One Way to Become a Successful Wizzley Writer

What began as a Wizzley article, I've decided to turn into an eBook.  The reason being that it's already rather long, and I've only got to day five!

Therefore what you'll read here is very in-depth until the fifth article, then the remaining 45 in the challenge are listed with brief notes.  I'll update this when the eBook is completed.

I am setting myself up here as a guide on a journey that you could just as easily undertake yourself. I did, and I didn't have a clue what I was doing at the beginning.

In fact, I'm still uncovering said clues on a daily basis, as this is most definitely an on-going quest.

The advice that I'm giving you now, I might retract, refine or applaud as genius in a year's time. The knowledge and experience unfold in unforeseen ways, when you begin the Fool's path of discovery. But the tips I provide and the challenges I lay before you, I promise have been conceived with the best of my current insight.

My target reader/writer/player are those who make their account on Wizzley, then stare wide-eyed and cowed by a blank page. Those without an inkling what to do next. Those so intimidated by the fact that they might 'do it wrong', that they never even start. That's what this is. A start.

You may choose to complete the Fifty Article Wizzley Challenge from beginning to end, thus ending up with a portfolio that looks like mine would have looked, if I was there with the knowledge that I have now.  You may choose to dabble with certain points, then zoom off into your own tactics and ideas. That's fabulous. That's how it should be.

You will note that I've always been careful to state that this is 'one way', 'a strategy for Wizzley success', just one tactic to achieve an income writing on Wizzley. It might not even be the best way through. But it's a springboard, which you may follow or adapt to suit yourself.

What I can promise is that, at the other end, you will have a healthy portfolio here and a strong potential for earning hard cash. Hopefully you will also enjoy yourself along the way. Moreover, and much more importantly, you will have gained some insight and experience for yourself, not to mention hard data to form the basis of your own clues.  Good luck.

But worst of all, there's what to write. If you're not used to finding topics at the drop of a hat, or seeing the inherent story in all you encounter, then writer's block is the least of your worries. Much more debilitating is the vague feeling that nothing you will ever write will be good enough. The 'real' writers will laugh.

Just write. Even if your article bombs with three readers in a year (and they were all your Mum), then it's practice. You don't have to gain a Pulitzer Prize with every Wizzle. Oft-times it's nice just to waffle on with whatever comes to mind.

Write often enough and you'll cease to notice that you're even writing. It will be as natural as chatting with a close friend at the end of the day.

The first fifty articles are always the worst, which is why this Wizzley challenge leads you step by step through them. The second fifty are much easier. By the time you're at 600 articles, you'll blink and find yourself breezing by 650 without any real notion of how you got there.

But fifty articles sounds like a lot. It seems time-consuming and insurmountable. An Everest in unwritten pages towering above, that you may never achieve in a life-time. Even if the least of them are only 400 words.

No pressure, but I once wrote 56 articles in a month. There's your deadline and/or the bar to beat. Can you give me a month? Come on, let's do this thing.

The beauty of a Wizzography is that there's no pressure. There's no template, no right way of doing it. Half of the rules are relaxed, because the sub-category's pages are automatically set to 'no follow'. That means that you can spam it into infinity with links back to your other blogs, writing sites, stores and social networking accounts.

It might appear counter-productive to bring in all of those people who can't think what to write, then immediately present them with a free-for-all page.

It is, and I'm evil. But your Wizzography genuinely is the easy way into Wizzley. It's the page where you can click buttons and learn what toys are here to play with in this new sandpit. You can do that on any page, but here you're less likely to lose the thread of what you were about to write.

The subject is you. Most Wizzley authors use their Wizzography as an extended profile. They write full biographies, or else invite us to sample snippets of their lives like dipping into a box of chocolates.

If you're really stuck, then imagine that you've really clicked with a brand new friend. The conversation is free-flowing and easy. They're all attentive, as you introduce them to yourself. A crash-course in getting to know you. What things would you tell them?

Write that in your Wizzography.  Who are you?  What can we expect from you?  Are you a jock, a nerd, a superhero or quite an ordinary hero? What topics, realms and wonders light up your face and have you rapt for hours? What stirs your soul?  What drives you up the wall?  What are you doing on Wizzley?  What do you hope to achieve?  What have you already achieved, in other lives and other worlds? What are your dreams and ambitions, great loves and regrets? If you had three wishes, what would they be? What are your desert island discs? What's your favorite dessert? Who are you?

But mostly it's for you to practice putting together a Wizzley page.

I know you're here to make money, and most people would advise writing solely on those subjects which are known to generate income.

I think that's only true to a certain extent. My rationale is thus:

1. My top earning article is one which specifically elicited a frustrated message from an individual attempting to mentor me at the time. 'You'll never make a livelihood writing about stuff like this!' She digitally wailed, before giving me a list of 'good' subjects, which frankly made my heart sink to the floor in utter boredom at the mere contemplation of writing about them. 
2. I eventually gave in under harassment and you know, those articles haven't really yielded much in the way of commission. Boredom shines through, no matter how much you gloss over with fancy words and phrases. And the opposite is true of passion.
3. If you are passionate about a subject, then you can make it interesting for other people too. Any subject. You could well be the one introducing your reader to the wondrous realm. Which means that they won't already own all of the products that you've artistically dotted around your article.  Instant potential customer right there, because you've created an interest. Passion is so very infectious.
4. And even better if it's not on the 'good' subjects list that everyone else in the online writing world is using to over-saturate the market. Would you rather have one tentative article competing against millions more on a potentially profitable subject?  Or would you prefer to be the only person writing about a lesser known topic, thus attracting all readers to yourself?
5. You write much better on topics that you enjoy. This is why we all labor over essay assignments at school, but happily write ten times their length in forum posts and e-mails to our friends. It's not work, when you're enjoying yourself, and your enjoyment will communicate to your readers.
6. And the administration of Wizzley, who are still moderating your articles before they go live at this point. And maybe external clients too, scouting for good writers before they offer freelance work.  If you're serious about making money on Wizzley, then showcase your best work. Which is so much easier to do, when you love the subject.
7. You're adding to the variety of articles on Wizzley, which will bring in more readers on the site as a whole. As the writing platform grows, then your portfolio of pages is more likely to be randomly found and read. We can sail much further, if you help us to build a bigger ship.
8. My number one, top earning article was me indulging a passion. Not a 'sales' article, not a mainstream topic, not one on any normal person's list. I'd have never called it in a million years. I wrote it for me. I'm still reaping the fiscal rewards.

So what will it be?  It doesn't matter how specialized a niche subject it may be, nor how 'idiotic' you think the rest of the world will find it. We're not looking for your doctorate, we're here for your enthusiasm, enjoyment and passion.

The inherent favor is in you teaching us to feel passionate about it too.

My nephew asked me if I'd heard that some/all of the cast of Mrs Brown's Boys are related to each other in real life. I looked into it. At the time, there were no products on sale for the show, so I really did write that in the spirit of sharing something I found interesting.

It's my most read Wizzley article of all time. It appears untouchable at the top of my 90 day page views. So far nearly 30,000 people have come to read it. And the show is about to travel to the States, hence I'll be able to monetize it properly.

The other three are in my top twenty most successful Wizzley articles too. That's the long-term look, not what's great this week. And they were all written for the love of it, not the anticipated livelihood. Who would have thought that anyone was that interested in a 12th century French troubadour?

Come Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day and you won't be able to move around here for articles about them. We're all wrong. We should have been writing them in May, June and July.

Articles take time to mature. Wizzley pages get picked up by search engines very quickly (my personal record is nine minutes), but that's only putting them in the shop window. You need weeks, months, possibly years before a critical mass of people have found and linked to them. Then more readers can find them and slowly your traffic builds.

With internet traffic comes potential customers for your carefully placed monetization avenues.

A wise Wizzley author once told me that you're always ever writing for this time next year, and any interest sooner is a bonus or a fluke. He's been proved right so far in my experience here. I've had articles languish barely read for two years, only to suddenly spark into life and become lodged at the top of my most read Wizzles.

So yes, go and pick a holiday and write about it. It doesn't necessarily have to be one that's up and coming. It's actually better if it is six months away! (And fabulous if that's more like a year.)

That's why I rushed into town last weekend, in order to pick up a card and gift for my Dad, as a Hallmark calendar told me that it was Father's Day. I duly complied. All intellect told me that such a celebration stemmed from corporations emotionally blackmailing me into it, and exploiting my filial sentiments. Nevertheless, I love my Dad. He got a card and gift.

Therefore holiday articles are targeting people duty bound to spend money. Hence their attraction for writers wishing to channel that spending through their affiliation streams.

Despite the previously mentioned sense in writing niche articles with passion - thus being the biggest fish in a tiny pool - there is something to be said for running with the herd too.  If half of Wizzley is writing Christmas articles, then half of Wizzley is aiding and abetting their promotion too. I may attract a reader to my Celtic ornaments, who then bounces off my scribblings into your page on themed lily-pond tinsel with added frog-spawn. You get the sale.

Holiday and celebration articles may be seasonal, but they're also evergreen. What you wrote for last Valentine's Day is still good for next year's too, and the year after that, so on and so forth. You can gradually build up quite a collection in there.

So why are YOU writing a holiday piece for your third Wizzley article?  Because you're part of this culture. You know the subject matter. Even an informative or subjective memory article will end up being a sales one in disguise, simply because our culture has turned all celebrations into blatant consumerism.

In short, it's a good way to ease you into 'sales' articles - i.e. those written with the express intention of flogging stuff to willing buyers. As opposed to the 'information' ones, which are there to bring in readers and maybe earn you commission, if your passion for the subject has inadvertently tipped over into evangelism.

After three articles on Wizzley, you should be feeling a little more confident with the whole 'creating a page' thing.

Which means it's time to experiment with formatting ways and means that are known to work in general terms, to see if they also work for you. In which case, you can nick those ideas.

The trick is to peruse Wizzley as a reader, because you are that too. If you feel your attention being directed, or your emotion piqued, or your interest snagged, then someone somewhere is doing something right. If you find yourself desperate to buy whatever they're promoting, then scrutinize their methods with a forensic regard to detail. Especially if it was something that you didn't even know you wanted until you fell under their literary spell.

With all of them, you need to work out what they did to trigger your reaction. Those are the insights that lead to highly profitable articles. But you're only one person. The truly wonderful Wizzley pages work on multitudes too. So how do you find them?

On your top toolbar, next to the Wizzley icon, you'll find a pull-down menu headed 'Pages'. That's your key to gleaning what constitutes a successful article on Wizzley.

• Popular - These articles have achieved 100% page rank recently, hence they're now on the front page of the website.  Have a skim through the titles and click on a few to glance over the pages. Any patterns forming? Anything that everyone there does, which you can also do? Any contributing factors that you can discern to account for their popularity?  After all, anything there has attracted enough likes, comments and views to hit the top tier.  Make notes, particularly on those which distract you into reading them, instead of sticking with the quest to find out why they're so popular.
• Buzzing - These are currently attracting the most comments on Wizzley. Here is where all of the conversations are occurring.  Why?  Is it something to do with the subject?  Or are those authors doing something clever to spark discussions? Are those commenting people from Wizzley (their names are hyperlinks to their profiles) or external people? If the latter, then seriously take notes. Those articles are bringing in readers for everyone!
• Editor's Choice - These articles have been deemed the best that Wizzley has to offer, albeit that's a judgement call made by the administration. You can glean from them what the team behind Wizzley is looking for.  That may or may not be as important as the opinion of the general public, but it's worth noting that Wizzley's team were all veteran writers themselves before founding this site. They know their stuff.  So what was so fabulous about these articles? Anything you can adapt or outright steal?  Any inspiration to be had?
• Authors - On a related note, those authors with a rosette next to their names have been in receipt of three or more Editor's Choice awards. It might be worth a quick look at their profiles to see why they're getting it right.
• Knock Your Socks Off Articles - Of course, the site team don't have the monopoly on highlighting great Wizzley articles. Writers can do that too - including you - on the forum. You'll not only get individuals calling out greatness, but also comments from others in the thread. It's a great way to find Wizzles that have stirred fellow authors into gushing, despite us collectively knowing every writing trick in the book. (Pun intended.)  It's also a place where you could let us know about truly brilliant articles that you've uncovered on your fact-finding mission. At the very least you'll make the day of the author thus honored, who'll probably become your new best friend on Wizzley. Moreover, it increases your presence on the forum, affording more people the opportunity to check out your profile and hopefully give you likes and comments. See exercise one.

Hopefully your cyber-trek through Wizzley will have now furnished you with a plethora of ideas about how to best arrange your pages. Take each insight in turn, test it out. If you like it, keep it. If you don't, chuck it out. Eventually you'll find a mix that will form the foundation of your own default style. Then you've really settled in.

Keep on looking. None of us are ever too veteran nor set in our ways to tinker with our formats. The fine-tuning will be an on-going process, changing with the fashion or as a reaction to external factors.

I always started with a huge advert, until Wizzley's owners changed their policy (enforced with HTML code) to stop me.  In turn, they were responding to Google... how do I put it nicely?... applying pressure. Now I start with text instead. Other authors head their pages with a picture. What will you end up doing?

I've written several articles on Wizzley about single-sided deafness. Not because I'm particularly passionate about the subject, but because I'm deaf in one ear. I know things about that which those with other kinds of hearing abilities really do not.

I can tell you it as it is, not based on some half-hearted internet searches culminating in rewriting a Wikipedia entry. That's not an insightful Something I Know article. I can tell you because I live it, in all its joys, frustrations, adaptations and good bits. I can provide tidbits of pure truth, which even the professors in the field might miss, because they're not deaf on one side. (Unless they are.)

My deaf articles on Wizzley are perhaps the most meaningful of all my writing here. Subjective and one-sided absolutely, but valuable as primary source glimpses into the topic at hand.

All the rest can be learned and/or experienced by the majority, if they just read the same books, watch the same movies or attend the same classes. You can study single-sided deafness all you like, but unless you're actually SSD, then the best you can get to grasping the reality is to read the articles of someone like me.

In short, I've added value. This should be a keystone of everything that you'll ever write.

Asking yourself what is the worth of your article to a potential reader will ensure that you write worthy articles. Those are the ones which get passed around through social networking, recommended via word of mouth and end up hyper-linked from other people's websites.

In terms of forging a livelihood from your writing, that's the golden path to riches. More exposure equals more internet traffic; an increased volume of readers heightens the likelihood that you will earn commission via your monetization.

There are those who would disdain Something I Know type articles as not being worth the time and patience to write. On the surface they don't hold up, as potential sources of profit, next to say an advert strewn, filler text paeon to the latest fashion shoes.

But that is quite a short-sighted view. Shoes go out of fashion. Deafness does not. Though granted that single season of high fashion shoes may well have generated more direct income than my SSD pages will throughout their entire duration.

However, those brought to Wizzley in the promise of a valuable insight into deafness are still here at that final full stop. Who's to say that they didn't then wander into my profile and buy a Taliesin jewelry box?  Or, if not them, then what about the dozen or so people who followed their recommendation for a good read, thus finding Wizzley for the first time?

Something I Know articles aren't about sales. They're about raising the profile of yourself AND the site as a whole. It's about providing a mix, so that you never fall into the trap of thinking that the rest of the world exists solely to generate affiliate commission for you. Value your readers, and give them value too, because without them, you're just someone waffling words unread, then lost in a dark corner of cyberspace.

Besides a little creative thinking, sparked and enriched by the depth of comments left on articles such as these (and the search terms which lead readers to them), can easily highlight a niche market ripe for Zazzle products.

My first Angry Deaf button was inspired by a reader's story, left in the comment section of one of those articles. It sold surprisingly well. I added more, as a way to monetize further SSD articles (as what existed out there was very limited and soon exhausted). Angry Deaf is now not only a whole range, but my best-selling one on Zazzle.

All because of Wizzley. All because I wrote Something I Know articles to maintain an element of genuinely useful, valuable and insightful material here.

When we're put on the spot, it's difficult to imagine that any of us have knowledge not shared by the mass of humanity. But dig a little further and you'd be amazed.

Do you know how to load a washing machine? Sorting the lights from the dark and discerning the difference between detergent and softener? 

There are students who have just left home, and spouses recently bereft after having been cared for their whole married life, who would like to kiss you for an article telling them how to do it.

They'd probably buy whatever powder, pegs and laundry liquids you recommended therein, out of sheer gratitude. You see, they were never taught how, and it's a bit embarrassing having to admit such ineptitude as a grown adult.

Do you remember where you were when JFK was shot? How that felt and what went through your mind?  Well I don't. I wasn't born.  How come I've never read your take on that moment in history?

Do you know the secret places and short-cuts through the town where you were raised?  How about the local legends that have never made it into any tourist book? All assuming there was ever a book like that actually written. Do you recall how it looked down that main street before the mall was built?

Excellent!  I see three articles right there!  One for travel and tourism, another for history and the final one in the legends and folklore category.

Do you still recall how to style your hair and/or make-up in the fashions of your youth?  Great!  Do tell us! Because if none of your generation ever write it down, that information will be lost within the next century. Preserve it. Tell us those daft little tales, which never make it into the documentaries.

Like that story that my Mum's friend tells of her tresses lacquered into a statuesque beehive during the 1960s, immobile and untouched, except to tuck in stray wisps and spray more lacquer. Right up until the day when she felt movement on her scalp and had her own mother peer inside to discover the spider's nest with all those hatching babies within.

These strands of reality will get lost to the sanitized gloss of nostalgia, unless you record them.

Do you know how to live in your country and culture? Good, because I don't, if I'm not from there, along with most of the rest of the world. Do you know how to celebrate your festivals? Honor your traditions? Go shopping? Feed yourself? Do you know how to do every job that you've ever been employed doing? Social insights; life skills; career advice.

See I knew you knew something. Now choose one and let us glimpse your reality.

Hundreds of articles down the line, I've confirmed over and over again that you can't proofread your own work. I used to proofread things for a living. I have a certificate as evidence that I once went on a three day course in the arts thereof. I've still got a blind-spot when it comes to my own writing.

The trouble is that we know what it should say, so our brains tell us that it does indeed read as planned.

But it is easier to spot the errors if you go back a few days later, when the precise wording has faded a little from your mind. Assuming that you're on day four now, then your Wizzography should be ready to reveal its typos.

Seeing as everyone on Wizzley is in the same boat (except me, as I have a fantastic friend willing to check all that I write and I'll remain ever in her debt for that), maybe you could arrange an exchange with someone writing at the same pace. You proofread one another's work and privately message any corrections.

Everyone's a winner then.

It may appear counter-productive to seize upon the bargain basement prices, when I could have inserted two guides at normal price and made myself a profit. After all, we are in this game to make a living writing.

But there is method in my madness. That Write Good or Die book is such good value that I paused after placing it there, in order to go and get a copy for myself. Yep, I managed to sell myself a product on my own page. Well done me.

So who else is thinking exactly the same thing right now?  Hopefully sixty-five of you, as that is the volume of Amazon items to sell before my commission this month leaps into the next payment band. Which means that the 46 products already on my tally will suddenly enrich me by 7% instead of 6.5%.

That's an even more likely proposition, when you're beginning in the lower bands. Then only seven people need to grab their free eBook before my commission is propelled from 4% to 4.5%. That will probably happen. It's 65 that's pushing it!

Occasional great Amazon deals like this are worth sprinkling across your Wizzley articles, as an aid to keeping your affiliate percentage higher than would otherwise have been the case. Plus it's a nice little thank you for your loyal readers.

I can practically hear the veteran writers face-palming over my inclusion of this category, especially so early on in proceedings. I know they will be, because I've had several quite vocally try to steer me away from indulging in such tomfoolery.

But they shouldn't even be in here. They're not the target readership and they already have their own strategies for success perfectly mapped out, with spreadsheets for data, and no time to waste on frivolities, like trying to save the world.

They will be trying to draw my attention back to the fact that my emphasis is supposed to be on Wizzley as a source of online writing income. In their utter exasperation with me, they'll have forgotten that I can't hear them through a computer monitor, and anyway I'm deaf.

As I clearly stated at the beginning, there are many routes and tactics for writing success on sites such as Wizzley, and this is mine. 

But it might be yours too, if you continue through with the challenge, so in fairness to those wiser minds abounding, I'll spell out their arguments as well.

The primary one is that issue awareness raising articles aren't there to make money. While you're fighting the good fight, you could have been more usefully employed checking out this season's hottest line in footwear. Shoes sell. Torture, gore, Disappeared people, the mass destruction of land and water, unions being crushed, elderly being culled and seals being clubbed to death does not.

Well, not to the sort of people you'd want to do business with anyway. Such endeavors are ridiculously lucrative for low-life scum, like terrorists, the Mafia and most governments. But that's by the by. They're not supposed to make money for us, the little people, the humble Wizzley writers.

And really that's as it should be.

Moreover, the argument goes that penning hard-hitting articles like these may even be detrimental to your online writing career.  The assumption is that consumer minded readers - who are most likely to fund your livelihood - are put off by the presence of morbid reality in your gallery. They might accidentally read it, while looking for your articles about shoes.

^{Guess which of these two articles has generated the most affiliate commission income for me...}

Then you have to be quite careful about precisely how hard-hitting you are in the fine detail. Most Wizzley writers, including the team running the place, monetize with Google Adsense. And Google won't allow their adverts on any site which steers too closely into unsavory truths.

In their ideal world, the entire internet would look a little like a Disney cartoon, with animated tweetie-birds and shiny princesses prettily waltzing with rugged princes. Boosting merchandise sales of plastic delights and velvet costumes for those who wish their lives had flowers with faces and tweetie-birds too.

Though, of course, no-one will be buying them, because haven't we ALL boycotted Disney over the fact that said merchandise is made in sweat shops, often by Third World children the same age as the pretty toys' target demographic in the West?

Google will allow Adsense on sites promoting sweated Disney merchandise, but not on those highlighting why we shouldn't do that. At least not if we describe in detail what manacles do to the ankles of five year old slaves indentured laborers.  And Wizzley is not a charity, it's a business. Hence the rules here are largely designed to keep Google sweet.

Raising too much awareness on certain issues can result in your article being pulled subject to toning down amendments, or disallowed entirely, or - I'm guessing, as I've not known this to happen and I'm probably the one who pushes the boundaries most of all - a potential loss of your account.

No gore. No graphic violence. No narratives outlining the exact brutality inherent in a botched execution. No depictions of torture. No pornography. Beyond that you're fine. Trust me on that. My human rights articles are aligned precisely along the edge never to be crossed.

So those are the cons.  See why the older, more experienced writers might want to head you away from the pass?  See why I may want to lure you over to the dark side?  If it's any consolation, I am an Amnesty International activist. I do have a candle lit in the darkness by default.

And I haven't even mentioned the pros yet.

In the midst of that great sarcastic rant above, I asked you to guess which article has contributed more to my Wizzley income, the shoes or the lethal injection one.

For the majority of those ever to attempt to nag sense into me, it's a no brainer. The presumption is that the shoes Wizzle has to have won. But reality rarely lives up to expectation.

I've not sold a single item of footwear through that article.

It's a highly unsettling fact - from my point of view anyway - that my anti-death penalty series on methods of execution in the world today has proven to be an unforeseen source of income. Books mostly, with sales prompted by my 'further reading' modules, abetted by Amazon's automatic 'people who liked that book, also bought these' listings.

I had sold quite a few copies of a true story movie about a lady being stoned to death, before Google's whining caused Wizzley to crack down and I was asked to remove it.  I still regularly find a less graphic movie, related to the electric chair, in my Amazon affiliate list.

In fact, for most of last year, my human rights articles were my second highest source of regular income from Wizzley. Which was a pain, because I'd then have to carefully add up those amounts, included in the total tally, and donate the sum to Amnesty International. Which knocked a demotivating hole in my Wizzley revenue each time.

But I refuse to make a profit from human rights abuses, which is why you'll never see a Disney product promoted by my articles.

Just yesterday, I was awarded commission from two Gay Pride rings sold via one of my civil rights articles. That feels alright, so I'll keep that!  They were celebrations of gay marriage anyway.

In short, awareness raising articles shouldn't be profitable. I've been told repeatedly that they're not. Yet they continue to be steadfast sources of income nonetheless. THAT, rather than my personal politics, is why I've included it here so early on. I never lost sight of the objective in you completing this Wizzley fifty article challenge. It's to earn a livelihood, and these Wizzles have been forerunners in that goal since the first six months or so after they were published.

There are also three articles in the top twenty which raised awareness of the inherent danger to Runescape, when investment bankers started calling the shots.

So that's nine of my ALL TIME most read Wizzley articles devoted to me raising awareness about various issues. Can you see now why I think it's worth taking the time to pen them?

It should also be obvious by now - through the fluffy deaf bunny and the pastel hued rainbow - that not all Wizzles of this ilk have to be even remotely gory. You can open issues up for debate without lingering upon the particulars, and the majority of social and other issues aren't even graphically violent in nature.

It's the fact that I tend to write about judicial killing and human rights abuses, which sees me sailing so close to the wire. I encounter no problems when the issues I'm discussing don't come anywhere near violations of Wizzley's rules. I received an Editor's Choice Award last month for a gay rights article about Conchita Wurst's success in Eurovision 2014.

Which also highlights the point that awareness raising doesn't have to be negative. You could be cheering on a victory; letting people know about how singing nuns saved an orphanage from closure; analyzing a philosophical facet of a wider debate; assessing the pros and cons on a question about which you're undecided; or promoting a good cause.

No-one's going to quibble about that.

So what big issue are you going to get off your chest?  What heroism will the world discover through you? What grand cause will you champion?  What questions will you ask?  Wizzley challenge fifth article gauntlet thrown!

Once your last article is approved by a Wizzley moderator, then your entire profile will be automatically activated with 'follow' links.  Your Wizzles will go live as soon as you press 'publish' without any checks along the way.

Naturally the Wizzley team will still watch your output, but no more than they do the rest of us. You're now a trusted member of the community.

You must have impressed ChefKeem et al with your openness and willingness to present yourself a real human being (Wizzography); your enthusiasm, enjoyment in writing and quality standard (Passion article); your potential to generate an income (Holiday article); your knowledge and willingness to share valuable insights (Something You Know article); and your ability to write on controversial subjects without breaking any of the rules of Wizzley (Raising Awareness article).

Wizzography aside, as that's a one off, you also have an example of each of the main four kinds of articles that you'll be writing here. You'll be able to judge for yourself over time which work best.

All that happens next will merely be variations on each theme, or will mix and match them all. You have four avenues through which income may eventually stream, or four opportunities to generate affiliation commission. You may also have a fledgling Zazzle store in progress.

Did you notice that 90% of the monetization on this page involved items that I've created? Some were utterly crow-barred in, as regards relevance, but they were all there to demonstrate extra money-making possibilities during your tenure at Wizzley. Including the ability to promote your own products.

Well done. You're now nicely on the way to becoming a successful Wizzley writer!

As I mentioned all the way back at the beginning of this marathon article, I will be completing an in-depth analysis of each page as an eBook.  The idea is to have you know precisely why you're writing each one, so you can adapt the information to better suit your own needs.

However, I will list the pages here, so that those wishing to blindly follow the rest may do so without the requirement to buy/read the eBook.  (Which I currently haven't even written...)

Good luck all!

Weddings

This category constitutes my second biggest source of Wizzley income. I only wrote my initial couple of articles to help out NightOwl, when she launched Wizzley Weddings. As soon as I realized how good this was for livelihood generation, you can be sure I was back there quite regularly!

I recommend checking out the Weddings Traditions sub-category. There are only three of those currently populated. If you grab one of the empty ones, you get to colonize it completely.

And gentlemen, this isn't just for the ladies. Unless it's a lesbian wedding, you lot tend to be half of the show.  Let's hear your voices too.

Tell Us a Story

When you think about it, every article on Wizzley is a story. But this is being quite blatant about it.  Tell a life story, ghost story, historical true story; recount a legend or folklore; tell us about a moment in time. This is a very broad sweep, but it's basically a narrative.

And much more lucrative than you may suppose.

Top Amazon Product

Go into your Amazon affiliate account. Search by category.  Look at the most popular item being sold, then write a pure sales Wizzle promoting said item.

Movie That Changed your Life

You could switch this for book or game or piece of art or any other cultural thing instead. But always stick to that category, whenever you see this on the grid.  I've positioned the order quite precisely.

You're writing a review or an editorial on a cultural piece that really moved your world. Hence you're passionate about it.  I've sold several movies prompted by my gushing about them.

Redemption Song(s)

I've named this after the Bob Marley song, but the meaning is this: we all have songs or albums that saved our lives and/or sanity.  Time for you to wax lyrical about that for you.  Or, if you'd prefer, call this the start of your Desert Island Discs. 

And think around the subject too.  It's not ALL about the music itself, particularly if you're looking at stage-show musicals.

Belief/Philosophy

Wizzley doesn't allow 'preachy' articles. Therefore don't come in here with a 'my God is bigger than your God and you're all doomed' scenario. Think much more informatively and reflectively than that. Educate us. Muse upon aspects. Be deep.

This isn't necessarily about religion either. Tell us why Nietzsche got it right, or Karl Marx, or Keynes. Or why you'll always support the Republicans, Anonymous, no political party ever. In short, this article is about ideas and intangible things, instinct, faith and the framework of your world.

Tutorial

Like Something You Know, but much more of a step by step guide. The best of these include lots of pictures, so we can see everything at each stage in the process.

Hero/Heroine

Like Tell a Story, but this is focusing upon an individual. You can make it a full biography, or recount a single event, or simply say why they're so heroic.

Top Zazzle Product

Like the Top Amazon Product, but Zazzle.

Anniversary Tie-In

Look up the date and write about something that happened on that date. The great thing about anniversaries is that they're annual events, so this will be very topical this time next year too.

Forthcoming Feature

This is getting you to think about Thematic Blogging. Anticipate what's going to be huge this time next year, because that's around the time that your article will be starting to mature. 

Best Book Ever

Exactly what it says on the packet.  Review it, or analyze it, or focus on a character, or be inspired by something that happens in it.

If you used 'book' instead of movie before, then make this one a film, art or something else instead.

Achievement

This is solely here to mark the moment when you achieved your goal and hit 50 articles on Wizzley.  It's a topic prompt rather than anything particularly clever.

There's something quite magical about hitting the fifty article mark on any website. Something changes in a very subtle way.  It's a strong portfolio and now requires time for all of those articles to be noticed.  Plus, on Wizzley, you move up a commission bracket. Your cut of the adverts is now 55%. 

Well done.

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