#whenever someone who has a large audience also happens to publish their writing and everyone is fawning over it

[rosenfey]

I need to have the phrase "just because a piece of writing is published and has a large audience doesn't mean it's good" tattooed on my inner eyelids so I stare at it whenever I start doubting myself

[spatort]

I’m at my parents’ house and I have too much time on my hands apparently, so it’s time for a trip down memory lane! More specifically, a trip into the weird world of 1990s for-profit teen idol RPF, such as this beauty:

No, I did not find this at my parents’ house, I bought it second-hand specifically in order to make this post because I’m a person who enjoys studying fan culture in her free time. So, if you’re wondering what the hell the monstrosity pictured above is, and why it exists, don’t worry, I’m about to answer that question extensively.

LONG (AND HOPEFULLY FUN & INTERESTING) POST UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with a bit of history: In the pre-internet era, fan culture differed from today in a few key regards. Although fanfiction existed, without the internet it was much harder for fans to share their stories with each other. Large fandoms such as Star Trek did have fanzines where fanfic could be printed, but all in all it was a much more niche thing than it is today with millions of fics accessible on AO3.

Fan culture in general, however, was a big thing in the 90s – particularly when it came to pop acts that appealed to teen (and tween) audiences, such as the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, or (mostly in Europe) the Kelly Family. When I was in elementary school, you basically had to pick whether you were a BSB or an NSYNC fan – and god forbid you were a Kelly fan like me, then you were the lowest rung on the social ladder and the target of relentless mockery. Like many German kids in the 90s, me and my sister would religiously read teen magazine BRAVO, cut out every single bit of material about our faves and collect them in folders and self-made fanzines. We created fan art and fanfiction without having words for these things. Without the internet and social media, fans did not have a constant stream of content about their idols, and were left with no other choice but to cling to every bit of information they could find in magazines, on TV shows, or on the radio.

Enter a savvy businessperson who comes up with the perfect merchandise product to sell to these popstar-obsessed teens: fan novels! These books, featuring taglines such as ‘The novel for all Backstreet Boys fans’, typically revolved around a relatable female teenage protagonist who is a fan of the celebrity or music group in question, and usually ends up meeting their idol or, gasp, even becoming romantically involved with them. As far as themes go, they look pretty much exactly like your classic self-insert RPF. Except there is a big difference setting these books apart from ‘actual’ fanfiction: Rather than being written by real fans to express their ‘fannish’ feelings about the subject, fan novels were most likely commissioned works created by professional romance authors purely to profit off of actual fans. There is very little background information available about this ‘genre’, but I did stumble across an academic work on Google Books which featured a passage about these fan novels (translated into English by me):

There are several commissioned works by professional authors, which could be mistaken for fanfiction. Especially in the 1990s, when lots of boy bands were on the market, many books of this kind were published. […] These are fictional stories for fans [redacted].

Jennie Hermann: Backstreet Girl. Projektionsfläche Popstar - Wenn der Fan zum Schriftsteller wird (2009) [Popstar as Projection Surface – When fans become writers]

One of the things I find most intriguing about this type of commercially published fanfiction is the question of personal rights. Obviously, the celebs in question or their management must have consented to using their names in the story, their pictures on the cover and so on – because a profit could be made with this. Especially with the fan debate around RPF allegely being unethical, I wonder if the celebrities themselves were aware someone was writing these stories about them, putting words in their mouth, and if they had any clue what exactly happened in these novels. Now, I’ve read a couple of them in my own youth. Some of them deal mostly with the state of being a fan, e.g. I recall a novel about a girl who is so obsessed with Leonardo Di Caprio that she doesn’t pay attention to real life guys at all, only to learn that her actual dream boy has been in her life all along! This story did not feature Di Caprio himself as a character, it was more about the protagonist’s arc of realizing your idols are not all that matters in life. Others do describe fan encounters with teen idols, and some even feature (hints at) romance with a celebrity. When I decided to purchase a vintage copy of one of these books, I opted for one of the latter category, precisely because of the popular argument that writing romance stories featuring real people is somehow ‘wrong’. For only a couple of euros, I was able to get my hands on a weird and wonderful relic of fan culture: Mein Frühling mit Nick (My spring with Nick) by the likely pseudonymous Maxi Keller, heralded on the book cover as ‘the novel for all fans of the Backstreet Boys’.

The story revolves around 16-year-old musical prodigy and designated wallflower Katharina, who lives in a German small town and cares about nothing else than playing the organ – certainly not about boys, let alone ones that are super-famous American pop stars. This means she is not initially a fan of the Backstreet Boys, which I guess is something of a trope itself – the protagonist meeting a celebrity by chance without knowing who they are and the celeb being thrilled that someone doesn’t just like them for their fame. Anyway, the boys visit Katharina’s hometown while on tour in Germany because band member AJ is doing some research on his German ancestors who happened to live in this very town. Katharina runs into them, she and Nick (who was only 17 himself when this was published in 1997, so it’s legal) fall in love at first sight, she helps them dig up information on AJ’s ancestors and finds out the two of them are related, the boys invite Katharina and her friend Saskia backstage after their show and … nothing happens. The book is 200 pages long and Katharina doesn’t even get one kiss with her boy band sweetheart, even though they mutually crush on each other right away. Perhaps that’s as far as the band or their management agreed for the novel to go – a hint at romance, but no trace of any on-page action, no matter how innocent.

That said, the book is so hilariously poorly written that it was still very entertaining to read. Although I could not find out anything about the author Maxi Keller, and therefore assume this might be a pseudonym, their writing style very much suggests that their are a professional romance author who usually writes for an older audience (plus, the book was published by Bastei Lübbe, who also publish a range of cheap romance novels known as ‘Romanhefte’). The language is extremely flowery at times, and even teenage characters speak with an eloquence that is hardly age-appropriate, with some 90s teen slang peppered in at unfitting times (such as the overuse of the English word ‘girl’). Often the novel loses itself in pointless detail that does nothing to move the plot forward (such as an extensive description of a house party hosted by Saskia’s rich parents, with minute details of their luxurious lifestyle and assets, even though Saskia is only a supporting character in the overall plot). It appears as if the author is desperately trying to fill the pages with meaningless drivel so they don’t need to write too many scenes featuring the presumed main attraction, the boys themselves.

If Keller was indeed merely hired to write this, and is not a fan themselves, one must still admit that the author did their research when it comes to the band. Whereas fanfiction typically assumes that the audience is already familiar with the characters and often skips any introductory descriptions of their appearance or personality, Keller makes sure that even a reader who is completely unfamiliar with the Backstreet Boys can keep up. The author delivers extensive descriptions of the boys’ appearance and demeanor, even spelling out their full names repeatedly, and frequently peppers in ‘fun facts’ such as ‘Kevin was raised on a farm in Kentucky’. While an actual fan might do so to prove how knowledgeable they are, and earning their status as a ‘true fan’, in this case it only seems like Keller really wants to show off how much research they did – as if not a single piece of information they took in must go to waste by not being used in the novel.

When it comes to the question how realistically the non-fannish author replicates the way the boys act and speak, there are two barriers to delivering a well-founded answer: Firstly, I was personally very young when BSB were popular and I really don’t remember too well what each member was like. Secondly, the elephant in the room: the language barrier. All of the aforementioned fan novels were written in German, and the problems posed by writing about an English-speaking band interacting with German OCs (and teenage ones at that) are addressed poorly, if at all. Pretty much all dialogue is written in German, and the audience is left to assume that everyone is actually speaking English whenever the boys are involved – except the novel does nothing to explain why two 16-year-old German girls would be able to express themselves so effortlessly in a foreign language. (Remember, the internet was not a thing, so German kids were not exposed to the same amount of English in everyday life as they are these days.) It would have been easy to make one of them a language nerd who gets straight A’s in English class, and give the other a British parent and make them bilingual. Instead, Katharina initially even worries about the prospect of having to talk to boys at all, and in English on top of that! But when she actually does, the language barrier never comes up again. The suspension of disbelief expected from the reader is therefore immense. The language barrier also gives the author an easy way out when it comes to imitating the way the boys speak in real life – there is no need to take into account idiolects or regional differences (such as ‘you guys’ vs. ‘y’all’) if the boys’ speech is essentially translated into a foreign language. However, I wanted to give you guys (or y’all, if you will) a taste of how Keller attempts to write a scene where AJ and Nick discuss the latter’s crush on Katharina:

I would argue that this sounds realistic enough for what it’s worth, if a little cheesy, which is excusable in this genre. Perhaps a true 90s BSB fan would beg to differ, so if you happen to be one, feel free to drop me a message. But in my semi-professional opinion, this most likely holds up for readers.

So, to answer the initial question that drove me to purchase this book: Do fan novels like Mein Frühling mit Nick count as fanfiction?

If we assume that something is only a fanfic if the author themselves is a fan of the subject matter, then I would argue no, Maxi Keller is probably not a fan themselves and therefore this work of for-profit real-person fiction does not qualify as fanfic. However, fan novels definitely have a (however small) place in the history of fan culture and fan-adjacent works, and I personally found reading this relic both entertaining and insightful!

[nettlestonenell]

So, you want to adapt Little Women for the screen.

There’s quite a challenge ahead of you, Gentle Readers. Might I help get you started?

What, you might ask are my own bona fides in suggesting that I might have the right to hold forth on such a topic? Very well, I first read Little Women in 1983. The first of countless times I have read it. Actually, I collect copies of it, and buy interesting ones whenever I see them. I’ve seen more than a few adaptations of it.

The cover of my first copy. A giant volume, it was highly impractical to carry around. I did it anyway.

An initial challenge, any screen writer will tell you, is sheer length. Little Women was originally published as two separate books. So, an initial novel, and a sequel. By 1880, the two volumes were forever published as one. 

Not only does this mean lots of pages and plot needing weeded out of your script, but it also means you’re going to have two climaxes and two denouements (seems about right for a female novel, yeah?), another challenge when adapting the two stories into a single film. (Imagine having to create a single story/plot from Philosopher’s Stone AND Chamber of Secrets). 

Inevitably, what generally happens in past adaptations is that Part II gets greatly compressed and short-changed (and I do not doubt, Gentle Readers, creates some of the dissatisfaction among viewers and fans where the handling of Laurie’s proposal and the latter adolescence of characters and their romances/mates don’t land as they might if spent more time with).

Actual illustration of Book One (on the left) and Book Two (on the right) once adapted for film.

According to Wikipedia: The book has been adapted for cinema; twice as silent film and four times with sound in 1933, 1949, 1978 and 1994. Six television series were made, including four by the BBC—1950, 1958, 1970, and 2017. Two anime series were made in Japan during the 1980s. A musical version opened on Broadway in 2005. An American opera version in 1998 has been performed internationally and filmed for broadcast on US television in 2001. Greta Gerwig is directing a new rendition of the novel, set to be released 2019.

I could not hit “Add to Watchlist” fast enough.

So, the list of folks attempting to tackle Little Women is a long one, and not always a successful one. Some elements of the story are always going to play well, and frankly, be hard to mess up too much. But others? Others have some real sticking-points.

I’m not here to critique individual versions of adaptations today, Gentle Readers. 

I’m just here to muse on the Big Questions that need solid answers when you’re ready to take on writing your adaptation.

Someone contact them, I demand a recount.

1.       How much of the true lives of the Alcott family will we include?

It’s no secret at this point that Alcott took a lot of inspiration from her real life. But how much do we include? Do we have Thoreau invited over for dinner? Do we address some of the more radical notions of the Alcotts’? Do we just go ahead and make Father in the novel like Bronson in real life?

a.       How to explain/not explain the war and its effect on their lives

For contemporary audiences and readers, the incredibly matter-of-factness of the Civil War taking place deep in the background of the story will not resonate as much as it would to readers back in the day (It plays a bit like the Blitz in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]. Perhaps it might be a good idea to bring it closer to the fore, beyond merely showing the girls in hoops, and coming across the occasional newspaper story or quietly dropped reference to a battle.

b.       How to address or not address the March’s contemporarily confusing socio-economic position (that of ‘genteel penury’)

Gentle people now in reduced circumstances is a tough sell intellectually when 2019 can allow most everyone to disguise their financial situation through extensive credit and things like those housing bubble mortgages given to lots of Americans. It’s going to be necessary at some point to explain or show how the Marchs, who have so little themselves, have (to our 2019-eyes) pretty clothes, a large, cozy house, the ability to take food and minister to the (much) poor(er) Hummels, and a house servant; Hannah. The humiliating fact that they can’t buy new gloves for a party does not...exactly track in the twenty-first century.

They’re much worse-off than the Bennets of Longbourne, whose financial crisis is on the horizon, but how can you show that to viewers unfamiliar with the notion of life as a fallen-from-wealth family?

2.       The persistent problematic-ness of Amy/Laurie

I will call to mind one adaptation, here, and Kirsten Dunst’s performance in particular. Singlehandedly, at the age of only *10*, she manages to sell the potential of not only Amy, but Amy/Laurie like no one else this tumblerian has ever seen. What a tragedy the film couldn’t have waited for her to grow up enough to also play Amy in the film’s second half.

In a world where perfect casting is rarely obtainable, this child should have been nominated for Oscar. She out-performs every Amy March before or since, ad infinitum.

Like many of the romantic partnerships, which other than Jo/Teddy (which is not presented as romantic in Book One) are included only in Book Two, films front-loaded with Book One (I can’t think of one I’ve seen that wasn’t) find themselves racing to a conclusion, and every one of the three couples suffers in presentation and allowing enough time for viewers to be ‘courted’ by them into liking them.

There’s simply not enough time left to work on all of them. So, it becomes a decision of which one is more important. Traditionally, as Brooke/Meg happens first, they get some character beats, but once Jo turns down Teddy... 

I can hear the screams of horror across the ages.

...adaptations become a fight between showing Amy/Laurie or Jo/Bhaer, yet both of which are true surprises to viewers not familiar with the story, and who need time to warm up and be seduced by these new pairings. 

(Mind you, I do think Bhaer and Jo should sneak up on a viewer/reader, but there still have to be signs planted here and there that make it make sense when it actually does happen.)  

3.       The age and age progression of the girls

Per the book, the story begins with Meg 16, Jo 15, Beth 13, and Amy 12 (aside: poor Marmee).

A clear example of...impractical* casting for teenagers. (And Jo! In trousers!?) * but perhaps necessary for community theatre

As I mentioned a few lines ago, Amy becomes the most difficult to cast, here, as it’s unlikely a person can play both 12 and the age of Amy when she accepts Laurie. Amy may be only 16 or so when she accepts Laurie, but contemporary viewers are probably going to need a little more assurance she’s not a child bride by her looking more mature than 16.

Beth is frequently cast older, which is also troublesome. She’s 16 at most when she dies, and has been ill for some time. (So, easy to assume she wasn’t growing rapidly.)

Jo has to be able to play age 15 to 25+.

Is that meant to be Jo on the left? Does that make Susan Dey Amy? Anyway, this production has the luxury of doing better on the ages of the girls. And they’ve got the inimitable Greer Garson as Aunt March!

Actors chosen can’t only be made-up to pass for certain ages, they also have to convince us they’re playing dress-up in the garret in the early portion of the film. 

In fact, Jo in particular with her harum-scarum ways isn’t deliberately trying to make constant mistakes and faux pas. She’s a kid who hasn’t yet grown up, with a kid’s energy and unbridled sincerity. Convince us of that.

4.       How to show both the importance and the growth of Jo’s writing

Filming someone writing is rarely moving to watch, and what’s more, writing is so misunderstood as a pastime or even a vocation, it doesn’t easily lend itself to being captivating when shown on-screen. And yet Jo’s writing is not only vital to the story, the growth and expression she finds in it are so deeply important to her character, and later to her romance plot with Bhaer. It’s got to be shown, and more than once. Moreso, or at least as much so as her temper, her mouth, and her lioness-like care for her sisters, it IS who she is.

Where’s the silly hat?

5.       Flawed female characters that are meant to confront and wrestle with those flaws

Well, this is a big one, here. It seems to me we’re sort of operating by 2019 where that old saw of [man] girl vs. self isn’t really written about or shown. Our society at large has become very vocal about whoever we are being awesome and “never change”.

Which is just about as far from the notions in Little Women as one could get. Every one of the ‘women’ has something they need to work on, to grow and improve about themselves. From Meg not being able to get over their loss of money and status (remembered from when she was younger), to Amy’s dissatisfaction and constant desire to fine things, to Beth’s introversion, to Jo’s temper and intolerance of those who aren’t as bold and rebellious against society as her, and Jo’s inability to accept the change that will constantly be coming into all their lives as they grow.

Nasty!

The Little Women Alcott wrote had lessons to learn, and directions to grow, contrary to what their gut reactions might be. You can call that a moralistic take on the novel, but you can’t argue that Jo has to change, and is expected to be her own instigator of that change within the novel(s). [It does seem like anymore in films that the only person we expect to change bad habits or wrong ways of being are actual ‘bad guys’/villains. And sometimes not even them.]

6.       Friedrich Bhaer

Well, that’s a mouthful. I don’t doubt that it always has been. The single, fan-dividing phrase of female literature. Am I right?

Doing for umbrella representation until Gene Kelly came along.

You know the story, right? That Alcott was so DONE with readers after Book One assuming and expecting Jo and Teddy to live happily ever after, she was so frustrated (she had never wanted, nor intended for that to happen) with all the shipping she built a Bhaer bomb.

@grrlinthefireplace would climb that.

And it’s still exploding readers’ and viewers’ minds today.

Why Professor Bhaer is the perfect match for Jo, and why their marriage and life together makes ultimate sense is certainly a post for another time, but I will say that if you’re still sore about it, take some time and reread the book as an adult, and see if you don’t also come to see the eminent sense in it.

That said, in any satisfying and successful adaptation, you’ve got to work hard to sell the man your heroine chooses over Laurie. Laurie’s had all of Book One and a good three-quarters of Book Two to endear himself to readers. Who’s this guy?

Well, yes, that’s William Shatner...as Professor Bhaer.

This guy isn’t good enough for Jo. This is nonsense. “Weird old guy with an uncomfortable age gap with my fave.” Are not the sort of things you’re going to want to read in reviews.

First, you’ve got to cast him right. Hollywood’s not *overly* worried about distressing RL gaps in ages between their actresses and actors, you might know, and beards are actually pretty in right now. Bhaer’s not a babe by any means, but he’s got an accent he can work. And he’s in love with our fave.

Think an Alan Rickman-type (I know he’s not German), did you see how hot Kurt Russell made Santa Claus in that Netflix Christmas movie? Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan? Probably all too old. 

Bhaer’s actually described as “middle-aged”, which means 40ish, to Jo’s 25 (when she accepts him). You know who’s 40ish in Hollywood? Gerard Butler, Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, most of Hollywood’s Chrises, RDJ for Pete’s sake is 53. Give him a beard, and awkward social presence tick, and get him working on that accent, and I guarantee your audience will buy Jo’s attraction to him, and create a Twitter for his umbrella.

In the end, Bhaer is key to understanding that the novel isn’t trying to transform Jo into a woman who will fit into Teddy’s wealthy life and the social circles he has no plans to turn his back on. Bhaer is literally the embodiment of Jo making choices that she learns (and I daresay we are meant to learn) are right for her. She finds a man comfortable with who she is, who is in love with her brain as much as with the rest of her, who sees their coupling as a joint project, and who wants her to be the best her. (cough, cough, Gilbert Blythe prototype)

You’ve got to get him right, or what’s come before gets lost in dissatisfaction for Jo’s final, epic choice.

Oh, look, a nice picture of a charismatic, bearded German actor. How did that get here?

Let’s be succinct here in the end, Gentle Reader. Little Women (Books One and Two) and Little Men and Jo’s Boys would make a splendid series. (Such as Anne with an E), there’s certainly enough episodic drama and plot to go around.

Keep that in mind when planning out your adaptation.

What film adaptation is your favorite, and why?

[earlgreytea68]

So used to writing fic it feels very dry to write something so large-scale? This got long, and personal, and I apologize. I guess my question is if you have those same desires how are you balancing them out?

God, I have...such complicated views on these things. Which is maybe necessary, because as your question gets across, this is such a complex subject. And I want to make clear right from the get-go that I think every writer is different, and what you mostly need to do is to listen to YOU and what YOU want, and to give yourself permission to want the things you want, even if they’re not the things you think you should want, if that makes sense. 

I spent the entirety of my life wanting to be a published author. I’ve written fiction as long as I can remember but I didn’t really start writing fanfiction until I was in my late 20s, well after I’d written many, many (unpublished) novels, so fic as a genre was kind of really late to me? At least, much later than other people seem to find it. So whenever people talk about using fic to “practice” before they “graduate” to original writing, I always get confused. I mean, fic made me a *much* better writer, but I went in the opposite direction than everyone else seems to. 

Anyway, when I finally got published, the thing that was most surprising to me was this sudden realization: I’d been a writer all along. I think that so many people think you’re not a “real” writer until you’re published, me included, and then I got published and I realized that wasn’t true. It’s not like everything I’d done before that was “fake.” In fact, my fic is some of my best writing. There’s no, like, “lesser medium” about it. 

If you write, you’re a writer. There is no other qualification. And before you start to belittle yourself, and think that anybody can sit down and throw sentences onto a screen: think about how many people *don’t.* Because if anybody could do it, everybody *would* do it. I say that not to be mean about people who don’t write -- the world has all sorts of valuable talents in it, and fun things to do -- but to say that if you *do* write, it’s a fantastic and extraordinary achievement, regardless of publication. 

For me, too, publication happened at this really weird time in my life, because I’d spent my twenties at this job I hated, and writing had been this lifeline for me, and I got published at almost exactly the same moment that I switched jobs. And suddenly I had this job I really loved...and I’d kind of also turned my writing hobby into my job, and it kind of messed with my head? Like, to start to like my job, and to have my hobby *become* a job? It was a weird time for me. 

And I realized I wasn’t going to be able to survive professional writing unless I also kept doing fic-writing, because I’d felt like I lost my go-to fun activity that had carried me through so much, and I needed it back. It’s weird, because I show all my writing to other people, whether in book form or on AO3, so there’s always an audience, but when I write my professional stuff, I’m writing *for* the audience. And I know that some fic-turned-pros tell you that they love making up their own characters because they’re more *theirs,* but I always feel like my professional stuff belongs much less to me. It’s being very consciously written for a market, for other people, as opposed to my fic, which is SO self-indulgent. Like, that’s why you get the sort of fic you get out of me, because I’m like, “This is mine and these people are just going to banter happily with each other for 200,000 words, because it’s mine and that’s what I want.” You’ve got to pay me if you want me to develop a plot lol 

Which is all to say: I like my professional writing, and I’m so honored and flattered and happy that I have this incredible opportunity and that people enjoy it. But writing for publication is not the end-all-be-all of writing. Not for me, at least. Professional writing is completely different than fic-writing in my head. They’re just two completely different occupations. That might sound weird, but it’s like, you know, writing an instruction manual is different from writing a cover letter is different from writing a novel is different from writing a fic. There’s all different kinds of writing. 

And when I say “fic-writing,” I mean “fic” in my much broader genre definition of “character-driven slice-of-life stories,” so I count “Swan Song” as fic-writing because it falls into that label despite being about OCs. I look at “Swan Song” and I think of how *completely* unmarketable it is, it just *sprawls,* the entire first 40,000 words are probably pointless, it has a ton of unnecessary subplots. But I’m not writing it for publication. I’m writing it for me. So I don’t worry about it. Sometimes that has to be a very conscious choice on my part, to turn off that voice in my head, but I make myself do it because I think it’s important for me to maintain that sense of writing as play, I think it makes my professional writing better, if I never completely think of it as “work.” 

I am very lucky, as I’ve said before, in that I have a job I love. So I can afford to write a bunch of stuff that I don’t worry about getting paid for. Also, I long ago came to terms with the idea that I don’t actually *want* to be paid for all my writing, because it would stress me out, having to write for other people instead of myself all the time. So I try to give myself little buckets. And I do the same thing with fan writings vs. original writing. There are sometimes, like with “Swan Song,” when I want to just go roll around in my own world. There are other times, like with my recent FOB fics and Sports Night fic, that I wake up with someone else’s character so loud in my head that I just let them go for it. If I’m not under a deadline, then I just get to do whatever I want to do. I get to play.

I just try, as much as possible, to balance things, and to also not be too hard on myself. It’s a journey, and I’ve been writing several decades now, and I think my relationship to it has shifted and altered as I’ve shifted and altered, and that’s okay. But if I could give every writer out there one thing to just dwell on, it’s that mainstream publication and being paid for your writing is not the hallmark of your writing being valuable. At all. Your writing is valuable if it brings you joy and happiness. That is the *most* valuable writing. It’s fine to write for other people, but if you write because you like to write, then I just continue to believe that you can’t *only* write for other people. You would should write sometimes just for you, just what you want to read. And that might never be what mainstream publishing wants, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t any less remarkable. All writing is remarkable. All sentences on paper with your heart all caught up in them are amazing. Go, you. 

[candylani-draws]

When Evil Conquers YT - Chapter 2

Character List: https://candylani-draws.tumblr.com/post/177562446573/when-evil-conquers-youtube-character-list

Cover Art: https://candylani-draws.tumblr.com/post/177562290268/hey-peeps-im-so-excited-to-be-re-publishing

Wattpad Link: https://my.w.tt/rTElIdf6MP

Deviantart Link: https://www.deviantart.com/pandaserules97/gallery/67161703/When-Evil-Conquers-YouTube

(READ THIS FIRST!!) Important Notes: https://candylani-draws.tumblr.com/post/178727812658/when-evil-conquers-yt-important-notes-about-the

Prologue Link: https://candylani-draws.tumblr.com/post/178859191453/when-evil-conquers-yt-prologue

Chapter 1: https://candylani-draws.tumblr.com/post/178892439558/when-evil-conquers-yt-chapter-1

WARNING - This chapter uses high levels of offensive language, including insults and nasty comments about these certain Tubers. I obviously do not hate these people, this is just for story sake. If you feel that you are going to be offended by the words here, just skip to the end. Thanks!

Anon: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to announce my purpose for joining this occult!"

He leans down to inspect the pages, then opens the large book to the page he was looking for, a large slam echoed the rooms. In it lies a cell phone, and he pulls it out.

Anon: "Now, as I load my information, allow me to give some context. Most of you are aware of a popular video website called 'YouTube', correct?"

Lucifer: "You mean that stupid website that forbids copyrighted material and is full of pampering, self-absorbed morons?"

Anon: "Yes, exactly! And don't forget about ad revenue!"

His YouTube app has loaded, and he begins to search, both for his content, and in his notebook.

Anon: "Now then, I have four specific specimens who I believe deserve a bit of a punishment..."

Lucifer: "Ooh, what kind of punishment?"

Leader: "Have patience, Lucifer. We cannot have anything done if we rush into it..."

Anon: "Ah, here we are!"

Anon flips over several pages and reveals a large list of names.

Anon: "For 7 years, I've putting all of my time into this YouTube matter, finding out who and what is popular during different eras, and today, I have found the perfect victims. Now, if you look at this list, it reveals YouTubers that I wish to see be taken down by my command! Most of them are the gaming community, just a heads up."

The list was insanely long, and each of the names contained some sort of extra name beside it. From the looks of it, it seemed that Anon wanted to take these Tubers and...change their names? The first 4 caught everyone's eyes.

List of Dumbasses - 2016

1. VenturianTale → Jimmy Casket

2. JackSepticEye → AntiSepticEye

3. Markiplier → Darkiplier, Yandereplier, Authorplier, Googleplier

4. Pewdiepie → Lucius-pie

Anon: "Let's see here, ah! VenturianTale, the first channel on my list! To keep this simple, I'll make a demonstration and start off with the first four names, to warm us all up. If this is a success, we continue this tradition every October!"

He pulls up a video of some brunette man wearing a blue hoodie, screaming like a girl at some stupid animatronic animal jumpscare.

Anon: "Now then, here's out first Tuber, Venturian, aka Jordan Frye, a American guy who is known for playing Gmod and has 2.43 million subscribers. Even though that's not a large number compared to other channels, it still eludes me how a man in his 20s spends his time playing stupid mods with his retarded siblings. Yes, this isn't a solo channel, he has 3 other siblings who are equally guilty of this cringeworthy dungheep."

Random Occult Member 4: "No wonder they only have less than 3 million subscribers..."

Anon: "However, there is something that caught my attention from them during my studies...on their Gmod murder series, Venturian has created an original character named 'Jimmy Casket', a crazed murderer who happens to have some sort of personality disorder. It's a long, boring story as to why that is, but the point is...whenever Jordan plays as Jimmy, it seems to be one of the few times he goes insane and turns into someone else...someone dangerous...someone...evil.."

Random Occult Member 2: "Interesting..."

Anon: "Now, onto our next Tuber..."

Not even 3 seconds into the next video, and several of the Tubers covered their ears in pain from obnoxious singing and shouting. Luckily, Anon came prepared as he grabbed powerful earmuffs during his searching.

Anon: "Is the ear bleeding done?"

Everyone: "TURN THAT SHIT OFF!"

Anon: "With pleasure..."

Anon took off his earmuffs and paused the video. From the screen, and the audio, this Tuber is European man with bright green hair and a VERY loud personality.

Anon: "Our next Tuber is JackSepticEye, aka Sean McLoughlin, an Irish gamer with 12.36 million subscribers. I have no idea how the hell he's able to scream and shout for more than 20 minutes without a sore throat, but that is a gift he should never have been born with. This man is irritating, and he seems to overreact to every little fucking thing he plays! And he's friends with an eyeball that's LITERALLY septic! He's FRIENDS with a toxic fucking eyeball!"

Random Occult Member 2: "Greaaaaat, as if this man wasn't unlikable enough, now he's a gross slob..."

Anon: "...Riiight...now then, despite his annoyance, he also has a darker side to him that, this time, was created by his fanbase. Since his YouTuber name implies that he's all septic, it only makes sense that his dark side implies that he's antiseptic, and it's quite an irony. Recently, some of Jack's videos are giving canon appearances of this alter ego, and it helps give one a glimpse of what his true design looks like..."

Lucifer: "Ooh, now THAT is something I would KILL to see!"

Anon: "...Okaaaaay then...Next up is the pure definition of a manchild. Do not be fooled from his appearance."

The next Tuber who was on screen was an Asian-looking guy with an extremely American accent, red dyed hair, square glasses, and a skin tight shirt, playing some horror game about a rabbit.

Anon: "This here is Markiplier, aka Mark Fischbach, and this is another American Tuber here, with 14.55 million subscribers."

Random Occult Member 3: "Ooh, this guy has quite the bod..."

Anon: "Hey, remember what I said earlier? This person may look handsome on the outside, but inside, he's a scaredy-cat and...a bit of a crybaby...He's also really stupid."

Anon fast-forwarded the video, and the man screamed loudly and flew backwards in his seat, with his jaw dropped to the floor.

Anon: "See what I mean? Oh, and this guy seems to have a weird thing for boxes, considering he's friends with one."

Anon then clicks on another video with the man playing with some sort of small box creature with a big baby face and cartoony hands, and they're making stupid noises and faces.

Lucifer: "How in the hell did he even-?"

Anon: "It's best not to ask right now. Besides, I didn't get to the real meat here. Mark is unique, because he has not one alter ego, but FOUR!"

All Members: "FOUR?!"

Anon went into his photo album and pulled up a collage for 4 characters that looked eerily similar to the manchild.

Anon: "You heard me right, 4 alternate egos! The main one, and the most iconic, is his dark side named...Darkiplier...I know, hilarious. This ego has an interesting history. He originally started off as Mark trying to be "scary" to his audience, and this soon turned to a whole new persona. The last time Dark was seen canonically on-screen was a video named "relax", but I've been hearing rumors about the new appearance of Dark; it consisted something of him being all black-and-white, in a formal suit, and 3D effects..."

Lucifer: "Wouldn't that be cool to see?"

Anon: "Ha, tell me about it. Now then, the next persona is known as 'Googleplier', and this one is pretty recent. From Matthias' video 'Google IRL', Googleplier is a real-life Google machine who can answer any question, along with having an obsession with destroying mankind...to be honest, this one is my most favorite. Unfortunately, Googleplier has a retarded weakness against too many questions."

Nobody said a word, but they all seemed to have some sort of prediction that Anon is, in some way, similar to Googleplier's personality.

Anon: "Third one has a bit of 'style', if style meant a weeb who wants to kill everyone for their lover. This is 'Yandereplier', but I'm calling him Yandere Mark for short. For those who don't speak weeb, a yandere is a character in anime who acts nice but kills peers behind their love interest's back. Yandere Mark actually started once Mark started playing an indie game called 'Yandere Simulator'. Basically, the game is shit, and the developer seems like an asshole. But this persona has definitely intrigued me. To have a fake persona to hide your true identity from the one you love? Seems like the perfect ego to hide crimes."

From the weird smile/grimace on Anon's face, the group was wondering if Anon has dealt with a "yandere" before.

Anon: "Last persona is a lesser known one, but holds great promise. Meet Authorplier! Honestly, he doesn't have an official name besides 'The Author', but I'll be calling him Author Mark for now. This persona was created back in 2013 in a mini-series called 'Danger in Fiction'. Honestly, most of the videos consist of stupid, immature potty humor, but the parts that I find to be BRILLIANT is the character's appearance and his power to write stories to torture his victims. See, with Author Mark, he has a special book that plans out the victim's fate, and he wants the victim to follow it, or else he'll end them faster with his bat."

Lucifer: "Now THAT one is my favorite!"

Anon: "And FINALLY, the last YouTuber on this list is..."

Anon quickly went back to his YouTube app and typed away, and everyone was anticipating for who was the last Tuber.

Anon: "PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg! Not only is this guy the biggest gaming YouTuber, he is the biggest YouTuber of all time, having 48.17 MILLION subscribers!"

Random Occult Member 1: "48 million?!"

Random Occult Member 2: "He could have his own country with this many people!"

Lucifer: "This guy must be rich for playing games all day!"

Anon: "HOWEVER! I must point out that Felix does not play as many games as he used to in his hay day. Still though, he is no exception...the fact that this annoying Swedish man can entertain or cause controversy for stupid games or unlogical statements is beyond me. If there's one thing I cannot stand about him, it's his enormous ego, acting like he's a mighty god. He kind of reminds me another YouTuber, I think his name was Joke Pole, but he's not a gamer."

Random Occult Member 3: "What's Felix's alter ego?"

Anon: "Ooh, now this is a tricky one...see, Felix doesn't have an official persona like the others, especially since none of them have a canon appearance or voice. However, one I did choose is similar to Yandere Mark and Jimmy Casket, where this one is based off a game that Felix played named 'Lucius'. See, 'Lucius' was a game he played back in 2012, and it's about a boy with the powers of Satan; his main objective is to kill his family members without causing suspicion. For a while, people loved Felix playing as this demon-writhing kid, and he seemed to take on the personality quite well, although he had a strange obsession with a beach ball."

Leader: "I see..."

Anon: "And that's everything I wanted to say! I only have these personas, but these people have a SHIT ton of more personas than I could count, a lot of them were fucking stupid. I only chose the ones that caught my eye, which were coincidentally the popular ones."

Lucifer: "The power of shitty fanbases..."

Anon: "And this is only the start...once I make these personas a reality with a special recipe I have made, they will cause havoc, ruin the reputations of these YouTubers once and for all! These are only with 4, imagine what it would be like with every other YouTuber gamer, or YouTubers in general, big and small, destroying the platform and taking down Internet entertainment with it!"

Everyone gasped and stared in awe as Anon caught his breath from all his speaking.

Anon: "So...am I in?"

[hoodoo12]

a PSA, of sorts

[this post references Rick and Morty, but it spans them all. Just insert your own favorite fandom whenever you read it, and it applies to you]

⁂

This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a while. To keep it within the Rick and Morty fandom, I’d add a screengrab of “A Rickle in Time” with the popular Rick quote: “…you’re young, you’re unsure of your place in the universe…” etc. etc.

But this is serious. It’s meant to be a little bit of ‘rah rah you can do it” and also a little bit of tough love. It’s not meant to be insulting. My audience isn’t incredibly large, but I would like to speak to this anyway.

It’s to address fanfic writers.

I think most people get into fanfiction writing to get scenarios out of their brains. Obviously it’s a creative outlet. It can be fun. It can be incredibly frustrating. It can help explore feelings and different thought processes, and open new lines of thought, because there are no boundaries.

Specifically regarding Rick Sanchez, one of the appeals (to me) of his character is that within canon there is an infinite number of him. They may share some common characteristics, but they’re all not C-137. So a writer can write whatever Rick they want, push his buttons, see how he reacts; then with that bit of knowledge modify your behavior or push him further. 

Fanfiction should be fun: There are no deadlines to meet, no editor reading through your stories and “suggesting one teensy change” (that throws the whole thing off), no one forcing you to do it at all. It’s for you.

I know it’s been said over and over, but writing is personal. Yes, you can get prompts from people who request things you’d never considered. Yes, you can analyze your audience and put out something you believe will hit the mark. But the old adage, “write the story you want to read” is profoundly true. Whether or not people adore it as much as you do is hit or miss; you don’t have control over that. To use well-known, published authors writing a very similar theme as an example, Coraline by Neil Gaiman is wildly popular. Un Lun Dun by China Mieville is also an excellent book, but much less known. Why? I have no clue. It is what it is. 

It took me a bit of time to find my voice in the R&M fandom. Other people write in a different style. With different purpose. Their expression of Rick is different than mine. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy their works; it doesn’t mean I’m not envious of their abilities! But I am comfortable with what I write. Differences don’t mean I’m threatened; they’re just differences.

Now, to address younger writers, or writers with less experience, or writers with less confidence:

Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone has stumbling blocks. If you stick at it long enough, you’ll look back and see that the stumbling blocks became stepping stones.

Most young writers (“young” meaning age and/or experience) write things that the cold, indifferent internet will lambast you for. Mary Sues. Exhausted, boring plots. Canon characters being written OOC. It happens. A very large majority of writers do that at first. Self-inserts are easy. The trick is to write it so it’s interesting to other people. (If you don’t think I imagine myself between two SEAL Team Ricks when I write it, you’re 100% wrong!)

The internet is a wonderful, amazing thing that brings people together from all over the globe. The internet is also a clown-town-fuck-the-world-shit-show that brings people you’d never want to meet in real life into your bedroom. So you’re going to get support, and you’re going to get criticized.

But!

Print is the most unreliable source of information. Period.

Reading words on a screen is the most notorious way to infer meaning incorrectly. There is no sarcasm font. There is no true way of knowing if someone is being truthful, kind, sincere—or on the flip side, dishonest or sarcastic. Satire comes across as malicious. Something that was meant to be parody is read as vicious.

Writing isn’t easy. It can be fun, but it isn’t easy. It’s putting a shard of your soul out there. It hurts when it feels like you’re being attacked. It’s discouraging when you feel like you’re being belittled.

However, to finally use an appropriate Rick quote,

“It’s your choice to take it personally.”

If you want to write stories where the main character is a magical elf who seduces Rick, have at it! If you want to write stories where Rick is a flying llama-corn, do it! If you want to write PWP, be my guest! If you want to write gripping, emotional roller-coaster sagas, please do! If you want to write deep, philosophical character studies, by all means, yes!

Then post them, or not. The choice is yours. The power is yours. If what you write is for your eyes only, then enjoy it privately. You obviously know that if something is posted, people may remark on it—good or bad. If something seems harsh, your choices are to respond to it, or ignore it.

Authors will tell you they need to write. People who think they want to write need to write. It’s hard not to compare yourself to others (that’s human nature!), but the only way to get better or find your voice is to do it.

I strongly support new authors. As old as I am, I remember how tough it was to put my works out there! Being supportive doesn’t mean I’m going to love every little thing that everyone creates—I stay away from wattpad, for example—but I will encourage new authors to keep going. Stretch those writing muscles. Just like physical exercise, it hurts. But eventually you can build your strength up enough to tear phone books in two (I’m dating myself with a “phone book” reference, I know!); eventually prose comes more naturally too. There will still be doubts. There will still be stories that miss the mark. But you gain confidence and enjoy what you’re doing because you’re doing it, for you.

Now get out there and write. The world needs more fanfiction.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN EXTENT

The best of these explorations are sometimes more pleasing than stuff made explicitly to please. 45 81:56 when the list was first published in 1982 to. For the same reason Chicago investors are more conservative than Silicon Valley investors for the same reason that the probably apocryphal violinist, whenever he was asked to judge someone's playing, would always say they didn't have enough talent to make it, and so on, and the further you project into the future, places that don't have startups will be a minority squared. In fact I think you only need two kinds of people to have ideas. And markets are usually centralized. And I think there will be people who take a risk and use it. Writing application programs used to mean the control of vast human and material resources. I'm pretty sure the answer is a simple yes, but it seems a good way to find new ideas. But whatever the reason, starting a startup could give us something of the old Moore's Law back, by writing software that could make a large number of high-paying union job a myth, but I didn't learn any magical truths compared to which everything else was mere domain knowledge. There seem to be afraid of him, starting with the assumption that everyone will just be honest. Start with something you know works, and when there's only one acquirer, they don't have to be able to set up technology parks in other places, as if you have to do with anything as complex as an image of a very ambitious German presses a button or two, doesn't it?

In other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth. All they knew was that they were started there. 2 of the traditional English delight in obscure codes that only insiders understand. If SETI home works, for example. We get startups airborne. It also means no one university will be good for writing server-based software likewise has to be good for writing throwaway programs, because that is the future, places that don't have startups will be a great thing never to be wrong is to be only a few with the wrong sort of ambition, but they sounded like they were talking about something important. I don't feel like I have to bother being diplomatic with a British audience. The way to win here is to use the length of a program is being written, and this variation is one of Silicon Valley's biggest advantages is its venture capital firms. In the long term, that could be a bad thing for New York.

Professional athletes know they'll be pulled if they play badly for just a couple lines of code? The EU was designed partly to simulate a single, large domestic market. Google employees to focus on the grooves in the chocolate bar—the places where tasks are divided when they're split between several people. I admit that it is the Internet, they can start to grow themselves actual audiences. For outsiders this translates into two ways to win. Will there be a phone in your palm pilot? But when I consider what it would feel like to program in languages without macros, just as for tax revenues. Instead of trying to discover them because they're useful.

That raises the activation energy to start a rapidly growing market, you don't need to. I thought they helped. You seem to be able to decrease without having to think about where the evolution of programming languages. Yahoo acquisition was announced in June 1998 I took a snapshot of Viaweb's site. VCs had the first shot at them. Among other things it gives you another source of ideas: look at big companies don't realize the extent to which they live in an environment that is one large, ongoing test for the wrong qualities. When we were in grad school in Boston, a friend of mine once got in trouble with the government for breaking into computers.

Like the rest of the creative class in general. Newton's Principia is, but my guess is that a restrictive language is one that isn't succinct enough. And when people seem to miss most is the lack of time. Suppose there were some program you wanted to start a startup. Some arrive feeling sure they will ace Y Combinator as they've aced every one of the organizers got up on the radar screen may be different from what happens in the next twenty years will be looking for, most of the work is so interesting that this is concealed, because what other people want. Conversely, a town must have an intact center. Like the rest of the creative class in general. A lot of doctors worry that if you have to make money. You had to grow fast or die. Unfortunately not. He called this language Lisp, for List Processing, because one of his key ideas was to use a forum with a lot of creative people, but diluted by a much larger number of neanderthals in suits. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand.

Some of the problems change. He just wanted to talk to his girlfriend in Taiwan without paying for long distance calls, and since you have to work at something for a tenth or a hundredth of what it used to cost, and the problem gets worse. I think this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was an expert on networks it seemed obvious to him that the way to an IPO, just as everyone knows that if you tried to become a mathematician, or a market to supply evolutionary pressures. The evolution of languages differs from the evolution of programming languages is more like the rate of evolution in mathematical notation than, say, $2 million, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the money. It wouldn't be surprising if it were all like school and big companies, where you sit passively and watch as a plot happens. How important is it? This is all to explain how Plato and Aristotle can be very impressive and yet naive and mistaken. But if you look at the history of programming languages is like designing a society on the assumption that everyone will drive flying cars, that zoning laws will be relaxed to allow buildings hundreds of stories tall, that it will take over your life for a long time it was most of making things easier. I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting what I do for my privat satisfaction or leave to come out after me. A question doesn't seem so challenging. But a program written in Lisp especially once you cross over into ramen profitable, it completely changes your relationship with investors.

He's at ease. It's merely the adjective form of I don't like it. I won't repeat it all here. And why isn't it older? After further testing, it turned out not to be had for the asking. Since that seems to be something that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that is not that Intel or Apple or Google have offices there, but I feel safe in predicting that whatever they have now, it wouldn't take genius to do better. There is no good answer. They also know that big projects will by their sheer bulk impress the audience. The problem is not to say naivete about them that suggests some of the ways cities send you messages are quite subtle. A user on Hacker News recently posted a comment that set me thinking: Something about hacker culture that never really set well with me was this—the nastiness. I'm not saying founders with families should uproot them to move. This may not be an alternate route to innovation that goes through obedience and cooperation instead of individualism?

It certainly is possible for individual programs to be debuggable? Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live. What people delete are wisecracks, because they were laid out before cars, and they're surrounded by about 20 other colleges and universities. Just hang around a lot and gradually start doing things for them. Should you do it right, you may at least pause before making them. This doesn't mean they have to deal with other people's broken code. Of course the habits of mind is to ask, could one open-source languages like Perl and Python because people are using them to write Windows apps. So saying startups should move to Silicon Valley. Someone who does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by taking up your time afterward thinking about it.

Thanks to Carolynn Levy, Gary Sabot, and John Collison for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[periakman]

A Loose Amateur Compilation to Good Writing Community Guidelines

Everyone wants to create a space where writers can kick back and ooze with creativity, be it a club an irc channel, a discord server, a skype group, or something different. And the fact is, it’s harder than just starting up a group, providing a link, and letting people pour in, so let’s look at some basics...

What Do You Want This Community to Be?

  -   There is more than one type of writing to exist. Most of the young folk online are usually in the midst of writing their big sci fi/fantasy epic. But that’s not everyone. Some people write nonfiction. Some people do it as a 9-5. Some people only ever want to write poetry. Figure out what type of people you want to attract. Decide if you want to accommodate a wide spread of people, or if you want to focus on one specific aspect.    -   There is more than one type of writing community to exist. Some are just for encouraging writing. You give your word counts. You engage in writer sprints. You cheer each other on. You gripe when something doesn’t work. Others are more about gushing and celebrating. You might not have anything written down, but you love your oc and want to share that love. Others are about research, ironing out problems, or maybe getting in depth feedback.  Decide what type of writing community you want, or if you want to take on multiple aspects    -   Don’t overclutter. It’s easy enough to decide you want a catch all server, but unless you have a pre-made base audience, it can very easily turn into a situation where you only get a few casually passionate people about a bunch of topics who have no desire to interact with each other. Additionally, while “bigger is better” might be your goal, keep in mind that not every service can actually keep up with a large group of people. You can’t have a “everyone gets a turn at being given criticism” if there are more people in a group than there are minutes in your free time.    -   There is no “every community has this” truth. If you think something exists in every community, you are wrong. Not every community has a problem child. Not every community has terrible flame wars. Not every community has trolls. When you’re creating a community, it’s on you to moderate. It’s on you to decide what you don’t. As some quick and obvious things to consider:        -   Slurs (written or discussed)        -   Traumatic Situations (written or discussed)        -   Off Topic Conversations        -   Therapy/Comfort        -   Harsh Criticism        -   Drama Importation/Exportation

   -   How do you plan on accomplishing this? If you want a community with Super Serious Published Writers, maybe don’t just post a link for anyone to join. If you want a casual server but with a polite atmopshere, maybe don’t post it in a place known for abrasive and divisive opinions. If you want to create a community for people you have no contact with (I’m a creative person with no creative friends! How do I find them D:!) then you might want to consider joining other people’s groups. Get a lay of the land. See how they do things. Meet people, befriend them, build your base, etc.    Additionally, think about the other things you want! Make sure each thing you want has a planned strategy. Don’t just say you want it and hope it comes, research into it!

What Is Required Of You As A Leader?

   -   Moderation! You are the one who decides who comes and who goes. If two people jump into a fierce argument, you are responsible for settling it, and even if it gets resolved, making sure it doesn’t happen again (unless you WANT fierce arguments). Remaining neutral is not a boon here, but being fair and unbiased is of tantamount importance. If you don’t think you’re capable of doing this, recruiting someone else is a good idea.

   -   Catalyzing! People are easily distracted and are not obligated to contribute. Figure out easy ways you can ignite your chat with fresh new topics. Merely posting a million writing prompts isn’t going to help. If you are busy and don’t want to do such a thing, then once again, recruiting people who will do this is a good thing. If done right, this will self propel by itself, but you need to lay that initial spark.

   -   Positive Role Enforcement! We’re all humans, and we’re all flawed. If a random newcomer says “ugh I hate everyone who likes Naruto! Why can’t they all just Stop LoL”, then most naruto fans will take umbrage, but probably not necessarily go to war about it. If a mod or a leader says it, it can take a very different tone. By being the leader, you have power. That doesn’t mean you can’t be mean or negative or weird or stupid. but it means you should figure a way to clearly distinguish yourself when you’re “on” and “off” and realize that if you are the type to speak bombastically or harshly, it could affect potential nervous newbies. 

   -   Cultural Enforcement! If you want a culture where everyone gives detailed feedback, you need to give detailed feedback. If there’s a queue, you cannot jump the queue. Live the status you want to see everyone else do. If there are exceptions (such as if you are dedicating a server to your work specifically) clarify and write it out clearly.    -   Communication! Do you have dreams of a large spanning community, with subcategories and many moderators? Or do you just want to not have to read every single line that is written? Well, communication is your friend! Specifically, vertical communication! If someone complains about something that goes on in the community, will it reach your ears? and also, horizontal communication! If you have multiple authorities (or perhaps are doing a collab with other communities), does information hit all parallel groups? Now, in small groups this is fairly easy to deal with, but keeping these basic ideas in mind for measuring success of information distribution can be a great rule of thumb.

What Actions Are Detrimental to the Community?

Now, for this section, I’d like to draw your attention to a little thing called “Benne and Sheats’ Group Roles.”  It can give a great quick example of how there are different ways to contribute to a community, and how to tear it down. It’s honestly a nifty little way to think of people, and while it doesn’t provide all the answers, it can give options you hadn’t even thought of! With that out of the way, let’s talk toxicity! But as a general disclaimer, these actions don’t mean the person should be banned, or that the actions are detrimental all the time. Just that they can be if not done in a pre-agreed manner. And this doesn’t cover everyone, but it covers some of the bigger issues I’ve seen.    -   The Self Server: The one who will provide mountains of information about their own story, lovingly detailed and lovingly explained, but will often falter when other people’s writing comes up, or anything that doesn’t involve them. Online, this can often result in personal messaging out of the blue, where they will encourage newbies to read their work, even if they have no intention of doing the same in turn.    Self Serving can show up in truly toxic people who just want the praise and attention, but also can show up in people who are well intentioned. They want attention, and don’t know how to get it, so they go through the only thing that’s a technical success, not realizing the awkward position they put everyone else in. Many might also have social issues, and not know how to give people attention that they desire. Having some default sentence starters can be useful here. As an example:       “I like your X thing. It’s similar to my thing, Y. I like my Y because Z reasons. Anyway, Question about your X?”     It is also important to recognize that everyone shows their attention differently. Some might be willing to listen, but not feel so good about commenting and complimenting. Others might show their support in paying money, but never mention it. When dealing with this action, it’s important to codeify what others require in order to feel validated, and the best way to go about validating someone who might have counter-intuitive values.    -   The Drama Starter: They start arguments. They complain. They whine. They never quite do much else, but whenever they type something up, it’s sure to start drama. They might not even ever discuss what they’re writing, but boy are they Suffering (tm).     Toxic Drama Starters are people who usually want to get attention, but also want to feel vindicated in some way. They are about being right and being told they are right. More well intentioned drama starters probably have a lot of going on in their life, with no idea on how to solve it. So they vent, and vent, and vent. The words help them form a frame of reference, and maybe a way to rationalize it in their head. Unfortunately, if all someone contributes to a community is constant complaining (unless it is, of course, a community based on complaining), then it will rarely turn out to be productive. These are the ones who seem to always start fights, even if they don’t intend to.     It’s worth heavily moderating people who keep starting unwanted fights. You don’t have to ban them, but you have to uphold a standard of rules. Some people improve, some people don’t. Use your own judgment.

   -   The Con Artist: They’re going to start a huge project. They’ve started it already, in fact. It’s going to be huge. They’ll get famous. And when they do they’ll totally hire you to contribute! In fact, why don’t you do something now? The ideas are solid and of course they’re writing it. Of course, at some point, the information dies down. And then there’s nothing. Maybe a chapter comes out, maybe it doesn’t. And then they resurface, a new idea, a new passion, and a new enthusiasm to drum people up with.    At best, a con artist is just someone who has no solid work ethic but strong passions. They honestly mean every word they say, and feel terrible guilt about the pile of old projects left behind. At worst, well, they’re an actual literal con artist. The latter is someone who does not belong in a community, the former is someone who can exist, but needs to be informed of their cycle. It can be tough, of course, to find the line between “happily gushing about new project” and “gushing about a doomed project to the point of community detriment.”  In the end, it’s up to the community to decide what they want to tolerate, but also up to the community to make sure other newcomers don’t get swept up in a wave that will come crashing far more shortly than they thought.

   -   The Elitist: There is a tiered system in writing. On the top are the mainstream famous writers. They don’t actually exist, but we know they do. Then you have the successful writers, who people might  know of, but are unknown by the common populace. Sometimes you might meet them briefly. You keep going down the rungs, and you hit “published author who sold three copies” and keep going further down to “person with ten WIPS with not a page written” and finally to things like “fanfiction” and “roleplay” and “popular posts on the internet”.     This system is completely arbitrary. There is no form of writing or existence in writing that is truly “better” although I think we’d all prefer to be in a situation that made our bank accounts better. Despite the arbitrariness, there are people who will hold their hearts to it, or to some tiered equivalent. And that is where, of course, elitism comes in.    Elitism can show up in any category. No matter how lowly or equal. There is always a way to be Better. It’s something humans are incredibly good at, unfortunately. And it’s an extremely detrimental aspect to any community, especially if it’s growth focused.    Toxic Elitists are exactly what they look like. They want to feel better, and they don’t want to help others. While there’s nothing wrong with admitting a community might not be proper for someone of a certain skill level, there is of course a polite way to do this and a rude way. Additionally, many “innocent” elitists might be younger folk, or people who never bothered to interact with a group, and are just spouting off pre-canned lines that they never considered the implications of. Merely informing someone of this can be a very easy way to offset the toxicity.    Additionally, things like age and having english as a second language can also set off issues with elitism. For instance, a twenty six year old might be at a loss as to how to interact with a thirteen year old, and vice versa, especially in the world of the internet where it’s not immediately known. These situations are complicated and require personalized and contextualized moderation.

   -   The Judge: All Love Triangles are badly written, they say. It’s common knowledge, so it must be true. There’s no debate or discussion around it, it’s just correct. This person has learned the tools and tricks of writing, but has no concept of what it’s actually like to fruitfully discuss something. This one is fairly simple, and can easily go hand in hand with the Drama Starter. It’s bad arguing, and it’s not helpful.    Toxic Judges are ones who refuse to admit they’re wrong, or that their world view is anything but all knowing. More innocent ones might be honestly perplexed as to how things could go differently, or are employing clumsy arguing tactics they developed without the self awareness to realize how or why they work.   It is a good idea to try and inform people of when they fall into this, and encourage them not to make such objective statements. Maybe don’t say something is obviously bad when someone else was just talking about how much they liked it. Maybe don’t dismiss a work with “oh this is romance it’s obviously bad” etc. A community will only improve when nuance in opinions is accepted.    -   The Single Issue Wonker: The person who is way too interested in one Specific Thing. Perhaps it’s a sexual interest, perhaps it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with liking something passionately. But if taken to an extreme, it can mean every conversation is a derailment waiting to happen. It doesn’t matter how mundane the interest is, if forced unnecessarily, it will eventually cause discomfort to the community at large, unless that is something everyone loves together.    This is a tough one to deal with. Most of us are nerdy folk. We have the things we love, and want chances to gush. There are also many neurodivergencies that can lend itself to creating an environment where you do have a Very Specific Interest, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! However, in a community, striking a balance is important, and making it so that all facets of the community’s goals can be discussed and interacted with is what will help it live longer.     The other common form of this is the “fetishist” so to speak. They are clearly sexually turned on by something specific, and are going to constantly showcase it. This is semi understandable. Many people have sexual interests, and folks have a right to depict it in ways that satisfy those interests. However, constantly bringing it up, or using a writing server as a masturbation area is rather rude, for multiple reasons.     Even if there is an “nsfw” section, not all nsfw categories are about things being sexy, and it’s crucial to figure things like that before dumping those interests in such a category. And even if it IS about the sexy things, it is still good to allow others chances to exist in their own sexy canons, without necessarily adding a specific one to the mix.    In short, if someone’s interest in something specific is eclipsing the point of the community, it needs to be addressed.

   -   The Wounded Heart and the Hurtful Heart: Two sides of the same toxic coin. This one is one we all know, so I will be brief. Either they take criticism too harshly, even if they beg for it, or they give it far too cruelly for it to be considered anything but bashing. Sometimes they are even the same person. Maybe they want to give up writing, maybe they want you to give up writing, maybe it’s just a giant dramatic blur and everyone is confused.    At the end of the day, if someone cannot emotionally handle the guidelines you set, then you have to either consider changing your rules, or dealing with the person in question. Everyone needs to learn how to give and take feedback, but not every community is conducive to that environment, and not every person is conducive to actually learning.

On the Topic Of Feedback    -   What Is Feedback? The golden question for all communities. Define what your feedback is! Recognize that not all people want the same feedback! Some people just want emotional responses! Some people want their execution to be looked at. Others want their actual ideas to be criticized. Some want criticism. Others also want criticism, but their definition of criticism is completely different than the other person, and now they’re fighting. Define your feedback! Force other people to also define their feedback! Some ways to clarify:       -   Where are you looking to improve with sharing your work       -   What problem areas do you think there are?       -   Do you want grammatical feedback?       -   Do you want content feedback?       -   Do you want the sandwich method (compliment-critique-compliment), or do you just want straight honesty?

   -   Speaking of the Sandwich method! it’s a very well known tactic and is quite useful if you are just starting out and don’t know how to word things. It’s very simple, you say something you like. You say something they need to work on. You say something else you like. It can be a great method if you have something you need to convey and don’t want to hurt someone.    With that being said, there are some issues with this method once you get into tougher and more nuanced issues. For instance, if a story has something that must be addressed (maybe it’s unreadable, maybe it depicts a graphic scene that you were not warned about), sandwiching such a complaint will probably not be as helpful. It also can create a sort of false equivocation between the sentences, or just make the whole thing seem strange.  As an example:    “I think the story is clearly very passionate. Also your worldbuilding, characters, plot, and grammar all need a lot of work. I like the names you picked for your character, very unique.”     Would just be strange and demeaning. So while it’s not always a good structure to use for everyone, it’s a way to start.

   -   Recognize Premise v. Execution when giving feedback. This is a very specific sort of advice, but for people just starting out, it can be hard to understand the difference between going “this is why I dislike it” and going “this is why it’s going to be disliked even by people who want to like this.” One mentality to really drive home is that when you’re giving feedback, it’s to help the writer, not to help you read it. So you are helping them achieve what they want to achieve. If they want to write some strange story where bunnies are actually aliens and the main character dies a a third of the way in, only to be replaced with an omniscient narrator, then your goal should not be to dissuade them from writing that, your goal should be to help them turn that into something readable.    You can still of course say “I don’t think this premise will work without serious reworking” but in order to give good feedback, you need to accept whatever internal core exists for the story, and starting from there.

   -   Some people don’t want feedback. Some people just want to share. It is up to the community to decide what’s the norm. Should feedback be expected unless told not to give it? or should feedback be only allowed when asked for? What’s the difference between idle negative observation and negative feedback?

   -   Decide how feedback will be given. The general rule is “look at the thing above you and then post yours.” Others do queues, where no one is allowed to post until X amount of opinions are posted. Personally I try and employ a “2 for 1″ philosophy. You must give your opinions on 2 things (if possible) before posting up yours. This means there’s less of a tit-for-tat going on, and it means there will always be more feedback than posting.    There is a downside to this, obviously. It means people who don’t feel comfortable feedback won’t be posting. To which, you as a community maker need to have a decision. What is important to you when setting up your system of feedback? People feeling comfortable posting something, even if they might not ever get anyone looking at it, or people who will get feedback, but it might be disjointed and half-hearted, in a rushed attempt to just post theirs?    Now, this ignores the best possible ending. That people will give feedback willingly and in abundance. Now, to be honest, that is rarely going to happen. Usually it just means that one or two people give all the feedback, and other folks just keep producing content without bothering to contribute, because they know someone else will deal with the feedback.    One strategy some communities employ is by making sure they’re also recruiting people who love to read and edit, but this falls into another issue...

   -   Remember that giving feedback is a skill. Not just a skill, one that people get actively paid to do. That means when you are asking for feedback, you are asking for someone’s time, energy, and brain power. And you’re doing it for free. Art, music, these things can be consumed in sets amount of time, very easily. Reading someone’s manuscript is homework. Even the action of excitedly telling you someone about your work involves paying attention and keeping track of a bunch of fictional facts to form a story you’ve never read inside the confines of your brain.    The people who are best at giving feedback are being paid to do it. You are probably not paying people. So you must adjust considerations accordingly. Relying on a few people can make those people feel unloved. Forcing everyone into one standard might end up becoming actual homework and actual unpaid labor. It is unfortunate, but at the end of the day, despite how important feedback is to a writer, no one is obligated to run a whole marathon just to help with what is put forward.

   -   This is ultimately the double bind I see in a lot of communities. What it devolves into is a chaotic sprawl where no one gets feedback, but everyone wants it, and giving it can be a bit of a nightmare. This is why guidance is so important, especially if you want a feedback focused community. In the beginning, it does mean doing a lot of legwork yourself, at least until people realize what they can get out of it. This is why I personally prefer structures where effort must be put in before you get to put up your work for feedback. In Conclusion   -   The most important philosophy to take into account is that Good Faith and Not Taking Any BullCrap can exist in a mutually beneficial relationship. There will be many people who want to write, all of varying desires and oddities. Accepting people’s desires in good faith is imperative to a healthy community, and for others to do the same. But at the same time, to know what a problem looks like, and how to seamlessly remove it, without causing issue.    Trust that the people you encounter want to be happy in your community, that they want to grow and improve. But do not blindly believe it in the face of contradicting evidence. As a reminder, do check out the benne and sheats group roles linked above, as it does provide more broad overviews of positive ways to contribute on a general level and personal level, and more common issues that can show up in any group, not just writing. Writing is an incredible experience, and naturally we want to share it with other writers. We want to be in that community of nerds, all gaggled together chuckling about our injokes. And there is nothing wrong with that, but every community needs active positive influence, or it will crumble. It’s like a plant, or a pet. You can’t just say that because it’s alive and healthy now it will always be alive and healthy. Your job is not done. It’s only just beginning.

[wesleybates]

How to Make Infographics (and the Best Tools to Help)

The modern marketing landscape is the Internet full of content authors all vying for the same broad audience. The path to building organic reach is paved with a variety of different types of content — all hoping to be found, liked, and shared. This, combined with our increasingly short attention span ( Thanks, Snapchat!) can make it complicated for content curators to reach their ideal following.

Often 8 seconds is all you get to make an impression on someone and grab their attention.This means your content marketing strategy needs appealing and engaging visual content to stand out from the competition.

What Is an Infographic?

What is an infographic exactly? The easy infographic definition is a piece of content that is an artistic representation of data and information using different visual elements including images, graphs, diagrams, text, timelines, lists and other analytic facts and figures. According to data expert, Bernard Marr,  “Infographics allow us to tell a more complete story of the data and are more engaging than most traditional ways of communicating data and information. The focus of good infographics is always on communicating insights.”

Before learning how to make infographics, it’s essential to understand the building blocks of this particular medium. While these graphics should absolutely be aesthetically pleasing and eye-grabbing, it’s important to remember that the goal of an infographic is to share valuable and helpful data that speaks to the viewer.

Breakdown of a Quality Infographic

Before you can create an infographic you have to understand the various elements that, when brought together, make a powerful impact.

When a client sends me a request for an infographic, the biggest hurdle is the content. Infographics work best when they have clear and focused content. The jumble of information, crammed together, can easily become a confusing mess if thought isn’t put into establishing clarity within the design. For best results, the graphic needs to be broken into easily digestible chunks that flow and transition in all the right ways.

What could be included in an infographic?

Quality vector or photograph images

Graphs, pie charts, bar charts

Maps and flow-charts

Raw data, statistics, analytical comparisons

Typographical elements

Poll or survey results

Tips related to a specific topic or result

Instructions or steps (how-to)

It’s OK to share the message in multiple ways — making a pie chart and a line graph to show the data in two different ways vs. trying to make one super complex image or chunk of unappealing text is perfectly acceptable.

Size is also a popular question and not one with a specific answer. Infographics, by nature, need to be larger than traditional images to incorporate all the necessary data. Also, images that stand out won’t fit the traditional mold—imitating similar pieces won’t make that happen. 

There are no hard and fast dimension rules when it comes to building an infographic. However, images that become TOO large are hard to view and nearly impossible to share successfully. While there is no right or wrong answer, Kissmetics recommends a limit length of 8,000 pixels and a max file size of 1.5 MB to reduce load times.

We keep ours to under 600k when possible, and typically start with 600px wide for vertical layouts. Below are a few of the infographics we have created in the past for our clients.You’ll notice that each section has a clear visual break, the content is easy to digest and not deendant on other sections. The graphic style, color, and typography all relate to the topic (and the brand) which allows the user to quickly determin the topic before reading the content.

How Do You Create an Infographic?

Once you know what you want to say, it’s time to figure out how to put it together. First, do you need a graphic designer or can you make your own infographic? Knowing how to create infographics isn’t the same as having the ability to get it done. It’s important to understand your strengths, and design isn’t something that everyone has the talent or desire to accomplish.

Whether you are going to do the design in-house or not, it’s helpful to have a purpose for the design, a breakdown of desired content, and sources for data/analytics. This is a great starting point for you or a designer.

Have A Purpose for Your Infographic:

What idea are you trying to communicate with your audience? What impact will sharing this information have in their daily lives? How will your brand benefit in return for creating and sharing this information? Knowing how to build an infographic is one thing but understanding the potential ROI has greater benefits than just shooting a concept out there and hoping for the best. This means coming up with an infographic that is both engaging and useful.

Generate Quality Content for Your Infographic:

Before graphical elements can be created, the data and text need to be drafted. Are the stats reliable? Do you have dependable sources? Is the information valuable? How does all the content flow or blend together? Do you have transitions from one set of data to another that are simple and make sense? Creating a simple bullet point outline (with all content proofed and edited) will help your infographic take shape before you even think about what colors to use.

Design Your Infographic:

Here’s where you get to play around with the various design elements. Be certain that you are using images with good resolution… nothing pixelated or blurry. Also, make sure you have permission to use the images. Copyright infringement can get pretty expensive, pretty quickly. Ensure that the chosen colors do not clash and that every single element of the design is easy to view and easy to understand. Don’t forget whitespace!! If you fill up every single inch of your image it comes across as cluttered and hard to read. A good designer understands the value of white space.

Infographic Tools & Resources

There are a ton of resources available for helping you create an infographic. Keep in mind, even the best tools don’t have the same sense of graphic design as an experienced professional. They often also give novices too many options which translate often into designs that are not concise or clear and often cluttered. However, if budget is paramount and you have your mind set on giving it a go — here are some infographic design tools for you to look at.

Canva: The perfect tool for people who can’t design. This is a popular, free infographic tool for creating easily and quickly regardless of design experience and ability. They have their own drag and drop infographic creator. If you are already using Canva to design your social media graphics, this tool is a no brainer.

Easel.ly: This website exists solely as an infographic design tool. They claim to have created over 4,000,000 infographics so far with 1,000s of templates to choose from. They have a video showcasing how they solve the DIY infographics problem.

Vennage: Not a designer? No problem. Whether you’re creating infographics, presentations, reports or social media visuals, the Vennage customizable free infographic templates will help you create a design in a few clicks.

Piktochart: another tool for non-designers. When it comes to infographic tools, Piktochart is an online tool for creating visually-appealing, fully-customizable infographics, yet remains straightforward to use, even for non-designers.

Business 2 Community put together a large list of 21 tools to help create engaging infographics including size cheat sheets and resizers, gif and screenshot tools, backgrounds and patterns, color palette tools and more.

Feel like you still need guidance? Hubspot offers free templates and a simple process for creating your first infographic in 15 minutes.

Be aware that some of the best tools may require a subscription or cost. Unless you are planning to churn out the infographics on a fairly regular basis, it might be best to hire a designer instead.

If you have your content nailed down, and even maybe a rough sketch, then your design costs will be minimal. An expert with knowledge in infographic design can create stunning results with just a bit of information and a few hours of time. And, the likelihood of your infographic being shared skyrockets when you hire a professional designer.

Benefits of Creating Memorable Infographics

Does this seem like a lot of effort? Perhaps, especially if you are attempting to do all of it on your own. However, the benefits of creating memorable infographics are what makes this approach so popular.

[easy-tweet tweet=”Infographics are liked/shared on social media 3X more than any other visuals. ” user=”phasesdesign” template=”dark”]

One of the major struggles of digital marketing today is gaining traction with organic reach. Creating quality content isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Infographics are valuable because they grab attention, share information in a concise manner, and they are easy to share! They will increase your company’s presence, brand awareness, and reach.

Sharing infographics also help with SEO since the algorithms love it when content is popular and being shared by others. Links, sharing, comments… they are the backbone of a solid SEO strategy… driving traffic to your website and social media platforms.

Publishing & Promoting Your Designs

The error that too many companies make is spending time, money and effort creating quality content and then not implementing a way to promote it. Once your design is ready, it’s time to share it with the world!

Have a strategy for publishing and promoting your infographic.

Social media is a great place to start. Pinterest is a haven for infographics and is definitely a place to publish your work. Write up a blog post around your image and then promote it whenever, or wherever, you can.

Don’t forget to repurpose the content. You could create a short video talking about the content, create a Slideshare document, or pull out specific elements and use them separately in your social media. Get the maximum benefit when it comes to sharing the information you’ve taken the time to pull together.

Unfortunately, the one big drawback of infographics is the fact that, as an image, the text and information in the design cannot be crawled by the search engines and used for SEO purposes. The good news is that you can modify the information in the image to be SEO-friendly. I go into the details of how to make your infographic 

SEO-friendly in this article.

Don’t forget to make it easy to share! Size is a major factor here. Also, if you are posting on social be sure the post is set to public so your audience can share anywhere and everywhere. If you post it on your blog or website, incorporate a widget designed to make the image easy to forward on to others.

Are you sold on infographics yet? Great! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. If you love the idea but are feeling overwhelmed by the implementation, let us know. Hiring a Web Designing Services Aurora, CO could save you a massive headache and also achieve some pretty stellar results for your brand!

[chibisquirt]

I have been asking people questions from these every time I see them on my dash because it's fun, so forgive me if I asked you any of these in a previous round.... FIC MEME: 10 (Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?), 30 (What inspires you to write?), 51(Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!)

I reblog these things pretty often, but you know, I almost never get many questions about them?  This time, though, I’ve gotten THREE asks, which I think is record!  *happy dances*

@the-flightoficarus asked for 51 as well, after first sending: 

1. 10. 19. 22. 31. 37. 41. 42. 44. 46. for the ask game!!! 

So!

1 What was the first fandom you got involved in?

That depends on how you define “fandom”.  The first thing I was a fan of was probably... Power Rangers?  Maybe?  And I also really liked Valdemar and Witch World around the same time?  But I didn’t “get involved” with other fans, even passively, until Gundam Wing, I would say.  Although--for years I’ve said that FAKE was the first fanfic I ever wrote, but in retrospect I think it was actually Valdemar.  I think there was a huge-ass Valdemar fanfic I blocked out in there, but I never published or shared it, so it kind of doesn’t count.  Harry Potter was the first fandom where I produced content, including reviews.

10 Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?  

Leverage, because I’m terrible with the cons.  Also Goblin Emperor, because the linguistics scare me.  And the very specific ship-fandom of Where In The World, which may or may not be the real ship name but if I find it, I’ll read it (which is sort of thematically appropriate).

19   Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?  

Rhodey/Tony.  It *should* work, it makes *sense*, but... I just don’t go there!  *baffled shrug*

22   Is there anything you regret writing?

I regret... actually, no.  I almost said, “I regret spending 120,000 words on my SBB considering no one actually read it,” but a) that’s just me being salty and b) it’s not true.  That fic exorcised some fuckin’ demons for me, and I’m glad I wrote it.  Especially that scene in chapter... four or five, don’t remember which, but the one that’s just incredibly painful?  That shit is based on my (failed, failed, failed) marriage, I needed to write that.

Actually, I take it back, there is something I regret writing:  after my ex-husband and my penultimate breakup, I started a text file on my computer titled “Why I Miss Dean” and just went off in it.  I probably should not have done that.

But the things I should be “ashamed” of?  The cheesy teenager fic, the shit I never finished in the DC fandom, the fanfiction-of-fanfiction that is my first posted work on AO3?  No, fuck that, I don’t regret any of that shit.  I needed it. 

30  What inspires you to write?

Stories.  There’s usually one scene in particular that makes me giddy with joy to imagine it, and I find myself writing so that I can have that one scene.  In the a/b/o multiship thing, it’s the after credits scene that I’m still working my way towards.  In Stars Fading, it was the reveal scene, when the identity porn curtains were pulled back.  In the Trashy McSupertrash, it’s a trope parody scene that makes me giggle endlessly to myself.  That sort of thing.

31  What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

@judearaya‘s comment on You Would Be In Clover:

I....cannot. My darling Bubbles. First thank you for being my porn buddy :D Second. I finished this last night and just...had to sit with it. I literally could think of nothing but it, it stayed with me so intensely.

You really wrote an emotional, difficult, lovely masterpiece here. The reader becomes so helplessly immersed in their world, in how complex and aching and challenging each of their lives are. I think that the way you portrayed Gwen and Bucky's relationship, how they loved each other, really beautifully. I love that you didn't shy away from how hard it was for them to love each other despite knowing that they were in such a difficult position. Particularly Bucky -- he broke my heart. He really did. Because throughout I just knew, if he could have, he would have given her anything for her happiness, and knowing there was this *thing* he couldn't just tore me up in the way you wrote it.

Sam is...amazing. He's Sam. I don't even know how to touch that one.

That last scene -- there was so much to love, but one thing was the way in which everyone had a very real place with the other, but how with Sam there, Gwen and Bucky were able to connect in a way they'd been struggling for years -- expressing their love for each other through physical intimacy that wasn't marred (I can't think of the right word) by everything else.

Thank you for writing this.

I legitimately teared up.  It still wrecks me.  It tells me that every single thing I set out to do with this fic, I accomplished. 

37  First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third, and there actually is a reason.  

Basically, when it’s first person, the conceit is that this is a story someone (the narrator) is telling you; when it’s third, it’s a story that happened.  A lot of the things that happen in the stories I’m interested in writing seem to me to be too personal to be told, especially to the anonymous audience.

41  List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

I’m not currently reading five fics.  *hangs head*  I’ve had a tough time reading fic in general lately; difficulty concentrating, plus I’ve kinda been sucked into the Dragon Age vortex again, plus plus whenever I go to read I get the guilty reminder that I should be writing my original fic, instead.  So basically, I’m currently reading one fic, because it just posted a chapter tonight and it is magical, and other than that I’m mostly leaving it alone.  

42  List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Nothing too shocking here...

Copperbadge

Dira Sudis

Chad

Nonymos

Sineala

44  What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Hm...  Maybe Sam/Steve?  Not that there isn’t fic there, but not enough, considering the INSTANT chemistry they had in the film.  Oh!  Also IN CHARACTER Steve/Nat!  (Because they are Bros, and if that doesn’t come through in the fic, then why are you writing them?)  And the related ship of StuckyNat--very rare, but when it works, it hella works.

46  If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, the long one!  Definitely.  But if they didn’t have the stomach for all that...  Either Nalattris or Best Served With A Twist.  Both are post-CW fics, both have Steve and Tony reconciling their relationship by the end, both are short and gen.  

My most popular fics are both soulmate fics, and you can find them by sorting-by-kudoi.  My hottest fic, anecdotally, seems to be the crossover with Marvel Noir (you don’t have to know Marvel Noir to enjoy it) (and people sure do seem to enjoy it!).  

51  Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

I really hate to rant--there’s enough of that on this website--so I guess I’ll gush, instead:  I love the creativity of it; I love the welcome of fandom.  I love the gentle, excitable way fans welcome other fans.  I love the drive underlying fandom to do better, always, although that’s rarely put into words, and what we’re doing better is as changeable as my underwear.  (Pretty changeable by this point, I’ve been wearing this pair all day.)  

I love that I could show up, a broken husk of a woman stinging on every surface, write terrible, fic-of-a-fic stuff, and get feedback on it that was loving and enthusiastic and not disparaging.  I love that disparaging feedback in general is a taboo.  ( @subversivecynic and @drakkenzero, who have met my family, will instantly understand why that’s exciting to me.)  

I love that, by and large, no one sporks anything anymore.  It had its place, and it’s done, and now we make other mistakes.  I LOVE that.

Thanks for asking!  :D

[a-alex-hammer]

Getting started in Messenger Marketing – Chatbots Life

I’m regularly asked what Messenger marketing is, and exactly how it can benefit a business, so I’ve decided to write an article covering some of the main points, and showing you how you can get started today.

First of all, I want to point out that there are 1.3 billion FaceBook Messenger users, and not to mention millions more on FaceBook’s other messaging platforms.

And what’s most interesting to me is that those 1.3 billion users are having 7 billion conversations each day! That means there’s a hell of a lot of activity across FaceBook Messenger each day.

Platforms like FaceBook Messenger are the new trend for Social Media marketing, since they allow businesses to reach out to consumers on a large scale through advertisements, and can then interact with them on a more individual level. I believe that a well-designed Messenger chatbot can effectively do the work of an entire marketing department. Chatbot’s will allow you to provide instant responses to your customers questions, and alert real people when there’s a question that needs to be answered by a human.

Trending Articles on Chatbot Marketing:

1. How to Get to 1 Million Users for your Chatbot

2. How to Get Users for Free using a Viral Loop

3. How I grew JokeBot from 26k subscribers to 117k subscribers

4.Chatbot Conference in San Francisco

Why choose Messenger marketing?

When marketing a business or product, your aim should be to target your customers across the platforms that they are most active with. Messenger marketing will allow businesses to engage with customers and leads in a more conversational way than traditional email marketing. This is giving businesses an opportunity to develop personalised relationships with their customers.

Messenger Is Quickly Becoming A Mainstream Channel For Businesses!

When email first came out, email marketing was born, everyone was sending emails and this was a perfect opportunity for businesses to communicate with their customers. The same happened when phones became common, telemarketing came out. Today, people communicate across Messenger apps and the popularity with this channel keeps on growing, year by year!

How to use Messenger marketing

There are a number of ways in which you can use Messenger marketing, but I tend to break the different methods into the following:

Lead generation: Lead generation is one of the biggest reasons why many businesses are adopting Messenger marketing. Build out a marketing funnel which uses Messenger as a warm way to introduce your business to your target audience. For example, let’s say you’re a restaurant that wants to drive new people down to your business…

You could boost a FaceBook post promoting a special offer to new customers. You can then setup a Chatbot to automatically respond to people who leave a comment on the post with a specific keyword. You then run both Messenger ads and post engagement ads driving people to leave comments, or click into your Messenger to claim that offer. Each time this happens, the page can automatically respond with the offer.

You then have this user subscribed to your Messenger marketing list. This means you can keep running promotional messages to this user from your chosen bot platform, without having to pay for ads. It’s the same process as running an email campaign to your email subscribers.

Content delivery:

The majority of sites send new content to users through people who have opted in through email, but this is now something that you can do through Messenger. You can ask your users to optin through Messenger to be delivered new content through their inboxes.

Most bot platforms allow you to connect an RSS feed with your site, so for each time you post, it’s delivered into their inbox automatically.

You can also offer your users to search for specific content, by adding in some categories to your Chatbot. Tech Crunch has a great example for doing this.

One of the best features with content delivery is that you can personalise the content that you deliver to your users. For example, adding tags to your Messenger subscribers will allow you to fire more personalised/desired content.

Customer support:

As well as being able to provide your subscribers with instant customer support, there are many other ways of being able to support your customers with Messenger marketing.

One of my favourite ways is to achieve valuable feedback from your customers. If you’re running an event, broadcast messages to your attenders asking for feedback on how well the event went. This method is often used in eCommerce, as you can ask your customers to leave reviews on the products that they’ve purchased.

You’ll also find a much higher feedback response through Messenger rather than email!

Some interesting facts about Messenger marketing:

Messenger has a 4x higher open rate.

Messenger has an 8x-12.5x higher click-through rate.

Messenger Generates 1.6x more revenue.

Our latest client achieved 16K in table bookings

Our average Messenger campaign gets an open rate of 96%

We’ve helped a startup achieve 11,500 Messenger subscribers in a short period of time!

Start your first campaign today!

If you’ve got this far, then you may be considering a Messenger campaign. If that’s the case then I encourage you to continue with those thoughts! If you’re a little stuck, then here are some steps for launching your first Messenger marketing campaign:

Find a platform to build your Chatbot with. I’d recommend either ManyChat or ChatFuel. In these instructions I’ll talk about ManyChat. Create an account with them, and connect the bot to your page.

2. Create a post on FaceBook with a great offer. Think of something catchy that will instantly capture the attention of your audience. Tell them to comment a keyword which will enable them to claim their offer. The page will message those who comment with the relevant keyword. In this case I’ll use the keyword “interested”.

3. Go back to ManyChat, head over to the growth tools, click new growth tool and select the FaceBook comment tool.

4. Here’s where it may get tricky, I’ll write an in depth article about how to correctly set this up in a few days but, you basically want to select the post you have created with the offer in, and connect the comment tool. You want to setup the tool to only reply to users who have left a specific keyword in their comment. In this case, it’s for anyone who commented “interested”

You should see something that looks like this:

Make sure you’ve selected that checkbox below the “change post” button. Then click next.

5. Now create an opt in message. As your page is sending a message to someone who left a comment on your post, I always recommend putting something like:

“Hey Full Name! We’re messaging you because you left a comment on our recent post. Reply with “yes” to be sent the offer.”

When someone leaves a comment saying “yes” they become subscribed to your Messenger marketing list, because they’ve technically opted into your bot by leaving a reply.

6. When you reach the optin message section, you want to select “send only to users who reply with a specific keyword”. This is where you’ll enter the keyword “yes” in our case. You’ll then see a field which is your optin message.

Think of this as the response to the user, after they have replied with “yes”. For now, keep the default message in there, but remember what it’s called. You can then press save and activate.

Now whenever someone leaves a comment with “interested” and responds with “yes” the page will send across the offer, and also add the user to the pages Messenger subscriber list. Also, make sure that it’s set to active in the top left and not draft.

7. Now head to the flows tab. You should be able to see “optin messages”, click on this and select that optin message that you took note of before, when we setup the comment response. You need to click on this, and edit the flow.

Whatever text is inside of the flow will be what is sent to users who respond with “yes”. Once you’re finished with your message, click publish and now that response will be fired to the user once they have replied.

8. The very final step is to now boost that post you created earlier on. I’d recommend boosting it with the objective of post engagements, to drive the most comments for the budget that you have. Make sure you’re targeting the right people, and you’ll soon start seeing comments.

You’ve now created your first Messenger ad!

This can go really advanced, such as subscribing these users to a specific sequence, or adding tags to them so you know where the leads have come from. If you’re a restaurant then you could even fire up a second message asking when they’d like to book a table.. the possibilities are endless!

Source link

Source/Repost=> http://technewsdestination.com/getting-started-in-messenger-marketing-chatbots-life/ ** Alex Hammer | Founder and CEO at Ecommerce ROI ** http://technewsdestination.com

[andrewdburton]

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online

Need to make a quick $1,000?

It’s possible by selling stuff laying around your house.

A few months ago, I sold a rowing machine for $700 and used the money to help pay for a trip to Italy. Not only did I get the extra cash, I freed up space in my office which now feels a lot better whenever I’m in there.

Selling something online wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be either.

If you sell your items in the right place, you’ll have cash within a few days. I’ve listed the best ones below.

8 Websites and Apps to Sell Stuff Online

You need to look at reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs while deciding where to sell your stuff. Here are some of the best places where you can start selling:

Amazon

You don’t want to ignore the biggest online shopping website in the world. Amazon accounts for almost half of all retail sales online. For an extra fee, the folks at Amazon will also take care of delivery and customer care for you.

I love Amazon’s advertising platform. It is a world of its own and it’s the single best way to get in front of a ton of buyers.

Fees: Amazon will charge you $0.99 for every item sold in addition to a referral fee that varies between 8% to 20% of the price of the item.

Best for: Almost everything.

eBay

eBay is a marketplace where you can auction your stuff. I find eBay great because of the sheer diversity of things you can sell on it. It’s perfect for obscure items that don’t tend to sell anywhere else.

Pro Tip: Do you have old action figures, Hotwheels cars, mugs…or literally ANYTHING that has an emotional value? If not, go to a garage sale, buy some of this stuff for a few dollars, and then list it for a higher price on eBay. I know people who have “flipped” items this way and made thousands of dollars. eBay is made for side hustles like these apart from selling sophisticated items.

Fees: You pay eBay 10% of the item’s price (including shipping but not taxes). If you list more than 50 items, you have to pay a listing fee of $0.30 per listing. The fee is refunded if you sell the item.

Best for: Almost all kinds of new, old, and used items.

Etsy

Etsy is the place to be if you sell handmade items. I used to think that Etsy was just arts and crafts type stuff. Then I started searching and found several great items that I purchased for my own office.

If you plan to make items regularly and want a reliable source of customers, go to Etsy.

Fees: Etsy will charge you $0.20 for listing an item for four months. It also takes 5% of the item’s price as a fee when you make a sale. In addition to this, Etsy’s payment platform also charges you a 3% + $0.25 fee for every transaction.

Best for: Handmade items and home decor.

Bonanza

Bonanza is newer compared to eBay and Amazon and works similarly. Sometimes, I prefer Bonanza because it has a more loyal and a completely different audience than the bigger shopping destinations.

Fees: Bonanza charges you 3.5% of your product price plus the shipping price above $10. I also love how Bonanza has an option where it handles the advertising of your product for a higher fee.

Best for: Almost everything, but Bonanza says it specializes in unique and one-off items.

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups

Where there are people, there is shopping. To sell something locally, I’d start here. Most neighborhoods have a Facebook group. A quick post could sell your item within hours. Just make sure that the group allows it, some groups ban all promotional posts. Also expect folks to haggle. I always get the most pushback on price whenever I sell on Facebook.

Fees: Only your blood, sweat, and tears. But technically FREE! But keep in mind that you have to do everything from getting in touch with buyers, packing, delivering, and getting paid.

Best for: Think big and wide. I have seen people sell everything from cars to plants on Facebook.

Rakuten

You may not have heard of this Japanese website. It has 126 million users, and 90% of internet users in Japan use it. I believe this is a wonderful place to sell your stuff if you want to break into the Japanese market.

Fees: Rakuten is a bit expensive. You have to pay a monthly fee of $33 as a seller and a flat fee of $0.99 for every sale. In addition to it, you are also charged between 8% and 15% based on what you are selling.

Best for: Almost everything. Perfect for people who are sick of the competition on US websites.

Your Own Website

Selling on your website means you are in complete control, but you are also fully responsible for everything. Not only do you need to do all the marketing to bring people to your online store, you also have to get your store built. Here’s a handy guide on the best ecommerce tools.

If you want to go big and build a large business around selling your stuff, this is the way to go.

Cost: You need to design a website, set up a cart, payment gateway, and get the necessary security certificates. Plus packaging and delivery.

Patreon

Technically, Patreon is not a marketplace or an eCommerce website. It’s a platform where your most loyal fans pay you an amount of their choice either monthly or as a one-time payment. In exchange, you give them exclusive content and access. If you’re selling creative content like comics, art, or videos, it’s a great option.

Best for: Selling content to your loyal fans.

Honorable Mentions: Craiglist and LetGo (both are great for local listings), eBid (similar to eBay and Amazon), Newegg (for tech), eCrater (a 100% free marketplace), and RubyLane (superb for art, jewelry, collectibles, and vintage items).

How to Prepare to Sell Stuff Online and What to Expect

1. Find items to sell

Go around your house and look for anything that you don’t want anymore. If it’s in good condition and you think it has value, add it to your list.

Collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren’t too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.

2. Check if there’s a market

Now it’s time to make sure there are buyers for the items you selected. Check Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and Craiglists for your items. If you see plenty of them, that’s a good sign.

To really make sure, make a note of all the listings you see on Ebay or Craigslist. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell quickly and listings get closed. You won’t have any trouble selling those items and can probably push your asking price a bit.

3. Decide where you want to sell

You’ll be familiar with which platforms have your items already. Go ahead and pick the ones that you want to add your product to.

4. Build Your Item Profile

On each platform, you’ll need to create accounts and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a really compelling description. This has a huge impact on how many buyers reach out to you.

5. Publish

Once you’re ready, hit publish and launch your item.

Be sure to double check the public page and make sure everything appears correctly. That way you can fix any mistakes quickly.

6. Follow up to Inquiries

For hot items, you’ll start getting inquiries within a few hours. And the bulk of people will reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.

If you’re on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there’s nothing else you need to do. Simply sit back and wait.

7. Close the Deal

Once you have agreed on price, lay out your requirements for the sale. This could include meeting location, payment method, shipping terms, etc. Assuming the buyer agrees to the terms, keep following up until everything has been completed.

If the deal falls apart at this stage, move on to other folks that reached out. It’s best to keep them in a holding pattern until you’ve completed the transaction. Don’t tell anyone that it’s been sold until the deal is 100% done. That will give you plenty of backup options in case it doesn’t go through.

Tips and Tricks to Selling Your Stuff Online

Here are five simple tricks to take your online selling game to the next level:

1. Focus on The Product Page

When people see your stuff on an online store, getting them to click on your listing is your first goal.

Having a professional-looking image and a good title is crucial. Your product description must shine, and your price must be right. I always look at other listings selling similar items. Then I try to beat everyone else by having a better photo, product description, and a competitive price.

2. Research Market Pricing

Every item has a price band that the market expects. Phone apps are $1-5, Concept 2 rowing machines are $700-900, lamps are $20-1000 depending on the design. Look at a bunch of listings for the type of item that you plan to sell. That will tell you how much you can expect to make.

Remember, we all have an internal bias to over-value what we own. We think it’s more valuable than it is. So go in expecting that you’re going to make less than you think. It takes time to develop an accurate gauge of the market on any item.

3. Use Speed

As soon as you get a response from someone, try to respond instantly. People almost always get less interested in a deal over time. Take advantage of their motivation by responding quickly and getting the deal done as quickly as possible.

4. Stick to Your Price

You will likely get a few folks that try to negotiate hard. They’ll try to pressure you into a much lower price. They’re looking for a great deal themselves. If you’ve done your research and know the pricing bands for your item, hold to your price. Only lower it if you don’t get any legitimate interest.

5. Protect Yourself

Scams do happen when selling stuff online. If selling locally, demand cash. And if someone mails you a check or money order for a larger amount that requested, it’s definitely a scam. Return the check and refuse to mail your item until you get the correct amount.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/sell-stuff-online/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethherrerablog]

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online

Need to make a quick $1,000?

It’s possible by selling stuff laying around your house.

A few months ago, I sold a rowing machine for $700 and used the money to help pay for a trip to Italy. Not only did I get the extra cash, I freed up space in my office which now feels a lot better whenever I’m in there.

Selling something online wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be either.

If you sell your items in the right place, you’ll have cash within a few days. I’ve listed the best ones below.

8 Websites and Apps to Sell Stuff Online

You need to look at reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs while deciding where to sell your stuff. Here are some of the best places where you can start selling:

Amazon

You don’t want to ignore the biggest online shopping website in the world. Amazon accounts for almost half of all retail sales online. For an extra fee, the folks at Amazon will also take care of delivery and customer care for you.

I love Amazon’s advertising platform. It is a world of its own and it’s the single best way to get in front of a ton of buyers.

Fees: Amazon will charge you $0.99 for every item sold in addition to a referral fee that varies between 8% to 20% of the price of the item.

Best for: Almost everything.

eBay

eBay is a marketplace where you can auction your stuff. I find eBay great because of the sheer diversity of things you can sell on it. It’s perfect for obscure items that don’t tend to sell anywhere else.

Pro Tip: Do you have old action figures, Hotwheels cars, mugs…or literally ANYTHING that has an emotional value? If not, go to a garage sale, buy some of this stuff for a few dollars, and then list it for a higher price on eBay. I know people who have “flipped” items this way and made thousands of dollars. eBay is made for side hustles like these apart from selling sophisticated items.

Fees: You pay eBay 10% of the item’s price (including shipping but not taxes). If you list more than 50 items, you have to pay a listing fee of $0.30 per listing. The fee is refunded if you sell the item.

Best for: Almost all kinds of new, old, and used items.

Etsy

Etsy is the place to be if you sell handmade items. I used to think that Etsy was just arts and crafts type stuff. Then I started searching and found several great items that I purchased for my own office.

If you plan to make items regularly and want a reliable source of customers, go to Etsy.

Fees: Etsy will charge you $0.20 for listing an item for four months. It also takes 5% of the item’s price as a fee when you make a sale. In addition to this, Etsy’s payment platform also charges you a 3% + $0.25 fee for every transaction.

Best for: Handmade items and home decor.

Bonanza

Bonanza is newer compared to eBay and Amazon and works similarly. Sometimes, I prefer Bonanza because it has a more loyal and a completely different audience than the bigger shopping destinations.

Fees: Bonanza charges you 3.5% of your product price plus the shipping price above $10. I also love how Bonanza has an option where it handles the advertising of your product for a higher fee.

Best for: Almost everything, but Bonanza says it specializes in unique and one-off items.

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups

Where there are people, there is shopping. To sell something locally, I’d start here. Most neighborhoods have a Facebook group. A quick post could sell your item within hours. Just make sure that the group allows it, some groups ban all promotional posts. Also expect folks to haggle. I always get the most pushback on price whenever I sell on Facebook.

Fees: Only your blood, sweat, and tears. But technically FREE! But keep in mind that you have to do everything from getting in touch with buyers, packing, delivering, and getting paid.

Best for: Think big and wide. I have seen people sell everything from cars to plants on Facebook.

Rakuten

You may not have heard of this Japanese website. It has 126 million users, and 90% of internet users in Japan use it. I believe this is a wonderful place to sell your stuff if you want to break into the Japanese market.

Fees: Rakuten is a bit expensive. You have to pay a monthly fee of $33 as a seller and a flat fee of $0.99 for every sale. In addition to it, you are also charged between 8% and 15% based on what you are selling.

Best for: Almost everything. Perfect for people who are sick of the competition on US websites.

Your Own Website

Selling on your website means you are in complete control, but you are also fully responsible for everything. Not only do you need to do all the marketing to bring people to your online store, you also have to get your store built. Here’s a handy guide on the best ecommerce tools.

If you want to go big and build a large business around selling your stuff, this is the way to go.

Cost: You need to design a website, set up a cart, payment gateway, and get the necessary security certificates. Plus packaging and delivery.

Patreon

Technically, Patreon is not a marketplace or an eCommerce website. It’s a platform where your most loyal fans pay you an amount of their choice either monthly or as a one-time payment. In exchange, you give them exclusive content and access. If you’re selling creative content like comics, art, or videos, it’s a great option.

Best for: Selling content to your loyal fans.

Honorable Mentions: Craiglist and LetGo (both are great for local listings), eBid (similar to eBay and Amazon), Newegg (for tech), eCrater (a 100% free marketplace), and RubyLane (superb for art, jewelry, collectibles, and vintage items).

How to Prepare to Sell Stuff Online and What to Expect

1. Find items to sell

Go around your house and look for anything that you don’t want anymore. If it’s in good condition and you think it has value, add it to your list.

Collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren’t too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.

2. Check if there’s a market

Now it’s time to make sure there are buyers for the items you selected. Check Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and Craiglists for your items. If you see plenty of them, that’s a good sign.

To really make sure, make a note of all the listings you see on Ebay or Craigslist. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell quickly and listings get closed. You won’t have any trouble selling those items and can probably push your asking price a bit.

3. Decide where you want to sell

You’ll be familiar with which platforms have your items already. Go ahead and pick the ones that you want to add your product to.

4. Build Your Item Profile

On each platform, you’ll need to create accounts and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a really compelling description. This has a huge impact on how many buyers reach out to you.

5. Publish

Once you’re ready, hit publish and launch your item.

Be sure to double check the public page and make sure everything appears correctly. That way you can fix any mistakes quickly.

6. Follow up to Inquiries

For hot items, you’ll start getting inquiries within a few hours. And the bulk of people will reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.

If you’re on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there’s nothing else you need to do. Simply sit back and wait.

7. Close the Deal

Once you have agreed on price, lay out your requirements for the sale. This could include meeting location, payment method, shipping terms, etc. Assuming the buyer agrees to the terms, keep following up until everything has been completed.

If the deal falls apart at this stage, move on to other folks that reached out. It’s best to keep them in a holding pattern until you’ve completed the transaction. Don’t tell anyone that it’s been sold until the deal is 100% done. That will give you plenty of backup options in case it doesn’t go through.

Tips and Tricks to Selling Your Stuff Online

Here are five simple tricks to take your online selling game to the next level:

1. Focus on The Product Page

When people see your stuff on an online store, getting them to click on your listing is your first goal.

Having a professional-looking image and a good title is crucial. Your product description must shine, and your price must be right. I always look at other listings selling similar items. Then I try to beat everyone else by having a better photo, product description, and a competitive price.

2. Research Market Pricing

Every item has a price band that the market expects. Phone apps are $1-5, Concept 2 rowing machines are $700-900, lamps are $20-1000 depending on the design. Look at a bunch of listings for the type of item that you plan to sell. That will tell you how much you can expect to make.

Remember, we all have an internal bias to over-value what we own. We think it’s more valuable than it is. So go in expecting that you’re going to make less than you think. It takes time to develop an accurate gauge of the market on any item.

3. Use Speed

As soon as you get a response from someone, try to respond instantly. People almost always get less interested in a deal over time. Take advantage of their motivation by responding quickly and getting the deal done as quickly as possible.

4. Stick to Your Price

You will likely get a few folks that try to negotiate hard. They’ll try to pressure you into a much lower price. They’re looking for a great deal themselves. If you’ve done your research and know the pricing bands for your item, hold to your price. Only lower it if you don’t get any legitimate interest.

5. Protect Yourself

Scams do happen when selling stuff online. If selling locally, demand cash. And if someone mails you a check or money order for a larger amount that requested, it’s definitely a scam. Return the check and refuse to mail your item until you get the correct amount.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[samuelfields]

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online

Need to make a quick $1,000?

It’s possible by selling stuff laying around your house.

A few months ago, I sold a rowing machine for $700 and used the money to help pay for a trip to Italy. Not only did I get the extra cash, I freed up space in my office which now feels a lot better whenever I’m in there.

Selling something online wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be either.

If you sell your items in the right place, you’ll have cash within a few days. I’ve listed the best ones below.

8 Websites and Apps to Sell Stuff Online

You need to look at reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs while deciding where to sell your stuff. Here are some of the best places where you can start selling:

Amazon

You don’t want to ignore the biggest online shopping website in the world. Amazon accounts for almost half of all retail sales online. For an extra fee, the folks at Amazon will also take care of delivery and customer care for you.

I love Amazon’s advertising platform. It is a world of its own and it’s the single best way to get in front of a ton of buyers.

Fees: Amazon will charge you $0.99 for every item sold in addition to a referral fee that varies between 8% to 20% of the price of the item.

Best for: Almost everything.

eBay

eBay is a marketplace where you can auction your stuff. I find eBay great because of the sheer diversity of things you can sell on it. It’s perfect for obscure items that don’t tend to sell anywhere else.

Pro Tip: Do you have old action figures, Hotwheels cars, mugs…or literally ANYTHING that has an emotional value? If not, go to a garage sale, buy some of this stuff for a few dollars, and then list it for a higher price on eBay. I know people who have “flipped” items this way and made thousands of dollars. eBay is made for side hustles like these apart from selling sophisticated items.

Fees: You pay eBay 10% of the item’s price (including shipping but not taxes). If you list more than 50 items, you have to pay a listing fee of $0.30 per listing. The fee is refunded if you sell the item.

Best for: Almost all kinds of new, old, and used items.

Etsy

Etsy is the place to be if you sell handmade items. I used to think that Etsy was just arts and crafts type stuff. Then I started searching and found several great items that I purchased for my own office.

If you plan to make items regularly and want a reliable source of customers, go to Etsy.

Fees: Etsy will charge you $0.20 for listing an item for four months. It also takes 5% of the item’s price as a fee when you make a sale. In addition to this, Etsy’s payment platform also charges you a 3% + $0.25 fee for every transaction.

Best for: Handmade items and home decor.

Bonanza

Bonanza is newer compared to eBay and Amazon and works similarly. Sometimes, I prefer Bonanza because it has a more loyal and a completely different audience than the bigger shopping destinations.

Fees: Bonanza charges you 3.5% of your product price plus the shipping price above $10. I also love how Bonanza has an option where it handles the advertising of your product for a higher fee.

Best for: Almost everything, but Bonanza says it specializes in unique and one-off items.

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups

Where there are people, there is shopping. To sell something locally, I’d start here. Most neighborhoods have a Facebook group. A quick post could sell your item within hours. Just make sure that the group allows it, some groups ban all promotional posts. Also expect folks to haggle. I always get the most pushback on price whenever I sell on Facebook.

Fees: Only your blood, sweat, and tears. But technically FREE! But keep in mind that you have to do everything from getting in touch with buyers, packing, delivering, and getting paid.

Best for: Think big and wide. I have seen people sell everything from cars to plants on Facebook.

Rakuten

You may not have heard of this Japanese website. It has 126 million users, and 90% of internet users in Japan use it. I believe this is a wonderful place to sell your stuff if you want to break into the Japanese market.

Fees: Rakuten is a bit expensive. You have to pay a monthly fee of $33 as a seller and a flat fee of $0.99 for every sale. In addition to it, you are also charged between 8% and 15% based on what you are selling.

Best for: Almost everything. Perfect for people who are sick of the competition on US websites.

Your Own Website

Selling on your website means you are in complete control, but you are also fully responsible for everything. Not only do you need to do all the marketing to bring people to your online store, you also have to get your store built. Here’s a handy guide on the best ecommerce tools.

If you want to go big and build a large business around selling your stuff, this is the way to go.

Cost: You need to design a website, set up a cart, payment gateway, and get the necessary security certificates. Plus packaging and delivery.

Patreon

Technically, Patreon is not a marketplace or an eCommerce website. It’s a platform where your most loyal fans pay you an amount of their choice either monthly or as a one-time payment. In exchange, you give them exclusive content and access. If you’re selling creative content like comics, art, or videos, it’s a great option.

Best for: Selling content to your loyal fans.

Honorable Mentions: Craiglist and LetGo (both are great for local listings), eBid (similar to eBay and Amazon), Newegg (for tech), eCrater (a 100% free marketplace), and RubyLane (superb for art, jewelry, collectibles, and vintage items).

How to Prepare to Sell Stuff Online and What to Expect

1. Find items to sell

Go around your house and look for anything that you don’t want anymore. If it’s in good condition and you think it has value, add it to your list.

Collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren’t too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.

2. Check if there’s a market

Now it’s time to make sure there are buyers for the items you selected. Check Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and Craiglists for your items. If you see plenty of them, that’s a good sign.

To really make sure, make a note of all the listings you see on Ebay or Craigslist. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell quickly and listings get closed. You won’t have any trouble selling those items and can probably push your asking price a bit.

3. Decide where you want to sell

You’ll be familiar with which platforms have your items already. Go ahead and pick the ones that you want to add your product to.

4. Build Your Item Profile

On each platform, you’ll need to create accounts and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a really compelling description. This has a huge impact on how many buyers reach out to you.

5. Publish

Once you’re ready, hit publish and launch your item.

Be sure to double check the public page and make sure everything appears correctly. That way you can fix any mistakes quickly.

6. Follow up to Inquiries

For hot items, you’ll start getting inquiries within a few hours. And the bulk of people will reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.

If you’re on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there’s nothing else you need to do. Simply sit back and wait.

7. Close the Deal

Once you have agreed on price, lay out your requirements for the sale. This could include meeting location, payment method, shipping terms, etc. Assuming the buyer agrees to the terms, keep following up until everything has been completed.

If the deal falls apart at this stage, move on to other folks that reached out. It’s best to keep them in a holding pattern until you’ve completed the transaction. Don’t tell anyone that it’s been sold until the deal is 100% done. That will give you plenty of backup options in case it doesn’t go through.

Tips and Tricks to Selling Your Stuff Online

Here are five simple tricks to take your online selling game to the next level:

1. Focus on The Product Page

When people see your stuff on an online store, getting them to click on your listing is your first goal.

Having a professional-looking image and a good title is crucial. Your product description must shine, and your price must be right. I always look at other listings selling similar items. Then I try to beat everyone else by having a better photo, product description, and a competitive price.

2. Research Market Pricing

Every item has a price band that the market expects. Phone apps are $1-5, Concept 2 rowing machines are $700-900, lamps are $20-1000 depending on the design. Look at a bunch of listings for the type of item that you plan to sell. That will tell you how much you can expect to make.

Remember, we all have an internal bias to over-value what we own. We think it’s more valuable than it is. So go in expecting that you’re going to make less than you think. It takes time to develop an accurate gauge of the market on any item.

3. Use Speed

As soon as you get a response from someone, try to respond instantly. People almost always get less interested in a deal over time. Take advantage of their motivation by responding quickly and getting the deal done as quickly as possible.

4. Stick to Your Price

You will likely get a few folks that try to negotiate hard. They’ll try to pressure you into a much lower price. They’re looking for a great deal themselves. If you’ve done your research and know the pricing bands for your item, hold to your price. Only lower it if you don’t get any legitimate interest.

5. Protect Yourself

Scams do happen when selling stuff online. If selling locally, demand cash. And if someone mails you a check or money order for a larger amount that requested, it’s definitely a scam. Return the check and refuse to mail your item until you get the correct amount.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/sell-stuff-online/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[mcjoelcain]

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online

Need to make a quick $1,000?

It’s possible by selling stuff laying around your house.

A few months ago, I sold a rowing machine for $700 and used the money to help pay for a trip to Italy. Not only did I get the extra cash, I freed up space in my office which now feels a lot better whenever I’m in there.

Selling something online wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be either.

If you sell your items in the right place, you’ll have cash within a few days. I’ve listed the best ones below.

8 Websites and Apps to Sell Stuff Online

You need to look at reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs while deciding where to sell your stuff. Here are some of the best places where you can start selling:

Amazon

You don’t want to ignore the biggest online shopping website in the world. Amazon accounts for almost half of all retail sales online. For an extra fee, the folks at Amazon will also take care of delivery and customer care for you.

I love Amazon’s advertising platform. It is a world of its own and it’s the single best way to get in front of a ton of buyers.

Fees: Amazon will charge you $0.99 for every item sold in addition to a referral fee that varies between 8% to 20% of the price of the item.

Best for: Almost everything.

eBay

eBay is a marketplace where you can auction your stuff. I find eBay great because of the sheer diversity of things you can sell on it. It’s perfect for obscure items that don’t tend to sell anywhere else.

Pro Tip: Do you have old action figures, Hotwheels cars, mugs…or literally ANYTHING that has an emotional value? If not, go to a garage sale, buy some of this stuff for a few dollars, and then list it for a higher price on eBay. I know people who have “flipped” items this way and made thousands of dollars. eBay is made for side hustles like these apart from selling sophisticated items.

Fees: You pay eBay 10% of the item’s price (including shipping but not taxes). If you list more than 50 items, you have to pay a listing fee of $0.30 per listing. The fee is refunded if you sell the item.

Best for: Almost all kinds of new, old, and used items.

Etsy

Etsy is the place to be if you sell handmade items. I used to think that Etsy was just arts and crafts type stuff. Then I started searching and found several great items that I purchased for my own office.

If you plan to make items regularly and want a reliable source of customers, go to Etsy.

Fees: Etsy will charge you $0.20 for listing an item for four months. It also takes 5% of the item’s price as a fee when you make a sale. In addition to this, Etsy’s payment platform also charges you a 3% + $0.25 fee for every transaction.

Best for: Handmade items and home decor.

Bonanza

Bonanza is newer compared to eBay and Amazon and works similarly. Sometimes, I prefer Bonanza because it has a more loyal and a completely different audience than the bigger shopping destinations.

Fees: Bonanza charges you 3.5% of your product price plus the shipping price above $10. I also love how Bonanza has an option where it handles the advertising of your product for a higher fee.

Best for: Almost everything, but Bonanza says it specializes in unique and one-off items.

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups

Where there are people, there is shopping. To sell something locally, I’d start here. Most neighborhoods have a Facebook group. A quick post could sell your item within hours. Just make sure that the group allows it, some groups ban all promotional posts. Also expect folks to haggle. I always get the most pushback on price whenever I sell on Facebook.

Fees: Only your blood, sweat, and tears. But technically FREE! But keep in mind that you have to do everything from getting in touch with buyers, packing, delivering, and getting paid.

Best for: Think big and wide. I have seen people sell everything from cars to plants on Facebook.

Rakuten

You may not have heard of this Japanese website. It has 126 million users, and 90% of internet users in Japan use it. I believe this is a wonderful place to sell your stuff if you want to break into the Japanese market.

Fees: Rakuten is a bit expensive. You have to pay a monthly fee of $33 as a seller and a flat fee of $0.99 for every sale. In addition to it, you are also charged between 8% and 15% based on what you are selling.

Best for: Almost everything. Perfect for people who are sick of the competition on US websites.

Your Own Website

Selling on your website means you are in complete control, but you are also fully responsible for everything. Not only do you need to do all the marketing to bring people to your online store, you also have to get your store built. Here’s a handy guide on the best ecommerce tools.

If you want to go big and build a large business around selling your stuff, this is the way to go.

Cost: You need to design a website, set up a cart, payment gateway, and get the necessary security certificates. Plus packaging and delivery.

Patreon

Technically, Patreon is not a marketplace or an eCommerce website. It’s a platform where your most loyal fans pay you an amount of their choice either monthly or as a one-time payment. In exchange, you give them exclusive content and access. If you’re selling creative content like comics, art, or videos, it’s a great option.

Best for: Selling content to your loyal fans.

Honorable Mentions: Craiglist and LetGo (both are great for local listings), eBid (similar to eBay and Amazon), Newegg (for tech), eCrater (a 100% free marketplace), and RubyLane (superb for art, jewelry, collectibles, and vintage items).

How to Prepare to Sell Stuff Online and What to Expect

1. Find items to sell

Go around your house and look for anything that you don’t want anymore. If it’s in good condition and you think it has value, add it to your list.

Collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren’t too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.

2. Check if there’s a market

Now it’s time to make sure there are buyers for the items you selected. Check Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and Craiglists for your items. If you see plenty of them, that’s a good sign.

To really make sure, make a note of all the listings you see on Ebay or Craigslist. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell quickly and listings get closed. You won’t have any trouble selling those items and can probably push your asking price a bit.

3. Decide where you want to sell

You’ll be familiar with which platforms have your items already. Go ahead and pick the ones that you want to add your product to.

4. Build Your Item Profile

On each platform, you’ll need to create accounts and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a really compelling description. This has a huge impact on how many buyers reach out to you.

5. Publish

Once you’re ready, hit publish and launch your item.

Be sure to double check the public page and make sure everything appears correctly. That way you can fix any mistakes quickly.

6. Follow up to Inquiries

For hot items, you’ll start getting inquiries within a few hours. And the bulk of people will reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.

If you’re on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there’s nothing else you need to do. Simply sit back and wait.

7. Close the Deal

Once you have agreed on price, lay out your requirements for the sale. This could include meeting location, payment method, shipping terms, etc. Assuming the buyer agrees to the terms, keep following up until everything has been completed.

If the deal falls apart at this stage, move on to other folks that reached out. It’s best to keep them in a holding pattern until you’ve completed the transaction. Don’t tell anyone that it’s been sold until the deal is 100% done. That will give you plenty of backup options in case it doesn’t go through.

Tips and Tricks to Selling Your Stuff Online

Here are five simple tricks to take your online selling game to the next level:

1. Focus on The Product Page

When people see your stuff on an online store, getting them to click on your listing is your first goal.

Having a professional-looking image and a good title is crucial. Your product description must shine, and your price must be right. I always look at other listings selling similar items. Then I try to beat everyone else by having a better photo, product description, and a competitive price.

2. Research Market Pricing

Every item has a price band that the market expects. Phone apps are $1-5, Concept 2 rowing machines are $700-900, lamps are $20-1000 depending on the design. Look at a bunch of listings for the type of item that you plan to sell. That will tell you how much you can expect to make.

Remember, we all have an internal bias to over-value what we own. We think it’s more valuable than it is. So go in expecting that you’re going to make less than you think. It takes time to develop an accurate gauge of the market on any item.

3. Use Speed

As soon as you get a response from someone, try to respond instantly. People almost always get less interested in a deal over time. Take advantage of their motivation by responding quickly and getting the deal done as quickly as possible.

4. Stick to Your Price

You will likely get a few folks that try to negotiate hard. They’ll try to pressure you into a much lower price. They’re looking for a great deal themselves. If you’ve done your research and know the pricing bands for your item, hold to your price. Only lower it if you don’t get any legitimate interest.

5. Protect Yourself

Scams do happen when selling stuff online. If selling locally, demand cash. And if someone mails you a check or money order for a larger amount that requested, it’s definitely a scam. Return the check and refuse to mail your item until you get the correct amount.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Money https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/sell-stuff-online/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online

Need to make a quick $1,000?

It’s possible by selling stuff laying around your house.

A few months ago, I sold a rowing machine for $700 and used the money to help pay for a trip to Italy. Not only did I get the extra cash, I freed up space in my office which now feels a lot better whenever I’m in there.

Selling something online wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be either.

If you sell your items in the right place, you’ll have cash within a few days. I’ve listed the best ones below.

8 Websites and Apps to Sell Stuff Online

You need to look at reliability, relevance, customer experience, and costs while deciding where to sell your stuff. Here are some of the best places where you can start selling:

Amazon

You don’t want to ignore the biggest online shopping website in the world. Amazon accounts for almost half of all retail sales online. For an extra fee, the folks at Amazon will also take care of delivery and customer care for you.

I love Amazon’s advertising platform. It is a world of its own and it’s the single best way to get in front of a ton of buyers.

Fees: Amazon will charge you $0.99 for every item sold in addition to a referral fee that varies between 8% to 20% of the price of the item.

Best for: Almost everything.

eBay

eBay is a marketplace where you can auction your stuff. I find eBay great because of the sheer diversity of things you can sell on it. It’s perfect for obscure items that don’t tend to sell anywhere else.

Pro Tip: Do you have old action figures, Hotwheels cars, mugs…or literally ANYTHING that has an emotional value? If not, go to a garage sale, buy some of this stuff for a few dollars, and then list it for a higher price on eBay. I know people who have “flipped” items this way and made thousands of dollars. eBay is made for side hustles like these apart from selling sophisticated items.

Fees: You pay eBay 10% of the item’s price (including shipping but not taxes). If you list more than 50 items, you have to pay a listing fee of $0.30 per listing. The fee is refunded if you sell the item.

Best for: Almost all kinds of new, old, and used items.

Etsy

Etsy is the place to be if you sell handmade items. I used to think that Etsy was just arts and crafts type stuff. Then I started searching and found several great items that I purchased for my own office.

If you plan to make items regularly and want a reliable source of customers, go to Etsy.

Fees: Etsy will charge you $0.20 for listing an item for four months. It also takes 5% of the item’s price as a fee when you make a sale. In addition to this, Etsy’s payment platform also charges you a 3% + $0.25 fee for every transaction.

Best for: Handmade items and home decor.

Bonanza

Bonanza is newer compared to eBay and Amazon and works similarly. Sometimes, I prefer Bonanza because it has a more loyal and a completely different audience than the bigger shopping destinations.

Fees: Bonanza charges you 3.5% of your product price plus the shipping price above $10. I also love how Bonanza has an option where it handles the advertising of your product for a higher fee.

Best for: Almost everything, but Bonanza says it specializes in unique and one-off items.

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Groups

Where there are people, there is shopping. To sell something locally, I’d start here. Most neighborhoods have a Facebook group. A quick post could sell your item within hours. Just make sure that the group allows it, some groups ban all promotional posts. Also expect folks to haggle. I always get the most pushback on price whenever I sell on Facebook.

Fees: Only your blood, sweat, and tears. But technically FREE! But keep in mind that you have to do everything from getting in touch with buyers, packing, delivering, and getting paid.

Best for: Think big and wide. I have seen people sell everything from cars to plants on Facebook.

Rakuten

You may not have heard of this Japanese website. It has 126 million users, and 90% of internet users in Japan use it. I believe this is a wonderful place to sell your stuff if you want to break into the Japanese market.

Fees: Rakuten is a bit expensive. You have to pay a monthly fee of $33 as a seller and a flat fee of $0.99 for every sale. In addition to it, you are also charged between 8% and 15% based on what you are selling.

Best for: Almost everything. Perfect for people who are sick of the competition on US websites.

Your Own Website

Selling on your website means you are in complete control, but you are also fully responsible for everything. Not only do you need to do all the marketing to bring people to your online store, you also have to get your store built. Here’s a handy guide on the best ecommerce tools.

If you want to go big and build a large business around selling your stuff, this is the way to go.

Cost: You need to design a website, set up a cart, payment gateway, and get the necessary security certificates. Plus packaging and delivery.

Patreon

Technically, Patreon is not a marketplace or an eCommerce website. It’s a platform where your most loyal fans pay you an amount of their choice either monthly or as a one-time payment. In exchange, you give them exclusive content and access. If you’re selling creative content like comics, art, or videos, it’s a great option.

Best for: Selling content to your loyal fans.

Honorable Mentions: Craiglist and LetGo (both are great for local listings), eBid (similar to eBay and Amazon), Newegg (for tech), eCrater (a 100% free marketplace), and RubyLane (superb for art, jewelry, collectibles, and vintage items).

How to Prepare to Sell Stuff Online and What to Expect

1. Find items to sell

Go around your house and look for anything that you don’t want anymore. If it’s in good condition and you think it has value, add it to your list.

Collectibles, exercise equipment, furniture, electronics that aren’t too old yet, and luxury items are a good place to start.

2. Check if there’s a market

Now it’s time to make sure there are buyers for the items you selected. Check Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, and Craiglists for your items. If you see plenty of them, that’s a good sign.

To really make sure, make a note of all the listings you see on Ebay or Craigslist. Then come back a few days later and see if the listings are still active. Great items sell quickly and listings get closed. You won’t have any trouble selling those items and can probably push your asking price a bit.

3. Decide where you want to sell

You’ll be familiar with which platforms have your items already. Go ahead and pick the ones that you want to add your product to.

4. Build Your Item Profile

On each platform, you’ll need to create accounts and build out your product listing. Get the best photos that you can and write a really compelling description. This has a huge impact on how many buyers reach out to you.

5. Publish

Once you’re ready, hit publish and launch your item.

Be sure to double check the public page and make sure everything appears correctly. That way you can fix any mistakes quickly.

6. Follow up to Inquiries

For hot items, you’ll start getting inquiries within a few hours. And the bulk of people will reach out in 24-48 hours. Make sure to respond to them as quickly as possible and close a deal.

If you’re on a platform that does the selling for you (like Amazon), there’s nothing else you need to do. Simply sit back and wait.

7. Close the Deal

Once you have agreed on price, lay out your requirements for the sale. This could include meeting location, payment method, shipping terms, etc. Assuming the buyer agrees to the terms, keep following up until everything has been completed.

If the deal falls apart at this stage, move on to other folks that reached out. It’s best to keep them in a holding pattern until you’ve completed the transaction. Don’t tell anyone that it’s been sold until the deal is 100% done. That will give you plenty of backup options in case it doesn’t go through.

Tips and Tricks to Selling Your Stuff Online

Here are five simple tricks to take your online selling game to the next level:

1. Focus on The Product Page

When people see your stuff on an online store, getting them to click on your listing is your first goal.

Having a professional-looking image and a good title is crucial. Your product description must shine, and your price must be right. I always look at other listings selling similar items. Then I try to beat everyone else by having a better photo, product description, and a competitive price.

2. Research Market Pricing

Every item has a price band that the market expects. Phone apps are $1-5, Concept 2 rowing machines are $700-900, lamps are $20-1000 depending on the design. Look at a bunch of listings for the type of item that you plan to sell. That will tell you how much you can expect to make.

Remember, we all have an internal bias to over-value what we own. We think it’s more valuable than it is. So go in expecting that you’re going to make less than you think. It takes time to develop an accurate gauge of the market on any item.

3. Use Speed

As soon as you get a response from someone, try to respond instantly. People almost always get less interested in a deal over time. Take advantage of their motivation by responding quickly and getting the deal done as quickly as possible.

4. Stick to Your Price

You will likely get a few folks that try to negotiate hard. They’ll try to pressure you into a much lower price. They’re looking for a great deal themselves. If you’ve done your research and know the pricing bands for your item, hold to your price. Only lower it if you don’t get any legitimate interest.

5. Protect Yourself

Scams do happen when selling stuff online. If selling locally, demand cash. And if someone mails you a check or money order for a larger amount that requested, it’s definitely a scam. Return the check and refuse to mail your item until you get the correct amount.

Where and How to Sell Your Stuff Online is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/sell-stuff-online/