Category: Community

A few days ago, I received an email from a Celebrate Life reader, they follow me via Celebrate Life’s RSS feed but don’t comment. Which is normal, if you look at your stats, in many cases you’ll find you have more people that regularly visit your site without commenting.

Anyway this reader was curious about Demand Studios. They asked me whether it’s legitimate, and more important do they pay on time. Being that I’ve only started writing at Demand Studios, the information I could give them was limited. I know they’re legitimate since a few bloggers I follow are writing for the company. I sent them a few links to writers who’ve been writing with the company for a long time. This morning, when I opened my personal email, I received a note from them telling me they had gotten accepted into Demand Studios. I sent them a congratulatory mail, and a few links that I thought would be helpful.

Demand Studios; payment for one article

The above screenshot, is the first payment I’ve received from Demand Studios. This payment was for the first approved article I’d written. Livestrong pays their writers $25 per article. Demand Studios pays their writers twice weekly; Tuesdays and Fridays. That’s a first for myself, since I’m used to being paid either biweekly or monthly for online work.

With print articles, I don’t receive payment until after the article has been published. If I remember correctly, the longest I had to wait for payment was about seven months. Naturally, the payment received was a lot more than what I make at Demand Studios.

Wayne Howard of Wayne’s Business & Pleasure, has recently started writing for Demand Studios. He’s recently written about it on his own blog, if you’re looking for additional information, stop by and read his post.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White has graced my bookshelf for numerous years, I can’t find my copy.  During the house renovations it was packed (or given) away. I was familiar with E.B. White, having read Charlotte’s Webb (along with a few of his other books) as a young child. However, I hadn’t heard about William Strunk until reading the book. Many times, I’ve curled up with the book and read it like a novel. It helped a lot with my freelance writing.

I appreciate the rules, listed within the slim book but I don’t always follow that style in my personal writing. In freelance writing, I usually follow this style when writing health related articles. This book is a reminder that I don’t need a lot of words, to make a point.

Writing for Livestrong magazine, I realized quickly not following guidelines, the copy editor will send back my work with a rewrite request. Admittedly, I needed a gentle reminder with my first article. I tried to sneak in unnecessary words, even though I’d read the guidelines. Naturally, it was sent back with a rewrite request, I made the changes, my rewrite was accepted and the article published.

Admittedly, the hardest part (for me) was writing in third person (avoiding “I”, “we”, or “you”) while still writing in active voice. I haven’t done that in a while. Because of that, I took my time to write the articles before submitting them.  The three topics I wrote were; Ways to lower your cholesterol, benefits of B12 and iron, and how to burn 750 calories. I enjoyed working in vegetarian choices with the first two. Admittedly, I can write those articles without thinking, since those are topics I’ve researched religiously. However, I do  include references supporting my claims. Livestrong requires that with all its writers.

Yesterday I ordered the 50th anniversary edition of The Elements of Style. It arrived at my doorstep this afternoon, now that’s efficient service.

My natural beauty business keeps me busy throughout the year. However, the colder months is hectic. During these times, I don’t do too much personal writing. Besides spending time with family, the majority of my attention is focused on my business.

Recently, I decided to kick things up a notch with my writing, so decided to take on a few freelance writing projects. In addition to writing on a few sites I own, I’m writing for others too. I’ve always been a fan of residual income, since it means I get paid whether I work or not, so you’ll tend to see me focusing a lot of energy on writing projects that way.  Up front pay  is nice, however when it comes to online work I tend to gravitate towards projects that will offer keep paying me no matter how long it’s been since I’ve written an article (or updated a website.)

Using freelance writing to purchase another 17″ MacBook Pro

I decided that I’d finally update my 17″ MacBook Pro, although I have the money to do that now. I’m holding off, and will use one of my newer freelance jobs to make that happen. I recently got accepted at Livestrong Magazine as a media writer. In order to work for them, you have to apply with Demand Studios.

I had thought I’d already done this, but when I went to their log on screen last week, I realized this wasn’t the case and so I had to go through the process of submitting an application, which included attaching a writing sample, and linking to one of my sites that is solely focused on heath related issues. Less than 24 hours later, I received an approval letter from Demand Studios. I also received an approval letter from Livestrong magazine. It’s an online magazine I’ve been following since it was created, so naturally I’m happy to work for them.  The beauty of it is; I can work when I want too. I don’t have any quota. The money I make writing articles for them will go towards the purchase of my new MacBook Pro; I should have it within a few weeks.

Getting accepted at Demand Studios; Writing for Livestrong

Unlike a lot of your freelance writing sites, Demand Studios is on the higher end of the pay per article scale. The articles average about $15 per article of 400 – 500 words. For online content, that is considered “good pay.” Livestrong is part of Demand Studios, and their articles start at $25. When it comes to writing for others online, $25, and above is what I’m used to receiving, so Livestrong fits me perfectly, and it’s writing about topics I’m completely comfortable with; Health & wellness, and natural products.  Although accepted, I haven’t started writing for them yet. My business has been keeping me busy, however, once my daughter goes back to school this week, I’ll start submitting a few articles.

Patricia, a lovely lady who writes about the lavender herb and the many things you can do with lavender essential oil recently commented on an article I’d written about freelance writing. Did you know lavender can be used for hair loss prevention? It’s true, I have a product that does exactly this, although I don’t market it as such even though there are scientific data to back up the claims, making those claims on a product can get you in a lot of hot water.

Patricia had mentioned she’d check out the DS. Unfortunately, Demand Studios is only open to those who live within the United States, however, Suite 101 is open to international writers.

Making money with residual Income

DeAnna over at WriteMoms has done a great review of Suite 101, and I’d encourage you to drop by her site and check it out. I can’t forget Felicia, at NoJobForMom, she has a huge lists of articles focused on writing for Suite 101. Suite 101 is a great site to check out if you want to make some residual income. I have articles at one website where I don’t write anymore, however, I still get an average of $250 monthly from those articles, and that’s only one site. Although $250 monthly might not be significant, remember I’ve been getting that monthly for around two years. I don’t write there anymore. With those articles, I made more money over time, than I ever would have made upfront. I have residual income coming from other places too (mostly my own sites).

How profitable is residual income? Well, I can pay 75% of my monthly bills that way. That’s not bad at all, residual income can be extremely profitable, however it’s not going to fall in your lap. It didn’t happen overnight with myself; you’ll have to work to make it happen. If you listen to the naysayers, you won’t make it. Be prepared to make sacrifices, like dipping into your me time. For myself that meant cutting my gaming time, and a few other social activities I did. I wanted to turn my dreams into a reality and that wasn’t going to happen if I acted like the grasshopper who spent their time partying, gaming, etc., Just like the industrial bee, you’ll be busy, but it can be worth it.

But back to Patricia… She happens to be writing about one of my favorite herbs, so you know I have her site, Lavender Uses in NetNewsWire (my RSS feed aggregator). I also follow her tweets on Twitter.

The Vanishing of the Bees

The Disappearing Honey Bees: Beekeepers on what’s happening.

Occasionally you might see me slip bees in my titles or see them woven within some of my articles. The reason is simple; I have a lot of respect for them. Although I’m not like the honeybee where I’m constantly working. I do work a lot to achieve the goals I’ve set out for myself. Honeybees have to be my all time favorite insect (ants are a close second). As a child I spent a lot of time just studying the bees in the yard. I admired their work ethic, and was fascinated at the way they were constantly working. My parents, seeing my interest in these amazing insects supplied me with the books focused on bees that further encourage my fascination with them.

Unfortunately, Colony Collapse Disorder has seen a significant decrease in the honeybee population. On a local level, I started noticing a decline even before hearing the term. Next year, I’ll be adding honeybees to our property and am hoping I can do my part to increase their population.

This past July, I purchased the domain Celebrate Life. I wasn’t sure of the direction I was going to take with this site. I had no clue what I wanted to include on m About Page, and so I tossed something up and off I went. I did know that I wanted to get back into personal blogging. It’s something I’d taken a break from for almost two years. During that hiatus, I focused on growing my niche sites. They were monetized and starting to do well. Now those same sites are doing well monetarily. I felt I had the time to come create another personal blog. The thing is; I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do here on Celebrate Life? Imagine that… I never thought I would simply encounter a mental block writing about whatever the heck I wanted, but I did. With my niche sites, it’s easy. They’re focused on things I’m knowledgeable about; Mac technology, fitness, nutrition, it’s something I talk about a lot. The only difference part of my talking is done on websites.

In the beginning, Celebrate Life had me stumped. I didn’t know what direction I wanted to take here, so naturally I was experiencing a major writing block when I thought of my About Page.

Naturally avoiding updating my About Page, didn’t make it update itself. Shocking I know, running away from those temporary blocks makes them disappear, right? While the about page kept nagging me, I wrote here and I also immersed myself into some of the virtual communities I’d been involved with a few years back. Quite a few had left or slacked up on blog writing, but I was happy to see that some of the bloggers I enjoyed were still around.

Two bloggers I met while writing at my old blog…

• Megan Bayliss: Website developer and fair trade seller.

Reconnecting with Megan felt great, and always inspires me to do more with children. Megan Bayliss owns the site Imagine If. She’s a small business owner, website developer, fair trade seller, and child safety advocate. She’s such a nice person. I really enjoy reading her writings. If you have an RSS feed agregator you can subscribe to her RSS feed.

• Mike at Exit 78: Photographer and Ultimate road tripper

Checking in on Mike at Exit 78, I was happy to see he was still taking road trips, and sharing a bit of his adventures with his community. Through the stories he tells and the gorgeous photos he shares. He’s a nice man I enjoy reading what he writes. As a history buff, I always enjoy when Mike shares historical facts associated with some of the places they’ve visited throughout the USA. You can keep also keep up with Mike by subscribing to his RSS feed.

In hindsight, I should have left personal blogging in a different way. Perhaps even holding onto the domain with an occasional update. I simply had put over three years into my old personal blog and towards the end I wanted to take an extended break.

After a few weeks of getting back into the community aspects of blogging, It didn’t take me long to realize that my new site was actually going to be a recreation of my old personal blog. Imagine that, huh? Why didn’t I just go with that in the beginning? 😉 Well the mental fog related to the page has lifted, and I finally got around to updating the Celebrate Life About Page.

Question: Have you ever updated your About Me page?

I really enjoy blogging. A few years ago, I took a break from my personal blog. I stayed away for almost two years, and only recently came back to it by creating this site. The past few years I focused on my niche sites, and although they did well. I really missed the blogging communities I was involved with. I enjoy interacting with others, and one of the ways I expressed that was through my personal blog.

One might ask if I enjoyed my old personal blog so much why did I stop writing? The reason was simple, my niche websites took off, and I found myself spending a lot of personal time looking after them. Monetarily, I honestly wasn’t expecting them to do as well as they did. I’m pretty unorthodox in my approach to online monetization. So no,  I don’t follow all the “SEO rules” for creating a successful site that’s main focus is online monetization.

If you’ve been visiting my virtual home for a little while you might have noticed a few changes I’ve made recently. I’m really enjoying them, so I thought I would share them with you too.

 

• Twitterlink Comments created by Andy Baily

If you’re a Twitter user you might enjoy this recent installation on Celebrate Life. For those not familiar with Twitter, is a social networking and microblogging service enabling users to interact with others using 140 characters or less. If you really what some is saying, why not add them to your Twitter list? You can also include your Twitter information here at Celebrate Life, your Twitter name will appear directly under appear URL information.

By the way, say hello to Amber. She’s the unsuspecting model I used to show off the WordPress Twitter addon. If you get the chance, please stop by Amber Garner’s blog and say hello. She recently graduated college. Her expertise is in Advertising and Publicity.  Not only did Amber recently complete college, her website is fairly new too, having been created this past June.  Check out Amber’s take on Robert Frost’s popular poem, The Road not Taken. I enjoyed reading how this applied to her life. You can follow her tweets @amberlgarner and even subscribe to Amber’s RSS feed.

• Keyword Luv by Stephen Cronin

I first saw it mentioned on Kim Castleberry’s website. I don’t know why I took so long to install this. Ok, I know why I didn’t install this. With my first personal blog I used to get a ton of spam. I always appreciated the legitimate comments I received, but I disliked when I stepped away from the internet for a while since my return was always greeted with spam linked with keywords upon my return. Uhm, yippee? Sure they all went into the spam folder, but I still disliked weeding through all that mess. I always made a habit to go through my spam in case. A legitimate comment somehow found its way there. Thankfully that rarely happened, but it didn’t stop me from checking.

If you’re new to social media or simply want to keep up to date with what’s going on, stop by Kim’s site. She has a wealth of information located there. You’ll even find numerous Blogging tutorials too. Kim can be found on Twitter, just look for @AskKim. Snatch Kim’s latestet updates by subscribing to Kim’s RSS feed.

If you’re looking for other ways to reward your commenters check out these five community friendly WordPress Plugins.

Personal note…

I really appreciate people that spend time greeting their visitors, Amber and Kim take the time to respond to the comments left by their visitors. I’ve always liked seeing that since I know they’re reading what their visitor’s comments. At times it’s hard to respond to comments, so for those who do I really appreciate it. Thanks Amber and Kim, it’s appreciated.

WordPress Plugins acting whacky

Let me know how you like the WordPress Plug-ins. Keyword Luv, is my most recent addition. I installed it this morning. Tested it out and it seems to be working fine, however if you do run into any issues please drop me a line via my contact form.

Question: What are some of the ways you reward your vistors? Drop us a note in the comment section.

 

Whoa, can you believe August is almost here? Time is really flying by. It won’t be long before my seven year old daughter heads off to school I’ll miss her while she’s away, but I’ll definitely get more accomplished.

if you follow me through the social media sites like Twitter. My name is @Moonndancer, you’ll know that I’ve been unusually quiet. Shocking I know, with the amount of tweets I can pump out. To be fair, I chat with and retweet a lot of my buddies post. I’m still around, I’ve just been focusing most of my online time on this website.

Celebrate Life is my newest website (it went live early this month.) The actual website started as a free WordPress site called Not Your Ordinary Momma, towards the end of May 2010. I love my daughter, but got tired of having Momma in my blog url, additionally I couldn’t stand the limitations with the Free WordPress site so I purchased a url, and moved to a paid hosting provider. Heals & Dots and Not your Ordinary Momma was my first time checking out a free platform. All my other sites, just like this one, are housed with a paid hosting provider.

Blogging isn’t new to me, it’s something I’ve been doing for several years. When I started, blogging I knew nothing about Search Engine Optimization. I believe I did know how to interact with others in a positive way. I hope it showed in the comments I left on the sites I visited. I enjoyed the interaction and did it often.

I can still recall when someone left a comment on my websites about Page Rank. I had no clue what they were talking about. My website had a Google Page Rank of five, which according to some was a ‘good thing.’ If I liked a person’s site, I would occasionally link to them in my posts. I didn’t do it to get a link back from them. It was simply my way of sharing a particular post to my readers. I figured if I like it, some of my readers might like the article and the writer. I can’t keep a good blog to myself. Whether you had a huge following or none at all that didn’t matter. I’d still link to you. If you think about it, we all have to start at the beginning. Even after becoming aware of Search Engine Optimization, I’m still following that principle. It’s just how I am.

Writing down my goals…

I’m a list person; I tend to write down my goals for whatever I want to accomplish. My lists are usually electronic, so you’ll find them on my 17″ MacBook Pro. I really like lists, since it keeps me focused, and motivated enough to turn those goals into a reality.

I’m not the only one who creates list, Amber Garner of Is this thing on? recently wrote The List. Her list isn’t focused on her website, but things she would like to do in general. Pinkie Larue, has a 101 list and has crossed off several things already. Here’s hoping we all achieve our goals.

Do I have a list for this site? You better believe it!

Upcoming Additions to Celebrate Life

• Cleaning up my Catergory section

Have you seen it, it’s a mess! I don’t know what I was thinking when I created all those categories, and so I’ll be trimming it down. Chris Pearson wrote a great article titled, What Every Blogger Needs to Know About Categories. It’s an excellent read, I’d recommend reading through the comments too.

• Recipe Page

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of behind the scenes work, and I hope the changes made are helpful and help you navigate through Celebrate Life as efficently as possible. Checking out Google Analytics, I’ve learned, that people come to Celebrate Life looking for recipes. Currently, I’m working on linking all the recipes I’ve posted here to a static page. I still have a long ways to go before I even put a dent in the amount of recipes I had on my cooking website, but in time they’ll get published.

• Word Press Plugins

Ever visited a website and wondered what awesome Plug in they were using? Yeah, me too. I’m always happy when writers have a post or page dedicated to the WordPress Plug Ins they use. Interesting enough, on one of my older websites, my WordPress recommendation pages, received a lot of traffic. It seems a lot of folk were interested in reading what others thought about a specific Plugin.

• Spotlight Post

With my other community based website, I spent a great deal of time recognizing those that made up my fabulous community. I met some amazing people from all over the world, and some of them I still keep in contact with. As this website grows, I’ll be adding that feature here. I’m not going to do it now. This url isn’t a month old yet, Google Analytics does tell me I’m starting to gain a small following of repeat visitors so for that I’m thankful. Thanks for returning to my site, it’s appreciated.

• Giveaways

Giveaways can be a lot of fun; no I won’t have my readers jumping through hoops to enter to win something. With a few of my older websites, I was contacted a lot by various businesses to sample and offer items to my readers. I turned down a lot of those offers, since it’s something I knew that I or those within my little community wouldn’t want. When I do have giveaways I promise I’ll keep the requirements simple. So no, you won’t have to friend me on a ton of social media sites to enter to win. Who knows, you might see some of my own skin care products in the giveaway.

• Instructional videos

This is something you won’t be seeing for a long time. The reason is simple, I’m extremely busy and really don’t have the time to devote to shooting or editing a video. However when I finally do get around to posting videos you’ll most likely see me cooking, sharing a natural skin care recipes, or showing you various exercises you can do at home, or the gym. I’ll need to get my workout partner to help out with the last one.

Overall I’m pleased with the direction Celebrate Life is headed. After blogging for several years, I know what I like. I’ll be incorporating some of what I’ve learned here. Naturally you’ll see improvements too. I still have a lot to learn.

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