CornerScribe

Running a StumbleUpon Campaign

I recently bought a small StumbleUpon campaign for one of the posts here at Corner Scribe. I did it without much research or planning; I just picked a post I thought was good and bought $10 of StumbleUpon traffic.

The results… I’m not really sure.

I got about a 4 percent thumbs up rating, which was lower than I’d hoped for. However, since it’s my only campaign, I don’t have anything to compare it to either.

I didn’t promote the campaign other than buy the visits. From time to time I’ll promote my content on twitter, stumbleupon, entrecard, etc. and drive more traffic and stumbles that way. I deliberately chose to not do that in this case because I wanted to see how the post fared all on its own.

I didn’t include images, although I know now that Stumble users tend to prefer posts with them. Next time, I’ll try that.

Next time, I’ll also experiment with putting the same article in multiple categories; I know that that can have a big effect on how well a campaign goes.

If you’re interested in running a StumbleUpon campaign, you’ll pay $5 per 100 visits. Yes, that’s a bit high, but the potential is there for your content to get thumbs-upped and really take off. Here are a couple links you might find helpful.

Problogger gives some advice on advertising using StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon Alerter is a great little tool that lets you track certain posts and see how many times they’ve been voted up, and by whom. By the way, if you have trouble getting it to run under Windows Vista, right click the shortcut, choose properties, and set it to run as Administrator. That did the trick for me.

Time Wasters

more cat pictures

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the things that I do that take time away from what I’d rather be doing (writing.) I’m sure many people have the same issues I do. I fall into a rut and find myself spending lots of time doing things I shouldn’t be doing.

• Television. This is a gigantic time suck. The one solution is to quit watching so much darn t.v. Of course, that’s easier said than done sometimes. If you’re like me, then you actually LIKE television (some of it anyway). So sue me. My solution is to watch only things I really like and stop just watching because something is on. I use Netflix and MythTV (like TiVo for geeks) to have better control over what and when I watch.
• Tweaking. Spending an hour searching for new wordpress themes isn’t really productive work. Neither is any number of blog-related activities I spend time on. I’ve started asking myself if what I’m doing will really help get me where I want to be.
• Networking. Don’t get me wrong, real networking is good. Spending two hours chit-chatting on twitter probably isn’t good. I’m not saying that I never take time to have fun, but I don’t kid myself into thinking that I’m doing something writing-related when I’m not.
• Reading Blogs. I love keeping up with lots of blogs, but I can easily use an hour or two this way without realizing it. About once a month, I go through and start purging my RSS feeds. If I haven’t read a blog in a month, and I haven’t really missed it, chances are it’s going to get removed.
• Research. Real research is great, but sometimes I find myself spending way more time “researching” than what is needed. If I’m honest, I’ll recognize that what I’m doing is avoiding getting started on the real work.

When it comes right down to it, most of these are often forms of procrastination. It can be tough to settle down and get busy, but it’s well worth it. What are some of your biggest time wasters?

Getting Organized

If you’re like me, you have writing ideas, to-do lists, reminder lists, etc. to keep track of. Here’s a little piece of free software that you might find useful.

Tiddlyspot

This is an online organizational tool that’s free to use. It’s based on GTD (Getting Things Done), but it will work with your own methods too. I use this kind of setup to organize my writing into projects. A project might be a short story or novel, an article, a query. It might be something not really writing related, like maintenance on the blog, networking with other bloggers, ad campaigns, etc. If you’re going to work on something that takes more than one task to complete, it’s a project in my organization system.

I then list out all the tasks for that project. A short stories list might look like this…

• Finish writing rough draft
• Do research on medical conditions that cause convulsions
• Find two or three appropriate markets

A project list for the blog might look something like this…

Improve blog SEO

• Research SEO plugins and choose one to install
• Add plugin for Related Posts
• Change post titles
• Find new theme to install
• Announce new theme and downtime on blog

I store tasks in this system and ideas in another, Google Docs. When I have an idea for an article, I make notes in a new Google Document. Sometimes that’s no more than a title, but other times it’s the skeleton of an article. I divide articles and short stories, novel ideas, etc. into folders, one for each story, novel, or blog. When I need an idea, I have some already there, ready to be used.

There’s one more benefit to using these systems; both are online and available anywhere you have internet access. Log in for five minutes at lunch and makes a few notes, work from home or on the go, even jot down some ideas from your mobile phone. This is a great way to get your writing life (or regular life!) organized and track your ideas and projects.

Of course, I still carry my moleskine, for times when I just want paper or the internet is inaccessible. I like knowing that, no matter what, I have some method of collecting ideas and notes so that I won’t lose them.

Anyone want to mention other organization tools you use with success?

Ugh…

I got a fun case of food poisoning earlier in the week, and now that I’m feeling better, I’m playing catch-up in a lot of areas. Bear with me.

Goal Achievement Update

I think posting goals has a very positive impact on the amount of work I get done each week. I may not finish all my to-do’s, but I do finish MORE because of the list than I would otherwise.

Here’s how I did last week. Not bad, considering that I was out of town three days.

• Go through my email - Done
• Go through all blog comments and moderate/answer/etc. - Done
• Post two articles to Constant Content - No
• Post 3 blog posts to each blog -Done
• Spend 1 hour working on elance profile - No
• Spend two hours on the novel - No
• Spend two hours networking - Done
• Set up a StumbleUpon campaign - Done

And here are my goals for this week.

• Write two constant content articles
• Write the promised guest blog post
• Spend two hours editing the novel
• Spend one or two hours on a short story
• Post 3 posts to each blog
• Spend two hours networking

What’s an Obama?

We were out of town last weekend, and we stopped Sunday morning at a Waffle House for breakfast.  A customer at a table across from us was reading about the election and mentioned Obama.

Waitress: “Obama? What’s an Obama?”

Customer: “You know, he’s running for the democratic nomination.”

Waitress: “Oh, I don’t watch the news.”

As odd and funny as that may be, think about it. She’ll probably vote this November.

Writing Helper: Choose vs Chose

Here’s another one that I see all the time in writing, but I never hear.

Choose is a present-tense verb. It’s pronounced like booze.

1. Which option will you choose for your investments?
2. Did you choose which restaurant you want to go to for dinner?

Chose is a past-tense verb. It’s pronounced like hose.

1. I chose to sell our house before the prices fell.
2. I’m glad I chose to buy a hybrid last year.

Constant Content Success

Craig recently asked in a comment to my post 10 Reasons I Didn’t Buy Your Article to talk more about what I’d recommend for success on Constant Content.

I’m no expert, but I do have some additional tips that might be helpful if you’re looking to sell there.

Requested Content

Writing an article that fits a request automatically gives you an edge in selling it. You know you have at least one person interested in purchasing what you’ve written. Of course, there are dozens of other people who’ll also be writing articles for that same request. To better your chances, check for requests often and try to get an article posted as quickly as you can. You’ll have better luck if you already have an article approved to offer the potential buyer. Whether that’s possible is largely a matter of luck, however.

Recently Sold Content

Check this section out daily. It will give you an idea what types of articles sell regularly, and for what price. Both are important things to know if you plan on selling with any volume.

Most Prolific Writers

Look over the profiles of some of the most popular writers and see what they’re writing, and charging. Keep in mind that very popular writers may be able to charge more than you can, but this should still give you some ideas where to begin.

Choosing Your Topics

After doing your research on what topics sell well, think about what topics you’ll be able to write for. If Astrology is popular, for example, but you know nothing about it, it’s probably still a bad choice for you. Any topic that requires you to do a lot of research won’t pay well enough to warrant all the time you’ll spend putting your articles together. Add to that the fact that you’ll have a difficult time competing with writers who know the topic well and have a real passion for it.

Try to balance writing about topics that are popular with writing about topics that you know something about. If you can get $10 for an article that took an hour to write, you’re better off than if you sold one for twice as much but spent hours researching and writing.

Naming Your Price

You may be tempted to price your articles really low, but don’t. People will assume that a $10 article is of better quality than a $1 article, and you may be surprised that the $10 version actually sells better. Browse some articles on similar topics, of similar word counts, and price your article at a price that’s in the ballpark.

Be Patient

Patience is your best friend on Constant Content. I’ve sold articles weeks or even months after I posted them. Don’t lose hope if you post a few and get no response right away. Write some more, adjust your prices if needed, and see what happens. It’s no coincidence that the most popular writers have hundreds of pieces for sale.

Terrific Resources

If you’re not reading Paperback Writer, you ought to be. Her blog is witty and informative, but this compilation of questions and answers if really great.

I wanted to take this opportunity to invite you all again to post links that you’d like me to include on my resources page. The link can be your own or someone else’s. It just needs to be of good quality.

Post your links here, or email me at cornerscribe AT cornerscribe DOT com. Put “resources” in the subject line so I won’t miss it.

Week’s Goals

I want to get back to planning out my week. Here’s my list of things I need to accomplish this week.

• Go through my email
• Go through all blog comments and moderate/answer/etc.
• Post two articles to Constant Content
• Post 3 blog posts to each blog
• Spend 1 hour working on elance profile
• Spend two hours on the novel
• Spend two hours networking
• Set up a StumbleUpon campaign

What do you want to accomplish this week?