The People Who Hate Me are Making Me Rich

Pennies from heaven?

The people who hate me are making me rich. 

OK, not exactly the people who hate me.  It’s the people who hate my ideas who are making me rich. 

OK, not exactly making me rich. I’m still only earning pennies per day from my web essays. But it did go up to 49 cents one day which is way better than the 10 to 20 cents a day I usually get.  

I wrote an article called “The Billboard Wars: Good without God.” It was based on a presentation that Fred Edwords, National Director of the United Coalition of Reason (www.UnitedCoR.org). He gave the presentation at the FreeFlo Humanist Conference in Orlando in October 2014. 

 

 

Fred gave me permission to adapt his presentation for the web. I carefully edited to create an objective piece of reporting.  I explained how some free-thought groups started putting up billboards and ads on the sides of buses. Most of the ads were promoting the idea that people can be good without God.  

These ads got some Christian groups so incensed that they put up counter ads. This brought lots of publicity to the atheist ad campaign. The publicity brought in lots of new members and donations to the atheist groups. Ironically, it was the people who hated them who made them successful.   

I write for HubPages and HubPages encourages their writers to comment on each others’ work (hubs). When someone comments, everyone who “follows” that person will see their comment.  One person got really nasty.  At first I was upset. Then I realized he was giving my hub a lot of publicity within the HubPages community.  The more he ranted, the more views I got and the more money I made. 

 

Some of my other hubs generated a little bit of controversy, but not enough to make a real difference. Check out What is Secular Humanism? and Thou Shall Not Kill: The Morality of the Death Penalty. 

Additionally, these two hubs were a little bit shocking to a few. Right Livelihood: The Quest for Ethical Work and An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism. 

So if you hate me, maybe you’ll do a comment on facebook and google+.  Better yet, if you love what I have written, please like and comment. Or you could link to these articles on your own websites. (These links are like manna from heaven.)

My Hive Mentality: It's About Bees

by Catherine Giordano

A bee obtaining nectar from a flower 

I have never paid much attention to bees except to stay away from them so as not to get stung.  

Then I started writing for HubPages. I needed something to write about so I asked my friends who are beekeepers to give me the information they use when they do presentations. Now I am fascinated by bees.

These little creatures are absolutely amazing. So far I have done three posts about them  My most recent post is All About Honey Bees: 20 Questions … And Answers.  BTW, in that one, I explain what to do if you get stung by a bee. 

Here are the two other bee posts. 

Inside the Bee Hive: How Bees Make Honey This one was signaled out for special recognition. It was named “Editor’s Choice.”

Little Known Facts About Honey Bees, Plus Poems This one includes four poems about bees.

Let me know what you think of them or the bees.

Also, if you want to read an amazing book about bees, read The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. The book is not exactly about bees, but beekeepers are some of the main characters.  It is a coming of age story of a young girl in the rural South in the 1960’s. It is a wonderful story and beautifully written.

The Secret Lives of Bees was also made into a movie.

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An Avalanche of Accolades

by Catherine Giordano

The illustration used in "Tips for Writers"

It has been just about four months since I started writing on HubPages (HP). I began because I wanted to earn money, but I stayed for the joy of writing. 

I’ve been told it takes about a year for earnings to happen, but, for me the accolades happened very quickly.  I have reached over 3000 views in my first three months and close to 100 followers to date.  Some of my hubs have been selected by the staff for special recognition. (On HubPages, the articles or posts are called “hubs.”)  

Accolade #1

One of my hubs Inside the Bee Hive: How Bees Make Honeyreceived an “Editor’s Choice” award. It is featured on the HubPages domain where it can get extra attention from search engines.

 

Accolade #2

About a week later, one of my hubs, Why People Collect Stuff and How You Can Too,was selected as Hub of the Day. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of hubs published every day, so it is an a great achievement to win the Hub of the Day award.  

Accolade #3

I figured that was it accolade-wise for a while.  After all, HP probably wants to spread the glory around.  It is a way to encourage writers to keep writing, especially those of us who are not actually making money yet. Today, I turned on my computer and found I had won Hub of the Day a second time--twice in one month. This time it was Tips for Writers: The Making of a Poem that won.



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I wrote Tips for Writers: The Making of a Poem as a way to put some of my old poems to use. I had several poems with a common theme—a love of words—so I put them all in a hub and  wrote some text about how to use the unconscious when writing prose or poetry, and added some pictures. I thought I was just burning off some old poems, but the tons of comments I have received indicate that people really found the hub interesting and useful.  And they liked the poems.

Another benefit: A network of friends. Through comments and other communication and by reading what others write, I have formed friendships with some of the other hubbers (people who write hubs.)  

If you think you might enjoy writing for HubPages, let me know. I will help you get started.


Update 10/15/14:. I had another hub chosen as "Hub of the Day" today.  That makes three hubs selected for this honor within 30 days.This time the hub was  The Resplendent Quetzal: The Most Beautiful Bird in the World. I may be the only person to ever accomplish this. I also got my second Editor's Choice" today, for  my post The Jobs of the Presidents (Before They Were President)

I am an artistic success. Now,show me the money.

 

Really, I'm getting all this validation on the quality of my writing, but still only pennies a day.

 

Perseus, Hercules, and the Nip-Slip

Perseus rescues Andromeda.

by Catherine Giordano

 

I have been doing posts for HubPages. They have some strange rules that can trip a writer up. You only learn what the rules are when you violate them. 

I did a couple of great hubs (as posts are called on HubPages), about dragon encounters in the myths about Perseus and Hercules.  I wanted to illustrate these hubs with classical art from Museums. I thought it added just the right feeling to the hubs.  

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For the hub on Perseus, I told the story of Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda from a dragon named Cetus. I found a great picture. Only thing—Andromeda is naked. The story specifically describes her as naked, so practically every picture of Andromeda shows her naked. You can see the picture I choose at the top of this post. 

HubPages scores every hub and this one got the highest rating ever for me—a 96.  Then a few days later, I got an email saying that ads on my hub are being blocked because of a content violation.  Naked ladies are not allowed.  Ads are how a writer makes money on HubPages so I changed the picture. 

Ironically, one of the ads was for a statuette being sold on amazon.com of Perseus, naked, full-frontal nudity.  
 

Hercules with the Hesperides

After that I did a hub about Hercules.  Hercules goes to the Garden of the Hesperides to slay the dragon Ladon and obtain three golden apples. (It’s his 11^th of his “12 Labors.”) Again I wanted to use museum pictures. Again all the ladies had a bit too much décolleté.   

This time I imported the picture into Microsoft Paint, and painted a bodice over The naughty bits. I’m not much of an artist—I should have put in some shading—but I’m hoping no one will notice.    



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Read the stories and see the replacement photos:  Perseus  Hercules 

I also earn money from views. So please click the above links. You will enjoy the stories. I tell them with humor. If you go to the hub, please do the polls and leave a comment.