Someone Who Blogs for Cash

I heard about this story in USA Today about a photographer from The Baltimore Sun who is taking a year off work to see if he can make more money doing that than he got from his full time job. So far, the money has been better, as he's grossed over six figures with virtually no expense. His income is from advertising, and he has "200,000 mostly amateur photographers as devoted readers." On reading, I noticed a few things that jumped out:

• He was an expert in something.


• A large number of people wanted to learn what he knew.


• He started this on the side over two years ago.


• It seems to have spread by word of mouth.


• The topic is one he can keep returning to, analyzing new shots to extend the underlying principles.


• There is a companion spot on Flickr that allows people to upload their own photos, making the site interactive.


• He's broken out some posts, like his Lighting 101, so they can be easily found.

There's no reason that any one of us couldn't apply some of these principles to our own online ventures. But notice the big one: he was an expert. This shows that platform without expertise may not go far, because you really need to have something solid to offer an audience.

Michelle Vranizan Rafter's Best Blogs for Writers

Michelle Rafter ran a list of best blogs for writers on her blog, WordCount. Ignoring for a moment her inclusion of my blog, there's a great list of resources, from the mechanics of writing and editing to the freelance business and corporate writing. It's worth putting on your list.

Reference Sites for Publishing Law

It's good to have some places to learn about publishing law, as that is a vital part of running your writing business. I've just added a couple of links to my "Other Other Sites":

• Ivan Hoffman Hoffman has been in publishing and entertainment law for decades and has a great collection of articles on aspects of contracts, rights, coypright, and doing business. I periodically go in and see what new articles he has listed and catch up on my reading.


• PublishLawyer.com This is another site by an attorney, Daniel N. Steven. It has more of a tutorial feel to it and also has features like the Quick Guide to Book Contract Trouble Spots.

If you're serious about running your writing business, you should be learning as much as you can about contract and publishing law. You don't have to become a lawyer to start improving the way you look after your own interests.

Warning: Possible Infringing Site

On a discussion board, a writer mentioned having found a piece she wrote for Health Magazine appearing on a site called Healthy Park (or Healthy Book). The writer gave me permission to pass this on. She said that what she wrote was owned by her and not available for use elsewhere without her permission. She also noticed a number of other Health writers' work on the site. I did some checking on Whois (the way you find who owns a domain), and the person is based in Beijing, and there is no email address listed. In other words, forget about trying to get in touch with the site owner, let alone get paid.

However, the ISP is Enom.com, which is based in Washington state. That means it is subject to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, or DMCA. You can issue a DMCA take-down notice and have the ISP remove any copyright-infringing material. For information on how to formulate and file a DMCA take-down, click here.

Site Review: Groovin' on Gorkana

Someone on a writers' web site mentioned Gorkana.com. I took a look and it seems to be a useful and free marketing tool for journalists. (Sorry, but corporate writers probably won't get anything from it.)

Gorkana has two sides: one for journalists, and another for PR people. For writers, the cost is that you have to be a working journalist, and you must let information be put into a database to which PR people have access. I haven't found myself inundated any more heavily than usual, so I'm not sure that's a problem. What you get as a journalist are a few things. One is regularly emailed updates to industry changes. From Gorkana alerts, I recently got the still-current email address for the editor who will head the new weekend magazine for the Wall Street Journal and the current email and phone for the new managing editor of Conde Nast's Portfolio.

If you need a source or sample, you can post a request through the alerts the site sends to press representatives. You can also offer your services to editors. I think it's definitely worth checking out.

Eons.com Restructures, Shrugs Off Professional Content

Eons.com, an over 50 social networking site started by Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor, laid off just over a third of its staff, according to various accounts, including this one from Mass High Tech. Part of the restructuring is a tightened focus on the social network area. If you had been thinking of this as a market - and it had cooled, demanding all rights for pitiful pay - think again:

While no product lines will be cut, according to Taylor, the company will take a more user-generated and user-aggregated approach to its content, including focusing more on the feature called "BOOMing" wherein members submit interesting online articles they have discovered. That will enable the site to rely less on content that requires heavy editing.

One reason for the heavy editing, from what I saw, was that Taylor didn't want to pay going rates in the first place. That resulted in either using less able people or in more experienced writers repositioning things they had already done.

One lesson to learn from this is that the whole "Web 2.0" view of the Internet is as inherently flawed as the dot com bubble of the late 90s. Companies buy into their own hype and think that just because they do something, people will come. But more often than not they don't. So if someone tries to get you to work for too little because theirs is the next big thing, just walk away and look for real business.