The recession, benefits, the safety net, and the learning curve

Maz

Mate of mine did a Creative Writing course (with the OU I think) and has just had her first novel accepted. She's also co written two others which are now in print.

SingleSue

I once started writing short stories about my life with 2 autistic children (and a stroppy teenager), they were written from a slightly comical stance instead of being doom and gloom but at the same time, offer some advice on what to do in those situations.

The intention was to finally have it as a collection in a book....but it never got off the ground, life got in the way and even though I think about it now and again, can't really be bothered/see what others would see in it.

Believe me, there are some very funny/weird moments to have when you have autistic kids..maybe not funny at the time but blooming funny when you look back on it.

Planet Zog and the family counsellor is one of them! :rotfl:

lostinrates

A number of people in my family write for all/part of their living, in different ways (newspapers, magazines, factual and ficional books). Noone on line though. Its interesting to think of online. An acquaintaince recently published a book as an ebook: its done ok, through the publicity of an already establisherd online community or two. Someone else is failing to get a book picked up and is considering self publishing: I know one ''reasonably'' sucessful self publisher, who is well known-ish but I think the self publishing and limited sales points has been a huge restriction. I don't think he has online sales, but does do mail order.

wigglebeena

On the other hand self-publishing means any profits (or losses) are yours, instead of a tiny percentage in royalties. Did your acquaintance go through Lulu? Local printers?

wigglebeena

dopester wrote: »

Unsuited.

How can you make money from a blog about unemployment (job recruitment agencies ect), and claim unemployment benefits at the same time?

Also I would caution that some of your views would not be views some companies would want to be associated with - for what was previously suggested like job agencies... (and would they be paying any decent referral fees?)

Discussion in this thread is one thing.. but I've read Jobless in Henley and other stuff on the Telegraph and BBC websites. I'm not sure if you're going to get a following for a full-on blog about a from a mortgage free home-owner getting bitter about the system.

fc123 hinted at it.. but for successful business-generating purposes.. whacky stories but from position of positive creativity, superior knowledge, power, expertise, events you wouldn't otherwise hear of from an insider..... despite this thread.. I don't believe an blog about life in the system of unemployment is a winner.

Also, do you want to go mad, by constantly delving into and mulling on all the deepest nasty stuff you don't like about the system?

Get a job, even minimum wage, or set up for yourself, for your own sanity.

Ah yes. Would this putative blog be written under a pseudonym? You don't want to get a regular job then get yourself 'Dooced' when your new employer twigs. Plus if it's a moneymaking venture you need to give your name and address to the domain register people (forget what they're called) which is then publicly available. So not much privacy there.

Actually it might just be address for WHOIS, can't remember. PN will know.

If you have time on your hands I'd do it anyway on a non-business, non-monetised basis. See what traffic you get then decide if it's worth monetising, or just see if you can parlay it into regular paid freelance writing.

Max_Headroom_3

Well, I was on the fence with this one, but since Dopester thinks it's a poor idea then it's got to be worth doing, right?

The only thing I don't understand is the whole income side of it. I read Agents Diary regularly, but I never see any adverts on it.

http://www.agentsdiary.blogspot.com/

There's a "create blog" link on there too actually, presumably I just press that and fill in the forms, or is there a better way?

Still need to get the name sorted out though, something the catches the eye and sticks in the mind. "Big Job Seeking Experience" is good, but doesn't really conjure up my position (thrust from comfortable middle aged long term employment into the maelstrom of redundancy at 40), it could refer to a school leaver. I like "Unsuited" (snappy) but it doesn't convey anything of what the blog is about at all.

I quite like "Jobless in Seattle", but I'm not in Seattle so that's out.

Hmmm... needs thinking about does this.

Max_Headroom_3

How about "A long way down"?

Not very descriptive, but kind of sums up the situation and memorable.

wigglebeena

If you use a Wordpress.com or Blogger/Blogspot to create your blog it's dead easy, they just walk you through. A lot of probloggers advise against it, others say it's okay to get your feet wet then transfer to a self-hosted blog with your own domain name and paid-for hosting later on.

In my limited experience, I have a handful of Blogger blogs I've gone to some trouble with. Zero - or near as dammit - traffic.

OTOH I have one self-hosted Wordpress.org (not .com) blog, which comparatively has a fair amount of traffic despite not putting much effort into it. Peeps do say that Google favours Wordpress blogs, and it seems like it might be true but I don't know why. Someone else will.

wigglebeena

Oh, and if you use Wordpress.com (the one where they provide the platform, rather than .org which just provides free blogging software), you can't put ads/affiliate marketing on (or very very little, their T&C are very restrictive). Blogger will let you though.

As an aside I have read a scare story recently about Wordpress being infested with a serious trojan and how you should be careful re: plugins. Touch wood no probs myself thus far though. The story seems to have died down, don't know if it was just a trolly thing.

wigglebeena

You could go the provocative route with your title. 'Lazy benefit scrounger', 'NoJobNoProblem' or some such. Might get more traffic in.

LOL you'd get tons of fuming Daily Mail readers piling in after doing a google for 'lazy benefit scroungers', ready to start screaming and stamping their little feet... You'd get some interesting comments... get ready to start moderating!