How to Make Money from Writing – New Directions

Posted on March 1, 2010 by

How to Make Money from Writing – New Directions

Spring is here and with the changing of the season comes a changing of my blogs central theme.

I want to be a science fiction writer, no doubt about it.  The problem is that right now that goal is not paying the bills.  This situation forces me to be a hard-headed realist.  My dream job is to be a writer, in the field of science fiction.  If the latter is out of my control, then certainly the first part isn’t.

Making Money on the Internet

There are many ways to make money from writing on the net, for example: copy writing and article submission to sites such as Constant Content.  While writing copy for others to use isn’t very exciting, it does pay the bills.  Similarly, writing articles for Google Adsense related websites is another means to make money writing for the web.

My only reservation is that I am just not sure how many times I can work a keyword into an article, over and over again and not sound like a robot.  Maybe the fun will be in achieving this without going totally bonkers.

From the sheer number of “scraper” sites on the web, someone, somewhere, must be making money with sites like this though.  Here is hoping that that someone can be me and not just Google.  At least when I make an Adsense site, it will be with my own content!

Anyway, for better or worse I have decided to give being an “internet marketer” a trial for a month and see what happens.  Accordingly I bought six domains this morning and will be developing them over the coming month.  The plan is to publish a frank report on the success or failure of the activity in this blog on the 31st of March.  To get a fuller picture this deadline might have to be extended, but right now I can’t make a prediction.

If I can make even a small amount of regular cash from these activities it takes some pressure off and allows me to write stuff I am personally interested in with a clean conscience.  That is the plan anyway…

The Future for this Blog

Developing so many websites will necessarily cut down on my activity on this blog, but I still plan to post here two or three times a week.  In a strange way it might actually improve the content here as I plan to write a weekly post about the science in science fiction, as well as a personal post and maybe a creative writing based post too.

Becoming a science fiction writer is temporarily on hold…at least for a month.

Dave Felton.

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Writing, Blogging, Goals and a Good Spring Clean

Posted on February 28, 2010 by

Writing, Blogging, Goals and a Good Spring Clean

February is at an end, Spring is almost upon us and it is time for an honest assessment of the story blog so far.

I know I have kept quiet about my goals for this month, but that is because if I failed horribly it would at least be a purely personal humiliation and also because I think that some goals have more energy if they are kept to oneself.

Goals of this Blog

My initial goals were:

  1. One post a day
  2. Make the post useful and relevant to writing, or show personal growth that is relevant to other aspiring writers
  3. Check facts
  4. Be honest
  5. Try to make posts of 500+ words of decent English

For the most part these goals have been realised.

  1. A few posts have been missed, due to ill health or other real world events, but mostly these gaps have been later filled in.
  2. I hope that the posts I have made have been useful to others but only my readers can answer that one.  As visitor numbers to the site are still growing, I assume some of what is here has been found useful by others.
  3. As far as I am aware the facts in the posts are correct and no one has contacted me to say otherwise.
  4. I believe that all posts have been honest.  Although the site is “monetised” (Amazon, Adsense etc.), I have not and will not recommend a book or other product merely because it gives me an affiliate link.  Frankly, there are better ways to make money through writing and I will not “sell” my integrity that way.  Given the choice, I would probably prefer to have this site 100% ad-free, but following my hospitalisation this is not an option as I need to make money from writing.  If I ever make enough money from other writing activities to replace a living wage, rest assured that ads will be completely removed from this site.
  5. The final goal originated from advice in the books of Stephen King and Dorothea Brande.  Basically this advice amounted to “make sure you write daily”.  I thought 500 words was a reasonable goal, if time was taken to also research the post.  Better to achieve a small goal, than to fail in a large one.

As it turns out this final point is the single most important aspect of this month’s activities.

Secrets of Successful Writing

Becoming a Writer

Due to the success of the goal of writing a small fixed amount, I have actually been driven to write well over three thousand words a day.  Compared to my old level of output this is not much shy of a miracle.

Thank you Dorothea!

This level of activity has also enabled me to have a few articles published and has changed my attitude to writing professionally, along with the whole process of becoming a writer.  In the past, settling down to write has occasionally been difficult, but now it is a pleasure that I look forward to each day.

Writing Goals for Next Month

So, what are the goals for next month?

Well, my meta-goal remains to have my science fiction novel published.  Until this happens I will remain a “wannabe”.

However, back in the real world, I still need to make money from writing to provide a living wage.  There are many ways to make money from writing and I will be exploring and blogging about them next month.

Dave Felton.

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Is Science Fiction a Failing Genre?

Posted on February 27, 2010 by

Is Science Fiction a Failing Genre?

Here is a test: walk into a real world bookstore, preferably a major chain like Waterstones, and stand by the door.  Look around carefully (hopefully avoiding being approached by the store detectives) and try to find the Science Fiction section without moving.

I will give you even odds that you cannot find it and I am not normally a betting man.

Of course, if you go into a specialty bookstore the case is different, but in a mainstream bookstore with active management of stock you are very unlikely to see a row of books marked Science Fiction (SF).  Why should this be so?  Have all science fiction writers suddenly acquired writers block, retired, died, or merely rebranded?

Rebranding of Science Fiction

Oh dear.  It seems that I might have hit on something.

Standing by that same doorway you may well be able to see “The Time Travellers Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger, or “Next” by Michael Crichton or maybe even “Oryx and Crake” by Margaret Atwood.  All of these books have solid SF themes but avoid the label or any of the usual symbols associated with the genre.  Even a modern hero of British SF, Iain Bank’s, steadfastly refuses to be classed as a science fiction writer.

The problem with SF appears to be that in large part it is about future technology and mostly that future is already here.

The Victory of Science Fact

Want to write about super computers, nanotechnology, gene alteration, atomic energy or space exploration?  Many of these technologies are now well-developed and the research currently happening in those fields easily surpasses the wild imaginings of SF writers of earlier decades.  If you doubt this, go read Scientific American or any other significant technology-based magazine.

The only one of those fields that present or near future technology does not appear to have fully developed is space exploration.  The fact still remains that man has not been past the moon and space programs are currently suffering large cutbacks.  There is scope to write about something fantastic, but will an audience educated in Einsteinian physics buy it?  Probably not.

Instead we see age old SF themes, such as time travel, being weaved into a romance plot and entering the best seller lists as “chick-lit”.  Michael Crichton’s “Next”, despite its heavy use of genetic technology, is often billed as a “techno-thriller”.  And finally, Margaret Atwood was once offended that “Oryx and Crake” was referred to as a science fiction novel, although she later amended this statement.  If professional writers of this stature seek to avoid the SF label, then maybe science fiction really is a failing genre, at least for the moment.

So, for the time being, science fiction writers will have to remain unseen and undercover.  Slowly, silently, plotting, making their plans against us…

Regards,

Dave Felton – wannabe science fiction writer and endangered species member.

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