What This Lens is About

It’s an e-text of one of the best children’s books ever written, George MacDonald’s The Golden Key, illustrated with my own drawings.

Excerpt

There was a boy who used to sit in the twilight and listen to his great-aunt’s stories.

She told him that if he could reach the place where the end of the rainbow stands he would find there a golden key.

“And what is the key for?” the boy would ask. “What is the key of? What will it open?”

“That nobody knows,” his aunt would reply. “He has to find that out.”

Why I Made This Lens

When I started on Squidoo in 2007, before we had lensographies, blogs, Twitter, Facebook fan pages, or even Squidoo co-brands, lensmaster Jack C. Lee proposed a great idea: Squidbooks, using Squidoo to publish books.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a lifelong dream: to produce an electronic, illustrated edition of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key. Published in 1871, exactly 100 years before I was born, it’s my favorite children’s book, and its copyright expired long ago. So I actually went to the UCLA library, found an original edition, and typed the whole thing into my laptop.

A Squidbook isn’t the best way to present such beautiful material, especially since Squidoo has a lot more ads and garish graphics than it did back then. But this project is still dear to me.

Things I Learned Making This Lens

Squidoo is a difficult medium for long content. It was even harder back then, when text modules were limited to 2000 words, and we had no page breaks. That’s probably why the Squidbooks idea died out. A few people have tried to revive it and failed.

Illustrations take time. This is obvious, but it explains why there are so few hand-drawn pictures on the web. I’ve only done a few illustrations, and I’m only satisfied with three of them — I’m not a great artist. Realistically, unless you’re a professional artist, you’ve got to use stock photos, creative commons and clip art for your Squidoo graphics.

Nonetheless, my traffic stats show there is a constant demand for free e-texts, “children’s books like Harry Potter,” and reading material. If you could figure out the right way to package a Squidbook, you’d be golden!

Of course, the right way is probably to publish on Kindle and make a Squidoo lens promoting it.

Obviously, it’s better if a Squidbook or ebook is your own, original work, but there’s some value in resurrecting ancient 240-year-old-books, letters, and other antiques where the copyright has lapsed. In fact, you should check your own family stores for any special letters — World War II letters, for example — or old books worthy of a lens.

Lens Stats and Milestones

As of today: Lensrank #68,061, 7 ratings, 2 favorites, 660 lifetime visitors.
Best lensrank achieved: #2738. Lifetime earnings: $5.35.

Link: The Golden Key by George MacDonald

What This Lens is About

Orchids and flowers with faces. No, I wasn’t under the influence.

Excerpt

I don’t know why, I just think flowers with faces are hilarious. So if you want a humorous gift for someone that I guarantee will be utterly unique, check out The Flower With ‘Tude Shop. The caption on the T-shirt reads, “HEY! Who d’ye think ye’re calling PANSY?!!!”

Since this little guy would be pretty lonely by himself, I’ve gathered a brief anthology* of vegetable and floral humor from around the net.

Why I Made This Lens

My Mom suggested it.

Things I Learned Making This Lens

Make funny enough copy, and people read any amount of fluff. And vice versa.

Don’t delete your stupid lenses. Okay, it’s always third tier, but it’s always third tier. Unless you really feel it reflects badly on you, let them be.

I also learned the Greek word for the mental disorder that makes people see faces in inanimate objects.

Things I DIDN’T Learn Making This Lens

Don’t always do what Mom suggests.

Why more people favorited/rated this one than some of my best lenses.

SEO. What kind of URL is “http://www.squidoo.com/killerorchid” ?!!

Lens Stats and Milestones

As of today: Lensrank #76,696, 16 ratings, 6 favorites, 1475 lifetime visitors.

Best lensrank achieved: #2058 (you’re kidding!). Lifetime earnings: $5.54.

Link:

Not Your Garden Variety Orchid

What This Lens is About

Many famous funny videos, memes and major humor websites that people have been sharing since the beginning of the web.

Excerpt

Carson Williams’ famous Christmas lights display synched to Trans Siberian Orchestra became a Christmas 2005 viral video sensation — not to mention a Budweiser commercial. Like many viral videos, it launched a trend — many people now do this!

Why I Made This Lens

I wanted to share the humor sites and early memes that entertained me and friends in 1994-1995, when the web was new and gangly. More recently, I’ve been adding the modern popular memes and videos that attract more notice nowadays.

Things I Learned Making This Lens

People don’t vote on Plexos. People also don’t click on long lists of links. This lens had good content, but didn’t present it well. Now I’ve divided it into logical sections: Viral Videos, Movie Mashups, Flash Mobs, etc. I’ve trimmed out some of the less-funny stuff and added some full-sized video modules to attract quick clicks.  Organization is key, especially on a lens this long.

Last year I tried an experiment: giving an annual award to the best viral video. People like awards and badges. But I didn’t publicize it. This year I tweeted the winner hoping for a RT, and also emailed the site. We’ll see if I can get a little viralness of my own going with that award.

Things I DIDN’T Learn Making This Lens

Originally the title was, “Web Flotsam: A Connoisseur’s Collection.” That has NO keywords in it — nor does the url, “web flotsam.” I was similarly ignorant with tags. I did zero keyword research in an incredibly competitive niche — there are MILLIONS of web humor and funny video sites. I wasn’t even using jargon like “viral video” and “meme” when I started; I was calling it by my pet name “web flotsam.”

It would’ve been better if a) I’d done SEO and b) I had focused in on a narrower topic. Web humor is too broad for a short lens.

Lens Stats and Milestones

As of today: Lensrank # 30,723, 8 ratings, 2 favorites, 1406 lifetime visitors.

Best lensrank achieved: #3004. Lifetime earnings: $4.13.

Poor little lens. It deserved a kinder fate. Let’s see if it does better now that I’ve fixed useless tags and headers, done basic SEO, reorganized the content and added more video.

Link:

Web Flotsam: Funny Viral Videos and Memes

Related Lenses:

Funny Signs :: Student Bloopers

What This Lens is About

It’s my archive of funny, odd, and hilariously wrong statements from students I taught, plus links to other collections of student bloopers.

Excerpts

“Kouroi were created to portray young men and women about the age of puberty to show people in the moment in time at which the mortals were at the same perfection of the gods. Us mortals quickly lose this state of perfection.”

Q: The twins who are credited with founding Rome are…
A: Barbie twins

Why I Made This Lens

Student bloopers are FUNNY! I used to share them on my website. I was originally inspired by a student history of Europe that’s been floating around for decades, a compilation of student mistakes on various exams. It’s a time-honored practice among many teachers to keep a blooper file.

Things I Learned Making This Lens

• People tend not to contribute to plexos, apart from link plexos.
• Text plexos don’t take HTML formatting. Or quotes!
• But plexos are a snazzy way to list random funny things or quotes.
• The Amazon Spotlight is a really effective way to showcase one item.

Things I DIDN’T Learn Making This Lens

• If you set a lens to an R-rating (a student had used a four-letter word) no one will EVER FIND IT. This lens languished for years without any traffic before I bleeped the swear word and reset the rating to G.
• Save the puns and flowery titles for the page’s subtitle. The Title of the page is the link people will click on, so it needs to make clear what the page is about! That’s also important for SEO.
  “Student Bloopers: A Connoisseurs Collection” is an intimidating title. “Student Bloopers: Funny Stuff Kids Write” is more accessible, and includes the keyword “Funny” and “Stuff”. (“Stuff” is a very common search term!)
• Don’t make it so blinking long no one will read it! Lenses are not newspapers. They’re 1-page pamphlets.

Related Lenses

Funny Signs and Bizarre Billboards :: The Care and Feeding of Apostrophes

Lens Stats and Milestones

As of today: Lensrank #11,288, 10 ratings, 1 favorite, 1088 lifetime visitors. (It’s now getting 30-40 visits a week. Pity I didn’t fix the rating sooner.)
Best lensrank achieved: #3695. Lifetime earnings: $3.49

Link:

Student Bloopers: Funny Things Kids Write