For professional writers, and those who want to be.
Helium can Inflate Your Ego
I like to recommend to other members of “The Writing Life” to check out Helium.
This is a site which allows writers of every stripe and level of experience to self publish articles, stories poems, across a wide range of topics or “channels”. This is an entirely digital format; there is no means by which to have work printed directly.
The site is very a useful place to try out new material polish a specific style or technique. It is also a wonderful forum for getting new ideas or inspiration by reading and rating the work of other authors.
It is important to note that Helium is not simply a vanity publishing site. It is more akin to an ongoing display case where work can be submitted read and then rated by other writers.
The rating system allows authors to earn stars. The site pays out a very modest small token fee from a revenue sharing system. The amounts earned are quite small and offer no real incentive to publish writing on the site.
In addition the site does have a commercial marketplace which offers paid writing opportunities. Fees payable are usually quite small. The writing projects posted there tend to be more writing competitions than real assignments.
The site does however offer several benefits for aspiring or professional writers. Works published on Helium seem to be very quickly indexed by Google. After publishing a number of works on the site, after 24 hours I did a Google search for my name and three articles from Helium appeared at the top of the search results page.
When promoting yourself it may be useful to dominate search terms for your name. Helium might be a site which would offer an opportunity to accomplish that task.
It may be worthwhile to check out the Helium and see if it’s a site which you might find useful.
This is a site which allows writers of every stripe and level of experience to self publish articles, stories poems, across a wide range of topics or “channels”. This is an entirely digital format; there is no means by which to have work printed directly.
The site is very a useful place to try out new material polish a specific style or technique. It is also a wonderful forum for getting new ideas or inspiration by reading and rating the work of other authors.
It is important to note that Helium is not simply a vanity publishing site. It is more akin to an ongoing display case where work can be submitted read and then rated by other writers.
The rating system allows authors to earn stars. The site pays out a very modest small token fee from a revenue sharing system. The amounts earned are quite small and offer no real incentive to publish writing on the site.
In addition the site does have a commercial marketplace which offers paid writing opportunities. Fees payable are usually quite small. The writing projects posted there tend to be more writing competitions than real assignments.
The site does however offer several benefits for aspiring or professional writers. Works published on Helium seem to be very quickly indexed by Google. After publishing a number of works on the site, after 24 hours I did a Google search for my name and three articles from Helium appeared at the top of the search results page.
When promoting yourself it may be useful to dominate search terms for your name. Helium might be a site which would offer an opportunity to accomplish that task.
It may be worthwhile to check out the Helium and see if it’s a site which you might find useful.
Comment
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Comment by keith l. on May 14, 2009 at 9:08am - I have submitted some articles to Helium, but soon realized it is not for me. Some people I know do really well there. I don't put much faith in the rating system there either. You can rate without even reading the posts and you are encouraged to rate enough to obtain "rating stars". Sometimes this can lead to people just skipping the reading all together and just rating as fast as possible. Also, how does one really judge poetry? Isn't it just personal preference? I guess it all is, but if you are a 14 year old boy with little life experience, I would not take a low rating from you very seriously. You know what I mean? These are just my little thoughts, but these thoughts led me to this site here today. I'm glad I found this here. Thanks!
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Comment by Grace on December 20, 2008 at 11:58am - Thanks for the update, Marvin. Me and my memory issues. I need a checklist of websites to check daily! Want to see if mine got rated. Some of those writers aren't really writers, are they??
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Comment by Lindsay Price on December 19, 2008 at 5:45am
- I just signed for this Helium as well. It's an interesting concept and I look forward to exploring more. Anything that gets us out there, right?
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Comment by Marvin Double on December 18, 2008 at 5:13am - Hi Grace and, that for your comment. I'm very pleased that you've begun using posting articles to Helium. I'm sure you'll find it to be a very useful site as I have. I'd just like to update my original post above. Aside from Helium's revenue sharing program they also have a feature called "marketplace". The feature allows publishers to post paid writing assignments. Until recently most of the assignments only paid $20 - $60. Recently Helium added a new "premium" category to the market place. Premium articles pay more and carry with them more prestige. To date I've sold a total of three articles in the Helium marketplace, the last of which was a premium article. The revenues earned from marketplace articles won't make you rich, but it nice pocket change. Article requests in the marketplace are typically 400, 600 or 1200 words and can range across a wide number of potential subjects. In my opinion it's worth checking out.
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Comment by Grace on December 17, 2008 at 9:17pm
- Thanks, Marvin. I just joined this site recently. Today I read your post and joined Helium. Very interesting. Posted an article. Need to rate my first articles now. Appreciated the suggestion!
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