Us Writers Deserve To Get Paid

My recent experiences with trying to build up The Prancing Laggard Pub have caused me to butt up against a long-standing frustration I've had with the online writing business. You see, my main goal for the publication is to pay my writers a living wage.

"Oh, that's so noble of you," you might say to yourself as you clasp your hands and flutter your eyelashes, with or without a heavy dose of sarcasm.

No, it's not noble of me. If I was in the habit of cursing online, I'd do it here, but as I try not to do that too much I'll just say this - it's freaking my duty as a person in this industry to make sure that people get paid what their work is worth.

Now, my writer friends, repeat after me:

Increasing Blog Traffic with Interviews and Guest Posts

Image by Emma Larkins

Every blogger wants to learn new ways to increase traffic to his or her blog. After all, what's the fun of writing online if no one is going to read your stuff? You might as well chisel it onto a block of marble and drop it into the ocean if you can't develop a readership.

Publishing interviews and guest posts on your blog serves to increase visibility immediately, and also to increase number of visitors over the long run.

Interviews

Interviews are great for a variety of reasons.

• They let other people in your industry know that you exist.
• You can learn terrific new things about publishing houses, other authors, techniques for getting published, etc.
• They increase the traffic to your blog, because the interviewee usually posts one or more backlinks, and helps to promote the interview in other ways as well.

New! Paid Humor/Gaming Writing Market

I'm thrilled to announce a project I've been putting together for the past couple of months on my blog!

It's called The Prancing Laggard Pub, and it's an online magazine dedicated to bringing readers the funniest and most original gaming-focused humor.

Starting this site has allowed me to seek out great writers, help them get publicity, and best of all, pay them! I love giving talented writing professionals exposure, and helping them support themselves with their craft.

So, what makes this site similar to/different from other humor and/or gaming sites? Well, I've definitely taken inspiration from my experience of writing for Cracked; I love how much emphasis that site puts on being original and insightful (and, of course, entertaining at the same time). Compared to other video-game based sites, such as Kotaku or IGN, we're less interested in sharing the latest and greatest news and reviews than in coming up with funny ways to talk about our shared passion for gaming. In addition, we're an all-inclusive publication: we're just as interested in featuring humorous articles about tablet games, casual gaming, card games, LARPing, and tabletop gaming as we are in featuring articles about hardcore gaming and the latest n' greatest FPS.

To read more about the origins of Prancing Laggard, visit the site's About page.

Interested in writing for this paying market? Click here to go to the online submission interest form, and we'll send you a copy of the submission guidelines.

Coming Back to Life

I've been thinking a lot lately about what exactly I want this blog to be, along with doing a lot of related searching about what I want my life to look like.

Common sense and modern wisdom both support the idea of finding that one thing, that one niche, that one passion, and working the hell out of it. "You can't possibly be successful if you don't commit to one thing!" the collective voices cry.

The thing is, I'm not "just a writer," and I'll never be 100% focused on the pure act of converting individual words into stories, articles, and other forms of content. There's so much more going on that fills out the shape of my life, and it's hard to discuss myself and my thoughts without sharing some of it.

With that being said, here's what's new:

I have a new love in my life, and even though she isn't technically "alive," she certainly brings a light to my life! Meet Elena:

She's an Epiphone LP-100 Les Paul Electric Guitar in Heritage Cherryburst, and she's a great beginner's tool. Although I've been playing guitar on and off for about ten years now, this is my first electric, and I'm super thrilled to call her mine.

Also, I'm working on an awesome new project, and in the process, actually paying people to write for once! (Instead of the other way around). I'll discuss this in more detail soon, but if you want a sneak peek, head over to the writing submissions page for the site I'm putting together.

Of course, writing will always be a part of my life, and I'll continue to share my writerly thoughts here. For example, here's an article I recently wrote for Writers Weekly, a terrific publication and email newsletter provided by Angela Hoy and designed to help freelance writers and self-publishers succeed:

Leveraging Humor to Develop Your Freelance Writing

Loss and Life

A shining star was extinguished this year on January 1st.

I don't really want to go into details on such a public forum, but the loss has required many changes, and a delay in posting.

I am hoping to get back into writing more for this blog in the New Year, but for the time being, bear with me!