Writing my way out of 9 - 5 hell
Have you ever wondered how your life would be if you would write for a living. Having all the free time in the world, doing things that you loved the most - for most of the time you have in a day. Not a care in the world because financially, you are free. Everything is financially covered, and the only thing you need to do is to write 1 article per week, and ka-ching! Money in the bank. Just 4 hours of work everyday. Or 4 hours a week.
Yeah, sounds ridiculously like a sleazy snake oil salesman pitch isn't it
For most people, the idea is ridiculous and only exist in the realm of dreams within dreams. Becoming financially free from just writing? Heck you talking about. Earnest people are working hard 12 hours a day, 4 hours of being stuck in traffic, tired and profusely grunting when the day is going to end to be able to earn food for the table. Need to pay the bills. Need to pay your mortgages. You also need to think about your kid's college funds as well! Come on man, be real now. The reality is dream can never be true. And that is why it is a dream. If it's possible, then everyone will be doing it.
Huh, wait.. there are people who does this for a living
You are right though, the reality is everyone needs to work to put food on the table. I have been, I am, I will maybe still need to keep working into the future until my bones run dry to JUST.DO.THAT. I get why people keep hunting for low marketcap crypto due to this way of thinking. "I WANT TO GET OUT OF THIS SITUATION!" If desperation ever reeks, it is that and exactly that be the main culprit of why more often than not, people got themselves REKT especially when it comes to crypto. After all, you need to have a very high level of luck to be able to become rich overnight by investing in crypto. Sounds like gambling to me.
There's too some people who writes, and still struggles financially today: yeah, but really though? Do we know the circumstances in which to why they are struggling? Marketing? Insufficient followers? Bad writing skills? Bad titles? Honestly, everyone will struggle for the longest time - if you want to write, it is better to start now especially when there are many ways available to start as a beginner. Thinking and doing, are not exactly the same thing. The longer you are in writing, your skills will improve and everything else will follow.
Most of the things we do in life relates to writing. Let me name you a few.
When writing you need to be able to communicate your idea in the clearest way possible, we do that everyday with people. When you write, what you are trying to do is to persuade others to see your view point, we do that everyday with other people. When you vent your opinion into your writing, then guess again, you dump your unwanted s**t into the toilet bowl. Kidding of course. But you get my point. We write for a living, everyone does, but not many realized that yet or may never will. So why not really, take a chance in actual writing career, when there are multiple sets of platforms out there (and Bulb) to take advantage of. Not spam, but write.
The reality is nothing more than a cog in a mechanical system
The real reality is that most people's mind are governed by the idea that has been put out by the society. Teaching one another to obey the system, or else kind of deal. School taught us to be obedient. You'll get demerit in your key performance index (KPI) if you show up late to work. And heck, you'll get stared at if you sneeze in a restaurant without covering your mouth - although, please cover your mouth if you sneeze, it is called manners. People are scared to be wrong, because they feel like they will be punished. The punishment is not the scary part of it, it is the actually the entire system and how you are programmed to be a replaceable cog to fit the mechanical turn wheel. If you choose to deviate, then you are the devil! You need to have a job! Don't get me wrong, I know the necessity of the system - it governs chaos, it gave us purpose, and it provides us with the mean to put food on the table. But deep down, in every each of us, we know how much we despised the traffic.
On the serious note, are you trying to break away from that system?
I KNOW I WANT TO, AND I AM TRYING
ECHO: BUT HOW?
I remembered clearly my first blog post that I've written 20 (oh yes, I am that old) years ago. At the time my English comprehension level's was low so I couldn't convey what I truly meant through the words I typed. I still struggle today, but not as much. Experience, I guess. The blog entry was about me expressing the feeling I had for a crush I had at the time, seriously it was kind of embarrassing to think about now that I am a grown man. I can't access that blog anymore since I lost the password and the email associated with the WordPress account 19 years ago.
Anyway, that was the first time I experienced logging into a site to blog. I wrote so many throughout my teen years by hand covering general topics, like health, dreams, relationships, and many more. Looking back, the motivation of me writing was because I had nothing else of interest to do aside from playing games and hanging out with friends. Being a teenager was wonderful and filled with confusions that no one actually cared about. *chuckle*
More than anything else, writing gave me a peace of mind while I typed out how I felt from day to day. It helped me to keep my anxiety at bay. Fast forward into my young adulthood, I became more resilience as I get older and help was no longer needed - so I stopped writing. My post graduate study does contribute as well to me dropping the proverbial pen. And I left the writing world behind, never looking back until I was introduced to the world of crypto. That was almost 7 years ago.
The way out
When I was first introduced to Publish0x back when crypto was just in its infancy, I became attracted to writing again after years of stopped writing. The idea of being able to earn through writing has never crossed my mind, and so it clicked to me that I could earn crypto for the skill I have been honing in my teen years. Honestly still honing it. But this time around, with purpose.
The Journey
It has never been rainbows and sunshine when it comes to one's journey to improvement. In fact most of it are filled with disappointments and heart break.
But the quote that says:
"Smooth sailing does not make a good sailor"
Kept me on my feet and try harder each time challenges were met along the journey. I do get the allure of giving up, as it is the easiest way out of the tortures of giving effort day in and day out. Most of the time the challenges are in our heads. Mostly saying that how inadequate, incompetent, and lacking I am. Because honestly, we have been programmed to work just like every other working ants. Working for the big guys, get salary increment, get good pension plan and in the end die with dignity in our stomach. But I can't falter now, I kept saying. And I pushed on. I keep my feet on the ground, of the ideas that I have, even when if I have to be a working ant for awhile.
While crypto allured me to the world of "Financial freedom", what got to me the most is the ability to earn through the skills you have. The "do to earn", "stake to earn" and "play to earn". This is where the whole space is gamified, just like life is. If you play the game right, you'll get to your goals. So I started looking for social type crypto projects where I could find a same like minded people whom I could learn from. I have never stopped ever since I started except for the brief period that I left crypto due to some unforeseen events in life.
In the search of a good profit sharing platforms, I found out about medium. As the project became popular with crypto projects where they could shill about their projects through articles. They could use the platform as a place holder for their update logs and many more. It was good, is all I'm trying to say. Medium picked up the rest of the community like a storm, and 2 to 3 years later, to a somewhat the juggernaut platform that we are seeing today. It is where most good writers are, because they could sign up for partnership program and earn through their writing. The more people read their articles, the more they'll get paid. I said to myself: Great! This is what I'm looking for. This is an upgrade from Publish0x, I thought to myself.
I was gearing up to sign up for the partnership program and was brimmed with excitement to every core that I have. But every falls apart as quickly as my excitement goes,
"We apologize as we currently do not support the partnership program in your country".
My heart sank. All of my motivation to write goes out of the window. As I sat on my working chair, I look afar, as if I was ready to accept defeat. "Well, that's that" I thought to myself at the time. I was devastated that my country where I lived was the sole reason why I could not make a living through writing. I thought of giving up at the time, and unrightfully so, I did. I moved on from writing altogether when crypto reach its all time low back in 2020 and worked like everybody else. I had to, as I have food to put on the table.
What I have forgotten about
I did write a little bit here and there, but only for myself. I kept most of my writing in word and note documents. I do that because I love writing, but I do not have any place to share it with to monetize. The question struck me a lightning, why do I write? I love writing. I love sharing my story with people. I love teaching. I love whatever there is to read. I love letters. I love it all. That is why I kept writing, not for the views. Not for the money. But my self fulfilling need that binds my love for knowledge. Money comes second, and the moment I treated it that way - my desperation subside, and I am once again a man with a mission. A mission of responsibility towards myself and the people whom I hold dearly in life. To give them more of the time I have to them - by being free of corporate ladder hell. By first prioritizing on nurturing my skills as a writer before any monetary reasons.
"Don't try to run before you can walk" - made more sense.
Current Standing
To my surprise, my writing skills became useful once more, since the day I found that there was a peculiar project on Solana base. It has not many user, but it does give away reward by interacting with articles and to write my article at the same time. I thought to myself, this is how I could start again. For sure I could use Publish0x to monetize my work, but the pay ration to earning capability alone will not be able to contribute to me reaching my goals. Although I write numerous of article over there, but it was more of a hobby.
What I need is a space where I can actually write, and earn. Of course, if I want to have any side-hustle, it has to be, NAY, IT MUST BE ABLE to reach my current pay in foreseeable future, or atleast half of it for me to be able to call it a side hustle - some people has different way of defining what amount is enough. Personally, if my side hustle does not amount to half of my day to day job salary, then it is then, by any definition not worth doing and will be a waste of time.
Of course, I do not expect it to reach half of my pay on the get go, but I'm talking about a year or possibly more worth of side hustle work effort. That is why I had to learn how to gauge the probability of how feasible the side hustle is before jumping into it. On top of that, I must consider what I'm good at, to be able to make the side hustle a feasible endeavor. Or else, I will be driving myself into a dead end and all of it will be a waste of resources and time.
Starting a personal Brand and Blog
We can sit here and argue that I could start a blog and I did start a blog. And it is one of my long term project, and it is not monetizable yet. Not yet. So the question that I asked myself, how do I use my passion of writing to earn for now? Then BULB came into the picture.
What is BULB though?
On the surface level, BULB is a write to earn crypto platform on Solana Block chain. But what it really is in actual is a do to earn type of crypto ecosystem. This platform does not just reward you for writing your blog like Medium does. But it rewards you by reading, reacting, commenting and moderating the space. In short, no other "profit sharing blog posting" model ecosystem existed like it. There is Publish0x that rewards you with crypto that is not its own (currently ETH and OP) if you read and write. Bulb does that as well, but does it differently. We could also say HIVE has the similar model as well. But how many that we can say has a straight line forward to earning like BULB has? NONE. And therefor, it is a precious project.
A little something something
On weekly basis, BULB has a total reward of 1 million token to be distributed among its leaderboard. The higher up you are in the leaderboard, the more tokens you earn. You will be thinking "I am too late to the leaderboard game, hence I won't be able to earn anything", you are both right and wrong. I joined BULB around 6 months ago, and I constantly ranked in the top 50 of the leaderboard (because I earnestly tried, instead of spamming) and I am already out earning my other crypto related publishing works.
Of course, the income is not sustainable and can only go up from here! The reason why is because the marketcap is super low right now. For a project like Bulb, it is unthinkable that it has that amount of market cap. All I can say is we are still in the early phase of the project where people do not realised its true potential yet. Early birds gets the worm. And I wish to be one of the birds proverbial speaking. Since this is a crypto project, I own the ownership to my works and I can mint it as an NFT. Just an extra stuff on top of the project I guess.
Creme de la creme
This is where I gets better. The platform provides you with the ability to stake your Bulb token for Bulb rewards on weekly basis. The more you stake, the more of the pie you get. As I was able to accumulate quite a chunk of Bulb before end of 2023, and stake all of those earning into it. The more you stake, the more reaction points I get for my daily activities, the higher I climb into the leaderboard, the higher my weekly earnings goes. As of right now, I am earning about 20K bulb tokens per weekly, around 80K minimum per monthly. At the current Price, it is around 70 dollar. Not much, but like I said, It can definitely goes up once more crypto users realised the potential of the platform. Even at where my earning from Bulb currently standing, it still rewards me more than my earning from Publish0x, Torum and Solcial combined. By simply reading, reacting, sharing, and writing!
For those who also love to write, you don't have to spend much to start earning in this project. Of course you will need to level up your account. With better engagement overall, you'll be at level 8 in no time and have max energy to utilize and to earn. If you buy (Not financial advice) to stake, you'll immediately get multiplier for every activity you do in Bulb causing more Bulb earned at the end of the week. Pretty neat in my humblest of opinion.
There is also an option for you to purchase a "blind box" for Bulb emoji NFT, this NFT multiply your activity points as well. More stake, more NFT, more earning. Functional. Everything is, in Bulb - and that is why its a top project that is currently hidden in everyone's radar.
As we speak, there are 750Million (most of them are in treasury) tokens in circulation, and there are monthly burning. Where the developer team burn 25% of the total monthly spending of Bulb. In the month of April, 400K bulb token has been burnt. By rough calculation, that is 5 million token burn every year, causing diminishing amount of Bulbs in circulation that could be one of the driving force to prop up the token's price. Aside from the earlier Token burnt (250Million burnt), the token is no longer mintable as the mint program has been revoked.
The negative A.K.A my BEEF
I can't for the life of me, say that BULB is perfect. In fact, it is very far from it. Among them that I detest very much is the fact that this space is filled with articles created by A.I. I know some level of the generic crap is allowable - however I think we need to weed this out in future. We do need to embrace A.I, trust me I know we need to, but to copy paste the A.I generated article 100% is just ugly and lazy effort (Some think they deserve more reward for that level of work). I kept on stating in my articles how garbage is A.I generated articles. My 4 year old nephew can write better entertaining stories than it can. While some of these creators are whining about why their articles are rewarded with little points - that is one of them. There are better ways to utilize A.I to make your writings better. But another topic for another day.
My guess for the reason why this behavior is normal in this part of writing industry, is because in the first place there was no control system to which this type of articles is demerit when it first started to grow. Thankfully right now, there are more genuine article written by real writer who put their souls into their work. Keep it up guys. Love you from the depth of my heart. Bulb is wonderful place to be because of you.
Now, there might be some tough thing to do to report generic articles that made this platform stink, either to root them out or recruit better writers to press the generic article generators down. If you don't like what I've just said, it just mean that you are part of the problem. Sorry, no ifs, no buts, just the way it is. Can you imagine if Medium let people whom copy pasted generic A.I articles to be roaming free in there without repercussion, investors who want to promote their project and work will not be there! Potentially could cause medium to fail as a profit sharing project. Do you see the correlation? There's only a finite number of failures that a platform can go through, before it capitulates. Humans, however can fail as many time you want. Might as well applied that to honing my writing skills.
The reason why we don't want spammers who think Bulb token is top of the priority problem, instead of having a good platform to write and read is because the quality of the articles are crap to begin with. We want first, a quality platform project before everything else. Not the other way around. Better platform, will attract better users, better users will invest in the project, with investment into the project, there is potential. And round and round we go.
The project will collapse if we think the price of the token is the main problem. Crypto come and go. I don't want that for Bulb, because it deserves better. The price of a crypto project's token is a symptom. We do not treat symptom, we treat the root cause. And the root cause is we are currently lacking good writers who could potentially bring in better users. That, might change in the future.
Let me ask you this. Do you honestly believe the token will pump immensely and maintain as a good project if it stayed the way it is today? No way it will not. If you think it would, then you might be part of the problem - again. OGs like @MBA ChitChat @Investigator515 @andrewsaul to name a few are doing their best to present this project all over other social media. They don't whine. They work. I suggest you whiners to do the same. You are not entitled to anything. No one is entitled. That includes me. Hence the reason why I am working hard in within the gameplay frame to be able to earn consistently in this space. If you don't wish your points to be reduced every single time you post, then avoid doing that. Play within the rule. That is how many others became successful.
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Point of no return / The grey area
As you guys know, Bulb is not decentralized. I just blow up some mind there right there. Just because its crypto project, does not mean it's decentralized. Let me tell you one fact you did not know. 99% of crypto projects are NOT decentralized. Some are more decentralized than others, some are more centralized than other. But ultimately none of the 99% of the projects are decentralized to begin with. One of the criteria of a pure decentralized system is where the CREATOR stayed anonymous or died (*touch wood*) with the project's direction is on automatic control. Which project that you know today that fits that criteria. Right, only 1.
Decentralization is a buzz word crypto bros used to rally the "anti-governmental money" twat to buy the tokens from their projects. The only true decentralized project is Bitcoin. Even then it is still arguable if you know where to look at and from. Do you see what I mean? To slander this project into the argument "It's not decentralized, so its not a good crypto project" is a malicious intent that stemmed from your yearning for entitlement. Let me repeat - 99% of crypto projects are not decentralized. Live with it.
Don't get me wrong, I still find that as a negative point to this project - but, there's a caveat here: If the space is fully decentralized, all the real writers in this space are done for, finish, kapoot, kablam. The ratio is annoyingly shocking: 1:100. If you don't understand what the ratio means, for every 1 genuine writer, there are 100 spammers accounts. For 500 real writers, you'd have 50THOUSAND SPAMMERS accounts. If this space is fully decentralized, the spammers will outvote real writers EVERY TIME. Do you see why not every project in crypto needs to be decentralized? Because we are clearly not ready for the gift that is pure decentralization.
Again, not the end of the world. If you can't earn with this project, its your fault for spamming. If you bring this attitude to any other projects out there, the community will push you out. Start doing real work - this is a "Do to earn", not "Spam to earn" platform.
From where the project is standing right now, Bulb is poised to be a successful project with its small team currently working hard to bring in more partnership with other project aside from constantly improving the platform. In future, we will get thread function that resembles X (formerly known as twitter) for micro-blogging purposes and gives the user different way of getting followers and earning Bulb token.
If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail
I decided that I will do cross posting, as the work I published is of my own and I should not have problem with "COPY PASTING" alert on my rear end. And this is crypto, no one blogging site owns your work (as they claimed it to be - lol, which is a good thing too). By doing cross posting, I would be able to earn from multiple publishing site while minimizing my workload. Of course some minor tweaking has to be done to suit the specific platform, but overall, the work are minimal and take less than 10 minutes of work.
At the same time, I would also be able to spread my work to different audiences. Down the road, some of my work will be transferred to my personal Blog so I could monetize those work into affiliate and adsense work. I will be spreading my work at Publish0x, Torum, Solcial, Medium and hopefully to get around Hive. Platforms such as Friend.tech could be an option too. But we'll see how that goes and spreading too much might not be a good idea without having a solid framework first.
Finally
Did I mentioned MEDIUM? As it turns out, after all the years of leaving writing, Medium has updated its supported countries for partnership program and yes, my country is finally eligible. Hooray! But that needs work as my current account is for the lack of better word, empty and desolate. I have only come to remember the existence of an account with medium I have while I was doing the latest Sprint event hosted by @andrewsaul. Thank you my friend, if it weren't for that, I wouldn't be checking on my existing account there. Shouts out to you.
You see, although I am unable to earn through my own personal blog yet, I am still able to earn because of crypto. I can't be more thankful than where we are right now. Maybe in the future, there will be another blogging sites that I could take advantage of and the opportunity for me to earn through crypto are more lucrative than ever. Also not to mention, these many platform will be prove useful when you have your own brand and products to promote down the road.
Why do I write? Because I want to be able to earn through writing, and I am on my way of writing my way out of 9-5 hell.
Thanks for reading to the end, I know it's quite long this time around. Your attention is my gold and goal. What are your goals with writing? Feel free to leave a comment.
I'll see you in the next one!
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REFERRAL LINKS
Betfury - Earn money through betting, staking and freebies! ( I use them for staking and earning freebies to be honest :D )
Splinterland - Play game, earn chest and staking!
Rising Star - Card base NFT game - free to play
DFI Cake Staking - Get $20 worth of DFI when you sign up and make a deposit of $50 or more. If you use a referral code, both you and your referrer get an extra $10!
Publish0x - Another read to earn crypto site
Solcial - Twitter like crypto social media
Torum - Facebook like crypto social media!
