Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Suite101.com Dropout

A friend of mine makes great money doing online writing. The lucky (and talented) chick doesn’t even have to venture into the local parenting pubs because she does so great at so many online places. So when she suggested I sign up at Suite101.com, I got right on it.

You have to do a bio, including your education and experience (professional and otherwise), plus link to all the websites or pubs you’ve written for plus include 2 600-word samples. I reworked my 2 pieces I keep recirculating and made sure they were not in first person.

They gave me all these reasons why maybe I wasn’t going to work out. One was that I had too many grammatical errors. Nope. One was that I didn’t have enough experience. Probably not. I mean, I don’t have more than 2 years of college, but unless you’re a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer, college doesn’t necessarily mean a lot anymore (read John Taylor Gatto and tell me you disagree!) besides a big fat school loan to repay.

My friend says they probably get too many applications for writers in the parenting/family category and were just full (I also applied in the personal finance and freelance writing categories). She’s so kind. Actually, I was bummed for a second but then remembered how she told me you have to crank out 4 articles a month plus they have real editors who ride your butt PLUS you have to know how to put the right keywords with your articles (so people searching for an article on your topic can easily get to it from, say, Google) or they hunt you down and beat you (just kidding!). I’m thinking it’s called “101” because it’s like a writing class for writers and if you do well, you make money.

Then I realized I don’t even have time to work on all the stuff I really need to be doing, so why was I signing up for yet another thing to take up my time? If I could come up with 4 articles per month, I’d better be sending them out to the big parenting pubs and then the littles. I know you get residuals for life from online writing, but I’m happy with $25 for an article that I can resell again and again for $25 more.

Anyone have experience with Suite 101? Think you’re good enough to sign up there and get accepted? I hope so … do it and let me know how it turns out.