's working against you. Check their site thoroughly. Check their profile thoroughly. Odds are, it's a company or individual who's just outsourcing everything anyway. A simple "All work done by me. Guaranteed." can win you a job easily.

1. You don't know where to look. Well, that's why I started this blog as well as www.onlineworkresources.com (if it's up) A lot of people don't know where to look at all! I sure didn't when I started. I've been very lucky and just happen to stumble across great gigs by accident. Look everywhere, do NOT pay for anything (unless you want to try affiliate marketing or upgrade some type of bidding site membership.

A lot of your competition, especially on bidding sites and forums, is an absolute joke. If you were born and raised in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, you already have twice the skills of a lot of your competition. I understand they may have 2 different types of English degree but seriously, they are spitting out articles that no English person would ever read past the first few sentences. There are some who are getting better at it but it's still and English speaker's market.

For many of us, the articles we write are supposed to be to generate sales or interest. You aren't going to do that with a bland rewrite of various Wikipedia pages and that's tiresome to do day after day. Let your personality shine through in your articles and in no time, you'll have a loyal client base that will only come to you.

Coming soon, how to FIX all these problems very easily.

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New Link for Lightspeed Panel!

December 23rd 2009 20:30

I realized my old link for Lightspeed didn't work.

If you don't know, it's a survey site that gives you points for doing surveys. I don't particularly like surveys but after writing 10 articles about blood pressure, it's a nice little diversion. I always cash out around 2500 points (surveys worth 75-500 points usually). I prefer amazon gift codes and simply money by PayPal

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Site Narrowed down and improved!!

December 16th 2009 23:38

So, my site was way to vague and there was really no way I could have ranked "buy ebooks" very well and if I did, I couldn't compete with others

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Surf The Net And Make Cash!!! (Legit)

December 14th 2009 01:40

While browsing around looking for more ways to make money online, I came across two companies that pay you to "evaluate" web sites and search engine results. I figured it couldn't hurt to check them out. One isn't hiring in my state and waiting for the other to respond

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Ebook Site is UP.

December 13th 2009 19:45

After some hosting confusion, the site is up and running

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Website Stage 1

December 11th 2009 01:33

Paid for hosting on the domain "www.EbookAuthority.com

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Let's Make It Happen!

December 8th 2009 23:46

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Updates!!

November 27th 2009 22:10

Well, good and bad news.

Bad News: I lost a 1k/month gig so will have to do something to replace that income. Shouldn't be difficult

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New sites/gigs/techniques on the way!

October 11th 2009 18:53

I have a ton of information for my loyal readers even though I don't keep up here as much as I'd like.

It's honestly because I'm doing pretty well but I want everyone to do as well as I am

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