New article: 5 websites that can help reduce your paper footprint

Did you know that about 85 million tons of paper are used in the U.S. each year? Sometimes, it feels like half of that amount is laying around my condo alone. So, I turned to the internet for help and found five websites that can help you reduce your paper footprint. On these sites, you’ll find recycling center listings, sites that let you opt-out of catalog and phone directory mailing lists, online used book sellers, and another more inventive way to “recycle” those old books on your shelf.

Dragon Age: Origins review

My review of Bioware’s new epic RPG Dragon Age: Origins is now live over at HookedGamers.com! I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a Bioware fangirl, so I jumped at the chance to review this game and I wasn’t disappointed! It’s safe to say this is probably going to be my favorite title of the year.

New Article: Five Tips for Surviving Cold & Flu Season Naturally

My latest article is up on LifeSnips.com: Five Tips for Surviving Cold and Flu Season Naturally! Check it out! It’s full of good info on how to ward off germs and includes the yummy looking soup recipe to the right.

Aion review on Hooked Gamers!

My first big video game review is now live on HookedGamers.com! It was quite the project! At 1,900 words, I still feel there were things I left out but, overall, I’m happy with how it turned out.  Check it out!

Featured writer for Lifesnips.com

I’m happy to report that I’ve been offered the chance to be a featured writer for new lifestyle tips website LifeSnips.com! I’ll be posting one article per month filled with advice, tools and information you can use to help live a healthier lifestyle. I’ve already posted one article on the health benefits of coffee.  Check back next month!

Round 2 of the freelance rate debate

Word Count’s Michelle Rafter has written a follow-up to a post she made earlier in the week about why working for sites like Demand Studios and Helium might not be the best choice for beginning freelancers, or any freelancer for that matter, mainly because the pay kinda stinks. Deb Ng, the writer behind Freelance Writing Jobs who recently entered a partnership with Demand Studios, commented on Michelle’s post.

And the debate continues.

Photo by bfurnace

Other freelancers around the blogosphere have weighed in as well. Michelle Rafter links to some of them in her post (including yours truly!). One post, on Freelance Writerville, is a very compelling indictment of content mills by a writer who has actually worked for them in the past. Yolander Prinzel doesn’t pull punches and gives actual dollars and cents amounts of what she was paid while working for four different content sites. I think if more people who have written for content sites actually came forward and gave dollar and cents figures of what they made, it would help squash some of the arguments. Money, after all, is really what’s at the heart of the matter.

One other great point Yolander Prinzel makes is about reputation.  Some editors, she says, see writers with content sites listed on their resumes as unprofessional. For anyone, like myself, who wants to be taken seriously as a freelance writer, it’s something worth considering. These days, anything you publish on the web has a big chance of being seen by potential employers, whether it’s your Facebook page, your Twitter page, or that 300-word article on beer pong you wrote for Suite 101 last month.

Content sites aren’t going away. If anything, they will only get stronger as traditional media outlets collapse and change with the times. So, perhaps it’s time to hang up the gloves and agree to disagree?

Are content aggregators a freelancer’s friend or foe?

A hot topic on the freelance blogs I frequent is that of content aggregators – sites like Demand Studios and Helium that hire freelance writers to mass produce articles for low pay.

On one side of the argument are those who think such sites are the bottom of the barrel, and that getting paid a penny per page view isn’t worth the time and effort. These people argue that any self-respecting freelancer shouldn’t accept such low pay rates. Higher paying jobs, they say, are out there for those willing to look.

On the other hand, there are the people who support sites like Demand. Times are changing in the publishing world, they say, and the people who complain about so-called “content mills” need to accept it. If the writers who work for Demand and Helium are happy with the money they receive, what’s the harm?

As a newbie freelancer, I’m not exactly sure on which side of the argument I should stand. I agree that the media and publishing worlds are changing, and that it’ll be the freelancers who adapt who will have the most success when the dust settles. I’m also a firm believer in the concept of “to each their own.” However, I’m not entirely convinced that a change towards low-paying content aggregators is a good change for freelance writers.

New article: Drink to Your Health!

I’m thrilled to report that my first paying article has been published on LifeSnips.com! LifeSnips is a new website full of advice, tips and news to help you live a better, healthier life. Check it out!

Hooked Gamers is now on Twitter!

A shameless bit of self promotion… HookedGamers.com now has it’s own page on Twitter! If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest in the gaming industry, give us a follow!

When are you “officially” a writer?

How do you know when you are a writer? Is it when you finish your first short story? Your first novel? Is it when you get your first piece published? Or is it simply when you can look yourself in the mirror and say, “Yes, I am a writer!”?

For me, that moment was when I received my first payment for something I’d written. Seeing that Paypal email notification in my inbox, that I had received money for an article on coffee’s health benefits for a lifestyle website called Lifesnips.com, was when I knew I could finally stop calling myself a “wannabe writer” and just be a writer.

Many writers, like myself, seem to need that validation to feel like they really are writers. Does a painter feel like less of a painter if their art doesn’t sell? Does a musician feel less of a musician if he or she doesn’t get a record deal? Only writers, bless their little mercenary hearts, seem to feel that they are somehow less of a writer if they’re not getting paid.

Of course, there are other ways to tell if you’re a writer besides the size of your bank account. Deb Ng at Freelance Writing Jobs has posted an amusing list.