Linda Formichelli at the Renegade Writer blog posted an interesting piece on “writing for peanuts“: freelancers working for sites like Associated Content and… um, Examiner.com.

Interesting discussion of some of the arguments and bad logic about freelancers who sell themselves shows and work for pennies. She does an effective demolition of many arguments many freelancers (myself included) use when publishing work for cheap, or nothing. One pretty biting line:

Take my word for it — no editor of a market with decent rates is going to take a clip from a content mill seriously. There are no barriers to entry — practically anyone can post their writing — and even if you write a stellar article (which I’m sure you will), it will be surrounded by lazy reporting, bad writing, and unprofessional presentation.

Her argument resonates with me, especially since I’ve recently cut back my efforts writing for examiner.com. It can be fun and make a little money, but ultimately, the hourly rate for the work is close to nothing, and the upside of exposure is very limited. I’ve done some work there that I’m proud of, but over time, it’s not the most productive venue to write.

Time and effort is better spend pitching bigger markets.

Point taken, Linda: aim higher.

There’s a lot to learn and know about the craft of writing well. There are the literary building blocks, or as Roy Peter Clark puts it, writing tools: things like word choice, structure, description, rhythm, transitions, details.

But then there are the more technical, marketing-minded elements of the business, the stuff that separates unknown bloggers from people who can quit their day jobs and live off the income from full-time blogging: search-engine optimization, social network marketing, and, finally, the art and science of writing good headlines.

The latter raises some interesting questions for the writer. Brian Clark at CopyBlogger advocates writing headlines first, then drafting a story to fit it. In short: start with a catchy, marketable, DIGG-able headline, then invent story to go underneath it:

Start with the headline first.

You’ll of course have a basic idea for the subject matter of your blog post, article, free report or sales letter. Then, simply take that basic idea and craft a killer headline before you write one single word of the body content.

Why?

Your headline is a promise to prospective readers. Its job is to clearly communicate the benefit that you will deliver to the reader in exchange for their valuable time.

His series of posts on effective headline writing includes tutorials like “10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work” and “7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work.” He also advocates the “The Cosmo Headline Technique for Blogging Inspiration“.

His suggestions make sense, especially if your goal is to maximize clicks and boost your profile. It also feels somewhat mercenary and transactional. Perhaps its the genre of blogging he promotes, but it seems to reduce all writing to a “what’s in it for me?” exchange.

Maybe he’s right. I’ve tried his method on some of my posts at Examiner.com with mixed results. I’ve used some of his “headline formulas”: some worked, some failed miserably.

Overall, I think the approach is dangerous. Yes, your headline should tease readers to check out your piece. And yes, it should provide a “promise” to the readers that if they read your work, it will be worthwhile. But if writers make it their routine to start with a search-engine-optimized, formula-driven headline, won’t it often lead to equally unoriginal and formulaic writing?

There’s nothing wrong with maximizing your chances at attracting a big readership through smart use of the web, but if you start with those goals in mind, then think about your actual ideas and writing second, aren’t you giving up a lot? As the old expression goes: is the tail wagging the dog?

Just wrapped up my first column for examiner.com, “Twelve lessons poker can teach you about life.” I’ve started doing some freelance pieces for examimer.com on poker. Officially, I’m the “DC Poker Examiner.” Not exactly my heaviest work, but a fun little bit of freelancing.

Here’s a snippet from the piece:

5. No matter what you do, some days everything will go wrong. Preparation and planning are important, but they won’t spare you from the brutality of bad luck and variance. If you flip a coin, you have a fifty-fifty chance of it landing either tails or heads. Sometimes, if you flip a coin three times in a row, you’ll get heads three times. Unlikely, but it happens. You might flip a coin ten times and get heads each time there as well — less likely statistically, but not impossible. In fact, if you flip a coin a thousand times, you’re bound to have several stretches where heads or tails lands ten or more times in a row. In short: bad luck happens, and it can happen in bunches. Just as you can have a day where you spill coffee on your shirt, wreck your car, and get dumped before dinner, you might have a night where you lose with aces in back-to-back hands, then flop a flush that gets beat on the river by a one-in-twenty long shot. It can feel like a conspiracy, as if supernatural forces are twisting the universe you crush you. And yet, in reality, nothing is after you other than the cold, remorseless cruelty of chance. The lesson: bad luck, like good luck, will come in streaks. Learn to take both in stride.

Read the rest here.