Introduction

As a writer who started as an Engineer with an MBA degree, working with multiples MNCs as a business consultant, I have come a long way; or so I feel. 😊

My tryst with writing started in my first job. I was consulting for a telecom client, and they were planning an annual get together with the big honchos from all parts of the country. While everything was great, the CEO came up with an idea of a game based on a storyline. It was an extreme short-notice for the team which was preparing for the event. There was no way they could get a professional writer to come in and get the work done in the four days that were left. There was no one in the team to write the story. So, they asked me. And I agreed. That’s where my journey started.

The story came out well enough for the CEO, Darryl Green, to want to meet me. He asked me to choose either simulation or writing as a career. How cool was that? So, here I am doing just that. Nothing wrong with what I had been doing, but writing does give me a certain feel-good factor.

Here we take a look at my journey and the learnings that came by.

How It Progressed?

The story writing part was good enough to encourage me to write for office magazines and publications. I realized that my stories were good enough to be accepted for those publications. I was soon writing pretty much in each of my jobs. However, I realized that there weren’t many who knew about me. In fact, there weren’t many who read office magazines. Let’s be honest, how many of you working guys really look forward to your quarterly or monthly newsletters? Not many, right?

So, that gave me my first learning.

Learning 1: Write for and on topics that interests you and your readers.

Without taking away the importance of newsletters, not all employees want to read them because they don’t find much interesting stuff. Now, do they? So, I found a place where I could write things I liked about as much as find readers who liked the same writing genre.

Not only that, I had to write in a newsletter, print, or online where the reach could be high. As I said, not many in the office knew me because not everyone got the newsletter. That brought me my second learning.

Learning 2: Look at increasing the reach of your articles.

The obvious way was the internet (or intranet within an organization). So, I headed to the internet to find places where I could write. There was Blogger and sites similar to it where a user can write on any topic of his choice. I started to write on Blogger but always found myself figuring out what to write. I then lost interest a bit until I completely stopped writing on Blogger. Remember, it was not about the site but my inability to find a subject to write about. And that headed me to my next learning.

Learning 3: If you write about things you like, you will automatically know what to write.

Isn’t that statement right? If you are a Formula 1 fan or a Cricket fan, wouldn’t you know the plethora of topics to write about? You could write about Michael Schumacher or the racers with maximum wins or races on a particular track or the fastest laps and so on. The same with Cricket. You wouldn’t be thinking about the topic, but about when to write and how much to write. And that’s a lot better than being clueless about a topic.

But that still didn’t answer my question of where to write these articles. I had stopped Blogger for some time and was not keen to revive it. However, I heard of few platforms. One of them was Hubpages, where I earnestly started my online writing journey. Around 2012 when I first wrote my article on Hubpages, I realized that the article would lie around for days, weeks, or even months, without a view. That was disheartening.

Then the next level of realization hit me. Google picks up articles with major traffic and ranks them accordingly. So, I did not have traffic. I did not even have a couple of readers, let alone traffic. Then the next learning hit me.

Learning 4: If you are on a platform, your first readers would be your fellow writers.

Now, wouldn’t that be true of any platform that we use today? Your fellow writers are your first readers. The best way to request them to look at your article is to first look at theirs. Remember that saying from the Bible:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

So, I went ahead, reading and commenting on my fellow writers’ articles. Soon enough, they returned the favor too. Remember, Hubpages was unlike those sites where one author liked another author's article expecting a favor. It was not about you scratch my back, and I scratch yours. The only driver there was the google traffic and ranking. If your fellow authors visited your article, the chances are that they would be contributing to traffic, and then you can grow. It worked.

Few authors were kind enough to take my article and share it in their network. I was amazed at the number of views that could come in through people’s network on Facebook or any other social media. That led to my next learning.

Learning 5: Leverage the power of social media.

You’ve got to admit that social media provides multiple groups of enthusiasts discussing multiple things about any topic under the sun. Get on Facebook, Reddit, or your favorite social media platform to check that hypothesis. If that is the case, then all you have to do is share your article on those forums on social media. If it is of interest to the forum, they will look at your article.

Note: But be smart in using social media. Don’t head to a cooking forum and post about Cricket. The backlash you will have on that particular social media platform and on the platform you are writing on will be immense. Not to mention you being kicked out of the forum.

I still write on Hubpages, but there was a small problem. You see, before 2010, the concept of content farm existed. Google wanted internet pages to advertise on and gave a generous share of the revenue it got. The model still exists. However, back then, nobody questioned the quality of the post on which the advertisements were placed. There was a race to create content. The concept of “content farm” was born. Sites would share a percentage of the earnings from Google with the writers without any quality check. This led to the internet being flooded with useless gibberish on which the advertising company’s advertisements flashed.

As you would know, the advertisers were displeased that their ads should be placed on a page that was just words placed one after another without meaning. This led to Google coming up with the concept of striking down sites for lack of quality. Only the good ones would rank up, and only those would get the traffic. As such, useless sites and useless writers had to bail out. So, the views reduced, but the quality of articles and readers improved. Google’s algorithm rearranged the payout to sites, which reduced the earnings. That made me lookout for more avenues. I did write on Wikinut and Squidoo, both of which don't pay for writing anymore.

Then came the startling revelation. Something called bitcoin had started something called a crypto world where there were sites that invited writers. I headed to check out. And I came upon Steem. It was my first crypto-writing site in 2017, where I wrote articles and earned in cryptocurrency. But here was my new challenge.

I was hunting for views on Google, but it did not correlate with my earnings on Steem. I tried using the concepts of sharing articles on Reddit and other social media, but to no avail. Then I learned my next lesson.

Learning 6: Every platform has its own engagement and earning logic. I need to figure out that first.

The idea of social media leverage to get me traffic was working, but it was not working for earning. Why? Because to earn Steem, you had to be registered on the cryptocurrency platform. But readers of Steem articles aren’t necessarily registered on Steem nor inclined to join Steem. So, if they couldn’t upvote my post (only registered users could do), I couldn’t earn. This meant that my logic of getting traffic as on Hubpages would not work on Steem. On Steem, I had to engage my fellow writers-cum-readers. That is the only way to earn.

The surprises did not end, though. I realized that on Steem, you had an earning window of just seven days. That is, from the time of writing your article, you could earn for just seven days. After that, your earnings will be paid out to you, and you can earn no more. This was a shocker. On Hubpages, the views are perpetual, and so are the earnings. However, on Steem, the earnings have a window. I had to get the maximum views and earnings in that window.

This shook me off bad so much that I left the platform. I did not use it for another four months when logic hit me. If my readers are my fellow writers, I could earn their views and upvotes if I write something they are interested in reading. But what? Then it hit me. Contests.

Any writer hosting a contest is sure going to view my article as much as the other participants. This also brought in secondary viewers who upvoted quality content. That was my "eureka" moment. I started participating in contests, and sure enough, views, upvotes, and earnings followed. Then there were special contests which may not give you views but enough and more in rewards. So, my strength on Steem went on increasing, and I was inclined to look at similar crypto sites. And I found other interesting ones too, but I had a different question in mind.

Do I continue to write on HubPages or migrate completely to crypto-writing? A bit of analysis gave me the following insight. Crypto sites were good to give me quick working and quick earnings. However, traditional sites gave me perpetual earning. In other words, HubPages still gave me royalty for my article written way back in 2012. So, why not? Here is my next learning.

Learning 7: Leverage Different Opportunities.

HubPages also enthused me to the concept of royalty earning. I mean, if I could write something and earn from it for a lifetime, it had to be cool. The only thing was that I had to write evergreen articles there and keep updating it now and then. On Steem and crypto sites, I could write about current affairs, which helped me earn more. So, that was the difference.

That was not all. Writing took me to areas which I had not previously visited; the side of book publishing. I am a sci-fi enthusiast too, and I figured that I am anyway not writing about sci-fi on any site, so I might as well get a book published on the genre. And I did it. It is just exciting to be able to touch upon various areas of your writing life. So, if I was anyway going to write, then maybe I do it in every field.

In all this, there was another learning that I least expected. While I was on Steem and the going was good, the blockchain transferred hands to Justin Sun of Tron fame. The movement caused some furore in the community, and it looked like things would go for a toss. I thought Steem would be frozen, and users like me would miss one earning avenue. But what followed was interesting.

A hard fork later, Hive was formed by the community that did not want to stay with the legacy Steem chain. And that brings me to the next learning.

Learning 8: All that appears to be going downhill does not necessarily be so.

Today, many of the Steem writers are on Hive and continue with the same vigor and interest as before. Many write on both Steem and Hive. The Steem users, I heard, can now earn both Steem and TRX tokens. So, not a bad deal. On the other hand, Hive is doing well, and the Hive-engine community tokens like Leo, BRO, PAL, and many more are creating their own earning opportunities. So, you’ve got to love this development.

That’s My Story

While there are many more things that I could write about, I will cover them in another article. For the time being, these are the learnings that I would love to share with my readers.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my journey as a writer. Do let me know if you found the story worth your time. 😊

Image Courtesy: AbsolutVision and GraphicMama-team at Pixabay and Farconville at Freedigitalphotos.net