I’m Joining the Demand Studios Holiday Club – Are You?

Photo by Pacdog (flickr)

It’s been a wild month for me, as I try to write up a storm, raise over 30 newly hatched tadpoles (two of my African Dwarf Frogs had mated), publish a weekly newsletter, and tackle various obstacles holding me back from progressing – all with Christmas just around the corner.

I must admit – this month has been a pretty lazy month, and I have myself to blame. My mind is getting ready for the relaxation holidays bring, so I’ve found myself putting things off and procrastinating more than usual.

I should have known better than to tackle so many projects at once right after I just launched my first big project in a long while – Jump Start Your Freelance Writing Career. I’ve also been struggling with sharp pains in my back, followed by arm numbness, which made it almost impossible to type for a day or two (every time I would try, it felt like my arm was about to fall off). Luckily, I’m fine now. (more…)

Are You Ready to Join the Double O Club?

While browsing blog posts for the day, I came across an article called Time to Join the Double O Club by Felicia Williams. Needless to say, I was curious, since Felicia always shares valuable tidbits with her readers.

Photo by Refracted Moments (flickr)

Basically, the Double O Club is a concept (not an actual club) where you tack on two zeros at the end of a digit and use this number as your primary daily goal for the month. In Felicia’s case, she’s aiming to maintain club membership by making $100 every day each month. She would earn this amount by using a combination of upfront earnings and residual income.

I found the concept interesting and exciting, so I figured I’d join in as well. However, I’m only going to focus on residual income to achieve my membership, and I’ll start working for it in November.

Here are the income sources that I plan to utilize in order to acquire my Double O Club membership. (more…)

Demand Studios Work Challenge: June 21, 2010

I’ve gotten some work done for Demand Studios and my overall Demand Studios score is rising at an incredible speed. It seems that the Secrets to Making Money with Demand Studios eBook by Kent Ninomiya paid for itself. Rereading the Why Your Overview Matters (And How to Make it Good) article on the Demand Studios blog has also definitely helped to boost my grammar score, especially for this month. However, I’m still working to get my article limit increased, so I can’t rest yet. (more…)

Demand Studios Work Challenge – June 9, 2010

I haven’t updated you all on the Demand Studios Work Challenge for a while, since I’ve been busily going through books and planning out my copywriting career. The books I’m mainly referring to are The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less by Peter Bowerman, Start & Run a Copywriting Business by Steve Slaunwhite, Secrets of a Freelance Writer, Third Edition: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More by Robert Bly, and The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage, and Ed Gandia. I’ll be talking more about these books later on as I get started in my copywriting business. As I’m just getting started, I’ve been devoting most of my time to books and my portfolio.

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Demand Studios Work Challenge – May 30, 2010

Today has been a very good week for me, considering how much work I’ve gotten done for Demand Studios and the improvement I’ve made with my Demand Studios performance. While my grammar score has remained the same (even though the bar for this month has been increasing slightly), my research score is increasing rapidly. In fact, I passed my goal of 3.5 with my research score by hitting the 3.6 mark. Pretty soon, I should have a score of 4.0. Hopefully my grammar score soon follows suit.

Moreover, the number of rewrites I’m receiving has decreased a great deal since my last Demand Studios Work Challenge update. Since then, I only had to do 2 rewrites. On the last two days, 7 articles went through without having to be rewritten. This is definitely a huge improvement for me and one I hope to keep up. (more…)

Demand Studios Holiday Club

Demand Studios is apparently hosting a Holiday Club event! They’re giving away $500 to one copy editor and one writer Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. For specifics, here’s a copy of the email:

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Update: Demand Studios Plagiarism Flag Removed

I mentioned on my May 28 Demand Studios Work Challenge update that one of my articles (How to Start Up a Business Website & Domains) was flagged for plagiarism. Well, I found out this morning that the flag was removed! I can definitely say that I was relieved.

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Demand Studios Work Challenge – May 28, 2010

Yesterday I had two scares. The first scare was that an article was flagged for plagiarism. The second scare was that another article was rejected.

I had written an article “How to Register a New Business Online” under the impression that it meant something along the lines of “How to Register a Domain and Start a Business.” Now, I realize that my interpretation was wrong, and the title actually meant how one would register their business online with a Secretary of State office and obtain the required licenses and permits to keep the business legal. So, the article was sent back by a copy editor with the following message:

May 26, 2010 – I think that the article does not fir the title. If this article is supposed to be about registering a domain name for a new online business, please focus on that. You have some information on launching an online business, and some info on keyword phrases, etc., but that’s gets away from the focus — how to register a business online.

My interpretation of this title is how a person with a new business can go online to register that business with her state’s Secretary of State’s office, or Department of State in some states. I don;t know if you had guidlance form the editorial team, but either way, this article needs to be refocused on the title. Thank you!

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Demand Studios Work Challenge

As many of you know, I had previously written a series on how to become a successful Demand Studios writer. For the rest of this month, I’ve decided to put those tips to use in my Demand Studios Work Challenge and increase my overall grammar and research score.

Last week I purchased and read the eBook Secrets to Making Money with Demand Studios by Kent Ninomiya. The eBook consists of 138 pages and is surprisingly well written. Basically, Kent shares his story on how to make pretty good, often full-time, income with Demand Studios. I’ve found the whole book useful, though one of the most astounding things I picked up from the eBook was that you can actually get promoted on Demand Studios. Kent shares how he is often asked to participate in special projects for Demand Studios, has access to assignments that pay $100 per project, has an increased assignment limit of over 50, is asked on many occasions to attend special Demand Studios events, and how to become as successful as he is by making Demand Studios a full-time career. After finishing the entire book, my mind started doing cartwheels just thinking about what could be achieved, whereas I would have had no idea it was possible to achieve so much if I hadn’t read this eBook.

This brings us back to the Demand Studios Work Challenge. Throughout this month and the next, I’m going to take Kent’s advice and increase my grammar and research score to above 4.0. Then, I’m going to maintain this score for 2 weeks or so to hopefully receive an assignment increase and, later, special higher paying assignments. I’ll fill you in on my progress every other day during the journey and how I went about obtaining my achievements.

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eHow Writing Platform Switch: Good or Bad?

For the past year, eHow has been continuously changing their eHow writing platform so that users have to get used to the new set of rules again and again. It first started with their article sweeps, where thousands of eHow articles were removed if they didn’t meet eHow’s new guidelines. This created a lot of frustration in the eHow community and some members lost as much as 50 articles to the sweeps. Other eHow members had their whole article library wiped out. Luckily, I only had about 10 articles deleted during the time. Freelance writers began disappearing, upset with all the hard work and effort spent in articles that just got tossed down the drain without a second thought. A few dedicated writers, including myself, continued to write for eHow.

However, the problems didn’t stop there. The eHow website started shutting down at random times of the day, articles stopped publishing, and pictures stopped uploading. Several more eHow writers left, deciding to find more stable sources of income and not wanting to deal with any more issues from the eHow writing platform. Again, many hopeful eHow freelance writers remained, thinking that all of eHow’s problems will soon be fixed. After all, they were still getting paid and they had already invested months, and in many cases, years of time into eHow.

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