I have read from a few people about MyLot.com as a place to earn more money. Being a writer means being inquisitive. I am always looking to expand my writing horizons. It is all about finding new markets to bring in more money. I went to the website and looked it over. I saw the good, the bad, the ugly, and the possibilities. I also found it can be arbitrary and strangely policed environment.
The good
There are people of all ages for the around the world joined up at MyLot. As a writer, I scan many papers a day for possible hot topics worthy to be researched. I found MyLot a place to put your pulse on what people want to read. When I write my topics span several generations with my work. The forum site in just a short time is exposing me to new audiences and giving me a chance to bring them closer.
I also began to experience how people of other cultures not assimilated to the USA think and feel first hand. Again as a fiction and non-fiction writer, I find the site an invaluable resource. I am learning how to make my characters for my fiction work more real. I think I will be able to create characters that I never before could come close to accurate in portrayal. I can truly say this will help my work be a lot less white bread.
I started blogs as a tool to see what people are interested in. I read other blog forums to see what makes people respond. The how and why opens up my perspectives on people. My first few forums went from lukewarm to cold as stone. I read I observed and finally posted a forum that immediately got multiple hits and posts. These blogs are gathering information that I can use now and store for future reference. In this sense, MyLot is a goldmine.
For me, personally, I met very many wonderful people from all walks of life. There for the most part were fun to trade conversation with. The majority of people that post there make it a great place to hang out and trade thoughts. You may learn something as well.
The bad
Like any other blog forum there is some real deadwood floating around. I had someone who responded in depth, but his or her blog had nothing to do with the forum. I see that happens frequently in forums. People write things to score pennies, while others write things to score brownie points and make forum friends. Yet, another group of people has a sole mission to annoy whoever they can. This is a true cross section of life.
The ugly
I call these people the slacker writers. Not only are they there just to score pennies, but they write as if they were texting on their cell phone. There are people there that need to take a third grade course in writing to improve how they write. They are there; they are as real as they are surreal. From the comments in forums, there is a split on their acceptance among forum contributors. I exclude from this, those from non-english speaking countries. MyLot requires all post be written in english. Frankly many of the non-english speaking members do better than many of those born to the language. The place also abounds with the typing impaired like myself and we can be a trip to read.
The possibilities.
MyLot is a wealth of information cultural and otherwise. As a writer, you can gain insight to target new writing markets and expand your streams of income. As a non-writer you have some plain fun. "U" can even learn from the slacker writer and the moron that annoys everyone. I have only begun to scratch the surface with this site. Soon, I will be writing for magazines I would never even have looked at before.
The strange policing policy.
If you read the guidelines each day before going into the posted forums, you quickly learn the rules are not adequately enforced. I ran across several posts written in non-english languages and one looked like complete gibberish meant to test the waters. They list types of forums that are not to be posted such as countdown and nonsensical postings. The site is rife with such forums. Another no no is listing web addresses for click for pay and that is rampant throughout the site. There are a tremendous amount of people that put down the three word answer thing on almost all their post replies another forbidden posting. Not allowed are posts that include copy and paste replies or forums copied from copyrighted materials. These run rampant throughout the site. One of my so-called friends sent a number of alerts notices of forum postings clearly copied and pasted from online news portals. Several people in trying to post a forum on Law and Order television shows found their posts being rejected with an unspecific warning. It took one person six times before they realized the reason. The producer's name, Dick Wolf is unacceptable. How does a person write a forum on Dick's Sporting Goods Stores or about Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Party on ABC network? Don't ever try to mention on MyLot.com that for over 50 years world renown sportscaster Dick Enberg's catch phrase has been "Oh My."
Moreover, I have a confession. I have been blocked from logging in. I was never warned that I did anything against the rules. I have gone over my posts against the guidelines and frankly, I am still getting emails from people on my friends list that violate the site's policies with almost every posting. I did nothing intentionally wrong. As of yet, no one has answered my inquiries as to why. The guideline policing is as vague as the payment plan.
Don't go for the money!
I am not kidding when I say people are there to collect the pennies. I might be able to pay for lunch with a month's income directly from the site. What I get from it will help me pay my new mortgage and more. The payouts are arbitrary and inconsistent. Consensus among the members is no one really understands how the payouts are calculated. From my short time there, I can tell you the payments made no sense. Do not go to Mylot for the money go for the experience and resource. If you want to make money posting got to PayPoster.com. The policies are clear and so are the pay rates which are much higher. At MyLot.com, it took over 250 posts plus some pictures from my royalty free collection to make just short of $3 in three days. Since, many of my posts were in-depth, the breakdown was under a 15 cents an hour. At PayPoster.com, you can do that in a couple of hours. In addition, MyLot pays slower than PayPoster and you have to have a minimum of $10 accumulated, plus only through a PayPal account at this writing.
Overall, MyLot is not bad a place to stop by. There are many intelligent people that put thought into their post. If you're a slacker, you've got friends there as well. The site needs to better in defining their policies and enforce them universally. The payment program needs to be better explained for the membership. Then again, as I said before, you really do not go there for the payola. Happy Blogging to you.
What happen with PayPoster.com ???