Tuesday, May 6, 2008

100th Post and Suite101 Promotion

This is my 100th post here on my 'lil blog. I'm not sure where I thought I was going with the blog when I started, other than simply chronicling my exploits in freelance writing. I think I've done that and had some fun along the way. Thanks for reading!

I just found out that I was made a feature writer at Suite101 yesterday. Yes, I'm just finding out. Apparently the email got caught in the hinterlands and I never saw it. The promotion to feature writer comes with extra exposure for my articles as well as a small raise in pay. I was interested in moving up to feature writer but had been too nervous to even email about it. I assumed they would send the email around the office for a laugh and try to send me a nicely-worded rejection that gave no hint of their shared joke. But in the end, they actually approached me about it.

Suite101 takes its content very seriously and there were still a few things they wanted me to do to get ready for the position. After reading my stuff obsessively every day trying to figure out if it could be made better, I finally emailed and said that I thought I was indeed ready. Three days later and they actually chose me. Weird. Maybe I don't suck? It's hard to tell when it's your own writing. I don't know if I'll ever get past my own suspicions of suckage.

2 comments:

brent said...

I found your blog today and have enjoyed reading about your experiences. I am just beginning my own "writer's journey"; I can only hope it will be as successful as yours!

I had a question in relation to Suite101. Have you found them to be reliable and fair? It seems to me that a 10% commission on ad revenue is a bit low. What are your thoughts? Thanks for any help, and I look forward to keeping up with your journey.

L. Shepherd said...

They get an impressive amount of traffic, so I've found it to pay a lot better than most of the other revenue-sharing sites. It's not a lot next to sites that pay a flat fee up front for articles, but it does add up after you get a lot of articles up. I was a little disappointed in it at first, but the pay does pick up after awhile.

There are also raises for certain milestones. There's a raise for being made a feature writer, a raise for completing 50 articles and I think there's another one at 100 articles.