Sonia's Space

Helium's Unsavory Attitude - Has Helium Turned Scam?

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I joined Helium several months back; it could be more than a year, but I am not sure. I was too busy with on-demand writing to bother with revenue-sharing sites. However, I recently wrote an article on Helium, which got sold for $5. The sale excited me, and I decided to spend more time on Helium.

Recently, I tried logging in, but got the following funny message.

"Readers from all over the world are welcome to enjoy Helium's articles. However, we regret we are not currently set up to provide an optimal experience for writers in every country. We are hoping to offer different versions of helium that will attract and best suit all writers sometime in future."

As far as I know, Helium has never been a US-only site. It has accepted tons of articles from foreign writers, and it has generated revenue from all those articles. And now, Helium has successfully blocked a majority of those foriegn writers. Please note the following points:

Helium did not show the basic courtesy of informing these writers that they would be denied access.
Helium has nothing to say about the money these writers have earned.
Helium will probably generate revenue from the content created by these writers, and the writers won't get their share.

Now, I don't care if Helium wants to cater to the requirements UK/US/Canadian/Australian writers only. What bothers me is the rudeness and insensitivity of Helium. Naturally, I wanted to know if a bug in the system was denying me access to my Helium account and wrote the following email to Helium.

Hello,

I have been trying to log into helium since yesterday without success. I keep getting the following message.

"Readers from all over the world are welcome to enjoy Helium's articles. However, we regret we are not currently set up to provide an optimal experience for writers in every country. We are hoping to offer different versions of helium that will attract and best suit all writers sometime in future."

Now, why am I getting that message? Why am I not able to log in? Is this a bug? My handle is "positiveminded1977"

Hope you help me out with this issue at the earliest possible.

Thanks and warm regards
Sonia

Helium sent the following response to my mail:

Greetings Sonia DCosta,

Thanks for your ongoing interest in the Helium site. Unfortunately, Helium.com is not set up to provide an optimal experience for writers from every country. At present, our audience is predominantly US-focused. To prevent frustrations from all writers and to limit staff time spent trying to accommodate, we are not accepting submissions from some locations at this time. Readers from around the world are welcome to enjoy Helium’s articles. In the future, we are hoping to offer different versions of Helium that will attract and best suit all writers. We are currently evaluating the impact this has on a few existing members, and we will settle with them on an individual basis in the coming weeks. Regarding any upcoming sites I have no specific information on that at this time.

All the best,
Jim Logan
Helium Help | Technical Support
W: 978.474.5074 x 230
help@helium.com
Helium. Where Knowledge Rules.
www.helium.com

I am sorry, but this makes no sense to me! When I joined Helium, it was not US-focused.

"Readers from around the world are welcome to enjoy Helium’s articles."

Now, why should they when Helium treats writers from other countries like dirt?

"In the future, we are hoping to offer different versions of Helium that will attract and best suit all writers."

Now, that's great! But, why on earth didn't Helium send us an email telling us about it before blocking our accounts?

"We are currently evaluating the impact this has on a few existing members..."

Hey, I still exist, and you can see the impact it has on me!!

"Regarding any upcoming sites I have no specific information on that at this time."

You see that? Jim Logan has no specific information!!

I smell rats all round, and I tell you, this stinks!!

This is SCAM!!

What about those $5, Helium? I am still waiting for a response to my email about those $5. Once I get it, I will update this post!

Dangers of SEO Writing

Friday, March 6, 2009

When I started writing for the Internet, clients were taken aback with my academic style of writing. They frantically requested me to use a "chatty, informal" tone. I was to write as if I were talking to my reader. In other words, I was to use the second person narrative.

I used the second person so much that I almost forgot the existence of the omniscient third person. I literally stopped being the all-seeing, all-knowing writer I once was, that magical creature who could see into the past, present, and future of her characters.

Recently, a new client reminded me of the third person. Having forgotten the third person, I sat dazed and confused for a long time. Fortunately, it slowly came back to me. Simultaneously, it alerted me to the dangers of SEO writing for creative writers.

In the course of my career, I have written hundreds of SEO articles. This is what I have to say about SEO writing.

SEO writing is interesting, but it is far from creative.
To write an SEO article, one has to conduct some basic research and stuff some keywords into the article. Simultaneously, the writer has to see that the article is a good chunk of valid information. A writer who does this day in and day out gradually transforms into a "writing machine." In other words, writing becomes mechanical.
An SEO writer can earn his/her living; but he/she cannot get as rich as J.K. Rowling.
Writing ceases to be a creative, exhilarating, energizing, and spiritually rewarding activity for the SEO writer.

Any writer who has fallen into the rut of SEO writing must get out of it asap!! Instead of writing more SEO articles, write a horror story, a poem, a drama, or a romantic novel. At least, write an eBook!

Writing or Rewriting?

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The various ways in which Internet marketers attempt to underpay writers amaze me. Now, I would like at least $2 for rewriting an article. Most Internet marketers offer only $1 or even lesser! In the course of my career, I met only one Internet marketer who was ready to offer $4 for a good rewrite, but since this writer had posted his/her project description on a popular bidding site, one of the writers had kindly reminded him/her that "rewrites are easy" and that the service buyer "need not pay so much for them." Of course, I will rant about the way writers don't mind selling their wares for $0 in another article. Right now, I want to talk about rewrites.

I came upon an advertisement for an article rewriter on craigslist. I responded, and the service buyer told me that he will "hire me only if I agree to $1 per 400-word article." I agreed and got my first assignment. I was asked to go the following site and "rewrite" the matter there in around 500 words and I would be paid $1.5 for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myositis

Now, if you visit above site, you will notice that there is hardly any matter there that can be "rewritten" into a 500-word article. In short, there is nothing to "rewrite." Instead, there are a number of links. This means that this is not a rewrite worth $1.5, but a research medical article worth at least $10.

Needless to say, the service buyer never heard from me again. I really wish service buyers paid their writers for work done, and I know this will never happen as long as there are writers out there who are willing to write a 500-word article for 50 cents.