Associated Content: SOLD!

I've been meaning to update my blog, really I have, but at the moment I have my hands full keeping up with my client work. Thank you to everyone who voiced encouragement on my last post, and know that neglecting my blog right now just means that I'm trying to focus on my other responsibilities.

Anyway, I'm blogging tonight to report a headline, hot off the press (so to speak), that I thought would interest many of my freelancers:

Denver-based web-content firm sold

Yahoo is buying Associated Content for $100 million. (Funny, AC may not believe in paying their writers much, but they sure want top dollar for their business.) Since Associated Content was Denver-based, it's big news here. I wonder if there are any local employees who will be losing their jobs over this — I know AC hires local people for their editing positions, as I interviewed for a position when the company was fairly new, and a freelance friend of mine worked there as an editor for a short time. Plus, an old high school friend of mine knows programmers who work for Associated Content in their Denver office. (They at least are well-paid, although that doesn't say much for the company, in my opinion, as it indicates how poorly they think of writers as compared to code monkeys.)

The Denver Post article includes a blogger's quote that questions Yahoo's decision, pointing out that they are polluting their content with some pretty low-quality stuff. But I can't help but wonder if AC's new owners will be able to raise the standards — and the pay — enough to salvage their reputation.

What are your thoughts? Most of us agree that low-paying freelance work has at least a minor impact on the industry as a whole — and some would argue the impact is pretty major. And Associated Content is a pretty major force in the industry, as it is the longest-surviving content site that I know of. With that in mind, do you think Yahoo's acquisition of the company will be a good thing or a bad thing for the industry in general?

Coming back is hard to do

As many of you know, I've had a difficult month. Heck, in some ways it's been a difficult year. After force-feeding my cat Prince for 5 months, we had to put him to sleep on April 15th. (Now I have yet another reason to hate Tax Day.) And that was following a week that I completely lost thanks to a burn-induced infection in my hand.

Needless to say, April wasn't a good month. I haven't had the heart to finalize the numbers yet, but preliminary counts show I made only about half of my normal income — which would make sense, considering I was out of commission, either from physical complaints or from grief, for 2 weeks out of the 4 ½ that made up the month of April.

Even though that's all over now — my hand healed long ago, and although I still miss my kitty from time to time, I think about it less frequently and with less intensity than I used to — I'm finding it hard to come back. Even though I technically went back to work on the 19th, I've been working only sporadically since then, with a lot of wasted hours and even days.

Yesterday Lori Widmer wrote a post called Do You Have What It Takes?, meaning what it takes to freelance, of course. I've never doubted that I do — I've never minded working late and pulling the occasional all-nighter in exchange for a more flexible schedule the rest of the time, and that sort of thing. But this last month, I've had to wonder: Do I have what it takes? How have I made it 4 ½ years?

I know it's been a pretty extreme month. Most of the time you aren't going to have an infection in your hand followed by having to put your cat to sleep. But we all know how bad luck can all hit at once. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at planning ahead, and I had no reserve to fall back on. My clients have been pretty understanding, but then again the show must go on, and deadlines must still be met. Sometimes I wonder, if this train is going to keep chugging onward, if it's going to roll me right under the wheels.

I'm curious whether my other full-time freelancing friends have had similar experiences, or if it's just me. Have you ever doubted your decision to freelance? Have you ever wondered how you'll make it through some crisis or another with your career still intact?

Juggling acts: Taxes, freelancing, and loss

The confusing, convoluted process that the government makes you go through to file your freelancing taxes never ceases to amaze me. I marvel at this particular one every year:

In order to complete Form 1040, I need to first complete Schedule C, to determine net business income.

In order to complete Schedule C, I need to first complete Form 4562, to determine the deduction I get to take for business equipment.

However, in order to complete Form 4562, I need to know our total gross income for the year, from the 1040.

Why could they not make this a more linear, logical process?

I had the worst April 15th of my entire life, as I had to file taxes and euthanize my beloved cat, who has been with me for 11 years this month, on the same day. As you may know from previous years, I don't usually file at the last minute, but part of the reason has been my intense focus on Prince — I've been force-feeding him for the last 5 months, and although he seemed happy up until he suddenly got dramatically worse a couple of days ago, taking care of him took up a lot of my focus and my energy.

Taxes and freelancing must go on, though. I am not taking any official break from work, though I plan to take it easy over the next few days, and of course the IRS waits for no cat. Check back for a link to my Pony Tales Blog, where I plan to write a longer post on losing Prince.

Unexpected sick days...

...although "sick" doesn't quite seem to cut it.

I had quite the experience last week. Almost the entire week is a blur to me. I slept for most of it, hardly got any work done, and now I'm paying the price (late bills — since I wasn't coherent enough to pay them — and a backlog of all the work I didn't do). Luckily it was a somewhat slow week, but being out of commission for it still kicked my butt.

The story began three weeks ago from tomorrow, when I burned my hand by accidentally pouring boiling water on it while making tea. (The mug tipped while I was pouring and I reached to catch it, forgetting to stop pouring at the same time.) It hurt for a while that day, but not for all that long. I made a lot of trips to the bathroom to run cold water over it for the first couple of hours, but I popped a couple of ibuprofen and pretty soon it was just a bad memory.

The burn wasn't too bad — it didn't blister, just got crispy and peeled like a sunburn later in the week. All seemed fine. Then I started getting an itchy rash where the peeling had started. I'm not too good at not scratching (or not helping the peeling along, for that matter) so I really went to town on it for the first couple of days. Then I thought better of that, and bought some Lanacane to kill the itch.

Bad idea, as it turns out. A day and a half later, I realized my skin was turning red where I was putting the Lanacane, and my hand was starting to get a bit swollen. Oops — I guess I'm allergic? So I switched to Benadryl and started icing it to take the edge off. I also started sleeping a lot — I thought at the time because of the Benadryl, but now I think probably because the infection was getting worse.

By mid-week, I was sleeping quite a bit — after I got up in the morning, I was taking an extended nap during the day, and then falling asleep again around 9:30 in the evening (highly unusual for me). Needless to say, I wasn't getting much work done. On Thursday I went to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics, but not much else (including information). On Friday it was still getting worse, so with my hand roughly twice its normal size and no openings at my doctor's office, I went to the ER. An hour and a half later, with an injection of antibiotics in my butt and two more prescriptions to have filled, I was home again.

The story ends well — the swelling was down on Saturday and completely gone by Sunday. I'm off the Benadryl and back on a more normal sleep schedule. Unfortunately, I have a lot of work to catch up on now — which brings me to my point.

Don't be a last minute freelancer. I'm guilty of it more often than I'd like to admit, as I'm sure many people are, but in cases like this it can really come back to bite you in the butt. This time I lucked out, as I had no looming deadlines (those are all this week) and a relatively light workload. But I still would have been much better off if I'd worked ahead the previous week, when I had the opportunity.

What about you? Do you work ahead, or tend to complete projects just under the wire? And has it ever come back to haunt you?

Roll call

Since I had to move my blog to a new address, I've noticed my traffic has taken a nose dive. I'm guessing that might be because a lot of readers were following my blog through Blogger's reader, and now that my feed address has changed, they aren't getting updates. I did set up the old address to forward to the new one, but that won't do anything for the feed.

Have you figured out my blog's new address? If so, please change the links on your own blog and, if you don't mind, post a small announcement so that others can find me again. Thanks so much!

More on the Colorado-Amazon battle

No answers yet on what will happen with the Colorado sales tax bill that Amazon is protesting. However, there have been lots of articles on the subject in our local paper, some of them quite interesting.

For example, there is a fantastic editorial on Amazon's decision to fire Colorado-based affiliates, in which the author calls Amazon "evil." Amen!

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't agree, and it sounds like they are causing some trouble at the capital. I fervently hope the state legislature won't give in to these folks, who have been manipulated into doing Amazon's dirty work for them (when by all rights they should be spending their time finding alternative affiliate programs and getting their businesses back on track!). I really don't want Amazon to win this one — they need to be taken down a notch, in my opinion, and I'd really like to see my state be the one to do it!

I urge my fellow writers, readers, and bloggers to do something about this. Obviously we can't take down Amazon amongst ourselves, but we can give our money to hardworking local businesses and honest, reputable chains instead of Amazon!

Alternatives for Colorado-based Amazon affiliates

Every since Amazon behaved badly Monday morning by firing Colorado-based affiliates, I've been dealing with the fallout. I decided pretty quickly that I was done with an Amazon — as an affiliate as well as a consumer — and immediately started looking for new affiliate programs for my book review blog, wedding blog, and doll repair blog.

My first thought was to apply for the Barnes & Noble affiliate program. Ironically, I joined their program back when I first joined Amazon, but ended up going with the latter because their system was easier to use. The B&N affiliate program is different now — it's part of the Google Affiliate Network, which includes many more affiliate programs than just Barnes & Noble — and I was pleased to find that the new system is just as user-friendly as Amazon's. And personally, I like the overall results much better — I think the larger image of the book cover provides a much cleaner look than Amazon's ad.

I applied for the program Monday afternoon, and by Monday evening had an acceptance. I immediately changed the book links in the sidebars of all my blogs except my wedding blog (that one is still on my to-do list). Yesterday I also applied for a couple of other advertisers in the program, and set up a few other affiliate ads for my blog about feline hepatic lipidosis.

On Tuesday, I got a recommendation to try the Powells.com partner program. I signed up and was able to get started right away. This system is even more user-friendly than the Google Affiliate Network, and I like it considerably better than Amazon's program. I especially like the fact that Powell's buys used books online — they pay the shipping too. You can check out the program by clicking the link in the sidebar, under the ad for the book I'm currently reading.

Yesterday, I changed over a number of my more recent links on my book review blog. I still have a lot to do though, and I expect it to be a few more days before I am done switching over to the new affiliate programs.

The best thing about these two programs is how much easier payment is than Amazon. With Amazon, if you want cash you have to wait until you reach $100 in commissions, which takes a while for someone like me, for whom the income is only supplementary. But it seems like the businesses in the Google Affiliate Network pay after a set number of days — e.g., 30, 60, or 90 days — while Powell's pays at the end of the quarter where you reach $25. Plus, the Google Affiliate Network (which I keep wanting to call GAN!) links up with your Google AdSense account, which is pretty convenient.

My point is that there are many options for former Colorado-based Amazon affiliates. Much better options with more honest companies, if you ask me. Personally, even if Amazon reinstates the Colorado affiliates (which I really think they will, whether or not the Colorado legislature calls their bluff — they can't give up all those referrals!), I could never trust them again after this. But I feel much more secure after signing up for affiliate programs I like, with businesses I respect. If you ask me, Amazon did me a favor!