You may have noticed the odd mention about a website called Helium. “So what is Helium exactly?” I hear you ask (I know you didn’t but let’s pretend).
Helium is a website made up of a community of writers. I’m still fairly new to it but it seems a great place for anyone wanting to practice their journalism skills. There’s a creative writing section which I’ve not really ventured in to at the moment. This might be because every post is typically between 400 and 1500 words long. I’m currently 81,000 words in to my book so I don’t think it’ll have a home here, even chapter 1 wouldn’t fit.
There are plenty of different areas within the website. If you’re an expert in a field then Helium will most likely want an article from you about something relevant to your field of interest. But if you’re an average Joe like me then you might like to try “Title Finder”. Using their search engine you can find titles to base an article on. I tried to think of something I know about that most other people don’t and the first answer that came to my mind was “3D”. The title “How 3D glasses work” came up and had no current articles written for it. So off I went, typing like the wind if the wind had fingers and a keyboard.
There’s also a “Title suggestion” area meaning that you could write about pretty much anything. Though don’t confuse this with absolute freedom. One of my articles got sent back to me with a request to re-write it. Apparently one of the rules of posting was that the post had to be in second or third person and being the ego maniac I am there was the odd reference to myself, something as heinous as “I liked this” probably. I suppose the idea is that they want to steer their articles away from being too opinionated and personal. Hence the reason why I’ve decided to separate these from my usual blogs posts.
The section that most people will most likely be drawn to in their quest for cold hard cash is the Marketplace page. Here publishers (including Helium themselves) offer to pay for people to write on particular subject. I posted two articles yesterday in the hopes of earning a lovely $2. I’m English and so would much prefer £2 or even £200 but hey it’s a start. If you post more and more articles and these articles are deemed worthy by fellow writers then you gain these fancy stars. I’m yet to earn my first but once I get it, it means that I’m eligible for certain marketplace posts that I wouldn’t be able to apply for otherwise.
I’d certainly recommend Helium for anyone wanting to give article writing a try but aren’t quite sure what to do about it. It seems unlikely that you’ll earn living from it. At the time of writing the top paid job is $24 and second is $5. The front page promises this amount can be as high as $100 but if this did come up, chances are it’ll be for an article on the inner workings of a Romanian tractor or something you’re equally less knowledgeable about.
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