My Wrong-Headed Journey into AC Land

A friend told me about Associated Content. "You should put your stuff on line and make some money, " she said. So I checked it out. Sure enough, here were all these articles on a site that pays money. Not only that, a lot of them didn't even use good grammar, spelling or sentence structure. "I write better than that," I said to myself.

So with a published book already in my back pocket, and a monthly newspaper column of local repute, I figured this would be a walk in the park. I never thought I'd get to Park Place here, but I had visions of advancing past Baltic Avenue. I rolled the dice, and submitted a couple of items I had around which weren't my best, but I wanted to see what kind of offers they got. Not so fast, gal... "Go directly to Declined Alley and ponder your sins, my child." Well, that may not be an EXACT quote...

My forte is descriptive essays. AC calls those opinion pieces. One of my primary knowledge areas is quiet outdoor recreation. AC says that people don't search for those topics. I'm occasionally mildly humorous. AC flat out doesn't pay for humor. Of course, there is the tantalizing promise that I can earn unlimited income if I post for performance bonus only. Yeah, right. At $1.50 for 1000 views, it will take 2000 views to reach the level of even a wretched upfront payment offer. I don't recall ever thinking of the $3.00 in my pocket as unlimited cash.

Speaking of the $3.00 in my pocket, I awoke one morning with a bad case of Starving Artist's Syndrome, and realized that I needed to make some money on AC. So I submitted some more stuff. I got mixed reactions from the reviewers. Some articles got offers, some didn't. If you tiptoe into the Forums here you are well aware that there is a lot of broken sidewalk on the path through AC Land. Inconsistency is consistent.

The next morning I awoke with $2.46 in my pocket and an oddly pressing desire to write something that would receive an upfront payment. Several of the Grand Master AC Writers offered gentle, brutal and infuriating hints in the forums.

A sunrise or two later the unrelenting clamor of my last two nickels banging together induced a brain wave. I need to stop writing the kind of things that I want to write, and start writing the kind of things that AC wants if I want money. I'll never care about Brittney somebody, and I barely recognize a sports statistic if I meet one on Atlantic Avenue. But I'm learning to find discoverable topics, write boring titles and jam articles full of keywords.

Oh shucks, it's just a job after all.

This, of course, is an opinion, and therefore posted with no upfront offer. If you are reading this you better come back often. I just need 1874 more clicks to make my $3.00.