I've been doing some research on how to become successful on Triond. By successful, I mean both in gaining readership as well as making money. As you can tell by the title, I've only made a few pennies so far. I'm not complaining; I submitted my first post only a few days ago and I've already earned some cash. It's not making me rich, but I'll take it.
As I read through articles, I noticed that most were from people who already had great success writing on Triond. I wanted to read about someone like me, a struggling writer that was trying to figure it out. Since I couldn't find an artilcle like this, I decided to create my own. This is post #1, an introduction to the struggle, if you will. Below are my first attempts to boost readership:
Research
I found some good tips and I've been trying to use them. My first step was to register on Digg. It didn't do much for my posts initially but the more friends I gather and the more time I spend digging, the more hits I get on my articles. I'm going to invest some more time on Digg and see if I can't get an article to be popular.
A few days later I tried Reddit and then I Google book-marked all my articles. It's only been a few hours since I first tried these, so nothing much to report at the moment either way.
Adding Friends on Triond
I added over 50 friends on Triond in my first week. I added some of the "Hot Users" first so I could become familiar with the writers that got the most clicks. Then I read a bunch of articles from lesser known Triond writers. If I liked the posts, I added the writers as friends. Then I added about 20 or so people whose work I hadn't read. This allowed for a steady stream of posts and articles to be loaded directly onto my Community Page. Easy access to articles means less time searching and more time reading and learning what does and doesn't work for Triond.
Trying New Content
In order to see what is popular, and also in hopes of keeping things fresh, I've been writing about various subjects. So far, I've written about my day job, weight loss, a friend's scary run-in with mono and a list of tips to get through a bad day. The weight loss, bad day, and day job have had decent success. Mono has tanked horribly. Who doesn't want to read about Mono? Apparently everyone on Triond.
Future Plans
First: I'm going to post this and hope to get some feedback in the comments section. Feel free to leave tips, comments, or even to tell me I'm wasting my time. My feelings are pretty hard to hurt.
Second: I'm going to write a good bit more content. Every article about writing for Triond emphasizes creating a large quantity of quality content. Thankfully, writing articles is a nice way to break up my work day. It's also a welcome break from my other writing; I'm attempting to write screenplays, plays, and novels as well.
Third: Once I get a good body of work, I'll email friends and family and ask them to take a look. A bit out of order you may think? Most people send out those links with their first submissions. Everyone's lives are so busy these days, I'd rather send them a bundle of things to check out at their leisure. The alternative is to send them a link to one and either do follow up emails or hope they want to check back frequently. This way, at least, they know I've been working hard.
Fourth: I'll keep you posted.
Well, some might say that you're wasting your time promoting in such a way and all and there's other things that's worth doing, or shall I say the smart ways... but i'm pretty sure all the people on triond would find a least most part of this article useful. We all love writing and that's the big gist of all matters, and money probably be second. For me, I rather go for the recognition together with my love of writing, but a few cents won't bite ey? Keep on writing!