Shameless Plea for Help!

I am not a lazy person. I work and work and work but for the last few years have done nothing but go down hill. I’ve made the statement, “It’s like I take one step forward and two steps backwards.”

This has got to STOP. I see my first error in life as being centering too much on the negative. A dear friend who has been a tremendous help over the short time I’ve known him has become my ‘outlet for whining’. This is wrong on my part.

I am normally a happy person no matter what the situation and love nothing more than making other people smile and even laugh. One of my favorite sayings is ‘Smile at the world and the world will smile back’. My second favorite saying is ‘Laugh in the face of adversity’.

Next to my concentrating on the negative in my life I would have to say my next big problem is NOT asking for help. No matter how bad things seem to get I feel I should be able to solve my problems and half the world’s too by myself. This is stopping now.

I need HELP! I am NOT asking for hand-outs or freebies. All I am asking for is a little help from the thousands of people I have come in contact with over the years. The help I’m asking for will not cost you a penny and only a few minutes of your time – unless of course you would like to give more time. I minute or two a day would be spectacular :)

So, this is how YOU can help – I write for three different online web sites and I earn money each time someone reads one of my articles. I also submit photographs to a fourth site where all you have to do is look at the pictures I’ve taken and am sharing online.

You don’t have to buy anything, don’t have to subscribe (although you can if you would like), and I’m not asking you to sign up for anything. PLEASE, just read my articles, view my pictures, and share with your friends if you like. All of these help me tremendously and will be a great blessing to me. And, remember, when you bless others those blessings will come back to you multiplied.

Ok, that’s my shameless plea for help of course prayers are always appreciated too. If you are willing to help me I am listing here the four places I earn money from ‘visitors’. These are my profile pages so any of the articles or pictures take your pick and I pray you will enjoy.

You will find the majority of my original work on these sites:

Lansing Children's Books Examiner – here I write mainly reviews of children’s books.

Lansing City Guide Examiner – lots of things to do around Lansing & South Central Michigan.

Published Associated Content You never know what I am doing here, slideshows, reviews, commentaries, memoirs.

Photography on Redgage  - lots of flowers, sunrise, sunset, buildings, and what ever catches my eye, I do tend to take my camera most everywhere I go.

My Site By Faith Only.com
Follow Me on Twitter

Thank you so very much for your help, may the Lord Bless you a million times over!

Warning for Tweet Users

First, Good morning all! I have noticed a 'trend' on Twitter of people 're-tweeting' other users but replacing important information such as links to articles or photographs. These people are 'using' other people's words, tweets, efforts, to gain traffic to their own sites and profits.

My advice to Twitter users is before you thank someone for re-tweeting (sharing your information with their followers) make sure they have not altered your original tweet (post). When you thank those people it is doing nothing more that drawing the attention of YOUR followers to these people.

This may seem tough but as far as I am concerned this is bordering on plagiarism and should NOT be encouraged. A good share of the links I share on Tweeter do bring me income when people read my articles or view my photographs to when those links are altered those people are in fact steeling from myself and the other people who have posted similar links...

You will find the majority of my original work on these sites:

My Site By Faith Only.com
Lansing Children's Books Examiner

Lansing City Guide Examiner

Published Associated Content

Photography on Redgage

Follow Me on Twitter

This is just one example of the photographs I share on Redgage!

Sincerely,

Faith Draper aka byfaithonly

Tweeps - Please Read and RT

I'm sure any readers who are not familiar with Twitter will be saying, 'What on earth is she talking about?' to that title but today's message is really for those million or so people who are using the Twitter network.

Have you seen tweets with hash tags such as #AC #bestofAC or #ACwriter ?  If not then you don't know what you're missing and should check out my list @byfaithonly/associated-content

Associated Content or AC is a site that publishes articles, stories, videos, poetry, slide shows, and much more. All of the contributors are independent authors and photographers who enjoy sharing their work with others.

Yes, you will see a lot of AC members posting links in their tweets. These people (myself included) are not trying to sell you anything, not trying to get you to sign up for any program, and honestly not earning a whole lot of money for the work put into their published work.

The majority of what we earn comes from pay-per-views (PPV) - people read, view, or listen to our work and we earn. If no one comes to our content we earn pretty much nothing.

Am I encouraging you to 'click those links'? OK, yes I am, I don't write just to see my words in print. I write to share my thoughts, words, knowledge with others and so do most of the other contributors at Associated Content.

So, next time you see those hash tags #AC #bestofAC or #ACwriter how about taking a minute to see what's being offered. You just might be surprised and find something you really enjoy or is very helpful to you.

Peace and Joy,
Faith Draper aka byfaithonly

My Site By Faith Only.com
My Profile Associated Content
Follow Me on Twitter

Please Stop, Think, Check before Forwarding E-mails

Ok, we've all gotten them those emails that ask you to forward to everyone on your email list. For the most part these are kind hearted people just wanting to warn or inform their friends and family of 'problems' or 'concerns'. But are they really helping anyone?

NO - in fact they are creating more problems. First of all the majority of these warnings are hoaxes - not true or have no truth behind them so you've caused concern in your friends for nothing. A great place to check these emails is Snopes.com . It's really simple to check the honesty behind a 'please forward' or 'PLEASE send a copy to' email.

Just copy a portion of the email and paste it into the search feature on Snopes. The most recent I received I took from the first line of the email "IF A PERSON CALLED SIMON ASHTON" (without the quotes). Then click on the “GO!” button. That will take you to a second page with a list of articles. For this search there were two articles on the list and the very top one was the exact same email I received. By clicking on that you can read the full information on this forwarded email - http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/hackermail.asp . The red button with FALSE next to it tells me NOT to forward this email.

A second problem forwarding these emails causes is the majority of people who do forward these messages don't bother to do it 'privately'. These means the next person who receives the message now has access to all the email addresses you sent it to as well as the people the person who sent it to YOU sent it to and so on. Not saying everyone is going to do this but there are many people on the net that make money by selling 'email address lists'.

Do you want your email address as well as all of your friends and families' addresses to be sold to strangers for a fraction of a cent and receive 1000s of unwanted emails? Most likely NOT. Please, when forwarding anything use the BCC (blind carbon copy) feature offered by most email systems - you can still send to more than one person but those peoples' email addresses are kept private.

Before you click that 'forward' button consider are you helping your friends and family by sending them this email or are you merely creating more problems for them.