My 100th Hub in 72 Days

As many of you know from reading my material, I have recently lost my Mother to cancer. For two years I cared for my her and I was sequestered from speaking about her condition. Her care was quite consuming. I came to write on Hub Pages as probably as everyone does looking for a supplemental income. And because we all have unique perspectives to share with our audiences all of us are in a unique position to contribute

And while I didn't find a pot of gold in this venture, I have found my voice and myself again which I almost lost when my Mother died. Writing has helped me through my grief and while I have tried not to let my grief show in my writing, I am certain some of my readers have noticed it.

So I will share what I have learned from writing a 100 hubs in 72 days.

How do I select my topics? I write about anything and everything. I write about politics, entertainment, for educational purposes and I have recently spread out into tourism. My tourism pieces are to give you specific logistical information on how to travel and get around certain cities. I want to expand this area of writing as I have traveled extensively and love to write about this topic with the logistical information including airlines, hotels, restaurants and tours. It might seem rather solicitous but the purpose is to enable you with the ability to maximize your vacation experiences.

I have also written about certain educational institutions. I have made many references back to the educational institutions homepage as I feel they provide more specific information then I can. They are schools which I would attend or I would feel comfortable recommending to a friend or friend's child. But again if you find them to refer back to the educational homepage it is because I defer to the institution when providing specific information and its expertise in defining itself.

So the general rule of writing a hub is write what you know and defer to the experts by providing citations and links. And try to conceal really personal information about yourself.

I found this varies based on subject but for the most part I don't think I have written a hub that took under 30 minutes. And that is not counting going back and reading the comments and responding to the comment section of my hubs. The worst part for me is that I am a terrible editor. I have actually waited three days and still not seen my own typos. A friend suggested I type all my pieces into microsoft word and then cut and pasting them back into hubpages. This has worked for me for the most part except when it hasn't.

I also read my articles backwards to catch typos and for subject verb agreement. I am German so I consider a sentence a noun and a verb. So the writing bar is not set high in my hubs but that is also so I can reach a wider audience.

So it is a good general rule that you will spend atleast 30 minutes constructing a hub.

I don't think I have a hubtivity score anymore. I am hubtivity unaware. It took me perhaps a month to get signed up with Adsense and amazom. It took me quite a while to figure out how to put tracking codes on my hubs and the to put adsense codes on them as well. I still haven't figured out google analytics.

But perhaps after a month I had codes on my hubs. It was really a pain though because I didn't figure out how to put the codes on until I had published about 50 hubs. So I had to go back through all my hubs and add the codes back in. More than likely I will not be paid for the traffic from my first 50 hubs because I didn't have the codes on. But I will not know for certain until I am paid.

As for Amazon, I haven't sold anything yet or atleast I haven't been notified I have sold anything yet.

Placing images on my articles was difficult for me unless they came from my camera. I have several hubs with original images but for the most part I use google images and I credit Google Images.

I also use youtube vidoe frequently. Youtube has most everything I am looking for but some things are not available. For instance in my Hub about Senator "Bill Nelson Truths" I was unable to attain the video from C-Span in which he claimed that torture was not occurring in GITMO. I really wanted that video but it wasn't available on Youtube. But then I find really happy things that make me LOL like the picture of Palin in a Bikini and the picture of Bachmann in a Bikini. See "Tea Party Conservatives". For Youtube I was able to master a great hub on "Bushes Emergency Management" which I recommend everyone read before this election cycle is complete. I also like the work I did on "Breaking Boundaries".

I have used RSS feeds and I have utilized the links as you will see in related hubs in my "Writing Appropriate Condolences" hub.

In the past few weeks I have managed to get on Facebook. I haven't seen a bounce in my traffic from Facebook participation. But I am open to having my traffic scores increase from Facebook.

With great humility, I acknowledge I have to learn more about the technical aspects of the Hub Pages. I have juts begun on twitter and thank goodness I have one kind follower.

So while I have learned a great deal in short amount of time. I have much more to learn. For instances I would like to learn Search Engine Optimizing or SEO.

In a 100 hubs in 72 days, I have been so touched by my readers who have taken the time to read, comment and provide feedback. One kind soul enough took the time out to explain how to link hubs. Thank goodness for the kind souls on Hubpages.

The Challenge of 100 hubs in 72 days was well worth pursing but I would not have continued without the support of the readers and to them I am entirely grateful. What is next? Will I write a 100 more in the next 72 days? Who knows? All I can report is that I have enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to write for all of you. So to all my readers, commenters and raters, thank you.