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When the words and the numbers just don’t add up

Ducking and diving to avoid being caged in

By Jeffrey van BlerkPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Photo by Marcus Krisetya on Unsplash

Last year, in September 2021, I registered as a freelance writer on Medium and subsequently also on Vocal, Substack, Simily, and Ko-fi, where I also offer writing content and writing correction services and have an online store promoting and selling CBD products.

My writing has not been as prolific as I would have liked it to be, far from it in fact, and I have only published a meager 16 stories at the time of writing with a few started but as yet incomplete and still in the pipeline.

The Grammarly paradox

Grammarly tells me it has checked 7,817,901 words that I have written since September 2021 when I opened an account with them, 328, 274 of those just in the last week. That’s right, close on 8 million words! I have no idea how the writing assistant comes up with those numbers, or what algorithms it uses. That would be equivalent to almost eight books of 1 million words. Or 10 x 500000-word books! How many authors write 1 million word books? Not me, I haven’t even written an e-book - yet. It’s one of those unresolved mysteries that crop up regularly in my life. Is there anyone reading this who can enlighten me on how Grammarly arrives at these impressive but unrealistic numbers? If I had a dollar for each one I’d be a multi-millionaire!

Slithering and squirming out the cage

My topics are varied, from life experiences and lessons and bitching about how unfair it is for Medium, Vocal, and Substack not to have more payment options other than Stripe, like Paypal for instance. This of course means writers are unable to earn from their stories no matter how many they write, how many views and reads they get from readers, or how many followers, referrals or subscribers they gather. It would be interesting to see what percentage of writers on Medium and Vocal are from countries that are Stripe ineligible and therefore also unable to earn as opposed to how many can earn. Vocal mentions that Paypal might be a possibility in the future, but I’m not holding my breath, and that once Stripe is eligible in those writers’ countries they will have access to money that has accumulated in their wallets. Medium hardly acknowledges any articles that address this issue, as if the problem doesn’t even exist. Simily, to its credit, has PayPal and Stripe as payment options, as does Ko-fi.

Other topics include online opportunities, entrepreneurship and life lessons, ideas, and relationships among others. So I guess the algorithms have not been able to put me in a box yet. Just when the A1 figures its got me taped, I eel-squiggle out the cage away onto a different topic. Which in a way I like, but maybe it’s not such a good idea in the long run.

The gurus say it’s wise to find your niche first and then establish a strong following there before gradually expanding your subject matter, which sounds like good advice. Who knows? I’m writing about whatever floats my boat at the moment and up to now I’ve been okay with it.

Side hustle shuffle

Over the last few months, I have been spending a lot of time checking out different and trending ways of making a credible income, passive or otherwise, online. That’s also why I haven’t published for a while. Add to that being lazy, procrastinating and downright undisciplined. For those who don’t know, earning money from online activities is known as a “side hustle”. That doesn’t make me or millions of others looking for paying side hustles “hustlers” in the negative context of the word. Be warned, however, that there are many out there whose only objective is to scam you out of your hard-earned money. They’re the bad hustlers.

Once you get into this type of activity you’ll be amazed at what is out there in the virtual world. Or should we now be calling it the metaverse - the fictional universe?

I’m going to cut it here and continue this thread in my next post as this one will be too long and too much to chew in one read. (695 words)

Writing is thirsty work and if you enjoyed this story how about visiting my page on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/scabcorner49566 and buying me a cup of coffee? Also, feel free to check out my writing editing, and rewriting services available in the Commissions section. Thank you.

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About the Creator

Jeffrey van Blerk

Retired former newspaper journalist in South Africa with 25 years of experience. Spent several years teaching English in Southeast Asia and learned more about life than what I was imparting to my young students.

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