Hello everybody,

I try to find motivation to post stuff on Steemit these past few days, but with all that happened in Greece lately it's really hard for me to post my usual "cocky" or "about that life" kind of articles, when I know there are so many fellow beings who lost family members, property, and hope overnight.

I am grieving the loss of my people and it won't be easy for me to post anything that has to do with me eating, drinking, traveling, buying stuff or having any fun. I planned to post photos of my trip to England (I am going soon there for my son's birthday on August), but I won't do that either out of respect for the families of those who lost their loved ones. It's way too "fresh," way too soon, and it just doesn't feel right to me.

Because I don't want to lose touch with Steemit (strictly for financial purposes), I decided to do a series based on my work as a freelance writer that could possibly motivate and help some aspiring writers who are interested in making a living through writing. So, in case you're reading this, get ready to learn some secrets of the freelance writing industry.

Listverse

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I started my freelance writing career at Listverse. A top entertainment website, which reached its peak in 2013-2015 with more than 25 million visitors per month. If I am not mistaken, it has about 12 million readers per month (give or take) these days.

Even though I haven't written in 5 years for them, I know for a fact that it still pays "rookies" $100 per article. As the website declares,

So here is the deal: We will pay you $100 for your efforts. You don’t need to be an expert—you just need to have English equal to that of a native speaker, a sense of humor, and a love for things unusual or interesting.It works like this: You write your list (10 items per list minimum), you send it in, we reply and say “Great—we’ll publish it” and send you $100 by PayPal (don’t have an account? just make one—it’s easy and free); or we reply and say “Sorry—it isn’t the sort of thing our readers will love—give it another shot.” Just remember, your list should be at least one or two paragraphs per entry. Either way you win—your list will be read by us and reviewed, and if it’s amazing it will appear on the front page of Listverse to be read by millions of people a month!

What You Need To Know

Getting published in a website as Listverse is NOT EASY AT ALL! Actually, it's like an "untold" rule for websites like Listverse, Cracked, Mental Floss etc. to reject your first 3-4 lists (even if they are good) just to serve you a humble pie. All these websites use a STRICTLY Associated Press writing style, so using a first person style like 99,9% of peeps do on Steemit is a big NO-NO for any major website for writers out there. I mean, their millions of readers don't care what you think about something (create your own blog if you want to write heavily opinionated pieces), what they care about is the facts and how "pleasantly" you can serve them.

Sources: What a Pain in the Ass

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One of the main reasons I stopped writing for Listverse was having trouble finding reliable sources. Well, this was the second main reason to be 100% honest with you, as the primary reason was that I found a writing gig with better money. Still, finding sources for Listverse or Cracked is HELL ON EARTH. Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, Twitter, Buzzfeed, yada, yada, yada, yada are not considered credible sources for Listverse, so citing any of those (and many more) as sources to your facts/entries will make your article (more than 2,000 words and days of research) inappropriate for publishing.

If you want to learn more about their rules, you can visit their Submit A List page.

Worth a Try?

If you ask my opinion, it definitely worth a try. Of course, that is if you want to start from somewhere with a vast audience. You will most likely spend a month or two of meticulous research, trying to come up with fresh ideas as the whole "list type" is a really "tired" genre these days, and have 3 or 4 or even 5 articles (that you may think are superb) rejected, just because the editor-in-chief there has to demonstrate his picky taste.

Show Me The Money (And Fame)

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I will be straight forward with you, there's a good 80% chance that you never get published by Listverse no matter how hard you try. At some point, you may lose your cool or patience and end up exchanging words with the editor, or just quit trying. Those guys ain't easy going at all. According to their claims, they receive hundreds of pitches and articles per day, but only three will be published each day. So, as you understand your chances are very slim.

However, if you get published you will make $100 and your work will be exposed to millions of eyes around the world. I don't know if it's still the same way now, but once you have 5 articles published there, the rest will be compensated with $250 each. The best part writing for such websites is that your work gets exposed to so many people, to the point it leads to a chain reaction: You get more and more work from editors or companies that want you to write for them. I could mention a lot of examples from personal experience, but let's not turn this nice tutorial into a personal manifesto of self-worship.

Important Note: If you're not the social type and you don't enjoy any kind of exposure or "fame", you DO NOT want to share with such websites (once you're published that is) your Facebook page, your twitter account, personal blog etc.

Someone like me who truly enjoys "exposure" to a certain degree (used to enjoy it even more at the beginning), I had to delete my first FB account and create a new one that only close friends know of; reached 46k followers on Twitter before my account gets banned from the constant reports of my "sweet" haters, while my personal blog receives as you can clearly see in the photo a respectable amount of emails, with a good 50% of it being hate mail.

You don't know what I have to go through these days to find if there's any business/professional offers and fan mail, with all the trash I get from idiots (many, many of them being from Turkey for some reason....Γαμώ τα σπιτάκια σας).

So, be careful when it comes to your privacy and personal data, even though I truly believe that this is an inevitable procedure once you decide to write/work for such websites.

My "Labors" @Listverse

Last but not least, here's my "Author's Posts" for Listverse:
http://listverse.com/lvauthor/id%3D16/page/2/

Also, a list under the name R.Kurosawa (my Japanese alter ego lol) titled 10 Wild Rock ‘n’ Roll Urban Legends People Believe brings the total amount of the articles I wrote for Listverse at 21. As of September 2016, they had generated a combined total of over 35 million views. No clue for their current total.

Furthermore, Listverse helped me develop to the writer I became during the years that followed, got me extra gigs that paid VERY WELL, and included three of my articles in their book published back in 2014.

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Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever republished on Steemit anything from Listverse. Oh well, I am sure I will in the future.

Even though I launched my own "adventure" with them and these guys helped me get rid of my shitty law career, I wouldn't recommend it as a first choice to start your writing career, simply because these guys are veryyyyyyyyyyy picky and can be brutal with their feedback. Be patient and tomorrow I will have a better suggestion for rookies who may want to test the cold waters of the freelance writing industry.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe and pray for the victims in Greece please!!!

God bless all of you.