Writing Jokes For Money - Part II

Prequel

Joke Writers Help!!

Just call 911 ( You did agree to listen to my jokes, right? )

Practical lesson in Standup Comedy

Let's get down to business:
"Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Line" Why is that funny? Uh...Never mind. I think I need to start a seperate jokes blog..

1. BBC - Getting Started in Comedy - Comedy is notoriously difficult to quantify, and even the most successful comedians and comedy writers would struggle to explain why a joke is funny. But there are tips to take note of and pitfalls to avoid, as Martin Trenaman and Matt Leys explain.

2. Joke Writing Resource Centre - A brief look at how jokes are written, recommended books with reviews, writing for greetings cards, successful lyric writing book and software programs to help you write and drawing cartoons.

3. 7 Ways to Improve Your Joke Writing - You can learn and improve upon your joke and humor writing skills, regardless of genre. As Mills adds, "Every joke is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end."

4. How to Write a Joke: The 7 basic joke forms - Structurally speaking, joke writing problems are exactly the same for anyone trying to get a laugh.

Here's a few available gigs for joke writers:

Urban Sketch Comedy Show Seeks Writers - Click Here
Comedy writers wanted - Click Here
African American Comedy Sketch Writers Wanted - Click Here
Writers Wanted - Click Here


"John Kerry met with Ralph Nader. Both sides of every issue were discussed. And then, Nader spoke." -Jay Leno
I think I wanna do a sequel for this post...

Writing jokes for money - Part 1

A few years back, I was a nerd sitting in my mom's basement chatting online with other nerds sitting in their respective basements. I was told to get a life and a real job. The reason I mention this at all, is because it just struck me how attitudes have changed towards people who make their living online. Even people who have very little or no interaction on the net now think it's pretty cool when I tell them that my computer feeds me.

Course there's a relative aspect to all this - Compared to a Google employee who works from home, I'm trailer trash. Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that it is no longer a risk to base one's career on trying to earn money online. Hold on, hold on...Don't quit the day job just yet. I didn't mean it literally. Just a manner of speaking...

On to something a bit more specific and related to freelance writers:

Breaking your head over a title for your next article? Click here.
Guaranteed to send you into a tizzy of inspiration and ideas heaven. Else money back. Oh! Sorry - You ain't paying me squat. No deal.

Duh! One would think that Google is bound to know the answer as to whether a blog can make money or not. Well, think again:
Q: Blogging for revenue ( No Answer, 3 Comments )

Just one more crack. I promise. Then we get on to the jobs. Sorry, I can't get you a job freelancing

Ok. On to the jobs:- Today's niche focus - Writing jokes for money. Here's a list of resources, available gigs and of course, the jokes ( C'mon...How do you expect me to write about making money from jokes, if you don't wanna listen to the jokes? ).

Hold on to your hats for part II.

Freelance Jobs 10th Nov

Web Writers Needed - Click Here

Freelance content writers - Click Here

Freelance Editors Needed - Click Here

Got blog? - Click Here

Writer / Researcher - Click Here
Comment: If you fit the bill, and you get the gig, you might be busy for quite some time.

Get Paid to Rant About Books - Click Here
Comment: I've been doing so much reading about book reviews since yesterday that I'm quite hazy about which links I already posted. But, just to be on the safe side, I'm posting this one again.

Internet Start Up / Business Writing Opportunity - Click Here

By the Y... - Click Here
Comment: I have, um.., nothing to say about the needs of the gal, but I do have one question - what's Y... stand for?

Tic Tac Toe Players - Click Here
Comment: Duh. And then you ask me why jobs are being outsourced out of the US. With nitwits like this hanging around on the net wasting their time, it's a wonder the US isn't a third world country already...

Which brings me to this ( Warning : This has nothing to do with telecommute jobs or freelance writers... ):

Third World Workers Need Western Jobs
I'll quote the paragraph which makes me want to puke, if preferably onto the above author's face:
"The issue of child labor has long been a flashpoint in the globalization debate. As repellant as the notion of child labor is, the harsh truth is that a Western company that stops using child labor in some Third World nations does not change the economic conditions that had those children working in the first place. Nor does it change the local cultural standards that accept and expect child labor. Unfortunately, in many corners of the globe, closing the factories and sweatshops to children often just seals for them a far worse fate."



How low can someone fall in order to justify some preconcieved notions? I'm not going to argue about this point by point or provide links to prove him wrong because it's not necessary. All I want to say is that if something you do is right and truthful, you never, ever have to be ashamed of doing it. Is there a single - Just name me one - company which says that "Yes, we do employ child labor, and what we're doing is right"? You won't find one. I wish someone would wake up the klutz who wrote that article and ask him to take a good look in the mirror.

Book Reviewer Jobs

Do you want to pay someone for the honor of reviewing their book(s)? Click Here

Yeah - That's right. They expect you to pay them $25 for letting you write reviews about their books. Now I've seen it all.
Note: This is a joke, ok? This is not a job or gig. If you applied for a review job with the above link, then you need help:


Hope Clark offers the serious book reviewer 70+ publications that pay for book reviews.

All right - I'm sorry. Just making up for lost time. Here's the jobs - 3,060,000 of book reviewer gigs - Click Here. Lemme know how it goes. Bye...

Ok. All right. Calm down. Here's the jobs - Honest:

Chicklit Review Writers Wanted - Click Here

Book Reviewers Assignments - Click Here

Book Reviewers Wanted - Click Here

Manuscript Reviewers - Click Here

Book Reviews Needed - Click Here

Writers and Reviewers Wanted for E-zine - Click Here

And one more - Wanna get $100 for reviewing movies? Click Here

Related Resources:

1. How to write a book review - Click Here
2. One more "How to write a book review" ( just for backup ) - Click Here
3. And in case the above two links didn't help, here's some 57,900,000 more links on "How to write A book review" - Click Here

P.S. : Please read the friggin book before you review it.

Freelance Jobs - 9th Nov 2006

You know, when I started blogging, I had it all planned out. I divided my work into two categories - Short term and Long term. Short term where I get paid for some small stuff, like short articles or reviews or blogging or whatever. Pay ain't something to brag about, but it keeps the wheels turning. And Long term is like where you have to put in a lot of time and effort, without seeing any immediate returns, but lots of castles in the air. Meaning that I was doing both, the short term work keeping me motivated and the long term work giving me hope that one day....Anyway, what I'm saying is that I'm in way over my nose. I have a sore throat, the short term work is piling up and the long term projects just keep getting bigger and bigger. Plus, the Democrats took the Republicans to the woodshed in the US congressional elections, Novell throws Linux users to the big bad shark, uhh...Microsoft and Britney Spears files for divorce. WTF is going on?? Show me some love, huh?


LiteraryAgent.co.uk - literary agents critique book publishers and authors information for aspiring authors and writers

Today's Freelance Jobs:

Contract Writers - Click here.

Grant Writer - Click here.

Coffee Lovin Writer - Click here.
Comment: Yeah, yeah - I know! Perfect gig, huh?

Web content writer for ethnic online dating - Click here.

Short Article writers - Click here.

Vegetarian Blogger Jobs - Click here.
Comment: I've been piling on bloggers in the last few posts, so I'll give this one a pass. But it's really begging for a snark.

Toast writer wanted - Click here.
Comment: I decide I don't want to crack any jokes today and this is what happens. Darn!

African American Poetry Mag ( female )- Click here.

Case Study Writer - Click here.

Internet research, short writeups and Blogging gigs - Click here.
Comment: Sounds good, but there's a small alarm bell clanging somewhere deep inside. I could be wrong, but be careful, huh?

Freelance Online Writers - Click here.

Online Publication seeks Staff Writers - Click here.
Comment: Please read the friggin small print at the bottom of the ad before you apply.

Copy and Write This

Nice pic, huh? If you're in the Netherlands and want some copywriting done, pls click pic to visit 'Kant copywrite' or somethin like that.

Anyway, a coupla days back I wrote about SEO copywriting. Wish I had read the following page before writing that article:

PerceptionEngine.com

If I had bumped into this page a few days back, I wouldn't have had to write about copywriting. I would just have needed to copy and write.

I'm quoting two full paragraphs for those who don't want to read the full article:

"What are the Benefits of Writing an Article for Your Site?

I send you a free toaster in the mail. Nope, just kidding. When you submit an article to PerceptionEngine, you maintain sole ownership of your literary work. You are merely giving me permission to publish it on my website. This means that you can publish your article elsewhere on other websites while it's published on mine, and you can have your article removed from my website at any time for any reason. I'm not a thief, your intellectual property will not be stolen.

In addition, you get free publishing (I put it up on my site), free maintenance (I pay for hosting), and free advertising (I show visitors where it is). You can also advertise your own website in your author's profile. I regularly utilize search engines to ensure that your material is not plagiarised or reproduced without your consent, so I will help to protect your work."

What strikes you after reading that? I'll tell you what didn't strike me - The pain that normally comes after reading a full page and finding out that the cheapskate wants your article for free.

All he's saying is that you get a byline, same as every website which does not pay writers. But he's saying it in such a way that it takes away the pain and the urge to close the window. Makes you pause for a second. God knows how many writers have decided to submit their articles in that brief pause. This is not writing. This is Copywriting.

Again, if you're lookin for today's jobs, that'll be coming in a short while in another post. HA!

Freelance Jobs - 8th Nov 2006

Freelance Writer ( Shakespeare ) 450$ - Click Here

Article writers ( Investment banking and Private equity ) - Click Here

Writers for Music, Art and culture - Click Here

Lifestyle Mag looking for feature writers - Click Here

Personal finance/Consumer credit Writer needed - Click Here

B2B/B2C writer needed - Click Here

Ghost Writer - Click Here

Get ready for some bloviating by yours truly in a few hours. But before that, I gotta do some work, for a change, like writing an article. Deadline is coming closer and I'm starting to sweat a bit. Just a tiny little bit. Nothing I can't handle. I hope...

Ghost Writers

I am, in effect a ghost writer because I sell articles for money, rather than name. I'd like not to be a ghost. I'd like to be a full warm blooded human writer with both money and name, but the evil publishers have banned me to the realm of the hooded writers who recieve only the money and someone else gets the credit.

It burns my heart when I see my articles credited to some nobody, but if I start taking credit for the work, it is my stomach that will be growling. I'd rather let my heart burn than let my stomach growl.

Source: http://www.happinessonline.org/LoveAndHelpChildren/p12.htm ( That leads to an alleged speech about the allegedly ghost written book by Queen Hillary about how the entire village raised Chelsea. )

Ghost writers come in a few mutant varieties:
1. Writers who get partial credit ( say somewhere in small print, at the bottom, where no one can read it.) This would be the kind of gig where you write an autobiography of a celeb or politician who hasn't read or written anything for the last decade or so.
2. Writers who really do not exist. Meaning the publishing house invents a writer and gives the writer credit for the collective work of a lot of writers.
3. Writers who get no credit whatsoever and are compensated purely in terms of money. This would be the kind of category where myself and other, uh..undernourished artists fall.

Since I'm making a living out of this practise, it would be foolish of me to nitpick about there being an element of deception in ghost writing. Does it hurt anyone? Well...Think about it. I write an article on credit scores or debt management. I do a lot of research and finetune the article so that it really looks like I know what I, meaning the author, Not me..uh, anyway...is talking about. End result? Any visitor to the site where the article now resides is going to be impressed and will be more than willing to pay a few bucks to hire the site owner's services.

My point - Ghost writing for web content is a wholly different ball game than ghost writing a book. Can I live with this deception? Of course. Can I sleep at night? Of course. So don't I look like a hypocrite now after making this post? Yes. Should I have written this post? Nope.

If you're looking for the jobs, you'll have to wait some more. I decided I need to make two posts a day. I'm splittin the jobs and my blather into two seperate posts. So now you know which one you want to read. Right?

Freelancers and Freelancing

Pipe down! We'll get down to today's freelancing jobs very soon. Besides Craigslist ain't going nowhere. I want to expound ( or is that bloviate? ) on freelancers and freelancing a little bit first.

A freelancer is, by definition, a dolt who finishes one job and then goes around searching for another job. Or something like that. My point is, besides being good at the job itself, a freelancer needs to be highly skilled at hunting down jobs. A normal person would hunt for a new job maybe once or twice in a decade wheras a freelancer has to do it everyday. In short, hunting for jobs is part of the job. Uh....I don't know how I ended up with that, and you can stop grinning now.

As a freelance writer, I really like the challenge of trying to find a gig and when someone accepts my services, it gives a sense of achievement. But the fun really begins when it comes down to writing the article. I mean, you have no friggin clue about the topic you have been asked to write about. You start Googling and pretty soon a routine assignment turns into a fascinating process of discovery. You learn things you never would have in any other sector. I have done research on and written articles about topics as varied as Moore's law on semiconducters, a HowTo on Backgammon, Medicare woes in the US and other equally interesting topics. This is an aspect of being a freelance writer which I love the most.

Job satisfaction is a word bandied about by HR Managers everywhere. But what exactly does it mean? For me, it means looking forward eagerly to see what today has in store for you. Am I going to write about Art Nouveau or am I going to write an essay about the feeding habits of pet rabbits? Or am I going to bloviate about freelancing on my blog? Either way, I enjoy it all. Question is: Do you?

On to today's freelance jobs:

Tech and Business Writers - Click Here

Rabbit Writer - Click Here
Comment: It's not funny, OK? It's a good gig and you can learn how to tell if a rabbit is a boy or a girl. Ok. It's funny.

Freelance Patent Research - Click Here

Blogger Job ( Nutrition Blog )- Click Here

Bilingual Translators wanted - Click Here

Content Writer wanted - Click Here

Website data entry typist - Click Here

Forgive me, but I have to go rabbit hunting, uh.. I mean, rabbit writing job hunting. Ciao.