Life of A Writer

Last week Diane said she was looking forward to reading my articles at Newsvine and asked if I knew they had been removed. I didn't know the articles had been removed at the time -- thanks for the heads-up, Diane. When Diana alerted me to this, I tried to log into my Newsvine account to find out what the problem was, but when I logged in, I got a message telling me my account had been disabled for "promotional advertising." What! I couldn't believe it! I've never -- not intentionally anyway -- written "promotional advertising" content for clients (unless that's what they ordered) in all my years as a writer. I ALWAYS read the client's guidelines and etc. so that I could follow them. I read the Code of Honor guidelines at Newsvine, so I knew "self-promotional" and "promotional advertising" content wasn't allowed. However, I guess my definition of "promotional advertising" content is different than Newsvine's. To me, "promotional advertising" content is spam.

To make a long story short, I contacted Newsvine through their contact form to find out what it was I wrote that was considered "promotional advertising." The next day they replied and informed me that all three of the articles I had written for them was "promotional advertising." Maybe I misunderstood something, but they was kind enough to re-activate my account. However, the articles that were there were removed, so I have to start from scratch.

What did I write? Well, because I decided to go with writing and blogging news, I wrote one news article about upcoming teleseminars for bloggers. In my Upcoming Teleseminars for Writers and Bloggers news article, I began with a couple paragraphs about the benefits of teleseminars, and then I listed (and linked to) approximately four upcoming teleseminars for writers and bloggers.

My next news article was about a new digital pen that I thought would be a great tool for writers. Ok, I can in some ways see how this could be considered "promotional advertising," but it was news, and I wrote it as a news article. I listed ways the pen could benefit writers. Guess that's not allowed -- news or not.

Finally, I decided that each week I wanted to share a listing of writing and blogging jobs with fellow writers and bloggers, but according to Newsvine, this too was considered "promotional advertising." They stated in their e-mail to me that listings to teleseminars and writing or blogging jobs were "promotional advertising" and not allowed. I then wondered about interviews, so I e-mailed back and asked if I could publish interviews with writers and bloggers on my vine and also include a link to their website and blog. Newsvine replied back and said I could do that as long as it was "newsworthy."

I guess I just don't understand what Newsvine is looking for or I'm missing something. Before signing up I browsed the vines of other Newsvine writers to see what they were writing. I guess this is where I missed something. Anyway, after contacting Newsvine, I spent over an hour exploring vines again in an attempt to get a better understanding of what they wanted and to see what I may have missed, and I think I figured it out: They want short articles giving your opinion on the latest news in your niche. Plus, I noticed that many Newsvine writers "seed" news more than they write their own news articles. They "seed" articles, blog posts and etc. written by others and state their opinions about that piece in a couple sentences.

After all of this, I think I've come to the conclusion that Newsvine isn't for me. Therefore, I believe I'd be better off searching for other, more lucrative writing jobs that aren't as confusing. It may actually be simple if I spend more time there. In fact, later I would probably smack myself on the forehead and say "Duh!" but the truth of the matter as it stands now, is I simply don't have the time to waste to try to figure it all out. If Newsvine paid me an actual income instead of "Net Advertising Revenue" only, which is basically for page views and ad impressions, then I would probably spend the extra time trying to learn more about what they really want than what I thought they wanted. As for now, though, I think my time would be better spent writing for my current clients who pay as well as searching for other writing and blogging jobs that come with a guarantee of payment.

For those of you who were looking forward to my weekly writing and blogging job listings, I have some good news! I think I will share what I discover here at Life of a Writer. I'll begin listing telecommute writing and blogging jobs next week. Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail to stay up-to-date with my weekly listings of telecommute writing and blogging jobs.

What do you think? Am I making the right decision? What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Photo courtesy of Eric I.E.

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