Shameless Self Promotion

Lately I've been reading a lot of Squidoo lenses by people who are actually successful at it. I'm both inspired and perplexed by them. One thing I did notice amongst the big dogs was that they didn't write the way that I do. That got me thinking “man, I'm going about it all wrong.”

Squidoo is different than eHow used to be. Back in my eHow days I wrote about health and beauty, you know, the kinds of things you'd read about in a Cosmo magazine or something. Chick stuff. The articles were informative, like how to diminish fine lines and give yourself a home facial. From what I can tell with Squidoo however, successful lenses are less about information and more about selling you something. I don't know how I feel about that.

I look at it like this, if I wanted to be a sales person, I'd go apply for a job at the mall or sell used cars or something. I really like writing. I like researching a topic, trying out ideas and sharing how well they work with my readers. I like being informative, creative and helpful. I don't like being pushy. I don't like conning someone into thinking they're about to get help when really it's just a site full of spammy product links. It's not my style.

So here's my question. Can I make money on Squidoo by writing quality content or do I have to shamelessly self promote all of my affiliate programs on helpless readers? From what I can tell, most people who make good money on Squidoo do just that. I mean, I'm not hating on them for doing it, you've got to bring home the bacon some how you know? I just didn't necessarily want to do it that way.

I caved and made a lens full of shameless self promotion for my Zazzle store. On the other hand, I did provide good quality information in between the sales links. I'm not proud of it though. I like my other lenses better, the ones where I could just write about what I love. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like those types of lenses will make me any money.

I don't know. I've got to re-evaluate my approach to Squidoo. I can stay true to my writer instincts and produce good, magazine quality content or I can turn into the Sham-Wow guy and write a bunch of lenses in a voice that screams at you to buy my crap.

Thoughts? Anyone? Eva's pulling at my jeans as if she has some wise input for me. It's too bad I don't speak or understand baby language. Thanks anyway, cupcake.