I just had a really great idea for recycling something...

Before I was laid off in 2009 from a consumer website, I had written literally hundreds of online articles and blog posts on a wide range of personal finance topics. Although my employers had decided to discontinue the website soon after my layoff, I noticed that the site remained up; there just weren't new contributions/stories being added to it.

This proved extremely handy for me because I inserted multiple links to these stories in my resume, and I often linked to specific stories of mine, depending on the type of business of the company I was interviewing with. Of course, I had kept copies of all my stories saved in Word on my home computer, but it's much more impressive to email a prospective employer a link to a story that resides on a live website, complete with your photo, byline and the like.

So I made great use of the website for three years after leaving the company, but at some point in the last few months the company finally took the site down, no warning. I only found out when the woman at my current p/t job mentioned that a lot of the links in my resume "didn't work."

That was a big bummer.

But this morning I had an idea that I could easily RECYCLE all those stories and post them on other websites, to gain added exposure for very little work. (And I don't recall ever signing anything saying that my writing became their property.)

There are two websites I'm thinking of where I wrote a few articles in the past, when I had too much time on my hands; each has a specific demographic and subject niche, so I would need to tweak my stories, but it would be pretty easy to do. No extensive writing involved, and then I could gain added online exposure as a writer. (It's impressive to have a bunch of published articles up when applying for jobs and they Google search your name, a common practice.)

The two sites I'm thinking of know me and liked my work. Neither paid, though. (That's probably one reason why they liked me, because most competent writers wouldn't waste their time on unpaid work, so they'd be left with novice or sub-par writers.)

I could certainly approach other websites I haven't been involved with before, possibly for pay, although I'd also probably have to conduct some new research to make sure that what I'd written 3 years ago is still accurate.

So I have two ways to go,and I think I'll pursue them both: 1. Submit a few stories suitable for the 2 sites I've written for before, just to increase the number of online, published credits I can point to.
2. Find some other sites that will take the stories; if they pay, that's even better, although my original intent was just added exposure and credits on my resume.

I will need to set aside a block of time to do this, which means...not til Saturday.