Writing and Money: You better love this gig!steemCreated with Sketch.

in #writing7 years ago (edited)

An Idea is Born......

I was working as a home health nurse back in 2011. I had just had surgery to have my thyroid removed and it didn't come without complications. Working outside my home was becoming increasingly strenuous with a chronic illness. I could barely get my head off a pillow, and take care of my kids. I needed something that was going to pay the bills, and I needed something quick. 

I was facing eviction, losing my utilities, and we barely ate. An idea popped into my head.....what if?

What if I was the one writing all the medical info for "Doctor Google?" Those articles had to come from somewhere, right? I put it in front of my boss/nurse manager one day, "I want to be a nurse researcher and writer!" Her answer was, "oh Kimmy, you will never make any money doing that. They pay pennies for all that info!" I love her, she is smart. She was right. It pays next to nothing. I get paid $.015 per word. Yes, you read that right. That is 1 and 1/2 cents per word, or $15 for a 1,000 word article. It takes me 1/2 my day to write one article, I'm lucky if I get 2 done a day. It takes a ton of thorough research combing through .gov and .edu websites to get sound sources for my work. 

What this means is my day averages out to about $1.50 per hour, but over the course of a week 24/7 I am earning about $.45 an hour. What I'm doing is taking the number of hours in a week, the number of hours I work during those hours, and the pay I get. All of this time put into writing gets me $.45 an hour over the course of a week. And I don't see much of the light of day. 

Now, let's turn that into steemit thinking. We post a few articles a week, do our normal thing the rest of the week, and that work we have done sits there earning money. We don't sit, but our blogs do. All the while all these other things like; curation, upvoting, new members on board, mining, coin trading, yadda yadda are going on behind the scenes. Our wallet is growing, and a whole team of people is behind that happening. Everyone gets a break and by the looks of the pictures posted here, there is more seeing the "light of day" than I have ever seen before. 

I'm Disgruntled.....

with the platform I'm using for my freelance work. Between the (unnamed) platform taking huge amounts of money from me for facilitating my business for me, Paypal fees for transfers, and my offline clients in China slowly losing their website I write for, I'm dying out here. SEO is not really it anymore. My clients in China had a huge SEO based website that was pumping my fiat wallet full of money each week. The articles are dwindling. People want story-telling blogs, not poorly written grammar made to fit SEO guidelines. Who wants to read "why my baby not growing 10 months pregnant?" Because you can't use "stop words" in a keyword phrase. It just simply isn't working anymore. 

So, between exorbitant fees just to get work, I'm losing money because SEO is slowly losing steam. People have caught on to click-bait, and they don't have any respect for it. But they do have a ton of respect for someone writing from their heart. Which is my mission and purpose!

I can't submit to capitalism principles anymore and they seem to be disappearing from every area of my life. I don't normally step foot into a Walmart unless I have to. I have shunned fast food for the most part. I could care less about name brand anything. I don't have the stomach to promote it or make money off of it anymore. It's literally nauseating!

Then I Found You......

all of you right here, right now are my new team! I have found a way to possibly fill my crypto wallet with just enough to get what I need and even share some too. I realize with this new way of sharing what I have to give, I don't have to be a slave to a system that doesn't work any longer! I haven't written a thing outside of steemit for a week and a half now, and averaging out the worth of my wallet here, I can make just as much, with less work. That means more sunshine, fresh air, maybe even a cleaner house. Happy kids. Better dinners than pizza from down the street. Plus, I get to share my creativity with people who really care about creative efforts, and believe a dollar or two is nice, but there is truly balance between the two here!

Someday.......

this will all pay off. I know it won't be tomorrow, or this week, but maybe a year or two from now my investment of time and money will pay off. I believe in this just as much as everyone else here! I am thankful to a very good friend who told me about this platform, and have every intention of making her proud. Proud that I saw not only my own potential, but the amazing potential of this platform! You know who you are sister! Thanks so much from the depths of my soul!

And to all of you fellow steemians, thanks so much for the warm welcome, support, and generally great vibe to be around!!!!

Photo Credit: pixabay.com

 @originalworks 

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Wonderful article. You've expressed what so many people (inc myself) must be thinking. Resteemed.

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much! Truly from the heart.......

"Proud that I saw not only my own potential, but the amazing potential of this platform! " This statement resonates with me, and the part about being broke, but yanno, 'writers life'. I discovered that I can come here, express myself fully and leave it. No stress, No mess.
Thanks for telling me about this article in reply to my comment on another post. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading more of your stuff!
Best,
Mo

You're very welcome! It's amazing to be in the company of so many "like minds!" Refreshing!

Resteemed your article. This article was resteemed because you are part of the New Steemians project. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch

Thanks so much!

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