There is an online magazine called Guardian Liberty Voice which aspires to become a major player in the online blogger/magazine universe. Indeed, their efforts have produced a modicum of success as they are listed in the higher end of the online “newspapers” now dappling the internet. They, like many of their ilk, are an online zine composed by others who write in a freelance fashion for the website in an attempt to gather more readers, and also to take advantage of whatever revenue can be attained by attaching Guardian Liberty Voice to Google Adsense and possibly, Google Adwords.
I decided that I would take the paper up on its offer to join them as a writer and see just what the inner workings of this company would entail for the aspiring writer. The operation is run by an entrepreneur who has a high ranking degree and even introduces himself to his audience in a live video presentation over the internet. He spells out his company’s history and current position quite well and is impressive in his personal presentation. Obviously a person of high accomplishment and also individual drive, he is looking for like minded persons whom “just love to write” and would consider writing for his magazine online and perhaps even getting some form of renumeration in the process.
At first, I liked the whole idea, being a long time blogger myself, and I got involved in the next phase which was a week long “boot camp” for training in the process of writing for the internet magazine. According to them, the key was to follow a code provided on Google which pointed the writer toward the trends of the day, which would provide subject matter for writing. They also would accept those who wished to report on local sports and entertainment events as a correspondent. The boot camp was to last a week, and the volume needed to be produced was at least seven articles of over 500 words which had to be ACCEPTED for publication. Without this litmus being passed, one would not be accepted.
I immediately ran into problems on two fronts. Firstly, when asked what kind of commitment level I would like to join at, I chose the possibility of writing one or two articles a week, which is really all I have time for completing. Considering what it takes to not only write the articles I already produce and then editing them and correcting the myriad of mistakes that happen while “stream of consciousness” writing, there is quite a bit of time taken up in simply making sure that the final product does not confuse or even bore the reader. There is much to consider for each post, and this takes more time than one would at first imagine. The prospect of churning out seven articles in the span of a week, while spending time in boot camp classes each day, which ran for maybe three hours each, was a tall order if one has other responsibilities. I had informed them that I was only able to do one or two articles a week, so the boot camp strategy of “finding out what you can handle” failed on this point for myself. (If you are not available during the day, you must pay for the classes that happen at night.)
My second problem was that I was unable to find an internet or Wifi connection which didn’t make the three hours plus of class time a major effort to keep up with. The connection was horrendous, and I had to drive here and there to see if I could find a place to be involved with these classes where I didn’t have to suffer through connection break-ups on a ten minute a piece basis. This was arduous to say the least. I never did solve this problem. I attended all of the classes despite these troubles.
The process teaches the aspiring blogger to follow a pattern for writing articles which was created within a text generator program which the writer would pull up online and either type directly into or else paste into from another text generation program. Once inside of the program the writer was guided and trained to follow the set up presentation as per the prescription set forward by the program for gaining the best benefit as per what Google “robots” or “spiders” are looking for in an article. This process was not too difficult to learn and I have kept a lot of what I have learned for my own blog with some results, but not great results.
Google news has a list of items which are trending on the net, and according to Guardian Liberty Voice, these are the things you must concentrate on when writing. This includes things such as World news, United States news, sports, entertainment and several others which fit into the “code word” for what is going to bring in the readers to the site. According to these folks, one must write on what is trending, for there is no money in writing customized posts. I have to agree with this, as one who has blogged for over five years now.
I have personally taken two individual turns with utilizing Google Adsense and also Google Adwords, and I cannot recommend either one. They simply have never shown me that they work, even when I have attached them to my Youtube account and produced videos. Of course, the young teen who makes funny faces and has a million hits in one week, who just bought her first car with Adsense profits will tell you different, but that is not my testimony. And after trying Guardian Liberty Voice, it still isn’t.
I wrote five articles for Guardian Liberty Voice before I was unceremoniously cautioned to do no more writing. “Please,” they told me. “”Don’t turn in another article. Obviously you have not attended the classes we hold to prepare you for this.”
“Is that so? Well, you must know something about the week I spent straining to keep connected to your website boot camp, while churning out five articles with no time left in my day that I am just not aware of.” I told them. This did not receive a response.
You, the reader, can see these articles here on my site from the month of April beginning with my movie review of the latest Captain America film from Disney/Marvel and counting the next five articles. All formatted from the squirrley program provided from boot camp, they are mostly as required for optimal Google response, with a few hitches here and there, due to the rush I was forced into by time and tide. These articles should have provided a big jump in response from Google robots due to their formatting, but in actuality, they only provided a minimal bump for the time that they were trending on Google news. Being squeezed for time as it was, I was forced to go into my back log of posts to see if I could cannibalize some information in order to make their deadline, and unfortunately, I write in the first person for you, the reader, and not in the third person. This was a brick wall to run into on a tight deadline and derailed the entire process as it was difficult to re-write an entire article in the third person with no time left for production and editing.
Interestingly enough, the articles which were accepted have not done as well as the one which was not accepted. The article about Fort Hood and Bill Clinton and Blood Moons and Buffalo, is the top performer among those articles and it was the one rejected by the editors of Guardian Liberty Voice. I love theory as much as the next person, but either something actually does work, doesn’t work, or it only sometimes works, and trying to hire people to write for you under auspices that you have a system figured out and ready to “cash cow” as it were, is just selling. Selling is about as real and valuable as Monopoly money.
As far as responses go, I expected much more from a program that claims it knows what will bring in the Adsense cash for articles. It didn’t work, and one of the reasons Guardian Liberty Voice always needs writers is because they need to multiply a small response from Google by the thousands in order for them to make any headway on profit with Google Adsense. This is my educated guess, I didn’t look into their coffers personally, but I go with experience.
It can be a real struggle to find something on a weekly basis, much more on a daily basis to write about which fits into the format of only those things trending. I write here about things few others are willing to write on, and consequently I make nothing from it, but I do consider it a public service. It’s alarming to find that if I suddenly went populist, I might make about twenty cents more with Google Adsense. I found the process of subject matter writing as per the parochial requirements set forth to be stultifying and just plain annoying. This holds true especially in light of the fact that I made NOTHING from the articles they did post on their site, and only a small bump in attention on my own Google charts here on this site. I like to write, but I like to write for my own motives and pleasures, and hopefully, people out there will benefit. I’ll make money somewhere else.
One other thing that did crop up over and over during the boot camp classes was the objections of those who were involved. There are quite a few people who are against using photos from the internet to place them on an article in the hopes of bringing in more readership. Photographers should indeed be duly umbraged as there is no payment forth coming for their work which is used in this commercial way. Recently, Gene Simmons of Kiss, complained about the death of Rock music due to file sharing on the internet and the destruction of the financial base for the music industry. He is correct, and this also applies for many other industries involved in the creative process. This ranges from plagiarism, to copyright infringement and beyond. Billions of dollars have been lost on the internet simply because of the loss of access controls in many, many industries. But that is another post, for another time.
I would suppose that if you are a person who loves to take assignment writing on the current trends, and you don’t mind small amounts of money in return, and maybe you don’t have a lot to do all day, then Guardian Liberty Voice would be a good place to spend time writing and working. I can’t suggest that you do so based upon my own experiences there, for it seems that the magazine will benefit to a greater degree than any individual writer ever will using their system. Try it if you must, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I would always recommend to anyone that they do a Google search on any business' reputation before you ever put yourself out there. Just keep in mind that commission sales are all about promises, not reality. What CAN happen doesn’t necessarily translate into what DOES happen.