Meet L. Woodrow Ross, a professional journalist and contributor to Helium.com. Ross writes about his experience freelancing at Helium.com. As an established journalist, with a rich background in print journalism, Larry shares insights for professional writers who are tapping into the vast opportunities offered at Helium.

As a professional journalist, you might question what participation in a group such as Helium would contribute to your success.  You may have worked hard and achieved some level of success and feel that Helium is for “amateurs” only.  Nothing could be farther from the truth!

 Helium offers the opportunity to polish your craft.  Your articles are rated by your peers, so you get immediate feedback on the acceptance level.  In addition, you have an opportunity to supplement earnings for your writing.  By meeting certain criteria, you will earn for each article you write.  Publishers post writing topics, and you can earn significant dollars for your articles selected in Marketplace.  This also is a barometer of the quality of your writing as more publishers select your articles for publication. To be chosen for publication over many fellow writers is very gratifying as well as profitable.

The site has a place for biographical information, and allows the writer to reach a wide range of readers and increase their readership.  The wide range of topics will allow you to hone in on subjects that fit your qualifications, but also stimulate you to branch into new “genres” and expand your capabilities.

 On a personal note, my wife was cynical when I told her I was planning to join Helium and write articles to be posted on their site.  The first couple of months were uneventful, and then the dollars began to accumulate.  Needless to say, she has a new opinion of Helium.

 You will find Helium to be very professional in their dealings with writers.  They are punctual in payment and honorable in the way they conduct the business end of the organization.

On the flip side, don’t expect a free ride.  If your writing is sub-par, it will show up in ratings, or the site stewards will provide feedback to let you know where the problems exist.  They want to see you succeed, but you have to be willing to work in order to earn at a reasonable level.

 If you are looking for a way to improve your writing, expand your horizons and earn some extra dollars, you couldn’t find a better place to start than Helium.

 L. Woodrow Ross

 Ross is a newspaper columnist/photographer, writing a weekly outdoor column for the Anderson Independent Mail.  He is a contributor to outdoor magazines, including South Carolina Sportsman and maintains a blog for the Greenville News.  He lives in Travelers Rest, SC, with his lovely wife Margaret.  

If you are interested in learning more about opportunities at Helium, email Barbara Whitlock, New Member Outreach Manager, at bwhitlock@helium.com.

One of the more common confusions on the boards is what 30 day and 90 day rating score are, how they are used, and how one qualifies for writing stars – or how many stars one qualifies for.

First, if you didn’t know, you can find your scores (including writing) on your My Helium page.
Second, the rating scores and amount of rates needed to get stars is explained on our help wiki.

But, again, the question most commonly asked is “What’s the difference?”  Many users are confused because they’ll have many rates in the last 30 days and a high score, but a much lower score for their 90 day average and will be confused why they have only 1 star.

Basically, this is how it works:

1. We check your 90 day rating score and amount of rates done in the past 90 days.  Do you qualify for any stars (done more than 30 rates and have a score >= 75%)?  If so, apply stars and done.  Else, go to 2.
2. We check your 30 day rating score and amount of rates done in the past 30 days.  Do you have a score >= 75% and >= 10 rates in that time span?  If so, apply 1 star.

So again, we only check the 30 day score/rates if your 90 day score/rates doesn’t qualify you for a star and your 30 day total can only qualify you for, at max, one star.

The basic idea behind it is to allow new users to quickly come in, make a few rates (as few as 10) and start earning revenue payments right away – keeping them active and contributing to the site, which helps everyone.

I hope that helps.

Helium has had a long-standing partnership with Open Secrets, an organization committed to keeping watch on Capital Hill and advocating for citizens. They regularly offer journalism awards at Helium. Writers in this contest compete for the $100 prize and greater writer-exposure. Check out the contest page for details.

If you could change the nation’s campaign finance system, what would you do – if anything – and why? Write a well-researched 750-word article by November 5^th, and you could walk away with $100, while adding to your exposure as a writer and possibly influencing public debate.

Campaign funding is an issue that directly affects the quality of our republic and the representatives selected. Your contributions can add to informative debate on this vital issue.

If you are a professional journalist looking for ways to expand your online presence, this is a great outlet for your political writing. If you are a citizen journalist, looking for ways to earn more for your writing, here’s your chance.

Check out Open Secrets, the contest guidelines, and find the title link on the Citizen Journalist Open Secrets page.

If you enjoy this opportunity, check out other journalism award opportunities at Helium, and learn about Helium’s exclusive partnerships with The National Press Club and Society for Professional Journalists.

For questions, write to me at bwhitlock@helium.com.

This is the first in a series of articles by Helium members testifying to ways writing for Helium has helped them further their career and earning goals as a writer.

I’m Glory Lennon , and I’d like to share how Helium has helped me as a writer.

Well, that’s a no-brainer. I was an amateur, a complete novice who started writing a garden advice column for a dinky (and I mean dinky!) little town paper as a favor for the editor (The grandmother of my son’s best friend) who needed something to fill space.  It turned out to be more than filler after many people said they liked my writing. I thought I had something there.

When I found Helium I had already started several novels and had many short stories in my stash but I didn’t know what to do with them. Was Helium the place? I was skeptical but I posted one old garden column. It ranked very low so I figured I didn’t have what it takes to make the big time. Seven months later after reading many other Helium articles and learning what was expected, what did well and how to be a better writer I posted a second article, this time a short story. That did better and so I was hooked.

About 400 articles later I was contacted by the editor of a Canadian based indoor gardening magazine Maximum Yield, who was looking for a monthly contributor for their new USA edition. She had read some of my Helium articles on gardening, (my favorite channel, besides creative writing, and the one which has proven most profitable to me) and she liked my no-nonsense way of telling people how to garden. So, now my name is seen next to my articles in this beautiful magazine all over the USA and Canadian.  Shortly after that I was appointed Steward for the Tree and Shrub sub-channel at Helium’s Home and Garden channel.  Is that the big time?

For someone who never thought she would make a penny putting simple words together, who marvels every time she gets “fan E-mail” and is astonished to find editors willing to pay for her articles, I would say yes and Helium had a great big part of it, for sure and certain.

I love Helium and everyone there. It is a place where everyone is in love with the written word and is so willing to help and guide those starting out so that they in turn once they become better writers can do the same for other novices that show up at Helium. It’s an amazing and wonderful cycle and I encourage anyone who longs to write to start at Helium. There simply is no better place.

I know this is much more than you wanted but it had to be said. I’d be nowhere without Helium. Now I have a novel Violet’s in Bloom serialized in a zone too. Jim Bessey encouraged me to do it and so there it is. Now I’m kind of a novelist just like Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas and Henry Fielding all of which serialized their works. Imagine that!

******************************************************************

Thanks Glory! . If you’d like to share your story too, send your testimony, name and Helium About Me page URL to me at bwhitlock@helium.com.

Helium is proud to announce that member Cathie Beck’s “Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship” is officially published today!

Described as a wild ride of a memoir—a “Thelma & Louise-like” tale of love, perseverance, friendship and triumph, Cathie’s book can be purchased on Amazon.com and you can read more about the memoir on her Helium Zone and her website.

Kirkus calls “Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship” a “searing portrait,” and ForeWord Reviews says, “Beck’s writing is breezy, polished
and fun to read.”

Visitors to Cathie Beck’s website can get free “Signature Cheap Cabernet” wine and she has also promised to launch a Helium-based presence on her book promotion to help other Helium authors get their books published and promoted.

We’re excited to announce the latest winner of a Helium Citizen Journalism Award contest.

Mark Sullivan won the 1H2O Citizen Journalism Award by writing about whether future wars are going to be fought over water or if leaders will be able to resolve conflicts as they have in the past Be sure to check out more information on this contest and the current winner on the 1H2O website.

Be sure to check out the current Citizen Journalism contests and let your voice be heard.

You really don’t know how tempted I was to call this “Badges?… We don’t need no stinkin’ badges…” as that phrase comes up every time we change anything about badges – but I managed to restrain myself.  Moving on.

As most posts, this idea came to me as I was reading the boards and I decided to move it to the blog to make it more “sticky” and central.  You can see the original thread here if you’re interested but we never really go into the following discussion.

The basic idea is this: In badges, we have the ability to “sort” in the sense that we can group collections of badges together.  We currently do this in a very rudimentary way in that we show the writing/rating stars first by themselves… then everything else (or it may surprise you to find that writing/rating stars are, architecturally, badges).

However, there is nothing to say that we can’t expand the number of collections (I’ll move away from using the word “group” as it’s used in another way with badges that you’ll see in a minute and would likely cause confusion) in order to provide more semantic value to badges.  This is especially important to consider as the number of badges available number several hundred with no sign of slowing – though no user can get every badge, they can still accumulate (potentially) a dozen (or more) which begins to get confusing, visually.

So, first, terminology:

• Badge: single instance of badge architecture.  I.E. Channel Steward Arts & Entertainment
• Badge Group: group of badges served out of single template (most importantly using a single icon).  I.E. Medical Professional Badge group: Medical Doctor, Registered Nurse, Pharmacist, etc.
• Badge Collection: collection of badge groups sorted for visual needs. I.E. “star badges” (writing/rating) and everything else.

So the basic premise of this is to examine how we might further narrow the collections, suggestions of a strategy, and a request for feedback from the community.  This is not something currently slated for development however it is something which is beneficial in two ways:

1. It is easy to implement.  Would require no changes to architecture, only to data (badges) and some UI tweaks (for visual presentation).
2. It is likely needed soon.  The argument being that a user having dozens of badges becomes useless unless they are sorted and displayed in a manner which presents meaning and value – in all senses of the words.

My initial proposal for sorting follows.  Feel free to constructively criticize:

1. Star Collection - first both for legacy and because provides a “baseline” for credibility / credentials.
   • Writing Stars
   • Rating Stars
   • (any future star badges)
2. Credential Collection - establish authority in subject areas.
   • Professional badge groups – medical professional, journalist, etc
3. Results Collection - show success in areas, which builds upon itself.
   • Contests won
   • Marketplace articles sold
   • Stock content articles sold (proposed)
4. Helium Collection – things internal to Helium.
   • Marketplace Approved/Premier
   • Channel Steward badges
   • Editorial Advisory Board
   • Creative Writing badges

Would love to hear your feedback, thoughts and constructive criticism, as I said.

Hope this helps.

Most people, thinking of the importance of citing source, may just think about the rating end of it. Citing sources can indeed help in how well the article is rated. However, there is a much more important reason for using citations – to prevent claims of plagiarism.

Plagiarism is something that people don’t usually like to talk about, and even less often, want to think about, but it does happen. Helium is committed to stop it from happening, and it is grounds for removal of your account entirely.

Plagiarism isn’t just copying words verbatim; it can also be copying the ideas of someone else. In addition, rewriting something someone else said and using that is still plagiarism. Rearranging words or rephrasing something doesn’t correct this. If it isn’t from you, it is plagiarism.

This includes instances where you might own a book, and use information from it. Books are copyrighted, and unless you wrote the book, using information from it is plagiarism. This sounds grim, doesn’t it? What can you do, if you’ve researched a topic? After all, some of the things you got from the research are going to come out, aren’t they?

The answer is really pretty simple. If you include a word, sentence, or paragraph in your article, word for word, first put it in quotes. Then cite the source of the material. This is extremely important, and it will be something the plagiarism team will look for. Even if you rephrase it, cite the source. In all cases, if you aren’t the one who came up with the idea or the words, cite the person or people who did.

Keep in mind, too, that a majority of the work needs to be your own. All of this is agreed to every time you write on Helium and check the box in order to submit the information, and it is contained in more depth, in the User Agreement.

Sometimes information will be totally rephrased, but will be largely from several sources. At the end of the article, cite them all as sources.

Not only is this important in regard to protecting yourself against plagiarism reports, it shows that you have taken the time to research, which raises the value of the article to most people. Articles written from personal experience naturally won’t have many citations. Still, if you quote or use from anyone, any book, any magazine, or any article you didn’t write, take the time to add quotation marks and cite the source. Not doing so could mean losing your account and much more. Plagiarism is punishable by large fines and possible jail time. Don’t get nailed for this just because you didn’t cite your sources.

We want you to succeed at Helium!

You’re a writer, so it’s natural for you to share opportunities at Helium.com with other writers. But did you know that Helium has scores of professionals who share their expertise in articles, even though they don’t self-identify as writers? And everyone has expertise to share about something, including one’s own town/city. So when you think of people to invite to Helium, think broadly.

Of course, writing well is a prerequisite, but we all know that writers don’t hold a monopoly on quality communication. Read this article to learn why you should be inviting your doctor, nurses, dentist, car mechanic, accountant, financial planner, psychologist, teachers, business owners and neighbors to write for Helium. And see how to spot expertise in your neighbors too.

Professionals can boost their resumes with published articles that document their professional expertise. Having titles that detail professional know-how on a resume elevates that candidate to a prospective employer by highlighting demonstrated expertise. Plus, you can show what you know more expansively in articles than in a resume or interview. Learn how you (and your friends and family members) can Advance Careers by Writing Expert Articles at Helium.com.

What if you can’t think of any published writers or professionals to share Helium with? How about your friends who aspire for a writing career? Helium is a great place to get a writing start, because there are so many opportunities and because you get peer assessment in a supportive community. Some compete to advantage and some don’t make it, but it might be worth a try if you notice areas of expertise in others. If they don’t seem writer-types then you can interview them for your own articles. Countless article options are open to you if you keep a close watch and listen with a writer’s ear.

And what about hyper-local content, always in high demand from publishers, especially newspaper partners? Everyone has expertise to share about your town, city, state and the places where you’ve traveled. Review every restaurant you eat in, movie you see, book you read, museum you explore, business you frequent, hobby you do, sport you play, etc. And don’t just write one article about each thing — write about all aspects of each.

The 19th century British poet and essayist, Matthew Arnold, once wrote about the secret to good writing: “Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.”

So now you know some good folks to invite, and you’ve expanded your thinking to more than just self-identified writers. How do you invite writers to Helium, and how can this benefit you?

You earn 5% on all the ad revenue your Helium invitees earn at Helium (in perpetuity with minimal active participation). Just make sure you do the invite process effectively, because if your invitees join outside of the process they can’t count on your account. Here’s how to be sure your invites count:

1. Send an email to your invitee ahead of time. Let them know you’re inviting them to Helium; and ask them to only register from the special link that email contains, so you get referral bonuses. Have them clear helium.com from their spam folder or check the junk folder to make sure they receive the email from Helium.

2. Choose a title to use as invite bait — a topic of interest to that writer.

3. Click on “Article Tools” next to the title or article.

4. Click on the My Invites link within that menu.

5. Follow directions for how to send out invites. (Only send these out after you’ve given your invitee a heads up.)

6. You can keep track of your invitees — who’s accepted or still pending as well as those that expire due to inaction– by going to your My Invites page (via the My Helium button on the main menu).

7. Help your friend submit that first article. Give a shout out once it’s up. Send suggested titles you can find on the site via the Title-Finder tool to inspire him/her to write more.

So many people who have ideas to share. You can help make it happen, and profit for the effort. If you’d like any help or suggestions, my inbox is always open: bwhitlock@helium.com.

Helium is pleased to welcome author Tony Verna to our site. Tony is a highly-respected director of live events for television. In 1963 he created the Instant Replay that we all take for granted today. Over the years he has published four books about the television industry. He brought his first fictional foray right here.

In a project supervised by Paul Kerstein, Helium’s Director of Content & Community and managed weekly by Jim Bessey, one of Helium’s Senior Stewards, Tony Verna’s new novel Beyond the Blue and the Gray emerges chapter by chapter in our Novel Excerpts channel. We’re using a companion zone to promote Tony’s work and package the chapters in one place.

Blue and Gray debuted on August 31 with Chapter One: Smoke and Mirrors. Chapter two was released just after Labor Day. Each Monday a new installment of this novel will be published on Helium and in the novel’s zone. Every chapter will be linked from the zone page, so readers can backtrack as needed. Verna’s novel totals 60 episodes, so this project will continue well into 2010.

What does this mean for Helium’s writers in general?

Many of us have a novel “waiting to happen” — waiting for time and the inspiration to keep writing. So far, Helium has hosted thousands of short stories, poems, personal essays, and novel excerpts. Until now, we haven’t formalized a way to publish a novel in successive chapters because there was no infrastructure to easily handle serial fiction. Most of the pieces have been in disparate places: author profile pages, our open publishing platform, peer review and critique, and more recently — Zone pages for members.

Novels can be intimidating for authors. However, when you break one up into a series of chapters over a period of months, the impossible becomes manageable. Tony and Helium found a unique way to approach this issue. Each of his installments is a stand-alone story under a stand-alone title. The magic comes in working with a Zone, which brings the whole package neatly together for readers. While Tony’s novel arrived complete, your book could be a work in progress that you release over time for feedback from our readers. Once you’ve started, you won’t want to stop!

What about copyright?

One member, who says she’s already “hooked’ on Blue and Gray, likes this idea. She wants to give it a try, but worries about copyright issues. Here’s the scoop: your published work at Helium IS protected by copyright, as it has been all along. You share non-exclusive rights with Helium. Many well-respected authors have produced novels in serial form — in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet — and later published the same work (often with added material) in book form. You’ve probably seen “this novel first appeared in installments in Esquire Magazine” (or similar) in novels you’ve read.

This is a way to “get published” and to get motivated to write the novel you’ve been putting off for years. At Helium, we hope you’ll join us in following Beyond the Blue and the Gray. We hope the experience inspires you to begin your next novel and share it here with our readers. Your feedback and creative input for this project is always welcome.

(Special thanks to Jim Bessey for writing and submitting this post.)

In addition to writing opportunities, writers come to Helium  for opportunities to connect. (Writing can be a lonely profession.) Every new writer has questions. As you dig deeper into opportunities at Helium you’ll have more questions. As you look to expand your audience and earnings, you’ll want to venture further into social networking.

How do you negotiate this complicated web? And where do you start? This article will point you to some good starting places, in a sequence that is manageable and not time consuming. You game?

• New to Helium, have questions? Where do you go? You can get information directly by going to Helium’s Help Guide. Search by topic, and you’ll find answers. If that doesn’t work, head to the Community Boards. Scroll to the bottom of any site page to find these links.
• Want to connect with other Helium writers who share similar interests? Find or start your own Group in Helium beta. Join in discussions and meet other members. Start your own topics to get discussions rolling. Have fun. Use Helium’s keyword search to find writers who write to similar topics and invite them to the Group. Build a mini-community within Helium — one relationship at a time.
• Do you have a Facebook page? Head over to Helium’s new corporate page on Facebook. Become a fan and check out the testimonials Helium writers are leaving. Add your own or get inspired.
• Are you a “tweeter” yet? Twitter is a great way to let folks know what you’re writing and to spread your name recognition. Make sure you head to HeliumWriter on Twitter, and click the box to follow. You’ll get posts daily to learn of the latest opportunities, with abundant chances to extend your network.
• Venture deeper into the professional world of social networking by connecting on Linked In. Do join the Helium.com writers group on Linked In too. Helium writers share networking opportunities and recommendations. This is a great way to build your professional expert writing portfolio.

These are all easy ways to make connections and gradually extend your network of writers and readers on the Internet.

You’ve come to Helium to write, but you’ll find that extending your network expands your writing opportunities. Don’t miss the social networking wave, and make sure you connect with Helium writers everywhere you can.

Writing need not be a lonely profession when you come to Helium and explore the vast opportunities through social media outlets. Get connected and take your writing further!

We’re excited to announce the latest winners of Helium Citizen Journalism Award contests.

Jimmy Nightingale won the 1H20 Citizen Journalism Award by writing about why rivers are straightened and the effect it has on the environment. Be sure to check out more information on this contest and the current winner on the 1h20 website.

Ludmillia Jones won the Center for Responsive Politics/OpenSecrets Citizen Journalism Award by writing about whose voice is being heard the most in the debate on health care reform.

Be sure to check out the current Citizen Journalism contests and let your voice be heard.

Helium is pleased to say that our Fact-Checking Program is stronger than ever and having great success in the second half of 2009.

From Helium’s Lead Fact-checker, Amanda Fox:

The Helium fact checking program has recently reached its six month anniversary, and in that time many things have changed. Slowly but surely the “verified” icon is appearing on site to denote articles which have been vetted for accuracy. In a likewise manner some articles which failed to meet standards for accuracy have been upgraged to do so or removed from site to help raise the level of quality content on site.

Contrary to popular belief, fact checking is a true community initiative in which every Heliumite plays a role. It begins with authors who provide good quality content to be displayed. Those who take the time to do their research and provide solid knowledge articles are the key. The next link in the chain are all the Helium members who take the time to provide good flags for the fact checking team to help identify information on site which may not be correct. The final link is the fact checking team which then investigates each flag and pools their resources to determine the validity of the information presented.

Receiving a notice that your article has failed a fact check can be for some an unnerving experience, however there is no need to feel that way. Each notice will detail what information is in question, and provide an online resource to allow the author to investigate this as well so they can make a determination of what steps they will take regarding their article. An author may agree with the findings of the fact check team and make the noted correction. In some cases an author may disagree and chosse to contest the failure notice.

If an author chooses to contest a failure by contacting content@helium.com, they should forward the entire notice they were sent along with the reason why they feel their information is correct and any supporting sources. The information is then reviewed again by a third party and a determination is made along with an explanation to the author for the decision reached. The key to the entire process is communication between the author and the fact checking team.

As an entire community this is a program which can grow and thrive and be a major factor in what helps set Helium apart from all other writing sites on the web. Solid information people can depend on elevates the profile of Helium as a whole which benefits each of us as members and the visitors we attract. With each member doing their share of providing accurate content, taking time to flag incorrect information, and enlisting in the fact checking corps to help verify iformation, we all reap rewards.

Amanda and the rest of the fact-checking team have taken on a Herculean endeavor on Helium and the appreciation, as well as the angry emails, means the program is certainly working as planned.

Helium also recently heard from a member of a reputable journalism organization (we’re not able to say who and where at this time) who was amazed and delighted to hear that Helium was actually fact-checking articles like a reputable newspaper or magazine. The value added here, especially for the Marketplace and stock content program, is huge.

Couple this with the fact that Wikipedia recently started using a color-code system to convey how reputable the online editor/source is. According to Daniel Ionescu at PC World, “Starting this fall, text from new or questionable sources will be signalled with a bright orange background, while trusted authors will get a lighter shade … the more people view and edit new text on Wikipedia, the more “trust” the initial edits get, turning from orange to white.”

Helium is leading the pack of community-sourcing content publishers when it comes to creating a solution that verifies the content being sold is reputable and factually correct.

Here’s to another six months of fact-checking success!

Fact checking tip: If you see an article that is factually incorrect, please flag it for “Incorrect Information” and don’t forget to be specific about what informaiton is wrong within the article.

(Do you have editing or fact-checking experience? Are you a young magazine or newspaper writer looking for more experience? Maybe you’re a journalism student looking to get your foot in the door. If you want to become part of the fact-checking team, sign up today.)

Helium has discovered a correlation between user images and Marketplace success rates.

Helium writers with a professional image, name and bio are receiving 75% of all Marketplace and stock content sales.

We’ve also been hearing from an increasing number of publishers who’ve said they are more likely to purchase articles and give byline credit to Helium members with a real name for a pen name and a professional looking photograph.

In our constant push for quality and for members to represent themselves in the best possible manner, we recommend that all of our members upload a professional looking photograph, use a real name for a pen name and write a professional bio on their About Me pages.

These are three easy steps that can help you pave the way to continued success on Helium.

Here are a few titles and articles here that will provide more information on making the most of your About Me page:

• Tips for creating a good About Me page
• Guidelines for presenting yourself professionally on Helium
• Why you should put your picture and bio on your Helium About Me page

Still have questions? Feel free to contact one of your Site Stewards, who are featured on channel pages throughout the site.

CNN has pulled the TV spot featuring M.J. Joachim this morning. However, the feature will appear on www.cnn.com later today. We’ll post a link when it is available.

Watch Helium’s own M. J. Joachim (aka Teresa DePoy) on CNN News between 7 to 8 and 8 to 9 am tomorrow morning (09/04/09) Eastern Standard Time for her investigative reporting expose of Essaywriters.net.

Essaywriters.net advertises “where good writers make great pay.” After writers face what seems like a thoughtful application process, they begin getting writing assignments. The assignments, however, come from students paying to get their homework done for them. Read M.J’s article Website reviews: Essaywriters.net, and send a shout out to her for getting her work noticed on national TV.

Robert Ruff, a producer at CNN, contacted M.J. about a month ago, after reading her article on Helium. Her research provided an inside glimpse into how innocent writers get sucked into Essaywriters.net’s false claims.  M.J. said Ruff, at first, was looking for a writer who contributed to the site. But M.J’s experience of getting sucked in initially for good pay, only to discover a dishonorable student hiring her, provided an effective first-hand account.

In this interview M.J. was watching out for her colleagues at Helium too: “I mentioned Helium in my original interview, and brought up the site when they filmed me working too.  Hope it gives Helium more hits and our writers more page views.”

The interview was interviewed by live feed in a local studio, and a local film crew also came to her home. See for yourself tomorrow morning: CNN News 7 to 8 and 8 to 9 am Eastern Standard Time.  This will also be available online. We’ll keep you posted!

Thanks M.J. for making us all Helium proud!

Helium is excited to announce our new partnership with R.R. Donnelley, a global provider of integrated communications.

With this relationship, Helium can leverage R.R. Donnelley’s vast business network of publishers, content providers and other partners to bring countless writing and business opportunities to our members. Likewise, R.R. Donnelley can now take advantage of the various products and stable of talented writers in Helium’s knowledge cooperative to increase its content offerings to worldwide partners.

To say that the business potential for everyone involved is huge would be quite an understatement. We can’t wait to bring more writing opportunities to our members, as well as continue to show the world what Helium writers are capable of.

Be sure to read the press release and stay tuned for future freelance assignments through the Helium Marketplace.

So early Wednesday a new release was pushed to Helium.  The boards have been active with people asking what exactly we did, what it affected, and what new features they can expect.

This release contained several bug fixes – including the “featured article” fix.  However, the vast majority of it was devoted to improving, upgrading and expanding Helium’s widgets.

You may have noticed that for awhile now we’ve had a “get a widget for this title” link at the top of article and list pages (as well as side by side for debates).  This enables anyone to get what we call a “public widget.”  This means that all the links go back to Helium, it has standard branding, and goes to the top article for a title.

With this new release we now have “partner widgets.”  This means partners of Helium can get special widgets that can point either to Helium or to their own site.  Why would they want a widget that points to their site?  Simple – for our new full article widget.

The current public widget is what we call our “top article” widget.  A top article widget points to – you guessed it – the top article (articles in a debate) in the title.  It contains a “teaser” blurb and then links to Helium to read the full article.  However, if a partner has a full article widget they can instead point the “read more” link to that on their site.  This widget will display – you guessed it again – the full text of the article on their site.

What does this mean for you, the Helium user?  More exposure for your articles.  More people seeing Helium content on partner sites, following links from there to Helium, joining Helium and growing our ranks.  More writers, more content, more revenue, and more earnings for you being the end result.

So, directly, there weren’t many features that you, the average user, gets to play around with in this build.  Indirectly though, the benefits are there.

Remember that although you can’t always see what we did or have a tangible feature that you can use that doesn’t mean that we haven’t tweaked something behind the scenes – to either make you more money, optimize the site (SEO or performance wise), or do some other small change that improves the overall Helium experience.

And don’t worry – some of those cool tangible features that you get to play around with are coming soon in near future builds.  But that’s for another post in the near future.

I hope this helps.

Join us while we interview this week’s Channel Steward, Daniel Cote. Although Dan might be one of the youngest Stewards, you’d never know it by his eloquently written articles, professional demeanor, and hardworking nature.

Name?
Dan Cote

How long have you been at Helium?
11 months

What is your title and responsibilities?
Channel Steward – Sports and Recreation, Editorial Advisory Board member: My responsibilities include moving and editing titles, seeding new titles, archiving out-dated material, fact-checking article, and managing my five dedicated sub channel stewards.

What is your favorite thing about Helium?
The scope of knowledge and information its members have.

If you could give one bit of advice to new members of Helium, what would it be?
You get out of it what you put into it.

Now on to the more personal side…

What are 3 things people are surprised to find out about you?
I am extremely generous with both my time and money, I’m very patient, and I’m only 24.   

What do you do with your extra time?
Play all kinds of sports (baseball, basketball, tennis, golf etc..)

What is your favorite quote?
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” – Verbal Kint

What are your favorite books?
Counterfeit Amateurs by: Allen Sack  
Of Mice and Men by: John Steinbeck

What is your favorite website other than Helium ?
ESPN.com

Where is your favorite place to visit?
Newport, RI

Anything else you’d like to share?
I’m a history buff, mafia enthusiast, and avid investor.

Thanks Dan for sharing.

Visit Daniel’s:
About Me
Articles

Want to be  a Steward? Apply here!

In case you didn’t know Helium has an official blog (hint: you’re reading it).  Helium also has an official Twitter.  As well as an official Facebook fan page.  Now, Helium has an official Delicious.

The goal of our Delicious is simple:

1. To showcase important links in or about Helium.
   • Things like the Help Wiki, Community Boards and Zones.
   • Things like us being featured by Writer’s Digest.
2. To store tools that will allow our community to improve their writing skills, SEO, and earnings.
   • Things like basic SEO tools for members to learn new skills.

One of the great things about Delicious, is that it enables members to easily share links with other members.  For example, if you found a link that you think Helium should know about you simply include in the tags “for:Helium.com” and it will show up in our Delicious inbox.

A few guidelines:

1. Don’t send us your articles.  This is not meant to showcase all the articles on Helium.  This is meant to provide Helium-centric information and useful community tools.  While we appreciate your articles and how much effort you put into them this is not the place for them.  Feel free to save them in your own Delicious though.
2. Do send us tools and resources you find useful in your own writing (note: this doesn’t mean just on Helium, any tools and resources on the web).  If something helps you to craft your articles or increase your earnings (a SEO tool, grammar checker, fact checker, etc) it will likely help other people.
3. Do send us links you find about Helium that we may have missed.  If someone mentions us on a major website or talks about our partner program, etc, this is something we’d likely be interested in reading and sharing with the community.

That’s it.  This is sort of a “beta” right now but we’re hoping it becomes another useful tool in Helium’s toolbox.

Hope that helps.

One of my favorite people on Helium is Paul Lines.  He doesn’t contribute to the boards very often (at least to the ones I read), but when he does it’s usually well thought out, thought providing, and interesting.  He is a senior member of Helium and, in case you didn’t know, is also the direct cause behind the Helium TOS being amended to allow your earnings to pass on to your heirs.

Recently, the saw fit to comment on an interesting thread on the boards.  This is a repost of his first post to the thread, however at the time of this writing he had responded one additional time.

Okay folks. Time to grab a coffee and sleeping bag, pull up a chair and read one of the longest missives from the pen of Paul Lines . This is guaranteed to send those with insomnia to sleep and give those who sleep the problem of insomnia.

To answer the title of this discussion! Am I worried? No not in any way.

To be honest criticism of the Helium site and, to a certain extent accolades, are like water of a duck’s back, which at the moment is an appropriate metaphor as July in the UK has been a month so filled with rain that I have considered exchanging my Range Rover for a speedboat. However, I digress. To get back to the point and the article that was referred to by Joan, I would just like to make the following comments, both in terms of the ‘Earnings’ comment and, as Marlin so rightly put it, the value of the experience.

In terms of earnings any comment being made in criticism of the earning power of Helium by someone who has not spent time devoted to writing on the site to support their claims is subjective and, to a certain extent, lacking in foundation. Yes I agree with Marlin that there are other sites that pay more, but you also have to look at the longer term and the reward for the effort put in. For example, and leaving aside contests, upfront payments, marketplace and other promotions, let us look at the basic article revenue.

It is certainly true that the income on an individual article at the moment it is placed on the site can be small. However, it is also important to consider the longer term. Over the three and a half years I have been a member of Helium I have built up a portfolio of approaching 1500 articles. During the early months of their Helium birth many of these articles have earned just a few cents. When considering that on average an article takes perhaps an hour to write that might not sound like a good return. However, I have articles that, during the course of that three year period have earned in excess of $50 and are continuing to earn, and many others that have exceeded the $20/30 mark, simply as a result of that 1 hour initial effort. I am also at the position where 70% of my portfolio earns each month, even if it is only a cent. It is therefore a continuing and growing income stream for many articles over x period of years.

Bearing in mind that I am self employed as a full time technical writer, I do not have as much time as I would like to commit to writing for Helium but I have calculated that, if I had the courage to take time off to multiply my article content on helium by 10, after a three year period my earnings from the site, with relatively little time spent on article maintenance and uploading new quality material, would probably exceed $2000 per month every month. Okay $25,000 a year might not be earth shattering but it is a heck of a secondary income and what a retirement boost some day. (Okay those between 13 and 20 might have to wait a while for this but I am much closer!!!)

However, As Marlin and others have said, money is not the sole motivator for me being on the Helium membership. It is, as they say, the experience. As stated I am a full time writer and, as a work profession it can be an isolating experience being in a room with solely myself and the computer screen interacting. Sometimes it is a bit like living at the North Pole, only without the Penguins, Seals and Polar Bears for company. However, whenever I have the opportunity to seek company, which is not as often as I would like I know that all I have to do is to close the work door behind me and walk along the screen to the one marked HC (Helium Community). Within just a few seconds of typing I then find myself back in the company of the friends I have made over the years and gaining immeasurable enjoyment out of their interaction. It is an experience that I have yet to find equalled on another other website or, in fact, in many physical social gatherings. The friendliness and community spirit is almost unequalled. To me therefore, this aspect of the Helium experience is unbeatable.

That community and friendship extends to the Helium staff as well, who are always there with a kind word and have done so much for me over the 3.5 years, not least of which has been providing a platform from which I have been able to launch a full time writing career. What more can one ask?

Therefore, and in conclusion (did I hear someone say about time?), to me Helium is the place where you can find

H – elp to improve your writing quality and content
E – ncouragement whenever you feel in need of it
L – oads of opportunities to have your work recognised
I – inspiration from the work of others and a
U- nique experience where you can
M – ake friends with wonderful people that you might otherwise never have met.

Am I worried? Only if Helium ceased would I be.

Paul

More money, more opportunities, more networking connections — how’s all that sound? Helium’s Credentialed Professional Program is collecting more and more professionals who write for Helium. And guess what the future holds? Yup — more for professionals and other experts alike. And that means you too.

Last week I wrote about the value of finding, maximizing and marketing yourself as a niche writer. Expertise is within reach of anyone. Look up “how to become an expert” in a Google search and you’ll see over 70 million links to articles, books, self-help videos and websites. Malcolm Gladwell, in the Tipping Point explores the “10,ooo rule,” that the difference between novice and expert can be measured by 10,ooo efforts to improve skills.

This applies to all. For professionals, you’ve had a head start with training, study and practice. Add workforce hours to all that training time, and you have not only your 10,000 plus hours, but authoritative credentials to further verify your expertise. Once you are verified, watch for an invitation to one of our Groups of professionals. Or find one yourself and get connected.

If you have professional credentials, share them with me via the experts@helium.com inbox. Check out our current list of credentialed professional badges; and don’t be discouraged if you don’t see something that fits. Know that we’re developing professional badges on an ongoing basis. And, in the future, we’ll be developing subject matter expert badges as well. Keep us informed of your expertise, so Helium can help you get the most out of what you have share.

More professionals and experts, plus more badges…What’s next? More earning opportunities. You’ll see a series of professional contests each month, with cash prizes to pocket in addition to ongoing ad revenue and other earning incentive opportunities.  Each week’s Title Madness Contest, Get Local and other contests give you opportunities to jump-start niches to showcase your writing expertise.

When you get notice of a contest opportunity for writers in your expertise or profession, share the good news with others in your field too. More is better for you too. How is more better? The more professionals or experts we have in a given category, the better our ability to attract Marketplace publishers willing to pay for expert content.

What if you’re not a professional? Become an expert. Narrow your niche, maximize your writing in that niche, network and link effectively, and you will have an expertise well recognized on the Internet. And sometime down the pike, Helium will also recognize you as a subject matter expert in your topic area. Meanwhile start a Group for those who share your expertise.

But don’t stop there: Invite fellow experts from all over the Internet to converge on Helium to share their expertise. You gain more authority when you are part of a concentrated cluster of experts, all drawing readers to each others’ articles.

As a hardworking individual writer you can do much, but as a member of an expert or professional cluster you can get further on the Internet. Why? Keyword density is the key to getting high hits on search engines. Maximizing your writing to your niche — and using smart SEO techniques — adds to keyword density for your content.

Bring in a cluster of writers willing to share their expertise like you, and you increase keyword density exponentially. Frequent visitors plus name recognition makes for wider respect on the web. So, lead a pack to your niche and you can go much further than you can as just a solo expert writer.  Helium even gives you a way to profit from those you invite to Helium: Use your Invite-a-Writer link.

To summarize:

Step 1: Identify a writing niche that reflects your professional or practiced expertise. (Add research for informative value.) If you have professional credentials, write to experts@helium.com, and get recognition to boost your authority within your niche writing area.

Step 2: Expand your article base by writing to (and suggesting) scores of titles related to your field, as explained in Tips for (and benefits of) finding a writing niche. Add good SEO techniques: Pin-point your content to a narrowly-focused title. Identify a high-value keyword phrase that most people will use to hunt for the content in your article on web searches. Repeat that keyword phrase in the title, lead, intro, 3-4 times in the body of your article and in the conclusion (not more, or Google will view the content as spam).

Step 3: Market your articles within the niche community of writers, experts and readers interested in that topic. Build relationships and linking opportunities.

Step 4: Invite others in that niche community to gather at Helium. Form a Group for them to gather in.

You’ve worked hard as an individual freelance writer. Now it’s time to expand your opportunities — by extending the circle of experts and professionals writing alongside you at Helium.

Feel free to contact me for advice. My inbox is always open.

Meet this week’s featured Steward, Grace Alexander. She’s a full-time freelance writer so not only did we ask her some personal stuff, we asked her some SEO related questions as well. Read the interview below to learn a little more about the sassy Steward and a few of the tricks she uses that allow her to do what she loves full-time: write.

Helium related questions…

Name?
Sarah Grace Alexander Pendleton. I use my middle and maiden names as my pen name. You can call me Sarah or Sadie or Grace or Gracie or SG – just don’t call me shortly or late for dinner.

How long have you been at Helium?
Since mid-February, 2008 – the week I got my first real computer and set it up!

What is your title?
Grand High Poobah – oh, you mean on Helium. I’m Steward of the Relationships and Family Channel.

Has your writing improved since being a Steward?
It’s always improving!

What are your top three favorite Helium articles?
First is a poem by Kat Apf, “Not Fitting In”- it’s one of those rare writings that just hit me and I was THERE – I was the woman in the poem because she captured the feelings I feel EXACTLY. I read this poem and wish I had written it.

Second is an article that beat out my own in a title I wrote to, “Satire: Poverty” – by Roxan Finnell is hands down one of the funniest things I have ever read.

Third is (yes, something I wrote myself) my first short story; the kicker is that someone from a small village in Yorkshire, England found it on Helium, and they emailed me asking if they could perform a reading of it in their town hall at a medieval fair this fall. Is that cool or WHAT?  Short Stories: Medieval Tales

What is your favorite Zone?
The Best of YouTube.  I love the ability to embed YouTube!!!

What is your favorite part about being a Steward?
The power. It’s all about the power. And the prestige. Oh, and the secret meetings in the basement.

If you could give one bit of advice to new members of Helium, what would it be?
ASK for advice, ASK for help, ASK for guidance! We are here to help – that is the great thing about Helium; the community we have and the great people who are so willing give a hand up.

Now on to the more personal side…

What are 3 things people are surprised to find out about you?
Ahh, the fun stuff.
(A) I never went to school a day in my life. Not one day. I’m self educated.
(B) I grew up in kind of an “atheist as a religion –> turned psuedo-christian cult –> turned total whacked out reality”, and had eight younger siblings.
(C) I know how to fix clocks, train a horse to ride with no bridle or reins, and fence (en garde!) What do you do with your extra time? What is this ‘extra time’ thou speak of? I have three kids, I freelance for a living – I know not this concept of ‘extra time’…

What is your favorite quote?
President Abraham Lincoln, at the height of the Civil War, was taken to task for cracking jokes. He said “At times like these, one may laugh or one may cry. I choose to laugh.”

What are your favorite books?
You have GOT to be kidding me. Like I am going to admit my addiction for steamy vampire / werewolf x-rated novellas in a public forum….Did I just say that out loud?

What is your favorite website other than Helium ?
YouTube. I’m addicted. You can get lost in there…no, really! I come out with an Eddie Izzard accent and a Denis Leary attitude. It’s awful.

Where is your favorite place to visit?
Hmm. Good one, since I never actually GO anywhere…(remember the freelancing and three kids thing?) Lets substitute the top three places I WANT to visit before I die; the British Isles (Ireland and Wales in particular); Australia; and Alaska.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
WRITE IT DOWN. Best advice ever, period. Applies to everything.

SEO Related questions…

What does SEO mean to you?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, of course, but it’s more than that. If you only optimize for the search engines in a technical sense, you miss what the search engines themselves are optimized for – the users. It doesn’t do you a lick of good for the spiders to think you are relevant and helpful if the users don’t.

What percentage of your “writing” time do you devote to SEO?
Hard to say. As a professional full time freelance writer, half of the content I produce is destined for use on the web, so at least that much of my work is at least mildly SEO’d.

What is the process you go through when writing an article with regards to SEO?
Depends. Usually I’ll let the keywords I am targeting sink in, then I’ll formulate a title that would be a likely candidate for search. When I write the article I have a rough word counter clicking over in my head. I try to gauge my paragraphs at about eighty to hundred words each (three to four sentences) and build each one naturally around one of my keyword phrases. I know some people write the article first then insert the keywords, but that always feels stilted and unnatural to me.

What is the most important part of your process?
…………………….PROOFREADING.

How do you get inbound links?
(Hangs head in shame) I suck at linking; not because I don’t know how, but because I just don’t DO it. I know I should keep up with my blog, and link back, and go out and ask for links and use all the social media…. but I hate all of that! I actually refuse to offer linking services in my freelance business – it costs me in man hours more than I can charge to make it worthwhile, because I am so un-invested. I intend to hire my own link building needs out, actually, once I get my real business going.

What difference in earnings do you see between articles you market (get inbound links) versus those you don’t?
See above… I did promote one single article on a social site once, and it did click up about a buck while it was hot. I notice if my article is featured on a zone or the front page it jumps in earnings. Linking works, I just haven’t taken full advantage of it.

In what ways do you build your brand?
(beyond just Helium – how do you associate all your disparate work under one brand?) Ahh. I have my name on enough bylines and enough referrals from repeat customers that I am getting a ‘brand’ for my name – right now it’s mostly word of mouth. I have big plans for the coming year that include forming a company and starting an actual campaign that will include organic SEO as well as paid advertising. I do so much ghostwriting for corporate websites that those referrals are getting my name out in the right circles even though I don’t get direct public attribution for my work.

What sources do you use to learn about SEO?
Oh, a zillion, I have automatic RSS feeds and news aggregators I stay on top of – I actually write content twice a day for an SEO firm – one post each for their ‘news’ and ‘tips’ blogs, so I learned about it while writing about it. Cool, right? I love finding the little tidbits. One thing to remember, though, is that 90% of the ‘SEO gurus’ out there are absolutely full of it. Some of them are still hawking methods that quit working years ago. Like I said, there is a difference between traffic and actual people who stay on your site and revisit and pass your URL around because it is valuable. ‘SEO’ can be misleading if you take it without all the right context.

What tools do you use to improve / measure SEO success?
The best tools (which I am only now starting to use on an experimental project I set up for learning purposes) are Google’s Webmaster tools; you can test different methods against each other; track clicks, visitors, and conversions; and measure your success accordingly. Since I do more writing professionally than I do for myself, I gauge the success of my SEO writing on customer feedback – for example, an email series I did recently had a click through rate of 60% – 10% would have made my customer ecstatic, but 60% blew him out of the water.

If there was one thing you wish someone had shared with you on the topic of SEO when you were starting out, what would it be?
STOP BEING ANTI-SOCIAL-NETWORK!!! (laughing). Seriously, I have to keep having that beat into my head and it hasn’t sunk in yet. I am so bad – I hate Faceook and Twitter – and I KNOW that social media is the key to branding and visibility, but I just hate it! People bug you every five seconds wanting to Tweet that they just ate a bowl of cereal, or they throw Facebook sheep at you. Drives me right round the bend.

Anything else you’d like to share on the topic of SEO?
What I started out with – don’t just SEO, UO. User optimization is the only thing that yields long lasting results. You can’t just slap keyword stuffed crap up and expect it to stick for any length of time. Make sure you are offering intelligent, informational, useful content, or all of your other tactics and tricks are worth nothing.

Visit Grace’s:
Helium About Me
Articles
Zones

So you want to leap frog all your low hanging articles, but you’re having a hard time finding them in your My Articles page.  Here’s a quick tip to leap any article of yours.

1. Go to your articles page.  If you’re logged in simply click on your user name at the top of Helium, then click the “Articles” tab when it shows up.
2. Go to the last page of your articles page.  If you’re on your articles page, simply scroll down and you’ll see pagination links.  Click on the last one.
3. Pick an article from this page to leapfrog.  Hover over the link (but don’t click it).  You should see in your browser’s status bar (at the bottom of the browser) something like: http://www.helium.com/items/[item_id]-[url_phrase].  Note the item_id, you’re going to need it for the next step.
4. Write your leap frog as normal (in your text editor of choice).
5. In your browser’s address bar type in http://www.helium.com/items/[item_id]/new_leap_frog
6. Paste in your leap frog.

Hope that helps.

Many times on the boards someone has reported an issue and we’ve mentioned that it’s a “known bug” and that we’re working on it.  But what is a bug?  A bug is a “glitch in the system” – basically something that sneaked through that causes Helium to behave as it shouldn’t.  But how does this happen?  Are we developers sneaking in easter eggs just to mess with you?  Yes, totally.

I’m kidding.  In actuality what you see on Helium is an oversimplification of what is actually going on.  Helium is actually thousands of lines of code and thousands of specifications – all dictating how it’s supposed to behave.  With each new release both grow and with them the complexity of Helium as well.  To combat this we build a test suite that checks that Helium is still following all the “rules” (specifications) which we run every time we check in some new code.  Even so, stuff slips through.  Interactions you can’t foresee happen.

So next we have our QA/Ops team.  With each new release or fix we deliver a “release candidate” that they dig through making sure not only does it do all the new things it’s supposed to but also that all the old stuff is still there and functioning.  For every bug that you see on live they find hundreds (thousands) that we fix before you ever see the new release.

However, no matter how well you know an application they (and us in development) are only a handful of people.  We can’t imagine all the ways the thousands of Helium users will test and use the site.  What they’ll do that we’d never think of.  And, more importantly, how the new users will approach the site – as familiarity sometimes causes blind spots.  So, inevitably, we release the new build to the live servers and our community does something we never even thought of and poof we find a new bug.

This is just a natural part of development.  Honestly, with the size of our code (massive) and the size of our development/ops team (very small) it’s amazing that we are able to release so much new code and not have more bugs slip through.  What you might also not realize is that Helium is actually not one code base but over a dozen all interacting in interesting ways – with each new code base added to the mix exponentially increasing the complexity of the final entity.  Some are also built in different languages or in different frameworks – with each being a combination of user interface code, middleware code, and database code which have to coexist and interact.  In other words, the simple site you see is an extremely complex co-mingling of various code bases, languages, specifications and interactions – all of which breed the opportunity for bugs to arise.

Or we really are just messing with you and testing to see if you’ll notice.

I hope this helps.