Squids In

I've started yet another Squidoo account, and published my first lens on it. It's under my real name, so I won't be revealing it here, but I hope that, if you discover it by accident, that you enjoy reading it. I set it up purely with the idea of making money from it. I always enjoyed using Squidoo. I loved the cartoon monsters which popped up telling you how many points you've earned. But I never really felt I was using Squidoo properly, and now I think I know why.
In case you're wondering what Squidoo is, I'll explain it as best I can. Squidoo is a personal publishing platform, just as Blogger is. It's free to set up an account there (if you're interested, go to http://www.squidoo.com/ ) and free to publish. Where it differs from Blogger is that it isn't really a blogging site.
Instead, you get to write pages (which they call lenses). To me, they are non-fiction articles, on any subject on which you feel you have some expertise. Having said that, I have come across lenses which contain their authors' fictional stories; and my new lens also features a short story.
A few years ago, I came across an article about making money online, and it mentioned blogging as a possible method. I'd never heard of blogging up until then. It gave Squidoo and Blogger as examples of its favourite blogging sites, free to use. But to make money, you had to write fresh posts at least once a week.
Well, I'm a writer. The idea of making money from my pen seemed appealing. I set up my first Squidoo acount, and published a lens. It was as easy as pie. Except as soon as I hit the publish button, a message flashed up saying that it looked a little empty. This puzzled me. I'd written an article (quite good, I thought) in the Keith Waterhouse style. What I didn't realize was that, on Squidoo, once you've published a lens, you're not meant to keep adding to it, as you do with a blog. On Squidoo, once you've published a lens, it's meant to stay fixed.
The next week, I added to my original lens with another article. What I should have done was begin a brand new lens. It was only when I saw a few other Squidoo lenses that I realized that I was going wrong. Even so, I couldn't quite identify where I was going wrong. Was I ever going to get the hang of this blogging lark?
I began blogging on Blogger, and then, for some reason I cannot now remember, went over to Wordpress. But I could never get the hang of Wordpress. Blogger is a lot more straightforward. I attempted another Squidoo lens- it was the prototype of the blog which you're reading now. But Squidoo isn't the best platform for diary-style blogs, as this is. Once you've published a lens on Squidoo, you're not meant to add further to it. So back to Blogger I came.
But the idea of making money from blogging nagged away at me; as did the thought of using Squidoo again for something, anything. Which is when I hit upon the idea of publishing my fiction on Squidoo. I read The Squidoo Success Formula by Wendy Bon and Jason Katzenbach ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Squidoo-Success-Formula-Training-ebook/dp/B009DAHGKA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380777935&sr=1-1&keywords=squidoo ), which made a lot of things clearer. And so I began.

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