Money, as t'were.

[demiurgent]

I'm better off, financially, than a lot of people I know. But things get tight. We all know that. And they've been getting tight more often, lately. Nothing to scream or panic about, mind (and this is not a funding/call for help drive or anything.)

My New England spirit says "I should get a second job." But my day job provides me with many benefits that require the flexibility of going in and working on machines when it's needed, which makes taking alternate work unfeasible. (I can't very well work a convenience store job only to have to leave it to bring the mail server back to life.)

So. Is there a reputable part time online job out there that people can recommend? The kind of thing I can do in spare hours just to pad income a bit, without abrogating my responsibility to my school (and maintaining the flexibility I need to, oh, drive to Ottawa every couple of weeks and make kissy noises with Weds). Obviously, I've seen all the scams you have. And tee shirts beat me savagely, so I'm not looking at doing that again any time soon. So I will harness the power of the internet for help, and junk.

Comments

[wide_worlds_joy]

Check and see if your webhost needs help taking care of trouble tickets? That's what I did to pay for my domain for some time, until I proved I was incompetant at administering Linux.

Heck, you may even be able to work out a trade, hosting for work.

[mishamish.livejournal.com]

Holy CRAP, that had never occurred to me! And here I am, getting ready to write another year's check (okay, actually just give them permission to debit my account for another year's service, but whatever).

I will DEFINITELY have to look into this!

[chadu.livejournal.com]

You will be getting some editing royalties shortly, when moneys start coming in for ZoZ.

Also: you better not JUST be making kissy noises. I think you should actually go for the full-on kissing thing.

I'm just sayin'.

CU

[mishamish.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Hi!

You could:

• Sell things on eBay (stuff you own or sell for others & take a percentage, at least 20%)
  
• You could sign up for http://www.guru.com, http://www.writers-editors.com, and/or http://www.e-lance.com and bid for writing jobs and/or editing jobs (the important thing is to bid regularly, not to necessarily win jobs - the more regularly you bid, the more jobs trickle in, the more bids you're likely to win and the work you get)
  
• You could seriously hustle some writing gigs - pitch ideas for stories to comics magazines, gaming magazines, etc.
  
• I have no idea which sites are reputable, but there are article trees out there that pay you half of whatever your article(s) posted on their websites get from click through advertising; if you add a link in ever article back to Websnark (or a web page in which people can find out how to hire you to write), you can get more jobs that way
  
• If you're willing to write copy, you could pick up copywriting jobs off Craig's list (and the sites above - elance, guru, & writers-editors)

[mishamish.livejournal.com]

Damn... okay, there goes my suggestions.

My work here is done.

[pvenables.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest the selling of your editing/writing skills as well although I didn't have helpful URLs to supply. So instead I'll just point upwards at kjc007's response.

[ocarina.livejournal.com]

Sell kissy noises, obviously. You gotta do what you love man!

[whytdraek.livejournal.com]

It's not glamourous at all, and you might not be able to find anyone willing to hire, but you might try hunting down current addresses for bill collections.

[ardaniel]

People on Craigslist always need wacky telecommute writing jobs, even out where I am.

I never *got* my T-shirt, which continues to amuse me. :)

Cha-ching (pokka wa-wow)

[(Anonymous)]

How about writing low grade porn?

Seriously. From what I've heard, there might actually be some money to be made there.

Andy

P.S. Use an alias.

Re: Cha-ching (pokka wa-wow)

[taimatsu]

But how does one sell it? Where does one go?

Re: Cha-ching (pokka wa-wow)

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Um, ok, full disclosure - I edited the book and I work for Circlet Press (http://www.circlet.com).

BUT, Circlet Press published The Erotic Writer's Market Guide which talks about how to write porn and provides lots of markets.

You can also Google for "erotic writer markets" (and similar key words) and find at least three or four sites that list lots of markets for writing porn.

AND, last but not least, http://www.writersmarket.com/ is the online version of those gigantic freakin' books you see (like the 2007 Poet's Market). They add new markets constantly. There are quite a few erotic markets there.

Re: Cha-ching (pokka wa-wow)

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

How... robust is said market, these days? I mean, Circlet is cool. They do SF porn. But it's niche enough that it's the only real market for it, and that means thinking twice, since rejection's always more likely than acceptance.

Re: Cha-ching (pokka wa-wow)

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Ok, the SF porn short story market is NOT robust.

However, there's a HUGE market for erotic e-books with supernatural elements. The vast majority of the writers AND consumers are women, but there are plenty of men in the mix as well.

When I was updating the e-book chapter I was quite stunned at how well those folks are doing.

I don't know how the print porn market is doing. I know that the closure of so many small bookstores over the past decade has but a serious crimp in the sales of independent publishers and that many have, as a consequence, also folded. Many regular porno mags have gone over to for-pay pictures-only web sites and dispensed with the stories all together.

OTOH, there are still quite a few mags and book printers out there and while some of them try to have high standards, there aren't as many people trying to write really great porn as there are people trying to write really great regular fiction. Far too many porn writers fall in their particular set of clichés... the porn slush piles are just a little weirder.

So if you're interested in writing regular porn, with no SF or F in it, there are plenty of markets. If you're interested in adding SF&F elements, I'd recommend going with traditional fantasy or supernatural elements rather than SF and going with e-books.

Google for "erotic ebook publisher" without the quotes. I remember Ellora's Cave (http://www.ellorascave.com) being a big site.

[almamatercomic.livejournal.com]

I don't know what your stance on advertising is, but if you're not completely opposed to putting ads for other comics on Websnark, you might be able to get a decent amount of money without much effort by selling ads on Project Wonderful (http://www.projectwonderful.com). Good luck finding a flexible way of making money!

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

Seconded. I've been told that Google Ads actually generate a reasonable amount of money. Not a lot, but definitely enough to pay for the site costs plus some.

Not really related to the subject of this entry

[(Anonymous)]

I can't advise you on a second job. Tee shirts would have been my go-to suggestion, but, well, there you have it. I'd also suggest more In Nomine stuff, but you can't exactly hurry that along - Big Steve has to decide more of my Holy Addiction is in order, and so forth.

So, I'll hare completely off topic and ask if you ever wrote any more on Shal-Mari Blues. I stumbled across Annotations recently, and pestered everyone on the In Nomine Mailing List with stuff like "This is great! Who wrote this??" They all told me, and pointed me to Websnark and so forth. Great stuff, of course, but I want more Shal Mari Blues!! Sniffle. It's the stress, you see, of grad school. I became irrationally invested in the character, and the lack resolution in the story makes me feel as if he has *stopped existing*. I also blame your excellent writing, of course.

Feel free to direct your replies to ihearthusserl@yahoo.com, if indeed my petulant whining and selfish demands on your time deserve reply.

[gwox.livejournal.com]

Something I've been doing these past few months is freelance article writing. I've been working with a website owner I hooked up with via GetAFreelancer.com, getting about $4 an article. Which, for the time I'm able to devote to it, adds up to about $100 a week.

The upside is that I can do this side work from home, and can be pretty flexible in my schedule. The downside is that it is still work, and takes time from things I'd rather be doing. Such as editing novelage, or just plain writing, or spending time with significant others.

Anyway, GetAFreelancer.com is what I wanted to point you towards. The bulk of it is set up to cater to programmer types, which is what I initially thought I'd be doing. But it turned out that most of the programming jobs I could theoretically do required more skills than I had, or would have required mega-hours for micro-pay. But they also have proofreading and copyediting sections, which is where I found the freelance article writing work.

Fortunately, I'm now in a position where I think I can step away from freelance article writing. The money came in handy, but the work was kind of crappy. But, bucks is bucks.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

DUDE. Thank you.

[gwox.livejournal.com]

Y'welcome!

Just a note to add to that. Joining GAF is free, of course, but they get their cut once you've put in a bid, and that bid wins a given freelance job. Say, if you put in a bid of $80 to do x number of articles, and your bid gets selected by the guy who wants the work done, you end up paying $8 to GAF via PayPal. Of course, you end up ahead at the end of the job when the $80 gets released to you from escrow through PayPal.

Of course, there are some providers that just use GAF as an entry point to attract freelancers to longer-term work that doesn't go through GAF at all. The work I just finished up with one guy being a case in point -- I wasn't even the winning bidder on that job, but he contacted me and we worked out a direct paypal arrangement.