Brief Squidoo Writing Update

Squidoo Writing Grinding Forward

Hey all, sorry for the long delay before updating my writing on Squidoo blog. This year has been rough in general, and the last couple months were no picnic even by 2009's standard. On the plus side, we're now 3/4 of the way through the year (loud cheers!). I am still writing on Squidoo, although it has been a little bit of time since I've published a new one. This month I'm hoping to turn that trend around.

Right now I definitely have a list of "these are the topics I want to write" for making new Squidoo lenses. The flair bartending lens will be the first one to come out this month, followed by a couple of writing advice lenses, and then followed by my first hard attempt to follow PotPieGirl's action guide and to really see if I can in any way, shape, or form mimic the success she's found with using Squidoo.

One of the reasons that the Squidoo writing has fallen to the wayside a little bit is that right now there is a heavy time of transition, and I've had to put more time into the writing that is strongly paying me right now - and in my particular split up, that puts Squidoo towards the bottom. I love setting up pages there, I love the community, but I'm profiting a lot more from other writing ventures.

After I move into the new apartment, have a little bit more stability, then I'll be able to put the work into Squidoo that I've wanted to. Because I know huge potential is there, but I simply haven't managed to tap into it very heavily yet.

So that's the brief update for now. Hopefully this month will go a little more smoothly amidst the normal chaos and I'll have several updates on my new found prolific-ism, or something like that :)

Back to Squidooing in August

Back to Writing Again

Hello, all. I'm going to keep this particular blog post a little brief since I have an entire month's worth of work to catch up on, not to mention everything I have on my plate for this month. Basically the long and short of it is this: I had a family tragedy in July, one that is going to be ongoing for many months or longer, and everything else hit the wayside. Now it's August, and I'm going to need to work hard to get back to a consistent schedule and to try to get into some type of normal and keep moving forward.

So there's not much new for me on the Squidoo front yet. I haven't noticed a lot of major changes, although in the next week I'm hoping to get at least three new lenses published. One on flair bartending, one about writing for Constant-Content, and the third on one of the greatest video games of all time: Medieval 2 Total War.

After that, I'm hoping to get into more of a focus on lenses that are aimed specifically at getting a lot of long tail keywords to convert into Clickbank sales. This is one area of online sales where I have not been very successful at all to this point, but the potential is far too big to ignore. More updates on that as it comes along.

Other than that, I don't have a lot to report at this point. I'm not dead yet, I'm not hiding any great secret discoveries, and I'll be getting back to a more normal writing schedule as soon as I can. Thanks for the concern, and good writing to all of you!

Squidoo Privacy Policy Changes

There's been a ton of hub-bub recently all about the recent policy changes at Squidoo. Probably the most talked about part has been the new topics that will be now off limits. While these will get rid of a ton of the junk sites that may have been dragging Squidoo down, there's also the chance that some truly good lenses are going to be lost, as well. Especially as they are looking to strongly restrict certain topics like Diet: one where you can have a lot of legitimate lenses, but you can also attract a lot of spammers.

In theory, for giant squids these changes won't affect lenses that are already made since anyone who is a Giant Squid on Squidoo has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are legitimate and aren't spammers in any way, shape, or form. A lot of mis-information has been passed around about this recent change, but if you want to really get some great thoughts on the recent changes, check out PotPieGirl's post on the recent changes here:

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2009/06/squidoo-policy-changes/

She'll be able to explain things better than I will, and also has the ability to point you towards the actual policy changes where you can read about the changes for yourself as opposed to taking the word of people who may or may not know what they're talking about when it comes to the Squidoo policy changes or on freelancing for Squidoo in general.

New Squidoo Lens Finished

Just a quick update. I haven't been able to start a Clickbank campaign yet via some Squidoo lenses, which is where Pot Pie Girl has convinced me the real money in Squidoo is at, but I have finished one of several lenses that has probably been stuck in queue for far too long. I doubt I'll get to the Clickbank campaigns until after the Oregon move, so I'm trying to get ahead in my other writing goals first.

I made a Squidoo lens on one of my favorite online writing blogs. It's really simple looking because I'm a writer and not a web designer. It gets okay traffic by my standards, but is nothing to write home about. Not many people find it (yet), but the Master Dayton Freelance Writing Blog is one of my favorite blogs for getting really solid information on how to start out as a freelance writer because I get to use that blog to help other people get started who might not know where or how to start.

So I made a Squidoo featuring this blog in my Who is Master Dayton lens. I figure a little bit of self promotion isn't a bad thing, and if that lens can help a few more people find a blog that is actually going to help them, then it's worth it.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Preparing a New Squidoo Strategy

Giving PotPieGirl's Strategy a Shot

This will be a short post. I've been on Squidoo for almost two years, and have been very happy with some of the passive income results, although I've never managed to get to the really high tier of earnings. In any given month I expect $35-$50 even in a worst case scenario and without affiliate sales. Beyond this, I also don't write a lot of product oriented lenses, and I don't do a lot of marketing. Both of these could push my bottom line up over $100 pretty easily, though Squidoo does take a back seat to eHow and HubPages in my current writing plans.

I follow Josh Spaulding online, and I've long known about PotPieGirl from the Squidoo community. When Josh's discussion of Squidoo being overrated led to PotPieGirl's disagreement, he bought her e-book and realized that PotPieGirl doesn't use Squidoo the way most people do - and that's why she's found a system to make a very good full time income from it by using Squidoo to help promote Click Bank products.

I bought the e-book and was blown away. I'd like to think that eventually I would have thought of something akin to her system, but I'd be lying. So in the short term, Squidoo will not be getting the same level of love from me as eHow and HubPages, but over this summer my goal is to create 10 Clickbank campaigns based on PotPieGirl's e-book to see if I can come anywhere close to the same level of success - heck, if I can start getting a single sale from Click Bank a week I'd be happy.

Over the summer, I'll be interested to see how these work, and I'll be sure to keep updating. If you haven't joined Squidoo yet, I'd strongly reccomend it: just what you learn from the friendly community alone will be worth it.

Welcome to my Squidoo Writing Blog

Writing for Squidoo

This blog will be following my progress as I take a more aggressive approach to making Squidoo lenses and building up my passive income from this source. I've been on Squidoo for almost two years, and have my previous boss to thank for introducing me to this site and the possibilities of online residual income. As I make new lenses, revise old ones, and learn to promote my current lenses even better, I'll discuss all the different topics that come up and hopefully pass on information that you can find useful. Thanks for visiting this Giant Squid's blog!