I was curious to see much people were offering for content-writing jobs, so I left some forum posts around the Internet offering my writing services and waited for a response from people. I got a LOT of messages, which proves straight up that there is demand for content writers.

The problem, however, is that people expect so much for so little. Compare the job of a writer with that of a designer. There is a guy on Digital Point who makes web 2.0 logos. He made my logo and a dozens of others around the web that you will have seen.

This guy charges $10 for these logos. He does a great job and he can turn one around in less than the time it would take for me to write 300 words of content. It’s no effort on his part, but his time is valued more than that of a decent writer.

I had offers of $70 for 100 posts and $3 for a 500-word article. As well as offers like this, you have people making posts questioning why the Internet content writers they employ suck. Here’s why: people are offering peanuts.

I would not write an article (about 300 words) for anything less than $10. When you look at magazine works that pays at least three times more in Thailand and even more in other countries, you have to put it in perspective.

If you are going to go down the content-writing route, don’t sell yourself short with dud offers. Compare to a ppc program that pays $0.01 per click. Sure, you could make money online, but it’s not going to happen any time soon.

Tags: Around the web by Angel
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When you read anything, you go on a journey with the words that the author presents for you; you hear that author’s “voice”. It’s the same when a person reads one of your blog posts: that reader should hear your voice.

There is nothing more confusing than when a blogger writes a post pushing a product in a selling voice one day, and a post about his experiences with Google in a storytelling voice the next. Every post you write should reflect your voice. If you let the type of post you are writing dictate your voice, how will your readers know who you are?

Defining your writing voice takes time and effort; you can’t simply fall into it. You need to be able to write clearly because the real selling point of your blog is you. Whatever you are preaching or selling is secondary to the voice your readers hear. Here are a few examples of different types of voices out there:

The happy voice

Many writers use excessive friendliness as a tool to win readers over. One of my pet hates is impulsively cheery bloggers. They’re the people who thank every person who makes a comment, and use excessive exclamation marks in their copy. They say things like, “I love my readers, you guys are great,” at every opportunity.

This technique works though. You see it a lot on MyLot and certain blogs. Being agreeable is a technique used by many bloggers. Amazingly, their readers react and respond in the same cheery manner. It can be like watching an episode of The Brady Bunch, but it has been proven to work. The best nice-guy blogger I’m reading at the moment is Ben Cook. He does an excellent job with his writing voice and he has achieved great success already.

Although I usually don’t enjoy “happy bloggers”, I make Blogging Experiment one of my daily reads because it’s interesting to see how Ben writes and builds up his readership.

The aggressive voice

Some bloggers write aggressively. Everything is a hard sell and everything is written promoting the best software or the best technique to make money blogging. Aggressive bloggers will tell you they are the best and tell you that everybody else is insignificant.

While it isn’t the only way to make money, aggressive blogging can work because it’s a way to sell something. The problem comes when the blogger’s voice becomes little more than ad copy one day, while offering you great tips the next. How can you trust a blogger who writes so inconsistently? Aggressive bloggers write on the basis that people forget anything not on the front page. I disagree: several blogs have already killed their blogging voice by writing in and out of character from one day to the next.

The people’s voice

This where I put people like Darren Rowse. You always feel like Darren is on your side and that it’s genuine. He writes for his readers, never aggressively, but always with the authority that comes with being an expert in his field. This is a position that few bloggers will ever find themselves in.

Darren has almost 35,000 RSS subscribers because he is good at what he does and people like him. The difference between Darren’s style and that of a “happy blogger” is that Darren’s voice is effortless to read. You read it as if you are talking to your neighbor over the fence. That’s a difficult style to achieve.

The knowledgeable voice

I read Dosh Dosh several times a week because Maki never alters his style. He writes with authority in every post. When you visit Dosh Dosh, you know exactly what you are getting: straight up facts. To emulate this style to any degree of success requires knowledge.

Maki goes to great lengths to make his posts definitive resources for certain topics. There are no shortcuts with that type of blogging, and while it isn’t the most personal approach, if you know what you are talking about then your blog will become a reference for other people.

Let your voice flow

Your own blogging voice will come once you get comfortable with writing. It takes time to learn how to write well. Bad grammar and syntax is one way to distort your voice. Pay attention to what you’re writing, read it through at least once and use your spellchecker.

Tags: Around the web by Angel
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What happens when the biggest band in the world turn the music industry upside down? We’re seeing it now, in full effect. When Radiohead announced that their new album would be released download only from www.inrainbows.com and that fans would get to choose how much they wanted to pay for the LP, record label executives went into panic mode.

Radiohead have been without a record label since 2004, and they’ve embraced this freedom by doing something radical. Nine Inch Nails, Jamiroquai, The Charlatans, Oasis – the list of major bands following suit is growing.

What we’re seeing here is the benefit of having a large enough fan base and reputation to really be able to turn your back on the system. If we apply this to the blogosphere, you see it happening all the time. If major record labels are Google, bands like Radiohead and Oasis are John Chow.

John Chow is big enough to be able to do almost whatever he wants. John Chow has said many times that he doesn’t rely on Google for anything now. While others base their entire blogging projects on the ins and outs of Google, here is John Chow saying he doesn’t give a damn, just as Radiohead are doing.

Major bands are becoming increasingly frustrated with record labels. They don’t want them, but until now, they needed them. Digital downloads are the music industry’s biggest headache. They are killing record sales, which dropped 25% in March this year compared to 2006, according to the Wall Street Journal.

One of Google’s headaches is people trying to manipulate the system, like when John Chow offered links for every review written about his blog with the anchor text “make money online”. He got punished by having his keywords thrown way down in Google searches.

Record labels have tried to fight back against digital downloads, as is evident in the landmark ruling that American Jammie Thomas must pay $220,000 for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa. The ruling is ridiculous and futile because times are changing.

Did John Chow care when he got bitch slapped? No, because he was big enough that it didn’t matter. He doesn’t need to rely on Google, just as Darren Rowse doesn’t, just as Cash Quests doesn’t. Radiohead and Oasis don’t need to rely on record labels anymore, and here lies the lesson: in times of change, it takes pillars of the community to push things along.

If you get yourself into a position where you have the readership of John Chow or Cash Quests or Shoemoney, you have the power to turn the scene upside down.

For the rest of us, we still have to respect Google, but we’re being shown the possibility that things won’t always be this way. So Google knocked down a few Page Ranks of major bloggers, but the majority of them don’t care. It will only serve to turn people further against Google, just as Jammie Thomas getting sued will only serve to turn bands and music fans further against major record labels.

Jamiroquai frontman Jason “Jay” Kay has been very vocal about his dislike for record labels putting marketing above music. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails expressed his disgust for the high price of CDs by telling fans to steal his music at a show in Australia. In the blogging world, Pro Blogger said he doesn’t use Adsense any more. Until recently, it was assumed that a blogger couldn’t make money unless he was using Adsense.

John Chow also doesn’t run Adsense, and neither does John Cow. They do things their own way, and show the rest of us that if we work hard and build up our blogs, we can do the same. Heck, even Cash Quests got banned from Adsense and now those guys are making more money than ever. In the future, we won’t even need to rely on SEO if we put the groundwork in.

Record labels are not the be all and end all of the music industry any more, and Google is not the be all and end all of the blogosphere. We’ve been relying Google and silly green bars of Page Rank for too long.

What’s interesting about the Radiohead story is that fans are being asked to choose the value of music, which has until now been determined by record labels. Label bosses are terrified because they stand to lose so much money.

What’s interesting about the blogosphere is that even now, Google plays a major role in determining the value of a blog, but this is changing too. You don’t need to rank number one for every keyword and you don’t ultimately need a PR6 to be successful, but having these things along the way will help you.

For you, me and all the other bloggers waiting to make it, we can’t turn our backs on Google yet, but in time, we will be able to. Radiohead, Oasis, John Chow & Co. – these are the people who are changing the way we think and approach blogging. As Shoe said, you have to play the game – up until a point.

This is the blogging revolution. As Dosh Dosh wrote recently in reference to the Radiohead story, it’s not all about money, it’s about reaching out to a loyal audience. This audience is what we should be aiming for first and foremost – Google or no Google.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m looking up to the people who are making it, like Courtney Tuttle. You can get more useful info reading decent blogs than you can studying Google’s logarithms.

Tags: Around the web, Google by Angel
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