My Adventures on AuthorsDen

I’ve heard it said that July is the happiest month. July is the height of summer, which means lots of sunshine, warmth, and daylight. I’m not at all a winter person. For me, winters are a challenge. Especially that stretch from January to March, when it’s always very dark and cold here. So I’m really loving this time of year, it’s so beautiful here in the valley. July 2nd is the halfway point of the year. The year’s half done, which makes me think about my writing goals. June was actually a very productive month for me. If I can be as productive during July, I’ll be very happy.

A few months ago, I came across a website called AuthorsDen. I was looking for a site where I could post my work in an online portfolio, until I could build my own site to showcase my writing. I registered with them back in April, but didn’t actually post anything until June. My personal page at the site is:

http://www.authorsden.com/allisonwest

AuthorsDen is a large online community where authors can post their work to be read and reviewed by readers. It’s completely free to register as a reader or as an author. Authors can also promote their current projects. If you are creating a writing portfolio, in order to activate your personal AuthorsDen page, you have to first post a brief bio. There are different levels of membership. Free membership will entitle you to post a few articles and stories. If you’d like to post more than that, then there are various levels of paying memberships.

I’m loving this site. In fact, it’s all been an incredible adventure for me. This is the first time my work has been out there, for a large number of people to read and review. It’s pretty exciting. One thing that confused me—my account says “pending activation”, meaning it wouldn’t go live until I had posted a bio and three articles or stories. I just have a bio and one article posted, yet my page is very much alive.

Since posting my article on June 7th, I’m approaching 200 page views. (you can review your personal page stats once you are logged into your member account.) My bio has been viewed almost 50 times, too. My article was also one of the most popular articles in the Travel section last month. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around all that. As I said, this is the first time my work has really been out there. I’m so glad that an article I worked so hard on is being read by, what feels to me like so many people. AuthorsDen says they have about one million visitors a month, and that’s a lot of exposure for my writing. I plan to add more articles and stories and if all goes well, I’ll join as a paying member. I’ll keep my AuthorsDen page, even when I have an official site, because of the great promotion AuthorsDen offers its writers.

What do I mean by promotion? Well to give an example, if I were to search for my name using Google, it would return a lot of results, because I have a relatively common name. Now that I’m on AuthorsDen, my AuthorsDen page is the third result, right near the top, when I search for my name. Pretty impressive! Plus, when I googled Hudson, New York, and some of the art galleries and restaurants there, my article posted on AuthorsDen (that’s about the City of Hudson) would come up high in the results too, time after time. I see that as quite an advantage to being on the site.

The only disadvantage? Well, all the revenues from Google Adsense and other advertisements on my AuthorsDen pages, goes to AuthorsDen. They need content, and I provide them with content in exchange for having a place to hold my writing portfolio. I retain the rights to my published and unpublished stories and articles I place on the site. They just promote my content. They are gathering ad revenues from my work though. That’s fine, it’s part of the agreement. But it makes me think I definitely want to have my own site where I can post my work and can receive ad revenues from my page.

I definitely think AuthorsDen is worth your consideration, especially if you are a new writer, looking to get your work out there for the first time. And there’s great networking opportunities there, too.