Writing Quizzes Part 4

As a freelancer, I think part of the problem is that we work online. There is little to no personal interaction with our employers. We simply become content suppliers.

Over the course of several years, the quizzes became more and more important to me financially. Every week, I could go to the spreadsheet and pick the quizzes I wanted to do. If my son went into the hospital, I could take a break. If I needed to work a theater show, I could take a break.

At the same time, my employers began adding more and more work. It began with us entering the quizzes ourselves- sometimes more than once when the system failed to save. It continued when we were no longer allowed to use specific episode questions and had to move on to more general ones. Granted, once the quizzes moved on to movies instead of television, that helped. Then, we were told we needed two sentence answers. This upped the word count to 2500 per quiz and made it more time consuming to do them. Each quiz began requiring more research (although some quiz writers got around this and were not let go).

How? Well, I always tried to vary my answers and write interesting but obscure facts as well as quotes on the subject. Since I occasionally took quizzes and weekly looked at the comments about them, I know that this was not so for others especially when the edict came to make the quizzes really easy with more difficult questions at the end.

This was stupid on multiple levels. The employers believed people were leaving the quizzes because they were too difficult. In part, yes, that is true. People should be able to easily get 80 on every online quiz they take. Less than that on a difficult topic, say Calculus, would be okay. But to get the addictive "completion" feeling, you need to do well, especially on quizzes you take for fun in an area you know well.

When the edict came to make easier quizzes, this is what I aimed for. However, others produced quizzes with questions like: Which of the following is a bird? (a) A cedar tree (b) a rock (c) an umbrella (d) a robin. I wish I were kidding. Needless to say, the dumbing down of quizzes to the point a moron could pass with flying colors was not too popular. People began to complain and in some cases, such as the quiz titled something like 94% of women can't answer these questions about car parts and then the questions were so stupid a five year old could answer them, there was outrage. How did the freelancers that wrote this drivel get around the two sentence answer? Well, they weren't getting paid more so they certainly weren't going to do the research. Which of the following is a bird? A robin is a bird. It has blue eggs. No additional research required.

If you have been following me for any length of time, you know that my goal is to improve the world through writing. I wrote interesting questions, with answers that could actually be answers (although I admit some were funny to make people enjoy the quiz). Given the above, I might have had these answers if I felt the topic of the quiz was exceptionally dumb: Which of the following is a bird? (a) wombat (b) armadillo (c) Superman (d) robin. Because people mistake Superman for a bird quite frequently. :)

The fact of the matter is that the employers made the situation worse by making the quizzes "dumb." The real problem with the quizzes was not only that in the beginning some were quite difficult but also that the quizzes are 35 questions long and with all the ads you could easily spend one hour on one quiz. They needed to shorten the quizzes. When I suggested things like this, I was naturally ignored. The only other solution was to write meaningful content. I can honestly say that instead of wasting an hour on one of my quizzes, you would have learned something by completing them. But my employers saw people taking the quizzes not as those who wanted to learn something, but instead as dollar signs.

There is a certain addicting quality to online clicking. However, with the Internet one does not have to simply waste time checking Facebook and completing quizzes that tell them what pastry they are. You can actually learn something (misinformation most of the time, but there are a few interesting, well-researched facts out there). If you learn, you don't feel as if you are wasting your life. My employers didn't see or care about that, and that is the major problem with what the Internet has become. It is a cesspool of get rich quick without caring that there are real people on the other side of the screen. Then when they wonder why people aren't taking their addictive quizzes, they automatically think it is because they need to make them easier to click instead of making them more fulfilling to click. Now, my employer claims to be the top marketing firm that will get your ad to just the right person. This would be great in my case because there is nothing I hate more than doing an internet search for an employer and getting all sorts of ads based on that search. What do I care? I have no interest in the item for myself. So these ads are supposed to be smarter. They could really use the quizzes to their advantage beyond what they do, but instead they see people as dollars. You click on a Facebook quiz, they give you a cookie. They track all the quizzes you click on and build a personality profile on you to better target their ads. I assume they track a whole lot more than just Facebook quizzes (including Internet searches), but with the quizzes alone they get a much bigger picture of who you are.

When the quizzes are too hard, too dumb, too bogged down with ads, or when you realize they are inserting tracking devices and delete them because you dislike that (I would say 90% of all websites do this by the way), well, they don't get the data that can help them sell the ads. I don't know why they never shortened the quizzes. It would have lightened the freelancer load and the quiz taker load.

Writing quizzes Part 3

Well, after going through the learning process of uploading quizzes directly and cutting and pasting from Word, there were more changes that became burdensome.

The employer initially wanted difficult quizzes about obscure television series knowledge. I personally, tried to write questions about some of the most famous episodes (of I Love Lucy) for example, but then the employer said that these needed to be easier questions about more general information.

When that happened, I was slightly confused. After all, I knew the "hints" had to be a mainstay of my employers income. The hint was supposed to be blatant. ("Begins with the letter N" "First alphabetically" were a few I and other freelancers would frequently use for example.) When the quiz taker clicked on the hint, a commercial would play. (Talk about click bait, these guys had it down to a science.) If you turned on add blocker to prevent the rest of the ads from attacking you while you took a quiz, you would not be able to access the hints, and initially, I don't think the site would run at all with adblock on.

Now, we were supposed to use more general questions, I did not know how they would continue making money (of course there were still hundreds of ads on the quiz page and of course not everyone would know the answers). The worst part about this was that I could no longer watch the top 35 favorite episodes of the television show to come up with my questions. Now, I had to watch almost the entire series. Thankfully, they began adding movies to the list to choose from. The down side was that I had chosen Dark Shadows (the old show) and still had to make one for that. With over 1000 episodes, I was not happy. I think it took two weeks to a month just to make that one quiz, which was not worth the money.

Employers and freelancers often focus on word count (I know I do) when it comes to payout. At this point in time (the beginning of my click bait quiz employment), I was averaging about 2000 words per quiz. It worked out to about 5 cents per word, which is lower than I like, but okay for the work (at the time) of watching old movies.  But, the big problem is that word count was not an accurate method of determining quiz value. By the end of my quiz career, I was writing mostly non-movie quizzes that often took two or three days to complete. $100 for 2-3 days of work is not a good or fair price. Even at the beginning, spending 2-4 weeks writing one Dark Shadows quiz was not a good deal at that price.

I think the hardest part of being a freelancer is beginning a job only to find it will take way more time and effort than what you bid on the project. In this case, hourly rates are much better. Sometimes it can be hard to judge whether a per word or per hour rate is going to give you the best deal for your time. I certainly can write a lot of words per hour- up to 2000. If I am purely writing, that means $100 for 2000 words isn't bad.

In the case of this, I switched to movies shortly after my Dark Shadows experience. With a movie, all I had to do was watch the movie and pause it when I came up with a question. That meant most quizzes were finished in three to four hours. I also did not consider quizzes to be my sole source of income. Still, it is important for employers to reimburse freelancers when they change the terms. At first this might seem silly because why would you pay more for something you can get for less, but the reason is that the good freelancers will not continue working with you. I could have been working full time for the quiz company, but I chose to do other work until more movies became available. I am pretty sure most of the other freelancers felt the same because the list in the early days did not go down very quickly. Either that, or they didn't mind making so little just to have a regular job.

Are you a professional writer or a hobbyist?

I want to say from the beginning that there is nothing wrong with having a writing hobby. As a professional writer, I not only enjoy writing (most of the time- especially my own stuff), but I also make money from it. Hobbyists can also make money, but they generally have another full- or part-time job. Hobbyists generally only write about the things they want to write about and like to write about. Professional writers may or may not write about things they enjoy. The primary difference is that a professional writer can not only write about things that they dislike, they can write them in such a way that no one would know from reading it that the actual writer disliked it.
Now, you may say, "What about Steven King? He only writes what he likes to write, and he makes lots of money, and he breaks all the rules you tell us on here." Well, Stephen King's first major success was Carrie. He began writing it because he was told his stories lacked female perspective and characters. After three pages he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash because he hated the story, he couldn't get into the head of an adolescent girl and make her sympathetic (his wife, also an English major and writer, helped him with the finished product), and he knew it was getting too long to be accepted as a short story. The book was rejected 30 times, which means he had to write a sales letter along the line somewhere (something most authors dread). And now that he is famous, I am sure he has to write many things in the name of marketing that he would probably rather not. I have developed a quiz for you to discover if you are a professional writer or a hobbyist. This is my first time trying to incorporate a quiz, so bear with me.

Writer or Hobbyist?

Do you write because you love it, write because you need a paycheck, or a little of both? You can find out by taking this quiz.

1. How often do you find yourself writing down a good idea for a story or non-fiction work?

All the time.
I don't just write the idea down, I write the story or non-fiction work.
I usually don't have my own ideas, but other people's ideas inspire me.
I have had less than five different ideas.


2. Do you keep a journal?

Every day.
I have a journal I use, but I don't write in it every day.
I don't have a journal, but sometimes I make a social media post describing my day.
I think journals are silly.


3. When you get an idea, how much research do you do about it?

I don't need to research because I am very creative.
I do research, but I never have enough time before my deadline to get it all done.
I extensive research that includes character backstories, facts, and academic journals.
Sometimes I get lost in the research and never write.


4. How good are you at selling your ideas and yourself as an author to others?

I hate interacting with other people in real life but I am okay on the computer.
I enjoy interacting with other people in real life and online.
Beyond my professional profile, website, and submitting job bids, I don't do much interaction.
As long as I can communicate face-to-face, I do fine. I struggle online.


5. What is your dream? (Pick the one that is most important to you.)

To publish a book.
To use my writing to make money and as a creative outlet (that may make money).
To write faster and better so I can make enough money to survive.
To be famous.


6. How many books do you read in general each year?

I constantly read for pleasure.
I read for both pleasure and work.
I only read if it is related to a writing project I am working on.
I read less than one book a year.


7. What kind of education do you have?

Multiple degrees or some professional development education beyond the undergraduate level.
Bachelors degree.
High school diploma, and I attend writing seminars or conferences or took some college courses.
High school diploma or less.


8. Are you the member of a writing group?

No. My employers are my critics.
I have been a member, but I do not regularly attend.
I am devoted to my writing group and only occasionally miss meetings.
What is a writing group?


9. What is the main topic you write about?

I struggle devoting time to what others want to read and to what I want to write.
Whatever my employers want it to be.
I only write what I enjoy writing. Writing is a creative outlet.
I like to share my life experiences.


10. How do you feel about editing?

I always do several passes over everything before I send it to an employer.
I do most of my own editing but I also use an online editor or pay someone to edit my work.
I hate editing. I usually let my word processing program do it for me.
I think content is more important than grammar.

100-85 Professional: You write for a living and only write if you can make money from it.

84-55 Semi-professional: You are a mix of the writer and hobbyist. You refuse to give up your creative ideals but you still use writing to bring home the bacon.

25-54 Hobbyist: Writing is your creative outlet. If you make money off it someday, it will be a dream come true, but even if you don't you get a sense of accomplishment from creating the written word.

Less than 24 Writing isn't your thing. You have a story to tell, but you would rather just tell it. Although you don't mind writing some things, even the things you like to write about are not easy or as enjoyable. You would probably rather hire someone to write your autobiography than do it yourself.