Yahoo.com Front Page Feature

Recently, I had an article of mine featured for several days on the front page of Yahoo.com. It was included in "Editor's Picks" and "Today on Yahoo!" The first appears at the bottom of every news page or article on Yahoo! and the second appears in multiple places including the top, featured position at the home page of Yahoo.com.

I get two questions most frequently from other writers about it. 1) How did you get featured? 2) How many views did it receive?

First, let me say that I've had editors from the Yahoo! Contributor Network (Y!CN) pitch articles of mine for the front page before. At least one made it there previously, but had a shorter run of just a few hours.

Getting featured can depend on luck to some extent. If you have just written about a topic that suddenly becomes very newsworthy and your article is relevant, editors may drop it in to take advantage of the timeliness of  the issue. Then there's always the other breaking news factor. If aliens land on the lawn of the White House, then your article about the National Collegiate Cheerleading Championships might get pushed aside for front page feature consideration.

In any case, it generally takes a body of high quality work that demonstrates your ability to write accurate, interesting and original material. In two of the four cases where my work was pitched to the front page, an editor at Y!CN contacted me in advance and offered a topic that he thought might be a good fit for the front page. For another, I had just submitted an article and it just happened to coincide with a planned press conference by President Obama on the same topic. Another was suggested to me for front page consideration, but missed because the angle I took was a bit too controversial.

Once, an article was suggested, but in doing the research, I found that the suggested premise, though widely accepted by media outlets and various web secondary sources, was inaccurate. I wrote it up as something of a myth-busting article which provided better sources for that real information. It wasn't the fun, human interest piece for which the front page decision makers were hoping.

In short, I don't know of any sure-fire way to get a piece featured on the front page at Yahoo.com except to write well consistently, attract the attention of editors with the quality of your work (and/or by becoming a Featured Contributor), and to be willing to accept difficult assignments that may or may not pan out despite an investment of research time and effort. Also be prepared for one or more title changes and additional editorial scrutiny of any article that is being considered for the front page. I think Editor's Picks, Today on Yahoo! and the text news listing all used different titles for my recent feature, none of which were passed by me before publication (which is fine by me).

As for the second question, my most recent featured article received about 1 million views in the first 24 hours, and about another million over the next 48 hours and during a repeat feature the following weekend. Those who write for Y!CN know the page view bonus rate for Y! News and can calculate that the earnings from that single article went into the thousands of dollars.

In addition to the 2 million page views, it was posted to Facebook by over 13,000 users, Tweeted over 1500 times resulting in more than 45,000 page views via Twitter, and shared by 245 people on Linked In. The article itself was also mentioned and linked by The Huffington Post, Forbes online, and a host of other sites. CNN did a feature piece on the same topic 3-4 days after mine appeared on Yahoo! all of which is helping the article gain about 1000 readers per day long after it passed out of the main stream's attention span.

I'll also note that it was copied in its entirety and otherwise plagiarized by more websites and blogs than I care to mention. That comes with the territory, so learn how to enforce your rights under the DMCA.

I've heard of other Yahoo! feature pieces from Y!CN freelancers getting even more page views than mine by a wide margin. I've also heard of others not doing as well.

Finally, I know some writers don't like to say which of their articles do very well for fear of copycats going after their topics, but I've always felt that the Internet is a very big place. It also helps that I tend to write current events type issues that have high, but fleeting popularity rather than evergreen material. At any rate, here's the article that received the front page feature position for a number of days at Yahoo.com. Feel free to share a link to the original on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, your blog, or anywhere else. I get paid by the page view and every one counts. ...and don't forget to follow this blog using one of the following option in the margins.

Writing better and earning more

The purpose of this post is two-fold, although I'll keep it short and to the point. I want to answer two simple questions.

• How can I earn more with my writing?
• How can I get better at writing?

The answer to both questions is: write.

Whether you're trying to earn a full time wage, help stay ahead of the bills, or just earn a few extra bucks each week, writing should be viewed just like any other job. It may be a job you love, but it is a job nevertheless. That means you have to show up for work regularly and get the job done. I strongly advocate setting up specific work hours each day (or each week) and sticking to them religiously.

During these work hours, you should be wholly focused on writing. I understand that you may also be taking care of young children and there's no pause button that lets you take a break from that during the day, but other than that, when you're at work, consider yourself "at work." Sit down at your keyboard and write. Whatever you earn with your writing will go up in proportionally to the amount of hours you spend writing (although it may not be a linear relationship).

Like any job, showing up and doing the work isn't a question of whether you feel like it at any particular time, but whether the clock tells you it's time to go to work. If you feel particularly inspired and want o work some overtime, that's fine, but skipping out early should not be an option unless you've already doubled your monetary goal for the month, then and only then, have you earned a vacation day.

For the second question, your writing will improve with practice. The more you write on a regular basis, the better you'll get over time. That improvement will take several forms. First, setting regular hours habituates you to writing. For most writers I know, the hardest part of any composition is the first sentence, and often the very first word. Regular writing hours doesn't give you the option of being uninspired. It's time to write, so you write. You can write whatever you want, but there must be measurable and consistent output.

Separate other "work" activities from actual writing. Not all your work time is actual writing. There's research, promotion, opportunity-seeking, skill development and probably a couple of other things that may vary for each individual. However, all too often, those activities tend to consume far too much of our writng time. Set specific limits for these activities that leave the bulk of your work time for just writing.

Secondly, the quality of your work will improve as you continue to write and publish. Practice, all by itself will make yo better, as will reading and comparing your work to that of others. If you're writing news, read traditional news reports (Reuters, AP, AFP, CNN, and/or all the others), but also read the news articles that get featured by your publisher whether it is Yahoo!, Examiner, or any other outlet. Make mental notes of what you liked about each of those reports, and work on improving in areas where you think any of them were better than yours.

That's not to say copy someone else's style. Develop your own style from an amalgamation of what you consider the best aspects of everything you read.  If you like the straightforward, fact-based style of Reuters, but also enjoy the friendly flavor of Yahoo!'s Shine and the compelling first-person story-telling of Reader's Digest, combine the three styles and see what happens.

Feedback from editors, category managers, private clients, or whomever you write for makes you better. They don't all give feedback, but when they do, pay attention. Don't be afraid to ask for examples or clarification from time to time if you're not clear about the feedback they provide. Don't be a pest, but do make sure you understand the feedback you receive.

If you feel you have made a major improvement or change in your writing, or are unsure of the quality of something you published, ask others in your writing peer group for feedback. Most good writers are happy to help.