Jaxon’s Review

After dilly-dallying for some days, I finally decided to register for Triond, a place on the Internet where you can submit just about any articles — so long as they don’t cross the line of what is universally accepted as morally or legally wrong, that is — and earn half of the revenue generated from advertisement for that article.

Triond? What is Triond?

Triond, in the website’s own word, “is a comprehensive publishing service that enables users to publish quality content of any type while maximizing its revenue-generating potential.”

“The Triond vision is to support quality user-generated content online by allowing authors to earn royalties for publishing their work on the Web,” it says.

Making a living from writing

Writing is perhaps one of the few things that I enjoy most in my life. In fact my hobbies have been revolving around writing, like blogging for instance, is essentially writing — writing blog contents.

I also like reading, which needless to say, is the art of appreciating the art of writing.

Photography and travelling are my other hobbies which I found pleasure in being able to write about the photos I’ve taken or places I’ve visited and post the articles either on my photography blog or travel blog.

How Triond works?

First, you need to sign up at Triond’s website and once that is done, you can start submitting articles over to Triond. The articles or photos or videos must be your original work and have not been publicly published before.

Triond will then publish the articles on suitable websites. If the articles generated revenue from advertising, you will get half of the amount. Payment is made either through Western Union transfer, by checks — or “cheque” as it is known here — or through via PayPal.

Final note

I’m trying this as part of my diversification strategy. Let’s see how shall I fare in the game. I just hope I can squeeze in enough hours to write the contents. As it is, blogging is already taking most of my free time.

This one came via an email newsletter from Worldwide Freelance Writer of which I am a subscriber. In this edition copywriter Jason Leister debunked copywriting myths including one of the greatest of them all — that copywriting is easy.

As one who is into writing myself, I can attest to the fact that copywriting — or writing for that matter — is anything but easy.

Among other things, Leister said in his Myth #5: Writing Copy is Easy, that copy writing is real — and hard — work.

“Copywriting is about a whole lot more than writing. You’ve got to connect the demand of your market, to the product you are selling,” he said.

Dear Readers,

This is just to tell that I’m providing Malay-English and English-Malay translations. My English may not be as good as my Malay but with a little bit hardwork I should be able to translate simple documents in both ways.

I wouldn’t be able to do rocket science translation though, or complex articles for medical journals or legal documents. Other than that, I’m yours. Signed, sealed and delivered.

I’m providing it for free — for documents of up to 700 words — as part of my learning process. If you feel I can be of any service to you, feel free to contact me at jaxonsblog at gmail.com.

THAT’S IT? NO CATCH? That’s it. No catch. But if you find my service to be of any commercial use though, feel free to hire me. Rate’s negotiable.

If you are in the make-money-online niche and one who knows a lot about SEO, website development, has good grasp of English grammar and able to weave your thought coherently in sentence, then perhaps you should seriously consider branching out into freelance writing.

If you are already earning money blogging, it’s very likely that you can make money doing freelance writing; because you already have what it takes to be successful — a passion and flair for writing and marketing your blog, which would come in handy as you enter the world of freelance writing.

You’d need your passion and flair for writing when you do freelance writing, and the marketing skills to market your skills to thousands of potential clients who are constantly outsourcing their copywriting needs.

I see the potential in many of you

I personally see the potential in many of you — you being the Malaysian bloggers — to earn income from freelance writing, perhaps earning a few hundred dollars a month, for a start.

How do I know this? I know, because many of you are the person whom I’m not. You write better English, you know more about SEO, website promotion, traffic generation, IT, codes and whatnots, than I do.

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That’s the total of projects posted on a freelance writing exchange website. Just from one website and just for one category — Copywriting.

That’s 54 writing projects which I could have placed my bid on, which I may or may not get one.

Limitless opportunities for freelance writers

The point is, the opportunities for freelance writing is almost limitless. There are dozens of other projects posted under different categories every day on the exchange. And this is to think that it just come from one website.

And to think again that freelance exchange websites are not even the main source of income for established freelance writers, meaning those who earn six-figure income a year.

I can actually see the huge potential offered by freelance writing, which, I realise now, is a powerful industry to venture in.

Powerful but intimidating for the newbies

But as with anything powerful, it is also intimidating and I find myself unable to act on any single project that was posted on the exchange.

For unknown reasons, I haven’t got the courage to bid on any of the projects partly because I don’t know how. Of course I can just place a bid blindly but the bigger question is, can I actually deliver?

Maybe I haven’t learned enough about the industry. Or maybe it’s just that I need more to get to know the industry before making the plunge. Or more reading and learning and polishing my English before I step onto the field.

Might as well jump into the pond and learn how to swim

But one of these days — this month, that should be a target — I would place my bid.

For it is better for a duckling to jump into the pond and learn to swim, than to stay out of the water and see how others do it.

Jaxon S
Into the ponds

Yesterday I took out US$37 from my PayPal account to pay for an e-book about how freelance writing can make one a six-figure income in a year.
The book Six Figure Freelancer is touted to be providing a step-by-step guide to become a successful freelance writer.

It’s a 88-page blueprint in 12 chapters covering what seems like a wide array of topics related to freelance writing and how to achieve success and a six-figure yearly income in the highly competitive — but nevertheless huge marketplace — industry.

Six-figure is a nice number but I don’t mind earning one with a decimal point somewhere after the fourth figure.

I haven’t read through all the pages but it does seem to be to be a good book. I should be able to come up with a review soon once I’ve done my reading.

At the offer price of US$37 — and the author said the price could change anytime, think marketing baby — the book comes with three bonus books. That too I haven’t read but did I think the Six Figure Freelancer was a good purchase?

It does seem so from the looks of it. For a newbie like me, who have just started to explore the world of freelance writing, what I can say at this stage is that the book is very informative indeed.

If you are interested, you can buy the book here or if you don’t want to buy from this affliate link, you can just go to the website and buy from there.

One more thing, do you think Malaysia-based freelance writers can actually earn an income from the industry?

I’ve given myself till December 2010 to find ways to earn alternative income so that I can quit my job. Don’t get me wrong. I like my present job. I just liked the idea of not working for any organisations more.

I work on shift. It’s either on nine to six, eleven to eight, two to ten or four to twelve shift.

Prime time morning

So you can see, if I work on the two or four o’clock shift, I can have hours of my prime morning doing what I love to do — blogging and writing. Another thing, in my current job, I’m forced to use English because if I don’t I’d have no business sitting around in that section of my organisation.

I’m in the media and communication line and after more than a decade of working in the field, my headquarters decided that perhaps the time has come to pull me back to HQ.

What I do

At the moment I’m handling Malay copies and translated them into English and my superior would then look at them for further tweaking if necessary. Then in the process, if the copies are badly written, it’s my job to improve them. It’s editing basically.

The workloads are quite heavy as 90 per cent of the copies are written in Malay and there are nearly a hundred of them every day.

It came as a surprise to me really when I received the letter of transfer and saw that I was to work in the English section of my organisation.

I still make many grammatical errors because I’ve never learned English properly. Back in school, English to me ranked as the most hated subject along with mathematics.

And my English vocabulary is limited.

Blogging and writing

In a way I consider my present job as coming close to being ideal. It gives me ample time — at least two undisturbed morning hours — to blog and write; it helps me improve my English and brushes up my writing as well.

There are three things I need to do asap — improve my English by 20 per cent come January 2008, get acquainted with freelance writing marketplace and to start earning money blogging.

For 10 years now I’ve been entertaining the idea of embarking into freelance writing but many things have stopped me from pursuing the idea.

Bad English

English, beautiful though that language is, is my biggest stumbling block.

I know I can’t be pursuing a freelance writing career, even on moonlighting basis, when my command of English could not even measure up to the task. There are times when I wished I was born in a country where English is the native language.

A marketplace for freelance writing

Then there’s the problem of not knowing how to go about it — who to approach, what topics to write, where can I get the opportunities to do so, what about the payment, is there a marketplace for freelance writing and so on.

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