Why I Write For the Online Magazine Associated Content

“I enjoyed your article on entertaining your grandchildren,” my friend said in an email. “But you didn’t have a spiritual application at the end of it. What’s going on?”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the comment, for my past writing was centered around daily devotionals, articles for varies denominational magazines, and missions education books for my own church. So why would I begin to write for Associated Content?

My friend Debby writes for Associated Content (AC) all the time—has been published over 150 times. So when this lull in my writing assignments occurred this summer, it made me think about writing something different. But what? I didn’t know.

Then I experienced a bad day at the computer when I tried to submit a comment at the end of one of Debby’s articles. Honestly, it took me (a technically challenged grandma) two hours to get it done. The result? My article “Lost in Cyberspace.”

The article fit none of the magazine guidelines for articles or devotionals. It had no religious significance—unless you count growing in fruit-of-the-Spirit patience. So I went to the Associated Content Home Page and signed on to submit articles for publication. Articles that shared my daily struggles embedded with humor.

I felt so lucky when AC actually published “Lost in Cyberspace.” No money exchanged hands—or to put it more bluntly, I wasn’t paid a dime for it. But writers of my ilk don’t care about money. We just want to get published.

Associated Content has now published five of my articles. You can read them by clicking on this link

It didn’t just happen. I read article upon article on how to write for AC. Here’s what I learned:

1. Writing for the Web involved changing my writing style. I need to use short sentences, s short paragraphs, and headings.

2. I need to include key words in my articles if I expected any pay from AC. And the key words need to be used in the title, first sentence, and several more times throughout the article.

Through an AC article I discovered an online site that will find key words in my article for me. Here’s the link: http://textalyser.net/

3. I need to add headings in bold type to my paragraphs to make it easy for the reader to skim through the material.

4. I need to notify my email and FaceBook and Twitter friends to click on the link I sent them, read the articles, and leave a comment to help me build up my “view” count.

5. I need those same friends to leave comments at the end of my article.

Hey, I actually got paid $2.25 upfront for my article discussing whole versus skim milk. It was enough to give me goose-bumps.

Just one miner thought, however. Will I loose the friends I have because of frequent article notifications?

Time will tell.