How to be a writer on the internet

So, you want to be a writer. You have a deep, burning desire to share your ideas and writing talent with the world. You dream of being a published writer, of having your well-crafted paragraphs and passages displayed online for the entire world to see and appreciate. What you want, more than anything, is to be a prize-winning content producer on the Internet. Well, look no further. You've finally found your niche. Now you can realize your writing and publishing dreams right here on the World Wide Web. All you need to become a successful writer is a computer, a connection, and a little ambition. Do you need talent? Of course not! Getting plugged in as a prize-winning content producer is easier than writing for your high school newspaper, and even if you never wrote for your high school newspaper, have no fear, the information superhighway welcomes homespun submissions from anyone with CCA credentials (remember, all you really need to succeed is a Computer, a Connection, and Ambition!). So drop your TV remote and shelve that new copy of Readers Digest and let's get down to business, the serious business of becoming a prize-winning content producer on the Internet. And to help get you started, here are 5 surefire ways to reach your dream of becoming a published, prize-winning writer faster than you can say, "I'm a brainwashed puppet in the pop culture carnival of corporate commercialism and mass media consumerism known as the WWW."

Be mediocre. Forget about writing important literary works of art and start writing tripe. Conventional, corn-fed clichés are in these days. The publishing giants of the global village are churning out thousands of garden-variety how-to's and what-to-do's on the trendiest topics from the latest search engines, including "how to get the attention of bored, double-nonfat-latté-drinking housewives" and "what to do when you run out of run-of-the-mill ideas." It's a virtual bonanza of standard and second-rate writing out there. To be a prize-winning content producer on the Internet you must generate the kind of banal banter only the most commonplace of connoisseurs care for. Never be afraid of appearing undistinguished and unexceptional, it's what being a content producer is all about. When writing for the Infobahn it's always hip to be humdrum, baby!

Be ordinary. As Albert Einstein once asked, "Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me?" The simple minds of ordinary folks will always rule the status quo. Your job as a prize-winning content producer is not to make a stink or stir things up. You are not being paid pennies per submission to upset the apple cart! You must remember you audience, the good folks you are writing for. Your audience does not want you to make waves. Your audience is habitual and uninspired; they do not understand the artist in you nor do they have the time or intelligence to care. The plastic Internet surfers of today do not care about what you really have to say as a writer, so you must give them what they want. What do they want? They want regurgitated stories of pop culture in all its shopworn glory. They want scandal and scuttlebutt, fantasy tales of love and betrayal, success and failure, and fame and fortune featuring the planet's top celebrities and aristocrats. They want gossip! Give them the buzz that fuels the all-consuming fires of commerce and capitalism, the new age opiate of consumers who bop and boogie to the laissez-faire beat of free market enterprise in every mass media corner of the globe. Today's Net surfers are world-class shoppers. They need to shop. They need ideas on how to hunt down and own the hottest and hippest goods, products, and services. They seek amateur tips and advice on how to find meaning and satisfaction in their own uninspired and unremarkable lives. Give your average end users classic cars and reality TV, family values and cosmetic surgery. Give them Jesus Christ and Bette Crocker, sports stories and baby books. Avoid rocking the boat and go with the flow. When it comes to cyber chic it's cool to like what everybody else likes. Learn to blend in with the crowd. People may not understand you, but at least everybody will like you.

Be a pugilist of publicity. To be a prize-winning content producer you must train yourself to be a champion in the ring of self promotion. It's not your writing talent that counts but the number of average Joe and Jane Does who click on your content, and every big shot in the content producing biz will tell you you're only as good as your last page view. Do whatever it takes to seduce other content producers into your corner. Learn the cheap tricks of plugging, pitching, and pushing your puffery into the hearts and minds of fellow writers. Chalking up comments and building favorite you-pat-my-back-and-I'll-pat-yours relationships is the name of the game, even if it means lying and cajoling your way to the top of your preferred CP lists and clout meters. Since your computer network of relationships doesn't really mean anything and nobody ever really gets hurt, duping, deluding and deceiving other writers with ingenuous amounts of insincerity is all part and parcel to getting ahead in the online writing racket. Raise those clout levels, baby!

Be the blog. The cyber world is overrun with bourgeois blogs of the lowest common denominator. You must learn to live with the trite and trivial boilerplates in the new age of bromidic blogging and you must never forget that the button-down bloggers of today are the predominant page viewers of tomorrow. You'll need those precious extra clicks from the next crop of blogging big shots, the chatty cornballs who control the fates and fortunes of the next big wave of accomplished content producers. To be the prize-winning content producer you know you can be you must lower your standards and become as small time and so-so as the rest of them. The majority always rules. To be stylish in the content producing world you must strive to be with it in an undistinguished and unexceptional way. You must lower your standards. Contemporary bloggers and avant-garde Web writers everywhere are exploring fascinating topics, but from a prosaic point of view. Except for an occasional nugget most of the second-rate sludge clogging the virtual gold mines is filled with mundane muck on everything from arts and entertainment to travel and technology. By all means forge ahead with better intentions, but if you really want to hit the ground writing you must practice the familiar tune of mainstream mediocrity. Create the plain vanilla content nebbish Net surfers crave!

Be a cyber copycat. Hone the craft of imitating and recycling the most frivolous and superfluous of information into boorish and amateurish works of conformity. The more piddling and rinky-dink your point-of-view is, the better. You must strum the maudlin heartstrings of Internet misfits who mindlessly follow the rank and file of the moral majority. The average cyber puppet is a gung-ho aficionado of ignorance, compliance, and conventionality. Mr. and Ms. John Q. Cyberspace may be well meaning but they're dangerously unsophisticated. Never underestimate the mind-numbing stupidity of your audience!

That's it. Those are the five surefire ways to reach your dream of becoming a successful writer on the World Wide Web. The information is yours for free. All you need is a computer, a connection, and a small amount of ambition, and you're on your way to becoming a prize-winning content producer on the Internet. By following these simple guidelines freelance writing success will be yours for the taking. The walls of your writer's workspace will be covered with prestigious content producing awards from the biggest names in the cyber publishing world. You'll have more brainless and backward wannabe writer-types as friends and associates than you'll know what to do with. You'll be the prize-writing champ of the WWW. Just follow the rules and race your way to the nearest sell-out circle on the W3 speedway.