About.com?

NANCY! CONGRATS!

Nancy, that's fantastic news! I can't wait to see you on the New Guides listserv!

Congratulations on being accepted into Prep, Shannon.

There's no reason why you couldn't do this job while attending school part-time. I personally treat it as a full-time job, but my site (Contests and Sweepstakes) requires a lot of maintenance, and I really love the work.

In Prep, they basically want to see how well you write, how well you cover your topic, how well you stick to your site outline, how well you use their tools and templates, and how well you fit in as an About Guide. High quality, authoritative content is really important. A large amount of content is important. An understanding of Search Engine Optimization principles is important.

I usually recommend taking the time before Prep begins to study your site outline and come up with ideas for articles that will flesh out that outline. I don't recommend starting writing yet, because the templates can influence how you write. The content I wrote before starting Prep is among the content that I am least happy with on my website. Instead, I would focus on coming up with a proposed structure and brainstorming lots and lots of ideas, and doing research as necessary so that you are prepared to jump into writing as necessary. If you're not confident with HTML, you might want to brush up on that as well, although what you'll need to get by is simple and easy.

The articles that perform well tend to be either relatively short and tightly focused on a single concept or a "hub" that ties together several of these shorter articles. Long articles that meander over many different concepts are not great for SEO and don't work as nicely in the templates.

This is an example of a hub: http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakeslistings/tp/topcarsweeps.htm Each link leads to a profile of a sweepstake with more information. At the same time, the page is helpful on its own because it has a lot of information on it as well. This is an example of a hub that needs work: http://contests.about.com/od/sweepstakes101/tp/tipsforbeginner.htm There is not enough information about each linked article for the hub to really stand on its own. That's not good practice.

During Prep, make sure to listen carefully, read the information provided, and follow your mentor's instructions to the letter.

Good luck!

Congrats Nancy and GreasySpoon! Wonderful news for you both!

I finished prep this weekend - final review was scheduled for Monday. Fingers (and toes and legs and arms and ...) are crossed for sure. I had so much fun with the topic (Game Shows) during prep, and I'm already coming up with more ideas daily for the site. So if I don't get it, I'll have to at least start up a blog or something!

GreasySpoon, I'm just up the highway from you -- in Hamilton. Looking forward to seeing your site when it goes live!

Shannon, best of luck to you in prep. I spent 3-4 hours per day researching, writing, learning their formats, etc.

And now I'm off to check my e-mail. Again. Because five minutes must have gone by since I last looked! ;-)

NancyP,
Congrats! Please let us know when your site goes live. I know quite a few people who will enjoy learning more about Senior Travel. My parents and in-laws love to travel! It would be fun to hook them up to your site.

I may be the last one who still hasn't heard back from final review in this round of prep...is anyone else still waiting? I am just starting my second week of waiting.

Shannon,
Congrats to you too for being accepted into the prep program! Be sure to use the information sent to you in your acceptance letter as your guide. Organize your 5 Essentials and pay attention to the section that outlines the Topics they suggest you cover in detail. I did write a good portion of my material before prep started. Some I had to reorganize during prep, but it helped me to have a lot of it already done....of course, I haven't heard back yet so maybe it wasn't helpful after all.

CarrieGee,
I am crossing my fingers, toes, legs, arms, eyes, etc. for you, too! I hope you don't have to wait too long before hearing back good news.

Carrie, klow and thursday, I am sending happy thoughts your way...I know how anxiety-filled the waiting days are.

Shannon, Wolflady's suggestions are excellent. I don't have much to add, just more encouragement to stick to the outline they give you and go for good quality as well as quantity. Good luck!

I'm still in shock (not yet 24 hours later). I love the topic (I'm a travel writer for the most part, anyway) and I had a lot of fun writing my articles for Prep. (Prep...fun...hmmm.) Now I feel a bit overwhelmed, knowing I'll have to get a lot done in a short time to bring the site up to "live" status quality.

Thanks for all the good wishes!

Nancy- Congratulations!! I look forward to seeing your site once it goes live - I write about RV travel so I am very interested in your topic!

I just have to say this waiting game stinks! I'm driving myself nuts checking my email to see if there is a chance that I made prep for one of the topics I applied for. The worst part is that I could be sitting here waiting to hear about a topic that already has people prepping for it. Considering I never received the confirmation email, I'm not even sure if they got my application.

I suppose I wouldn't care so much if I didn't really want it - and that makes it that much worse. I know you all have been through it and have lived to share your good news, so I hope to gain some patience through all of your successes!

Thanks so much for all the advice so far! This place is a goldmine for information and the support from all of you is phenomenal! I'll definitely have a thorough read through the whole thread over the next few days and take all the advice I can get through it.

It's good to know I shouldn't have too much trouble doing it while being in school. Really I'm only doing 2 courses and one is self-directed so I should have no trouble putting in 3-6 hours per day to get the work done.

I went through today and came up with a long list of article topics I thought would work for my 5 essentials along with other topics they were looking for.

So just a few more questions I had if you wouldn't mind (I feel like my mind is racing! ) - I'm not entirely sure about the html stuff, I've worked with a few sites before where I 'blog' in a sense but it's basically just uploading the written article into a form, adding in bold/italics and so on and then publishing it. What all html do you need to learn how to use for the about.com site? Does anyone have any good links to a site that would help me prepare a little beforehand?

Then, for the articles, is there a specific wordlength guideline they set or generally a good length to aim for? I know it was said shorter articles are better so 500-1000 words maybe? And is there any regulation on what type of articles they should be - say sweepstakes, quizzes, informative articles, interviews and so on? Are we allowed to include a variety when doing Prep?

Then also, do they prefer you to put in more links to your own content or cross-link to other about.com page content? And what about external links to other sites? From what I've seen on their site it doesn't seem like they external link at all or maybe I've just missed these.

And then finally, during the prep period, what did you guys find to be most time-consuming or difficult doing? I think I'd like to try to get at least some of the writing and then finding corresponding links done before hand - even if I have to adjust the writing slightly to fit their format, just to allow time for other things I need to do.

So I guess what I'm wondering there is what all aspects Prep consists of - obviously the writing, then the learning HTML, linking other pages and then is there anything else you need to do?

Sorry for boatload of questions and I apologize in advance if it's been said earlier, I'll definitely go back and read more, but it's good to get an idea while I start planning for it. (plus I'm a total Type A and can't WAIT for it to start...). This really couldn't have come at a better time for me; it's just what I needed at this point!

Okay so I just started reading from the beginning of the thread and have one more quick question. Just so I understand the basic formatting of the site in order to effectively plan my articles, for the 5 essentials you basically write one overview article and then include links in that article to branch-off articles on that point right?

And then topics refer to a category where you just write numerous articles that discuss different aspects of that category?

And both topics and essentials are to be article documents - so then where does the blogging aspect come in?

Then, in my initial e-mail inviting me to prep, they give a list of 'major topics to cover' and then under 'Things you will need to complete in prep' list my 5 essentials.

So basically, for prep all I need to worry about (in terms of writing) is completing a general article for each essential and then as many articles linking from that essential to other articles as I can?

Congrats, Nancy!

Shannon, whoa. =} Slow down. Most of the questions in your first post have been answered already. If you click on my username and look at my old posts, you'll find answers to some of them. But just take your time and browse the whole thread. You may find answers to questions you didn't think to ask! Your second post is a bit trickier each site is different. Essentials are just the things you want to highlight. Usually, they include some 101 type articles and then a few other topics that interest you. Browse around the About.com site and take a peek at what other people consider important.

A "hub" is an overview article with links to other articles. And I use the word "article" loosely, because About has lots of templates and you'll need to use a variety of them.

My suggestion is to take it a bit easy because you don't want to burn out before it starts. Clear your plate of other things in your life - make sure you're caught up in homework, reading, housework, etc. Browse other sites, look for links (outside linking is fine, but it is preferred that you link within About if you can) and just think about the flow you want for your site. A lot of the questions you have will become more clear when prep starts and you can see the templates and read through the mounds of documents about prep. =}

Fingers crossed for everyone waiting!

Christy

Off Subject: Forum spot for moms?

Since everyone on this tread has such great info - I'm wondering if there is any place on this forum for writers who have small children at home to discuss trying to work with the constant inturruption and guilt of feeling like you're ignoring your kids.

I don't have anyone in my personal life who is going through the same thing and understands the challenges of balancing writing and family. I know there are plenty of other mom's on here - I just don't know how to find them!

I appreciate any help with this and sorry about the unrelated question!

MoreThanMommy said:

Congrats, Nancy!

Shannon, whoa. =} Slow down. Most of the questions in your first post have been answered already. If you click on my username and look at my old posts, you'll find answers to some of them. But just take your time and browse the whole thread. You may find answers to questions you didn't think to ask! Your second post is a bit trickier each site is different. Essentials are just the things you want to highlight. Usually, they include some 101 type articles and then a few other topics that interest you. Browse around the About.com site and take a peek at what other people consider important.

A "hub" is an overview article with links to other articles. And I use the word "article" loosely, because About has lots of templates and you'll need to use a variety of them.

My suggestion is to take it a bit easy because you don't want to burn out before it starts. Clear your plate of other things in your life - make sure you're caught up in homework, reading, housework, etc. Browse other sites, look for links (outside linking is fine, but it is preferred that you link within About if you can) and just think about the flow you want for your site. A lot of the questions you have will become more clear when prep starts and you can see the templates and read through the mounds of documents about prep. =}

Fingers crossed for everyone waiting!

Christy

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Yah, sorry, I'm probably getting way ahead of myself here. I'll keep reading through the rest of the thread and hopefully that will provide me with more than the answers I need.

So with the essentials then, they do set these though right? In my e-mail from them they gave me a list of my 5 essentials.

Shannon, the direction for every site is different from what I understand. With my topic they did not give me a list of essentials but just had me choose a few articles and list them in the essentials section.

Work on clearing your schedule. I wrote a lot before hand but had to change most of it and write new stuff to fit what they were looking for when I started prep.

Elizabeth - I had to laugh reading your post because as I was reading it my kids were screaming in my face and trying to wrestle with each other.

Elizabeth, my kids aren't small (my son is 6'2") but the interruptions and guilt are definitely there. I thought my kids were going to throw a party when I finished my second Prep. We homeschool, so it's an endless struggle to find quiet time AND keep their education as my #1 priority.

I think you found us.

Shannon, there's no specific word length, it's just what's needed for each article. I think it's a good idea to have a mix of article (and template) types, but there are no quizzes allowed during Prep. The order of preference is generally your content, other Guides' content, off-site content. Remember that they'll be judging you mostly on your writing, so try to give them as much as you can to help make their decision. There's a link just a few pages back to a good brush-up HTML site.

My essentials weren't set for me, but each topic varies.

I'd also recommend looking at some other Guide sites for inspiration and to get a feel for what they're looking for. Aside from all of us Guides here, the articles that the front page of About.com links to are usually high quality.

Good luck!

Well thanks for all the good wishes everyone - they worked! I've graduated prep and will be the new guide to Game Shows! Woo! klow, you can uncross everything now. *lol* I know how uncomfortable that is!

Good luck to everyone still in prep and/or waiting for a response or review!

Elizabeth, I've got two kids as well. One's in school all day and the other only in the afternoons - late nights are usually my only quiet time, save those two glorious afternoon hours of kindergarten.

Elizabeth,
Same guilty feelings here...
We have four kids age 4, 6, 8, 10. I think my husband felt pretty ignored during Prep, as well.
Keath

CarrieGee,
Congrats! Just as I posted your good news came up, so I wanted to send along my happy wished to you, as well!

Thanks again for the responses to my questions. I'll think I'll try and produce as much of my own content as I can since it seems to play a large role in their decision.

From reading past posts in this thread, advice that keeps coming up is to write lots and write ahead of time if you can so this is what I'd like to do.

Honestly at this point, this is exactly what I need in my life. I'm dealing with other stuff and having something to just throw myself into will take my mind off it, I truly feel blessed already just to have the chance for this. Clearing my schedule for prep shouldn't be too big of an issue, over the next few days I can get most of my other writing work done ahead of time and then it's just that one class twice per week I have to attend (and go figure...the mid-term is thrown right in the middle...how life goes!)

So I have just over a week before Prep starts to go over a bit of HTML and get some articles started.

With regards to the various templates, can anyone offer any advice on how to format the articles I write right now so that they will somewhat fit? I know there will be some rewriting but maybe I can minimize it. By different templates, what do you mean? Some are list type of articles, some are paragraph based - like that?

I've been looking over some about sites already up and running and it's definitely motivating me - and helping me better plan how I'd like to organize things.

Shannon - just so you know, going over html won't help much in prep. About.com only uses html in the blog portion of the site (which isn't a big part of prep). For the rest of the documents, they use their own mark-up language.

Also, I have never heard About.com telling you what your essentials should be (maybe your case is unusual?). The five essentials are normally just the five most pertinent documents that you write during prep.

You need to create your categories (topics) and then basically write a few original pieces of content in each of your categories. Then you choose five of those pieces of content and link them into the essentials section.

Unlike most people here (and I am not criticizing anyone), I didn't find prep to be very overwhelming. I wrote 60-something original pieces of content during prep; other guides have only write 20 or so. I didn't write anything ahead of the time prep started, but I did outline my categories.

Good luck.

--Kori

Carrie Gee and Nancy (and anyone else I missed) - Congrats!

kewrite said:

Shannon - just so you know, going over html won't help much in prep. About.com only uses html in the blog portion of the site (which isn't a big part of prep). For the rest of the documents, they use their own mark-up language.

Also, I have never heard About.com telling you what your essentials should be (maybe your case is unusual?). The five essentials are normally just the five most pertinent documents that you write during prep.

You need to create your categories (topics) and then basically write a few original pieces of content in each of your categories. Then you choose five of those pieces of content and link them into the essentials section.

Unlike most people here (and I am not criticizing anyone), I didn't find prep to be very overwhelming. I wrote 60-something original pieces of content during prep; other guides have only write 20 or so. I didn't write anything ahead of the time prep started, but I did outline my categories.

Good luck.

--Kori

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Thanks for this information - that's good to know about the html part. So really, what all html is involved? Is it mostly just adding links to other articles and then bolding/making lists and that type of thing?

For the essentials aspect, basically this is what the e-mail said:
"Things we’d like to see in prep:
Please write your 5 Essentials in Prep, they should be: .... " and then they gave a list of 5 topics, so I'm assuming those are what they want them to be right?

Then they said in addition to that they'd like to see related articles on -and gave me another list of 3 topics. So from that information, I create my own topics, write on those 5 essentials and go from there?

It's comforting to know you didn't find it too overwhelming. I wonder what most Preppers find the most time-consuming, learning the tools and posting in the articles/links or doing the actual writing work.

It's so nice to know that many of you have kids as well - I constantly struggle with being a stay-at-home mom and a work-at-home mom, but the mom part is always a part of it.

I have 2 boys - The oldest is just over 3 1/2 and his brother is 2 1/2 - they are 14 months apart to the day. I think I could balance writing and kids better but my husband's job requires him to travel overnight all week long, and sometimes on weekends - so it's just me and the boys.

Getting the chance to be a guide would be so perfect for me - to be able to make a decent income and still stay at home. I first applied for 2 positions a few weeks apart - personal organizing and newlyweds, but when I saw Oprah pop on the list I had to apply for that as well - if I could have removed one to do another I would have - I hope it doesn't hurt my chances.

Oh - and if anyone is currently in prep for any of those 3 topics, could you let me know so that I can stop checking my email every hour - I would really appreciate it!

Rachel - that is very funny, my boys do that all the time, and the squeezing on my lap so that I can play computer games with them when I'm trying to work doesn't help much either

ShannonC_77 said:

Thanks for this information - that's good to know about the html part. So really, what all html is involved? Is it mostly just adding links to other articles and then bolding/making lists and that type of thing?

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Like I said, the html is just for the blog section (and a few of the newer tools), which isn't a big part of what you do in prep. But you should know how to bold, link, make a bulleted list, etc. The mark-up language that you need to use in the rest of the tools to write your documents is similar to html, but not exactly. It uses [] instead of <> and there's a bunch of other difference.

For the essentials aspect, basically this is what the e-mail said:
"Things we’d like to see in prep:
Please write your 5 Essentials in Prep, they should be: .... " and then they gave a list of 5 topics, so I'm assuming those are what they want them to be right?

Click to expand...

I assume so. I've never seen anyone else be given their essentials. Which guide site is this?

Then they said in addition to that they'd like to see related articles on -and gave me another list of 3 topics. So from that information, I create my own topics, write on those 5 essentials and go from there?

Click to expand...

Well there's a procedure of exactly what you need to accomplish in prep that they will tell you. For example, it will say you need to have created five categories and one document in each of those categories by your second review. Or you will need to have your five essentials done by your final review, etc. Or you need to have three blog posts by a certain date. It will be all spelled out for you. But basically it consists of, deciding on you categories (topics) and then creating content in each of those categories by using a variety of tools.

It's comforting to know you didn't find it too overwhelming. I wonder what most Preppers find the most time-consuming, learning the tools and posting in the articles/links or doing the actual writing work.

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I don't know what you mean by "posting in the articles/links" but writing your documents should be the most time-consuming of everything you do. The tools aren't very difficult and they provide instructions for using them.

Hmm, I had both quite a few blog posts and quite a few of (what would now be) the newer tools in Prep, plus having a strong basis in HTML helped my pick up the About markup language quickly. But it is really simple stuff that's needed, like lists, bolding, italics, paragraphs, and links, so it shouldn't be anything that can't be picked up with just a quick review.