Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen runs six blogs and plays around a lot with different ads on her sites. “It takes a long time to earn money from a blog but it’s easy because it’s so much fun to put on different ads and experiment with what works,” she says.

Sylvia Taylor, executive director of the Federation of BC Writers, helps writers with their manuscripts and told me: “My authors all give me different nicknames: one calls me ‘The Literary Midwife’ and another calls me ‘Metaphora Editrix.’ ”.

But I wanted a more sophisticated layout. I found a new template I really liked, from Elegant Themes, so decided to switch. A five-minute switch, according to WordPress. Yeah, right.

The whole process, by now about 80 per cent complete, took me back to the early web days, when I put up and ran a nonprofit website for 18 months. Using wordpress.com I didn’t have to ftp anything, or dig around with code in the servers.

This week, I’ve had to relearn more than I ever wanted to about WebFTP, domain mapping, changing cache settings . . . and little things such as getting WP-stats to work on WordPress.org are ridiculously time-consuming.

Time for a walk on the beach in the rain.

I learned about Freemiums and Long Tails on Saturday while moderating a panel at the Write on Bowen festival on Bowen Island, near Vancouver, B.C.

As traditional media outlets struggle to make money on the web, panelist Lisa Manfield said Freemium was one way for companies to adapt. Freemium involves promoting services by offering basic features for free, but charging a premium for extra features.

Manfield, managing editor at Orato.com, also gave a great workshop on Writing for the Web on Sunday. She teaches web writing for Simon Fraser University’s Writing and Publishing Program, and managed to pack an incredible amount of useful information into a short time.

Panelist and avid blogger Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen suggested that chasing trends is a mistake, and that keeping to the faithful “write what you know” and choosing evergreen content or reference material that never goes out of date is more important online.

She also discussed Long Tails, a phrase made popular by Wired editor Chris Anderson to describe how low-demand niche products can collectively make up a market share that equals or exceeds high-demand products — if the distribution channel is large enough.

Other online writing tips:

Avoid puns and wordplay
“If you rely on search engines for your web traffic, you cannot use wordplay. The title and subject must be in your face,” said Jill Browne, an editor and writer for the online magazine Suite101.com.
Instead of “Four-man rock team triumphs”, use “Men’s curling team wins.”

Write short pieces
“Cut in half the amount you would usually write,” said Amanda Daniell, an animal activist who uses blogs, Facebook, Twitter and a Jimdo website. Write 400-600 words maximum per page.

Blogger or WordPress?
Panelists had differing opinions:
“I like blogger, because it’s so simple,” said Amanda Daniell.

However, Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen said she prefers WordPress.org, as she can use Google AdSense and Amazon.com ads to bring in revenue to her four blogs.

I like the free hosting and wide range of templates provided by WordPress.com, but must admit I haven’t tried Blogger.

Making money from your blogs
“It’s a long haul. It takes a long time to earn $50/day,” said Laurie. The good news is that stories you wrote a year or several years ago can still generate income. “It’s like compound interest,” she explained.

Writing online compared with print
“Transitioning online can be a problem for many writers,” said Lisa Manfield. She noted that people read very differently online. They:

* Scan
* Search for very specific information
* Are incredibly impatient
* To increase readership, use key words in titles

Inbound links are important
These are now the currency of the web, panelists agreed.

Twitter is good for networking
“It’s made me a better writer, because it’s forced me to be more specific,” said Laurie.

Laurie has blogged about her own experiences at the festival and includes more useful tips for online writers

1. If you freelance full-time, try and have at least three regular clients. That way, when one goes bust, you won’t feel so devastated. On the up side, while publications fold with depressing regularity, new ones continue to start up and give you new markets.

2. Specialize. Become an expert on a really obscure subject, and write on it in depth. If you write wishy-washy features with no clear focus, and pitch them to major consumer magazines, your emails will disappear into the ether.

3. If you live in Canada, don’t rely on the Canadian market alone: it’s far too small, and it’s not freelance-friendly. Pitch to U.S. magazines, webzines, online news and feature websites too.. If you live in the U.S., try Canadian markets as well.

4. Better still, pitch internationally. Try British, Japanese, Chinese markets etc.

5. Don’t obsess about having great clips. Most editors don’t care what you did for someone else – they just want to know if you can write something useful for them. Pitch an idea for an event about to happen, that they haven’t covered, but is right for their publication.

6. Most publications want first time rights or first time North American serial rights. If you write a story on your blog or website, that counts as publishing. Only include these stories after they’ve been published somewhere else (and link to them), or if you aren’t intending to make money from them. For example, if you are blogging to promote yourself and your ideas.

7. Write with the reader in mind, not your ego. Timely news stories that keep people up-to-date or give practical information always have a strong market.

8. Freelance for lifestyle reasons: to have more freedom, to be able to work from home or in coffee shops, or to write the stories you want. If you want or need a steady income, get a staff job. You’ll make more money there.

9. Don’t forget to take a vacation. You may think employers/clients won’t like it, but actually, it’s often the opposite. They are impressed that you are making enough money to take a break. And what’s the point of freelancing, if you are chained to your computer? Just make sure to give clear warning of when you will be away, send an email reminder just before you leave town and stack up stories if necessary.

10. Most important of all, write on topics you are passionate about.

“I can’t leave anything alone,” he said, before launching into a series of poems on opening night at Cates Hill Chapel.

McWhirter’s memories as a small boy, seeing oranges for the first time washed up on a beach, set the scene for his poem “Overboard”. While being bitten by a lady bug (“Twice!” he noted indignantly) morphed into “The Rouge and the Black.”

Arts council executive director Jacqueline Massey, making the introductions, quoted one of McWhirter’s previous observations: “A poem is anything you look at twice.”

The Write on Bowen! Festival was the brainchild of Carol Cram and showcased a mixture of island poets, writers, and songwriters.

After a full day of workshops and panels on Saturday, festival goers gathered on Sunday to walk in the Lieben Lands, a legendary writers’ retreat where notables such as Malcolm Lowry, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, and Eric Nicol worked and played.

Opening night was MC’d by the multitalented 17-year-old Calder Stewart. First up was author James Glave, who read an excerpt from his newly published book “Almost Green: How I Built an Eco-Shed, Ditched my SUV, Alienated the In-Laws, and Changed my Life Forever”.

In one section, six terrified males – The Green Team Extreme – try to move The Tankosaurus”, a behemoth rainwater storage tank, into position.

As a last resort, he’s forced to back his golden-pearl premium edition Lexus RX-300 into position to help move the tank and save the day. It seemed serendipitous that the SUV he was trying to ditch should play a leading role, he said. “It was as if the Lexus and I had made our peace.”

Lisa Shatsky read six poems, including “On Not Reading Newspapers” and “Tell Us Something Nice”, dedicating them to Bowen’s beloved Ross Carter, who died June 29 at the age of 79.

Songwriter Julie Vik performed two of her songs, closing with “Shudder”, as an alder tree grasps for life.

Perhaps the spirit of the festival could best be summed up by one of Bernice Lever’s poems, “Going For the Gold”, which she performed Friday night. It notes that sports and science set their benchmarks. . .

“yet in the arts
world-class achievement glows forever:
a shine to spur others
to their own excellence
not to better or to bury others
but to achieve their own brightness”