Blogging on the Side: Freelance Positions But No Compromises
Well I’ve been working crazy amounts of overtime for my job as an Educational Technology Assistant. Specifically, we just started a new project with an instructor in which a class of around 100 students use a Wiki to format their final assignments. It’s been a whirlwind experiment, to say the least, and since the project was due last night I’ve been working from home answering lots of questions and working hands on with several students having difficulties. I don’t mind though, all the excitement has been interesting and it’s also fun to interact with students - most of the time in my position I support instructors and teaching assistants; it’s a rare opportunity to work with students hands-on in the learning environment. It also means that I may get to leave very early from work on Friday with all of these banked hours.
Anyway, since I’ve been getting so excited about blogging and realizing how it could turn freelance writing into a serious hobby (which sometimes pays) for me, I’ve been on the lookout for open positions for freelance bloggers. Yes, people can actually get paid to do this for a living! Since in my job as an Educational Tech Assistant I blog a lot about technology, especially that of the social web (web 2.0), I am well equipped to carry on conversations about these kinds of issues and so have been looking for different positions for technology bloggers. Via the Problogger job posting board I recently came across this ad:
Canadian Health, Wellness, Lifestyle Bloggers Needed
Description
Looking for talented writers who are interested in exploring themes of health, wellness and lifestyle, as it relates to your own life. Personality is everything on this job and we want your personal voice and stories to come through. This is not advertorial but it will support the objectives of a very large Canadian branded community, so there will be some guidelines to follow.
Bloggers must be able to edit their own work, take theme/subject direction and be consistently engaging. Bloggers will be paid a flat fee of $50CDN per month (1 post with a related photo per month is all that’s required). Bonuses will be given out based on the performance of your posts. All payments will be made via PayPal.
How to apply
1. Email scott@seemeso.com to tell us who you are and why you want to do this with a link to your existing blog(s)
2. Create a profile for yourself (1 paragraph will do), including the name you want to post under and the picture you want to use.
3. Write a short (250-500 words) opinion/personal story post on the theme we give you. First post due Monday, November 21, 2007 — sorry about the short notice.
Posted on: 11/15
Looks promising, no? I thought to myself that it sounded perfect since they wanted people to write about health in a way that is personal and unique - as a Canadian vegan, that qualifies me. In my application email introduction, I also justified how the vegetarian/vegan perspective and voice is important to Canadian health in general.
Well, due to confidentiality reasons I am not allowed to say who the Canadian Health and Wellness blog was backed by. They emailed me back with more information and I was forced to turn it down due to a conflict of interests, shall we say. I will say that the company which is behind this blog is a large food corporation in Canada which sells products that I would never eat. All containing at least dairy products. I decided that I would not be able to support this corporation, and so declined politely to continue with the application process.
I am working on another project, though, related to blogging and publishing, which I’m very excited about. I’ll let you know more when I can.
In the meantime, I’m going to get to some much neglected chores!
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