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 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

Ciao Baby!

Because I've read a lot of positive things about Ciao on MyLot, I have decided to give it a try. And not just registering with the site and not writing for it. I decided to actually be active there. It took me some time to actually understand how Ciao works. 
But I don't think I will really get it untill I see the results.

Ciao (like Reviewstream) is about writing reviews. But it has a far more professional look to it.

You can rate, review and comment on products. And even more, you can friend people and rate their reviews. From the first look of it, it really does look far better than ReviewStream.

It pays for the ratings your reviews get. Though apparently some ratings are worth more than others and some aren't worth anything. I am yet to learn which are which (though it's safe to assume electronics are worth more than the rest as it's a really hot topic).

If you're already a member at Ciao, do tell me, I would love to add you as a friend.

I think I will end up reviewing a lot of DVDs and books as those are the subjects I really like writing reviews about. And to be honest I think I will try to write a good review for Ciao and then re-write it for ReviewStream. That way I'll be able to cash twice on the same subject. I'll let you know how that goes. :)

My Ciao profile.
Profiler Season 1 DVD pack review.
Stargate: Ark of Truth DVD review.
Stargate: Continuum review.

Also. In the navigation bar on your left you can see my progress on my November challenge. It's going nicely so far. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

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

Get paid for your writing

Make no mistake. This is not a blog that will tell you how to get rich as a freelance writer. Rather this blog was created to document my journey. And if you can benefit from my experiences, well good for you.

You see, I want to be a professional writer. I want to be able to support myself with my writing, or at least have writing add to my monthly income. Preferably in a significant way.

And because the Internet is a place of many possibilities, I think it's the right place to start.

So what have I achieved so far?

Well I have/had a blog where I wrote articles with a sole purpose of giving people advice how to become a better writer of fiction. But due to my real life I had to put it on hold in June 2008. Then, I moved to actual writing that could profit me. I would want to keep on posting there, however, I don't know if I'll be able to do that.

As to the actual paid writing.

I have 21 articles published on Helium. They don't bring me any huge income yet, but they all earn few cents here and there. I also took part in Helium's Summer Reward-a-thon. I only wrote  4 articles thought. Still, it's extra $4 apart from the income from ads displayed with my articles.

I wrote few reviews for ReviewStream, unfortunately I'm still far away from payout there. At the moment, I really don't feel like writing reviews, but since I want to get paid there, I will have to get over that little block.

I am semi active at mylot as well. I am sure I will meet payout in October. I really like it there because starting and responding to discussions don't take too much of my creative juices and yet, it still offers some extra dollars. I do realize this little venue will never become a significant part of my income, however it will do just fine for the small pleasures :)

I also have profiles in few other places, but I haven't posted anything there yet. When I finally do, I will post about them here. Though you can find the links to those places in the sidebar. If you decided to check them out, do drop me a line and tell me how they are working out for you. :)