Residual income vs upfront payment

I did mention in my previous post the big dicussion about content mills that's been making its rounds around the freelance community. I've also expressed my opinion in various places, which is that I have nothing against content mills, I quite enjoy them in fact. I can understand writers who are strongly against, quoting low, "insufficient" pay, hourly rates or pay-per-word. It all valid arguments.

Me? I enjoy the fact that Helium paid me in November, even though I hadn't written a word. I like to know I can write on any subject that strikes my fancy for AssociatedContent and still have those article bring me a penny or two. And I fully intend to post articles I'll be writing formy ebook online, before gathering them all in one nicely done pdf file.

Passive income is definitely something I will be pursuing even after I move to bigger projects. Simply because I know that while I'm not getting paid immediately after writing the article, those articles will be earning money for me over and over again, even years into the future.

Obviously, another revenue stream I considered is upfront payment. The lack of it available for non-US citizens such as myself made me ignore AssociatedContent for a long time. I did get a taste of being paid for my articles when I soldmy article at Helium Marketplace and when I was writing Press Releases for one of the online SEOs companies. It was an interesting experience. I certainly learned about bidding for jobs, applying and selecting samples.

The rejection is still something I'm not entirely sure how to deal with, but it is a part of a freelance life. And since upfront payments are something I want to explore further and soon, it's something I need to familiarize myself with. Though, hopefully, I won't have to (yes, I'm staying possitive).

Nonetheless, I decided to look for something long term (as I prefer to stick to one place... It's in my nature, you might say) and I applied to Lovetoknow.com.
Now, most of the writers out there would probably call that site a "content mill" and they would probably be right. The site pays $20 per article of min. 650 words. It's not the highest price for an article, though it is one of the highest upfront payments on content mills I've seen. They also require a lot of commitment, but I applied for "Study Abroad" section and "Travel"; categories I have a lot of experience in and I love them dearly. I'll keep you updated, of course (hopefully they both will like my application and hire non-US writers).

Things before NaNo: Articles and Helium Marketplace

Before I move to the actual point I have some articles to share.

New articles:

- Is donating blood good for you? which is an article I wrote for Helium Marketplace but it didn't get purchased.

- Everything You Need to Know About Helium Marketplace published at AssociatedContent.

Now, this second article needs some disclaimer. I've written three articles for Helium Marketplace. First one, about Tattoo Removal techniques was purchased. The other two weren't. One was about effects catnip has on cats and the other (linked in this post) about donating blood.

Like I've written in the article about Helium Marketplace, I still want to write articles there, but I don't think it's a perfect place nor that it's for everybody.

Next, because it's the end of the month,l I wanted to do a little of statistics.

Top earning articles at Helium:

- Experience with ReviewStream.com
- How young is too young to wear makeup?
- Which is better for writers: Finding a print or online publisher?

It's fun to see the top articles being from different categories and still performing well.

Unfortunately, I won't get paid from Helium this month. I find their minimum ($25) a bit too much to achieve in one month given my amount of involvement (which isn't much, and could be more). I won't probably be able to do much in November, with NaNo on my mind. But hopefully December will prove to be a lot more profitable than October.

Top earning articles at AssociatedContent:

- Get Paid to Write Reviews with ReviewStreamCom
- 6 New Years Resolutions for Freelancers
- How My Blog Earned Google Page Rank in Just Two Months


Now, I made a decision to be more topic specific at AC and so far I stuck to the freelancing, but it's very possible that I'll branch out a little. Either in December or next year. I also expect that the New Year Resolutions for Freelancers will have it's peek in December/January. For obvious reasons. I'll also get paid from AC, but it's not that difficult to achieve as the minimum payout is only $1,50

Now, you can see that the most popular article on both sites is the one about ReviewStream. And it's understandable, because it's an interesting concept and I still write for that site. Though, I have to admit, the minimum you have to reach is a bit overwhelming and not as easy to achive as on those others sites.

Alright. That's all for statistics. I just want to warn you that I won't be posting much during NaNo as I want to save up all my wordcount for fiction.

Please wish me luck :)

Writing Update

I've been doing a lot of writing lately. So I figured, right before Christmas, I could probably share with y'all (you know, since I can barely move after cleaning all day).

Scribophile, a really great site I'm blogging for, published two of my articles so far. "Writing Bootcamp: Writing Whenever, Wherever, Whatever" which is a nice little piece which I commited to ease myself into the job and get to know the audience. The second article is "Of Editing And Evolution: Why You Should Find The Perfect Editor" which is actually one of the articles I had a lot of fun writing. And I think it shows. I've written one more article for them but it will either be published after Christmas or at the beginning of the New Year.

I have to say, so far the site has been a blast and I'm looking forward to writing more for them. I actually have few ideas in my head and I'm wondering whether or not should I write them down... We'll see how much of actual free time I have during Christmas.

In other news, the article I've written for Helium Marketplace just transitioned to Helium regular title. It's about the effect catnip has on cats. I have to say, researching for that particular title was a blast. I now know more about drug using cats more than I wanted to.

I've also submitted another article to AssociatedContent about how freelancers can further their career in the new year. Again, it will probably take ages for AC to process the article, but I think it's worth the wait.

November

So November came to an end and I've decided to sum up what happened this past month.

I've written over 7000 words in reviews and articles. I was planning on writting 15000 words, but obviously it didn't work out. For December, I'm planning a more realistic number: 10000 words. This time I'm taking into the account all the free days I'll have because of the Christmas AND at the same time, I'm not assuming I'll write 500 words a day.

I wrote ONE article for Helium Marketplace. I was planning on writing more, but titles were completely out of my area of expertise. Researching legal matters online turned out to be slightly more difficult than I thought. So for now, I'll stick to something that gives me less problems.
The title I did write for is currently pending final decision. I'll let you know when the publisher decides which article (out of 34) they will buy.

I started to write for two new sites. Ciao and AssociatedContent. While I'm sort of indifferent to Ciao (it's nice enough though not brilliant), I am slightly irritated with Associated Content. I've written 3 articles for them, two of which are still pending. I am told after 3 first article are published, it should go much faster. But for now I'm not feeling much love.

I sent my bid for 3 jobs. One of which is really interesting and I will thank all the Gods if I actually get it. But this is somethin I started doing only recently, so I don't know when it actually start paying off. Though I'm checking ads every day. So keep your fingers crossed.

And finally:

I requested 2 payments. From Ciao and myLot. I should get them at the beginning of December.

All in all, while I think November could've been better, it wasn't bad either. I'm sure December will be better :)

Writing bids and other writing related things

So far I'm writing reviews for both Ciao and Reviewstream and articles for Helium and AssociatedContent. I also write for Helium Marketplace (I'm waiting for a decision on one of the topics I submitted my article to. Keep your fingers crossed).

But I decided not to limit myself to just those venues... I've read a lot about writing jobs that you can bid on and the client decides who they want to hire. So I decided to start submitting my bids to jobs that interest me.

Since I'm not very experienced in that area, I'm not sure how long one have to wait for the final decision and whether my bids are written the way they supposed to be.
But I'm not planning on giving up.

I did some research on what is expected and what should be written in a bid. But it's all theory and I need to get some first-hand experience. Wish me luck :)

Research

Since it seems like I will have some serious expenses next year, I decided to get it all together and start earning. Preferably, earning a lot.

So I decided I not only need to start writing more articles for both AssociatedContent and Helium, but also start seriously writing for Helium Marketplace. Unfortunately all articles that are on offer there require serious research on my part as I know very littleon subject that seem to be popular there.

Thank goodness for search engines. They allow me to do proper research and write a good article. That's exactly how I wrote my article on tattoo removal techniques that sold.

I'm also glad that I'm a member of Homepages Friends. I use their browser for research and it brings me extra money. So even time spent on research isn't lost. It still earns me something.

Wish me luck. I never anticipated that I will need to start earning big that fast... Oh well, keep your fingers crossed.

Related articles you might find interesting:
Refferals to Homepages Friends that will produce maximum income
Can you earn money with Homepages Friends just for searching the net?

Writing Pays

Yeah. I think it's high time to talk about the money that I earn with my writing.

November is actually the first month hat I will be receiving a payment. It's mostly due to the fact that I became serious about my writing only las month and I actually pursued the paying aspect of the net.

So, any day now I should be receiving money from Helium. Most of it will be for the article I sold, which actually made me qualify for payment. But not all. Almost $8will be the performance payment. Meaning the money I earned from the page views of my articles. And given that I have only 21 articles, I don't think that it's such a bad turn out.

But I can be proud of myself, because after 5 days of November (implementing my November plan) I managed to finally reach payout at mylot.com (after months of slacking and half a month of actual participating) and payout limit on ciao.com (I've been a member there for like 3 days).

So it's 2 payments I'll be receiving for sure in December. And knowing that at the very beginning of November makes my mood a lot better.

And to close the tpic, I'm still waiting for AssociatedContent to publish my first aticle there... We'll see how that plays out :)

The Boondock Saints review
A Dog's Breakfast review
My Ciao profile
My Helium portfolio

Article SOLD!

This might not seem like a lot, but the article I've submitted to the Helium Marketplace have been purchased.

Yeah, I did a little happy dance and re-read the notification e-mail that informed me of that fact.
I think I feel slightly excused for not writing anything recently. Though I'm painfully aware of the fact that if I want to be serious about my writing and earning a living with it I will have to start writing everyday...

Read my Helium Articles: http://www.helium.com/users/431779/show_articles

New writing platform

I decided to give AssociatedContent a try. The first time around, when I was looking into websites that would pay me for my writing, I dismissed AC because as a Non-US citizen I didn't qualify for the Upfront Payment. However, right now, I understand it's not the most important thing...
I like the fact that their minimum payment is $1.50 (unlike Helium, where it's $25)

I want to submit 5 articles there so I could qualify for the October bonus of $10. WE'll see how I manage with that, because at the same time I want to try to enter one of Helium's Writing Contests.
Do keep your fingers crossed for me :)

Unfortunately it's been crazy at my daytime job and I wasn't able to concentrate at home to write anything new. But I'm still waiting for the decision about the Helium Marketplace article I submitted.

Money records and keywords

So because I'm a freak yesterday, in between of posting to MyLot, I was playing in Exel (yes, I actually have Microsoft Office and I actually like it better than Open Office, sue me). I created a nice spreadsheet to keep track of all my earnings online.

I do realize it's a bit anal, but I actually had fun creating it. I like to have stuff organized and written down.
Besides, I write for more than one site and I'm also on three Paid-to-click sites (Bux.to and Clixsense and Hits4Pay) and to be able to better manage my time (I do waste 8 hours in my regular job, you know?) I want to see which sites are actually worth bothering with.

I want to see which sites are worth the investment (getting a premium account or writing more articles for that particular site).

So far I like Helium the best. I recently submitted an article to Helium's Marketplace and we'll see what will come of that.
I actually wrote about subject I know little to none about (tattoo removal). But I did extensive research and was able to write a nice 600 words article.

I worked with keywords for the first time (conciously putting them in), so I can't say I haven't learned anything new ;)
I think now my articles will be slightly better in that area.

Read my past articles at Helium