I've been in some weird situations in my time, but this one pushed the boat out a little further than usual.
As many of you know, I've created a Zazzle store. Originally it was to furnish monetised pictures for articles on places like Wizzley. As time has gone on, I've grown to love the site. I'm not exactly a visual person, so my comfort zone is in words. Zazzle is all pictures. Nevertheless, extra strings to my bow were added with aplomb.
Then representatives of the UK Secretary of State for Defence complained about me. Apparently. They demanded that a photograph that I'd taken of HMS Edinburgh be removed for copyright reasons. I took the photograph. It's the one pictured above.
I admit that my jaw dropped a tad, as I read the e-mail from Zazzle's Content Review Team. The products made from it had been up less than 24 hours, when the Defence Department leapt upon it. Naturally, I felt a letter to my MP and to the Rt Hon Philip Hammond coming on. They were e-mailed just now.
The precise wording, in the Zazzle e-mail, was thus:
'We have been contacted by legal and commercial
rights representatives of The UK Secretary of State for Defence, and at their
request, to remove designs which infringe upon their rights from the Zazzle
Marketplace.'
But surely, as a British taxpayer, it could be argued that I paid for HMS Edinburgh. At least, I paid my taxes and a Destroyer was added to the Royal Navy using tax revenue. I'm not saying that I could direct its manoeuvres, but there is a link here. Also as a British taxpayer, any income I receive from the Zazzle products will be taxed too. That's more money in the coffers to build military battleships!
Actually, put like that, it's probably for the best that the Secretary of State for Defence is wasting time and resources firing pot-shots at British businesses. It stops them being diverted into wars, which aren't supported by the British people instead.
I'd be interested to read the response from Mr Hammond. I'll keep you posted.
As a faintly amusing coda, another image of HMS Edinburgh, which was posted on the same day, same hour, same folder and sat right next to the one removed, was patently deemed admissible. It's still there.
The pressure is immense. Forget about the human rights, the history and the literature, concentrate on Justin Bieber. It's what the people want.
Naturally it's not what the feedback is in comments. Ask the readership of any site what they think they want and a variety of topics end up on the list. The scope of curiosity is as expansive as the human mind itself. I can go whole weeks without any one of my friends mentioning Kate Middleton, Beyonce or Lady Gaga. (Ok, maybe not weeks with the latter. She is pretty ubiquitous.) But if I want hits, then they are the subjects to focus upon.
I didn't believe those experienced veterans of internet prose at first. When I joined sites like Suite101, I was prepared to fill volumes of binary text with descriptions of historical events. It was my passion and my raison d'être. I knew that I could make the past live again, if I was only given the chance. I was going to save lives with reporting human rights abuses, waving my Amnesty International membership in the air. All of that education would never go to waste.
In my early days at Suite101, I had a wise soul tell me that it's all about the hits. It doesn't matter where you're writing on the internet, you'll never get rich without those likes, retweets, favourites and links. People come; people read; people alert all of their friends. That's the bread and butter of on-line freelance writing.
My first article to approach any measure of success was about Justin Bieber. His fans picked it up and, for a glorious few days, the link was being reposted all over the internet. It's still being read. Months after the news became old, I get a dozen or so Beliebers a week looking in on the article.
You cannot believe how tempting it is to do nothing but write about Justin Bieber all day. The only thing stopping me is, well, I'd have to write about Justin Bieber all day.
The pattern was continued with other articles. Prince William and Kate Middleton visited Birmingham. I wrote about it basically because I had photographs of the riot damage that they'd come to inspect. The hits on that story dwarfed even those for Mr Bieber. They have continued to do so, whenever I've written about royalty.
But only the right royalty. I didn't get very far pointing out, for example, that Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, is related to Queen Elizabeth II. Perhaps Britons have always secretly regretted that whole unpleasantness with Charles I and would love to return to a proper governmental monarchy.
As I gaze down my statistics on every site, the same story presents itself. Write about celebrity and the hits pour in. Write about anything vaguely cerebral and they dry up again. Though I have managed to get away with it with a Wizzley article.
When it was called Studying History as a Timeline, the article was my only real failure on the site. As everything else that I've written slowly rose though the ranks, this one bucked the trend by falling. (On Wizzley, each article is graded according to hits, comments and likes etc.) I changed nothing but the title. Suddenly it's up at 86% and rising. Then again, Anne Boleyn's breasts have always had huge implications for the rest of the world.
Are We Dumbing Down the Internet?
I don't believe that my writing becomes worse or the whole page loses something, when I'm talking about the things I love. Do I really describe television programmes better than I can a pivotal historical battle? I received an Editor's Choice for my article about Torchwood. I barely got any hits on my series about what happened at the Battle of Shrewsbury.
The thing is that it's not just me. Every freelance on-line writer out there is facing the same dilemma. I know because I'm privy to them talking about it on writing forums, where the general public can't see. Experts in so many fields are just giving up, so they can concentrate on the stories that bring the hits.
I worry that we're dumbing down the internet. I worry that our readers are going to let us.
So just to give this blog entry some kind of meaning, let me add an important fact: Jay-Z has already got a track out about his daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. Glory even features her cry. You can hear it right here! Awww!
Starting out as a freelance writer can feel so onerous. There is the love of writing, that makes this seem like a perfect career choice, but then there's everything else as well. Will the website succeed? Will you actually be able to make a living wage? Will the writing continue to be your passion in life, once you're knocking out articles for months on end?
Yesterday, I signed up for Wizzley. In many ways, it was just another site that I'm trying out for size. But this one feels just that little bit different. For a start, it's inserted a hefty dose of fun back into the writing and that would recommend it all on its own.
How I Found Wizzley
The advertisement seemed plain enough. There's the logo and my three major concerns outlined straight away.
On the other hand, there are about a billion other sites offering the same thing. I've signed up to a dozen in the past three months. Some I've explored, then wandered back out; others, like Suite101, have convinced me to invest hours of my time in researching and writing dozens of articles.
Wizzley came with a personal recommendation attached. The lovely Christian Dörr writes for its German counterpart, PageWizz, and he was gushing on the Suite101 forums about its virtues. I decided to give it a try.
Writing Articles for Wizzley
I've only written one article there so far: How to Write an Essay. That was mostly to try out the formatting and to see if this was the sort of site where I could fit in. I was very pleasantly surprised.
In all of my past writing platforms, I've been confronted with a single blank page, which I then have to fill with words. This is fine. I'm a writer and I enjoy filling blank pages with words. Wizzley is different. It employs a series of modules to fit together in order to create a page. The modules can include anything from videos, polls, content lists, RSS feeds, images, the list goes on! And, of course, text boxes, which is where I really come into my own.
It took me three hours to write that article. That wasn't anything to do with content, as I was relying upon personal experience. It was also nothing to do with actually writing it, as I can produce something of that length very quickly. The culprit was enjoyment. I was having so much fun working out what all of the modules could offer me and my readers! I inserted things, checked the page view, took them out again; inserted other things... Yes, I was playing very nicely. The geek in me was enthralled.
Of course, future articles there won't take half as long. I've checked out all of the pretty possibilities now, so I know what I can use in the future.
I should also note here that the user interface is very easy. The text boxes have standard controls, both in rich text and HTML (the former is the default). The potential modules work on the drag and drop principle.
Reasons That I Love Wizzley So Far
Bear in mind that I've only been there a day, with just a single article to my credit, so this really does reflect initial impressions only.
The fun aspect. Who can't love building pages by dragging and dropping a choice of modules into the main event?
The presentation potential. I've been slightly frustrated in the past, because I've wanted to insert items that would inform my readers a little better. For example, when I was writing about My Tram Experience, it would have been nice to insert the YouTube footage that I was discussing. On Wizzley, I can.
The page view. On many sites, you just have to write and hope it looks good when it's published. On Wizzley, you can do that before it's gone live. The author flits between page view and edit view, so it can be seen in all its glory before anyone else has to spot your typos.
The admin. I had a query almost as soon as I signed up. I'd discovered that you can get commission for referring people there (cheekily ninjas in a referral link). This isn't unusual and I should have checked that before I signed up, because Christian had recommended the site. He should have got the credit for that, even if he hadn't provided the link. I asked about it on their forums and, within a few minutes, one of the site's owners had replied. He told me who to e-mail with the name. I did that and he responded to the e-mail immediately. Christian was now credited with bringing me on board.
That last point might not seem like a lot to many people, but it made a very refreshing change to me. A lot of sites that I've signed up for ignore this aspect entirely. Wizzley's administration seems geared towards its writers (we're called authors there) and readers, rather than some distant business model. In this world of harsh, cold recession and dehumanisation of the masses, being simply treated like a valuable asset nearly brought me to tears.
This is why, out of all of the sites on which I've created accounts recently, I'm singling out Wizzley to big up in this blog.
Edit: Ooops! I forgot to mention something important for writers earning a living here - yes, you can insert adverts. They have their own module. You can put in Chikita, Amazon, Zazzle, AllPosters, Ebay and Adsense. You have the revenue on that. Wizzley also have adverts, from which you get a commission. But there are strict rules on the number of adverts that can be placed. They shouldn't be the main event here.
I want to be a writer. I want to write blogs, articles and features just interesting enough that it turns into the day job. It's not like I haven't done the 'proper' day jobs before.
I walked the streets (uphill both ways; barefoot and waist high in snow (even in summer); raining constantly... ok, if I'm going to wilfully exaggerate, I really should keep the weather consistent) selling Avon products at fourteen years old. At 18, I was dressing up as a (small) woman-sized squirrel to delight orphan children (children's page editor, charity event, local newspaper). As a tour guide, I've led groups of people around a 17th century stately home; and spooked myself by singing 'Goosey Goosey Gander', really slowly, in the sort of chapel that the nursery rhyme recalls.
As a student, I did the usual chip-shop and pub, part-time, seasonal, badly paid jobs. Many, many stories there. Like the time that the local gangster took umbrage to the fact that I served the person in front of him in the queue first. I ended up being yanked over the bar by my lapels and deposited on the floor, bruised and humiliated. Then the leader of the opposing gang threatened to take him down for his treatment of me; and I'm stood in the middle, like a scene out of 'West Side Story', really hoping that the landlord would make an appearance some time soon.
Beyond university, I got to be the secretary, events organiser, receptionist, store-keeper and general dogsbody of the Psychic Research Foundation. That was fun. I met really fascinating people from all walks of life, alongside a fair smattering of complete and utter charlatans; as well as people so entranced by their own point of view, that nothing else could penetrate. Still I got to walk around historical and potentially haunted buildings in the middle of the night, with permission to be there!
Those paranormal evenings were great. People would pay to be scared out of their wits, though often nothing happened but atmosphere and suggestion. We would sit at seances and readings; or hold lectures on subjects ranging from astrology through to UFO sightings. Some of the best conversations happened off the record. I learned how we just give away so much personal information about ourselves in our dress, jewellery and general demeanour. With the slightest promoting, those having readings frequently just spill out their entire life history, then gasp in shock, when it's repeated back to them. *shakes head*
That's not to say that nothing was real here. I did witness things that widened my eyes and had me struggling for a mainstream explanation. Like the time when the astrology lecturer met my sceptism with a challenge. She would list the star-signs of everyone walking into that room. I just had to note them and, at the end of the lecture, she would ask the attendees to confirm or deny her allocations. She based it all on where they decided to sit, in a room full of strangers. I knew that she didn't have the guestlist. She had only arrived half an hour before and she had been with me the whole time. I'd organised the event and only I had the guest details. She was 100% correct, for all 30 people.
Muse of Astrology
Unfortunately, the organisation ended up being so successful that the owner got a job on national radio and sodded off to London. All of the local staff were made redundant, as we were replaced by southern counterparts. He was back within a year, but by then we'd all moved on. I was now a librarian!
Well, technically, I was a CD Clerk in a jukebox and fruit machine company. But it involved categorising and storing loads of different media. This was a boring job, though it did involve me having to travel around the country training up other CD Clerks after a while. I was good at this job, which let to my major mistake - I stupidly got promoted. Yay! More money! *happy dance* Oh crap! A job that I not only hated, but which saw me replacing a well loved person, who'd been sacked. I didn't know the details, but the 15 people now under me didn't want me there on general principle.
I ended up in debt collection by accident. Within my first month, I brought in 25k out of the 32k outstanding for over a year. The boss asked where the other 7k was. I thought he was joking and laughed. He wasn't.
I didn't last long in that job. It really wasn't my comfort zone and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
Plus I once had someone waiting outside the door with a crowbar for me. Colleagues laughed it off. "You think that's dangerous? I've been held up at gunpoint 13 times!" "Oh! I once got beaten up en route to my car. They took 2 grand off me!" etc etc.
In which work environment is that ever acceptable and amusing?
Enter a decade working for my local university. When I first walked in, my new manager said it was like meeting Little Orphan Annie crossed with Oliver Twist. I wasn't used to dinner breaks and finishing on time, without anyone giving me more urgent work, as I was supposed to be going home. Culture shock! She was a fantastic woman, who gradually ate away at my workaholicism, until I came back down to Earth.
It was such a great place to work. I held four jobs in all, moving through the ranks due to promotion and, on one occasion, being head-hunted. The unions ensured that we had fair employment rights, conditions and pay. The people were largely intelligent and interesting. The side-lines in classes, listening to guest lecturers and attending parties were unparalleled.
One of my more interesting jobs was to organise the Holocaust Memorial Day. I welcomed in survivors of some of the most horrific camps in Europe. I sat down, over a cup of tea and a meal, with people who bore those terrible tattoos. They each had different ways of coping with their past.
Eva Mozes Kor was particularly memorable. She had been a child in Auschwitz, subject to experimentation, with her twin sister, under the supervision of Mengele. She forgave him. She realised, late in life, that it was the only way forward. Paul Oppenheimer, who had been in Belsen, where he had lost most of his family, survived now on his anger. It gave him the passion to continue. I felt very honoured to meet them both, along with the other people who came to share their stories.
My final position was as part of Aimhigher West Midlands, doing all we could to get people like me into higher education. People who, for whatever socio-economic reason, don't traditionally consider university in their life prospects. However, this was government funded and, when the recession came, the government publicly sacked us all. The minister had specifically announced our redundancy to the press, before he'd thought to mention it to us. True story. I read about it in the news, then 'phoned the director and suggested that she read it too. I was the last person out of the door, because I was the one archiving all that we'd achieved. I cried. It was sad.
One last job to bring us right up to date. This was so good that I found it hard to believe that it was even a 'proper' job. I was the copy-writer and blogger for a tour company based in Mexico. I was approached by someone who read my Runescape blog and just offered the post. Yay! Bring it on! For over a year, I got to make a living through writing and that is a gold-plated life for me. Until the troubles and the American press hit Mexico right in the economy and the company had to close down.
But if I could make a living writing before, why not now?
