Do monkeys write better than do Rednecks? - Redneck Tale # 29
Money first - is there something other than money?
This old Redneck has been hanging around these parts for close to nine months. Whenever the mood dictates, he whips out an article (or a reasonable facsimile of one) about something that interests him. To tell the truth, the idea is to "write it out" before the thought gets away, maybe to be lost forever. That's the way things are when a person gets to the age of having caused the Social Security Administration to have long ago gone broke.
Looking at the page views reported on by Hubpages, it turns out that the total is getting right next to 10,000. This morning it sits at 9,621 page views and 166 hubs, and for each one of those, readers and writer friends are individually and collectively thanked. Whenever a comment has been left behind on the page, it makes for big smiles and good feelings over here.
There are many articles posted here on Hubpages by authors who speak to earning money from writing hubs. As everyone who participates in the Hubpages adventure knows, there is the hope of earning money from every hub posted. Early on, that idea was encouraged here, however it was not too long before reality set in about earnings. Those who want to earn lots of money from their hubs must spend lots of time and plenty of effort on the job of making Hubpages be one of their jobs. In nine months and over those 9,621 page views for the 166 hubs, the Google Adsense income has been $25.54.
Many people, including we hubbers, might ask, "What's the point of writing stuff when each carefully crafted article turns out to be worth an average of only 15 cents?" (Approximately one small bite out of a candy bar these days...)
If it is only the money, then most of us are playing in the wrong sandbox.
Which hubs were the biggies?
They tell us that poems are the pits when it comes to popularity among readers. One would be fooled by that tale if one surveyed the "account" listing of hubs here. Forget the 166 hub total. Look at the top ten hubs' page views:
- How to tell if someone is bugging you (a how to article)
- Dumb Poem # 37 - Skiing (poem)
- SampsonVets Tale # 16 - Sampson Veterans Alive and Kicking (humor)
- How to use PagePlus for word processing, page and book production... (how to)
- Health and Disease - tobacco smoking - keep it up... (health article)
- Dumb Poem # 17 - The Librarian (poem)
- Redneck Recipe # 1 - "War Dog vs. Pit Bull" and Has Beans Recipe (humor + recipe)
- Dumb Poem # 62 - The Nazi Party (poem)
- SampsonVets Tale # 2 - What's with all these crazies (humor)
- Dumb Poem #2 - The problem with rabbits (poem)
Go ahead and count 'em! Four out of the first ten are p o e m s. As they sometimes declare - you could knock me over with a feather. Number 1 on the list had 641 pageviews which may indicate that there are many readers in fear of their telephones being tapped. Number 2 on the list is a little poem the title of which is "Skiing." It had a startling 519 pageviews. Number 3 on the list was a funny telling of tales from the old military days at and about Sampson Air Force Base. Its page views were less than half those of the skiing poem - 243. And so it went, with number 10 on the list garnering 167 page views.
The "stats" for the high rollers on the list were interesting. Those having the big numbers, comparitively speaking, were those with readership overwhelmingly from readers who linked in from the Internet, mostly by way of various search engines both in the United States and throughout the world. Lesson - Hubpages has great "reach."
And so it went. There were a large number of poems on the listing, and most of them had abysmal readership. There has been friendly advice from some hubbers - remove those with crummy scores. Worrying about crummy scores is generally not something that Rednecks do. The poems all remain until it is figured out what to do with the collection. Being of an age, so to speak, figuring that out is likely to take a while.
Why should a writer be a "hub-writer?"
It is probable that most hubbers have goals that include writing books, magazine and ezine articles, income from syndicated columns, and other writing endeavors that will all bring fame and fortune. Writing, in a sense, is a lot like performing on stage. The writer is IT once the pen hits the paper or the fingers whack away on the keyboard.
As all writers will find out soon enough, that next writing assignment - the one that pays lots of money to a writer - is won only when the paying client can see what the writer wrote in the past. How easy it is to send them to a favorite hub - the one with great readership that was sculpted with great care and craftsmanship.
These days a lot of writing assignments arrive via eMail. Writers' applications for those assignments go to potential clients the same way. It is a piece of cake to attach a copy of an existing hub to that eMail or simply include an article's Internet address ("URL") when referring a client to the article.
It is very important that you verify the worth of your intended clients before sending sample articles to them. Some are not as ethical as you might want them to be. No use supplying free articles to folks who want their articles at no cost - like your sample articles. By supplying prospective clients with already-published materials, you further reduce the chances of your hard-worked articles going astray. In addition, your prospective client is encouraged to become your for-real client by the fact that your "sample" has already been approved for publication elsewhere.
One word or two of caution - If your prospective client is a Redneck, turn around and run as fast as you can. Rednecks have no money and their blue jean pockets have big holes, which is why they have no money.
No money can bring good money
So far Hubpages has meant virtually no income directly for those 166 hubs. On the other hand those articles have brought along two new clients from whom the dollars are visible and will soon amount to about one thousand dollars a month in real money. There is a third potential client, a healthcare foundation, that is now taking a look at some of those already published articles. Each has their own payment scale. One is low-paying, but the articles placed there are many and their crafting is both easy-going and on subjects of the writers' choosing. The second client is high-paying (like $30 for a 500-word article), but they specify subjects and demand perfection as to composition and format. The healthcare outfit pays well and suggests what it must be that the writer puts together.
If this Redneck were to make a suggestion to his many hubber friends, it would be to put your hubs together with purpose and energy. Think to yourselves, "What would the editor of "____" think of this hub if he or she were to read it?" Then go from there. You should want that editor to see your hubs, and you absolutely do want your potential clients to see them.
