Examined

Great news today as I found out I was accepted to be the Lansing Restaurant Examiner for Examiner.com.

For those unfamiliar. Examiner.com is a network of local bloggers that focus on a certain topic for each city.  These bloggers are usually based in or near a big city.  Michigan has sections for Detroit and Grand Rapids, but not Lansing specifically–however, there were a few I saw.

They proudly display ads on the site asking folks to apply to be an Examiner of whatever topic they wish.  So, being the crazy ambitious person I am, I filled out a form and pitched bloggin’ ’bout restaurants in our fair capital city.

I’ll post a link to my page once it gets set up, which could be a few days.  They ask that I aim for three to four posts a week, but they can be short–between 250 to 500 words.  Heck, I write more than that in Twitter updates on any given day.  The goal here is frequent, short posts.  I can do that.  I enjoy dining out and any of my friends know I’m a big foodie.  Also, I have prior experience writing about such things thanks to my freelance work with Capital Gains.  However, my style for Examiner will be a bit different than how I write for Capital Gains.  I’m going for more of a loose, witty, goofy style for Examiner.  I try to keep the Capital Gains stories a bit more on the serious side, to match the style of the rest of the website.

The other interesting thing is that the Examiner stuff is done pretty much without a net (my first post will be reviewed however), so it’ll all be on me in regards to editing and style (which isn’t any different than this blog post).

Yes, I get paid.  My payment is based on traffic (page views, subscribers, etc).

I’m excited.  I’m not expecting to make any a bunch of money doing this, but the way I look at it, I dine out any way, I might as well get the writing experience and exposure.  I learned about Examiner via my pal Kevin, who is the Chicago Comic Books Examiner.  I love his funny style, it is something I want to try and emulate–which I think would make my subject more fun to read about over more traditional restaurant reviews.