My Hubscore is 1

Look over at my beautiful profile picture in the top right corner of your browser. Admire my appearance, charm, and class for a moment, and then take a look at that little number in the lower right-hand corner of the photo. It's a 1! One! Uno. Single. Alone. Separate from the crowd. The Lone Ranger.

At first glance one might be envious of my position as the best. However, my Hubpage friends, this is not the case. The "1" in the corner of my photo does NOT mean I am number one. But rather, out of a scale of 100, I am 1.

Saying "I am 1" is nothing like declaring "I Am Legend". Sadly, unlike Will Smith I am not the last survivor, but rather someone devoured by the zombies of Hubpages. If Hubpages was an IQ Test, I wouldn't even be the special kid. If it where the SAT, I would be working in a sweat shop. My score of 1 is terrible.

However, I've been on Hubpages for 1 week, written 7 high quality articles, and already gained a following of 80 hubbers and a profit of $6! Why is my hubscore so bad?

Because of THE EVIL COW.

New to Hubpages (a week ago), I saw a huge opportunity in this site. If you've read a few of the success stories you will notice that people are making hundreds of dollars a month writing articles on here. They're living the dream! Just think: enjoying life, writing about whatever you please, no required time commitments, and making a decent amount of cash. This got me excited.

I thought to myself, "How can I make money doing what I love with Hubpages?"

The answer was easy. Write quality material and gain a large following! And thank goodness I have a bit of experience with online marketing - meaning I know how to quickly get a large number of people to follow me.

How? By following them of course! Now, I wasn't sure if this was something that people did on Hubpages, and wanting to be a respected writer as well as a financially successful individual, I decided to refrain from pursuing large numbers of people on Hubpages. That is, until, the COW.

Maybe you've seen him. Maybe you've read his material. Maybe you ARE him. Regardless, this is what happens: a mysterious cow on hubpages that continually writes about flatulence comes to all of the newbies on Hubpages and follows them. Of course, if you only have 3 followers, you become very excited with a fourth. You check out his article, laugh a little, leave a comment, and become one of the 1.5k people that are following him!

Now, I thought, if a dairy animal can do this, so can I. So that's exactly what I did! I went to the "lastest" section on the hubbers page and started following people. Of course, many of them (maybe including you) followed me back. This is great! A win-win. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Unfortunately, this caused THE FALL. My hubscore was up to about 60. Not too bad considering I had only been on for 3 days. However, two days after my boute of following new hubbers, my score began to plumit. In fact, I have worked hard to comment on articles, ask questions, answer questions, and be an all around upstanding character, but my score continued to fall, point by point, until, finally, I woke up today to a pitiful 1....

Thanks for the influence, Flatulent Cow.

Having read other hubbers stories, I've discovered that many people don't make more than a couple of dollars their first month. I made $6 in my first week! A lot of this is because of the large number of followers that I've acquired from following first.

So the question is this. Is it worth working my score back up? With my current method, I could easily gain another 25 followers a day - increasing my readership and profit significantly. However, I would also remain at the measly 1.

Wanting to be viewed as a talented writer, and not caring only about making money. I have decided to work my way back up. If I make it from 1 to 100 in a couple of weeks/months, I will write an article about that success. If I remain at 1, I will recommend that you avoid me like the plague. Wish me luck!

What's The Best Scenario for You?

From my experience on Hubpages during this week, you have two options. 1) Build up slow and steady, increasing your score and participation, OR 2) Grow fast, but drop your score to one. Before you decide which to do I think it is important to consider why you are on Hubpages.

Do you just want to make money with your writing? Then having a hubscore of 1 is probably alright. Just keep following new users left and right and you will soon have a gigantic following. However, the veterans probably won't take you seriously...

Is writing something that you enjoy? Do you want prestige as well as income? Then I would recommend not doing what I have accidentally done. Add people slowly. Participate in the community. Patience is a virtue that can drive you crazy, but is at times beneficial.

If when you read this article my score is back to being high, I have succeeded in recovering from this newbie plunder. If it's still low, I kindly ask that you take my writing seriously (or jokingly, depending on the article), as that was my intention for being on the site in the first place.

I hope you enjoy your Hubpages experience and avoid the plunders that I have made in my first week!