On Writing Online

Articles Wanted About the World's Best Products, Brands and Services

2010-01-12T02:16:00.002Z

Description: ARTICLES ABOUT THE WORLDS BEST PRODUCTS, BRANDS &
SERVICES...

Subjects:
CARS
YACHT [Motorized & Sailing]
PRIVATE PLANE
JEWELERY
WATCHES
FASHION FOR MEN
FASHION FOR LADIES
HOME DECOR [Tableware, Furniture, Bath & Kitchen Appliances]
TECHNOLOGY [Mobile, TV, Hi-Fi, Speakers]
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
MUSIC [Award By CD]
BOOKS [Fiction & Non-fiction]
BOARDING SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY
COMMERCIAL AIRLINES
JET - SHARE PROGRAMS
TRAINS
CRUISE LINERS
CITIES & RESORTS
HOTELS
HOTELS: BOUTIQUE HOTELS
HOTELS: SMALL HOTELS
SPA
RESTAURANTS
DELICACIES
WINE & SPIRITS
CIGARS
GOLF & TENNIS
SPORTING GOODS [Hunting Guns, skis, Golf Clubs]

Other notes: Avoid using the words 'its the most" or similar superlatives! [I guess this means using more appropriate superlatives. Just searching the keywords 'luxury' plus your chosen topic will highlight the most popular descriptions. You could also stick to 'the best' and 'the top' as being dull but popular searches.]

Amount of Articles: 50
Price per Article: $10-20
Length of Article: 500-800 words

Lots of topics to choose from. For full details and to submit articles just click here.

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To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Health Blogger Wanted

2009-12-29T04:07:00.001Z

A blog network is looking to recruit an experienced writer on health issues. Popular topics include weight loss, illnesses such as diabetes and cancer, daily aches and pains such as cold sores and self-image issues such as hair loss.

They want a writer with experience of writing for a health website and who can work with deadlines and editors, so any articles published on general writing websites such as eHow, Hubpages or Xomba do not count as health writing experience.

Payment per post start at $25 and can rise to $35 with payment made via Paypal. Full details of how to apply are posted here. You must include 2 previously unpublished articles which will be paid for if accepted by the network.

Subscribe to On Writing Online for more writing jobs.

A Holiday Gift For Writers from Storyfix

2009-12-28T06:59:00.000Z

A Christmas article from Larry Brooks's Storyfix blog sends out a repair kit wrapped in tinsel to all those aspiring writers with unwanted novels.

The message is clear and simple: if you are trying to bend the rules of storytelling to fit your novel, then stop it! Novel writing may be considered an art form but a story needs to have a structure so that it can be properly called a novel. There is an architecture of novel writing that is rarely taught but without which you will end up with an unsightly pile of words. Every architect needs a structural engineer. Storyfix is your structural engineer for novel writers.

Enjoy the New Year.

Make Money Writing at eHow UK and Europe

2009-12-17T04:25:00.003Z

Up until now, eHow was not only based in the USA but only accepted paid writers who were either American citizens or residents. Finally, eHow is dipping its toes into foreign lands and has established eHow UK. For the moment they are still not paying British writers but that must surely change soon, so I'm posting this as a heads-up to those Brits who would like to make some money on eHow.

Amazingly, the 'Join Now' link still doesn't work so you'll have to sign up at eHow.com and wait for the announcement. Sure, we can all write for eHow for free but what's the point in that?

Demand Media, owners of eHow, are also planning to expand across the big European countries but it is obviously easier to port existing English-langauge content from eHow.com to eHow.co.uk making an instant new website without (too many) translation issues.

Steven Kydd claims that thousands of people across Europe have already applied to write content so you may consider going directly to the Demand Media website and sending in a speculative application.

Is Article Writing Dead?

2009-12-17T02:45:00.001Z

We've had junk food for years, now welcome to junk content.

And, just as junk food is not only the local market stall selling cheap sausages sizzling in recycled oil but is also a profitable global enterprise, so junk content is moving away from the scrapers and automated writing tools and going legit - or at least global.

AOL, that dinosaur that survived when the meteor hit, is churning itself into the disposable portal it was always doomed to be. You've no doubt read it in many places that the best way to write profitably is to launch lots of niche websites with minimal yet SEO-targetted content. Be smart and diligent enough and the numbers will start to stack up. The more worthless the content the higher the likelihood of someone clicking an advert just to find a quick exit to something potentially more interesting. This is now the AOL business model.

In "The End of Hand Crafted Content", TechCrunch writer bemoans this race to the bottom but vows to move on and stay competitive. For every bit of software, or cheap human, that spews out a mangled version of an original article and then rams it in front of an ignorant public, there are systems to track and list the origins of a story thereby rewarding once again the original producers.

The bottom line is money. The old media barons such as Murdoch were surprisingly late to the party as they couldn't figure out how to make any money on the net. They still can't figure it out but are desperate because the new media is eating away at their very existence. Murdoch's threat is to hide behind some payment system. I find it laughable that he should think this a good idea and he should take a long hard look at AOL to see his future. Maybe he should buy AOL and they can sink together.

But the sad truth is that shit sells - and free shit on the net is even better. There was some delusion a few years back that the internet would be different. Back then it was largely filled with techies, scientists, geeks and academics. They are still there but the noise to signal ratio is getting larger... and larger. But in the end we all create our very own individual internet. If a particular portal is spewing out crap we will find another one, assuming one will still exist.

For the writer, one has to decide whether you want to run a junk food franchise or your own gourmet restaurant. In physical space, both models co-exist. In cyberspace, where the food is free and paid for by fluctuating advertising the specialists will flounder, unless they stick together. Arianna Huffington is less pessimistic and insists that the likes of the Huffington Post can prosper in this free for all. But a close look at her final comments shows she can see the same kind of constellation taking place. The single solitary writer has to go where they feel most comfortable and where they will find an audience.

Many writers (or at least American writers) are making some money on eHow. This site shows what the bottom looks like when it is calculated by an algorithm. eHow is owned by Demand Media and they have developed a strict model of article titles they commission based on search and advertising bucks. You won't find anything on life, the universe and everything, but rather life, my family and that stain on the carpet. These are life's minutiae; things that some people obviously need to know, otherwise the article would never get written. But the pay is low and the quality I've seen is truly dreadful. You can read the full article at Wired and you can even copy the same model - just try to write better articles!

Original content is supposed to be king, but in the English language the word 'original' can have many meanings. AOL's writing factory is original in the sense that nobody else could put together those same words in that same order and think it worth publishing. eHow is a step up in that they hope their articles at least appear to be useful, or useful enough to be a stepping stone to an advert. When I take a step back and look at my favourite feeds I find that the writers are either paid a wage or are in another paid employment and write part-time. If originality is valued then it has to be paid for. How that is going to happen in the current online business model I just haven't figured it out yet.

Portugal Property and Real Estate Writers Wanted

2009-10-22T02:39:00.001+01:00

Portugal Property, Culture and Leisure Writers Wanted

A property company based in Portugal is looking for two writers to add to its team. Articles must have a property angle to them, but otherwise can be on a broad range of topics, such as holidays in Portugal, cuisine, leisure, travel, entertainment and Portuguese culture.

This will be an on-going position for the successful writer. The writer will be expected to produce about 20,000 words per month, with a mixture of full articles and blogs.

For full details and how to submit your first article just click here.

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To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

The Ultimate List of Revenue Sharing Writing and Bookmarking Websites

2009-08-03T15:10:00.005+01:00

Tired of seeing the same out of date lists getting copied around the net? Then here is the ultimate guide to bookmarking and article writing websites that are currently online, functioning and still paying. There are many sites that come and go or change focus that I will update this every few months.

If you find your favourite revenue sharing website missing then just leave a comment and let me know and I'll add it to the next edition. The current list has general websites that are either article directories or bookmarking sites and that pay their members out of advertising revenue. I have included revenue sharing bookmarking websites as they are useful for writers to promote their articles – and you get paid twice for no extra work.

The list below is more or less in decreasing order of traffic, at least according to Alexa. However, traffic and earnings are two totally different metrics and you'll just have to experiment to find those websites that earn you the most money. This seems to have more to do with the quality of your articles, the membership profile and the advertising value of your areas of interest than it does to raw traffic data. It also has to do with the ad placements in each website as well as the SEO and marketing done by each social media website.

Quick Guide

'Unique' means original articles not published elsewhere. 'Copyrighted' means original articles that you have authored but which may already be published on other websites. In this case it is a good idea to try and register the same, or very similar, usernames across multiple sites as this is the simplest way to see who the original author is. Most of these sites accept 'Articles' or 'Bookmarks' or both. Most websites accept 'Worldwide' members although I have noted those that have extra conditions. I have listed the current percentage 'Adshare' for the user as well as which sites calculate an 'Internal Revenue' and thus pay the user directly. Most have some 'Referral' commission and I have noted those that do not.

The List

eHow
[Articles (Unique) – USA only – Internal Revenue – No Referrals]
eHow is probably the most popular site on this list in terms of traffic. If you like writing 'How to' articles then this is place for you. Except, don't bother unless you live in the USA as they do not pay writers from other countries, although you can still submit articles if you think it will help your marketing efforts. For writers who have joined their Writer Compensation Program, revenue is calculated internally based on article popularity with payment via Paypal once $10 income is reached.

Hubpages
[Articles (Unique/Copyrighted) – Worldwide – 60% Adshare – 10% Referral Adshare]
Hubpages has been around a while and you can earn from Adsense, Amazon, eBay and Kontera. You can also add Hubpages to your Google Analytics, which is a huge bonus in finding out which articles (or hubs in Hubpages jargon) are earning the most. Unique articles preferred but you may post previously published articles although they now get penalty points although still earn money. One nice tool is that you can add your Hubpages affiliate code to any article rather than just a signup page.

Triond
[Articles (Unique) – Worldwide – 50% Adshare – No Referral]
Triond is different to the other sites in that rather than having different categories on the one website they have created lots of separate websites for each broad area of interest. Your articles are screened but don't worry, from what I've seen the standards are not high. Your earnings are calculated internally based on a secret formula and related to how many pageviews your articles get. Unique articles only. Monthly payments using Paypal with a minimum payout of just $0.50.

Squidoo
[Articles/Bookmarks (Unique/Copyrighted) – Worldwide – 50% Internal Adshare - $5 Referral]
Squidoo is the kind of site you either love or hate. You really do need a network of friends to get your lenses (Squidoo-speak for articles) seen and read. As lenses can be complex documents the only way to get noticed is to create at least one mega-lens and keep updating it. Earnings come from a variety of sources, including Google Adsense, Amazon, eBay and others, and are calculated by Squidoo. They pay authors by Paypal and you can set your minimum payout as low as $1. Your $5 referral commission is paid once a new member earns at least $15.

Associated Content
[Articles (Unique/Copyrighted) – USA/Worldwide - $1.50 CPM – No Referrals]
Associated Content pays per article view rather than sharing Adsense impressions, currently set at $1.50 per 1,000 pageviews. If you are a citizen of the USA you can also submit original articles for an upfront payment, which is far more lucrative. If you live anywhere else in the world then you're stuck with the miserly $1.50, but just copy your existing content and it's free money for little work. Also, although Associated Content publishes referral codes there is no indication anywhere that this actually earns anything for the referrer.

Helium
[Articles (Unique) – Worldwide (?) - Internal Revenue – 5% Referrals]
Helium is one of those websites you either love or hate. It has a somewhat complicated income structure based on the community's perceived quality of articles and their popularity. This means you may initially not be earning anything until you jump into their minimum one-star rating. Once accepted, they will pay you through Paypal once a minimum of $25 has been accumulated. They should accept writers from any country but, like all companies using Paypal, there are some countries they cannot accept writers from – I put a question mark because I have seen a few people complain that their payment request was not honoured because of their country of origin, but only after they'd accumulated earnings. To avoid wasting your time it is best to ask admin first. But Helium is more than just an article directory. They can pay an up-front fee for some articles, and have a marketplace in which writers can get paid contracts as well as numerous writing competitions.

Suite101
[Articles (Unique) – Worldwide – 50% Internal Adshare – No Referrals]
Suite101 is often ignored from lists such as this – I suspect just because they don't have any affiliate earnings. Suite101 is an article directory with strict guidelines for authors on layout and keyword use, with each article being reviewed by an editor. Earnings are based upon a 50% share but are calculated by Suite101, who issue payment by Paypal with a minimum payout of just $10. They have many categories and it is still possible to become a Featured Writer. The writer agreement does let you republish your articles elsewhere after one year.

Xomba
[Articles/Bookmarks (Unique/Copyrighted) – Worldwide – 50% Adshare – 10% Referral Adshare]
Xomba is a social media website that accepts both full articles and bookmarks – these are respectively known as Xombytes and Xomblurbs. Adsense share is 50% to the author, plus a 10% recurring share for referrals. Perhaps the only website to have maintained a good mix of original articles plus bookmarks to interesting off-site content. Has just undergone a major website redesign, with lots more features to keep viewers reading.

Bukisa
[Articles (Unique/Copyrighted) – Worldwide – Revenue per Pageview – 3-Tier Referrals]
Bukisa is a social media article directory accepting both unique content as well as copyrighted content that you may have already published elsewhere. Has an interesting payment structure and referral system. Bukisa revenue changes according to their Bukisa Index, which is the amount they pay per unique visitor – this is currently $3.45. This is different to pageviews hence the value is much higher than AC's $1.50 CPM. They also have a 3-tiered referral system where you earn 25% of the earnings of your direct referrants plus a quarter of what your first tier earns from the next two tiers down. OK, a little complex but they explain it fully in their FAQ and this could be the most lucrative part of joining Bukisa. Minimum payment is $10 via Paypal.

InfoBarrel
[Articles (Unique Only) – Worldwide – 75% Adshare – 2% Referral Adshare]
Infobarrel is a social media website where you can create articles, videos, pictures or sound clips. Unique articles are preferred and all articles are read first by editors who then either approve or deny publication. Like Triond, this is really just to stop complete junk rather than a sign of high quality writing. Writers get 75% of ad impressions from Adsense, with 2% of impressions from referrals.

Infopirate
[Bookmarks/Blogs (Unique/Copyrighted) – Worldwide – 80% Adshare – 10% Referral Adshare]
Infopirate has morphed into a revenue sharing bookmarking website. There is the facility to post full articles or blog posts but this currently seems under-used and members concentrate on posting bookmarks. Adsense share is 80% to the member, which is one of highest payments around, with an additional on-going 10% for all referrals.

Flixya
[Articles (Any!) – Worldwide – 100% Adshare – No Referrals]
Flixya is better known as a social media website where users can share videos and images. It does, however, have a section devoted to sharing the written word: articles. You get 100% of Adsense impressions, with Flixya claiming they make enough from other advertising on their site on non-member pages. However, their article section is filled with copy and pastes from article directories with no control over copyright issues. If you can get your articles noticed then this could be a good site, just don't expect any meaningful feedback beyond 'be my friend' messages.

Tagfoot
[Bookmarks – Worldwide – 50% Adshare – 25% Referral Adshare]
Tagfoot is a fairly new social bookmarking site, and still officially in beta, but has an active community and the bookmarklet works like a dream. There is a little bit of a hurdle to overcome before your Adsense code can be activated – it just means proving you're an honest and valuable member and that your bookmarks don't suck. A well-designed site with lots of features that is begging for more traffic.

She Told Me
[Bookmarks – Worldwide – 100% Ad views (50% AdShare) – 33% Referral Adshare]
She Told Me is a very new bookmarking website. Their Adsense revenue sharing percentages need, however, a little explanation. Most websites will split the user's and admin's advert codes into the same ad units using a simple random number generator and depending on the published revenue share. At SheToldMe the code is simpler: your ad unit is shown on all your content pages - hence they claim 100% Adsense revenue share – but your advert is shown on only one ad unit out of two (essentially a 50% split). If you refer a new member then your ad unit is ahown on all of their pages too but as a third advert (hence I quote a 33% referral share). SheToldMe has lots of room to grow which means good potential for such referral earnings.

Qondio
[Articles (Unique) – Worldwide – 100% Revenue – No Referrals]
Qassia has just recently been renamed Qondio and is undergoing somewhat of a transformation. Articles, known as 'intel' (for intelligence), are first screened and voted on by 12 other members after which they are published or rejected. This quality control has its merit but means your articles are not earning anything during this period and then can get buried if the average vote is mediocre. They do have an innovative advertising solution using uniQlicks advertising manager so that writers can mix together different revenue streams on one page. There may be more changes to come so worth taking a look.

MyLot
[Articles/Discussions – Worldwide – Pay per Activity – 25% Referral]
MyLot is different to all the other websites so far listed in that it is essentially a discussion forum and members are paid per activity. This may seem far removed from traditional article writing but if you like writing controversial op-ed pieces then this may be a subsidiary income stream whilst showcasing your original writing. The actual formula that generates income is now kept secret, which has the small benefit that MyLot won't go broke, but don't expect more than about a dollar a day without active referrals. Minimum payout is $10 via Paypal.

MyPage5
[Articles/Comments – Worldwide – Pay per Activity - $1 Referral Commission]
MyPage5 is a new social networking website that allows users to blog and share videos etc. It is in some ways similar to MyLot in that it pays users per activity, such as adding an article or comment. MyPage5 does currently publish the income per activity so users can easily calculate earnings. In the past, such business models fail because of abuse and lack of advertising income. However, about a dollar a day is a nice little earner for people in many countries so worth a look. The referral commission is a one-off $1 per new member so long as they start being active.

PickJack
[Quizzes – Worldwide – Internal Revenue – Referral Commission]
This is another of those websites that may seem out of place here, but then again writers seem to earn money from a huge range of different activities. At Pickjack you earn money by writing interesting multiple-choice questions. You are paid by how popular the questions are and there is a referral commission, but both formulas are kept an in-house secret. The one thing that makes this site a little time-consuming is having to answer 20 questions before you can submit one of yours but they've speeded this up by batching them as 'Take 10'. One useful thing from a marketing point is that every question has to link to an authoritative source for the correct answer, so if you've written an informative article just think up a good question and link to your own article rather than to Wikipedia.

And finally...

I will update this in a few months, but in the meantime feel free to comment on any websites I have missed out. The above list does, however, have certain criteria to it. The website must pay the writer, usually a share of the advertising, either indirectly through using the writer's own affiliate code such as Adsense, or directly by calculating the revenue in-house and issuing periodic payments, usually via Paypal or cheque. This list is for the benefit of writers so that any site that shares videos or images, or bookmarks of any other media, are not included. The website must also be immediately usable as soon as a new user signs up. Having some editorial overview or moderated content is fine but I have not included sites that go through an application process much like seeking new employment. I would like to include more blogging networks but most of them have a screening process and you should already have a personal blog to show the quality of your writing. There seem to be sites that claim to be blogging networks but are actually just blog hosts, at which point, without the benefits of shared traffic and cross-promotions, they are no better at showcasing one's writing than using Blogger. All the above social media sites are general in content. I would be happy to include niche revenue sharing social media websites if they exist.

Good luck with the writing!

sulumits retsambew

2009-08-01T13:12:00.001+01:00

Now there's a title! What does "sulumits retsambew" mean? What's it for? What is the point?

Well, the meaning is actually quite straightforward: it's just "webmaster stimulus" spelled backwards. Now that wasn't too hard, was it?! However, the point of the whole exercise is an interesting SEO (search engine optimization) competition run by the forum Net Builders.

The aim of the competition is to see which 3 websites hit the top spots on Google.com. The competition started in March and ends on 15th August 2009 at high noon GMT. So only a couple of weeks for budding SEO experts to try and beat the current crop of top websites. To enter the contest, you must post the domain you are entering into the contest in a message here at NetBuilders.

There are prizes too!
First Place: $1,000
Second Place: $500
Third Place: $250

OK, this may seem slightly frivolous so late in the day but one interesting comparison is whether all those newly registered "sulumits retsambew" domains will beat more established websites with articles or features using the keywords. Is the domain name more important than the content? Some of the websites I've peeked at don't have much meaningful content at all and yet rank highly on Google. In one sense this shows that SEO is vital to get noticed... and content is crucial to get people coming back!

Writer’s Digest - 101 Best Websites for Writers 2009

2009-08-01T07:29:00.003+01:00

Introducing our 11th annual 101 Best Websites for Writers. This year we sifted through more than 2,700 nominations and pulled the best of the bunch. The list, which features more blogs and free market listings than in years past, has been divided into eight sections: Creativity and Challenges, General Resources, Agent Blogs, Publishing Resources, Jobs and Markets, Writing Communities, Genres/Niches and Fun for Writers.

Strangely, no category for best online revenue sharing websites, although Helium gets a mention in the jobs market category.

Make Money Bookmarking: Update With Two New Paying Websites

2009-07-29T18:04:00.003+01:00

In a previous article I somewhat lamented that I could only find two active websites that had revenue sharing systems for bookmarking: Xomba and Infopirate. There are many old lists that drift around the net like flotsam claiming hundreds of adsense revenue sharing sites but one look and most of them have either died or have dropped the money-making side. However, there are two new ones I've found to add to your list of money-making bookmarking sites: Tagfoot and SheToldMe.

Tagfoot is primarily a social bookmarking website that shares its revenue 50-50 with its members. This is the same split as Xomba, with Infopirate's share being 80-20 in favour of its members. But Tagfoot has a very healthy referral commission with 25% of your affiliate earnings going to you. Tagfoot is comparatively new compared to the others but has lots of nice features that make bookmarking a very fast and painless process. SheToldMe sells itself as 100% adsense revenue share but this is not quite true. Yes, one Adsense unit on your pages is yours but the other two belong to the admin and your referrer. So your ad gets shown on 100% of your page views but you only get a third of the advertising space.

Now, I don't like cluttering my browser with too many toolbars but Tagfoot's 'Sidefoot' bookmarklet is just one small icon and works like a dream. Once installed just go to any website you wish to bookmark, highlight a piece of relevant text and click on the Sidefoot icon. You have various options as to which category to place your bookmark, such as under news, videos, images etc. The URL, page title and highlighted text are all automatically copied, leaving you to just write a few appropriate tags. In just a few seconds your bookmark has been added to Tagfoot! Compared to some other bookmarklets I have found this to be the fastest. SheToldMe also has a bookmarklet that works fine but doesn't pick up as much information from your bookmarked page and the server sometimes goes AWOL.

Comparing the four sites, Xomba is both an article directory and a bookmarking website, Infopirate has the potential to have full articles in their blog section but that seems currently under-used and is primarily a bookmarking site. In contrast, Tagfoot and SheToldMe are wholly devoted to bookmarking and the description field is limited to 500 characters. You can. of course, use it to promote your writing on other sites or, as I've suggested before, to make some money bookmarking the websites you are using in your research.

One major difference between Tagfoot and the other three is that there is a 'trial period' between you joining Tagfoot and having your Google Adsense code activated. This is no doubt to avoid spammers and other undesirables and also gives you a chance to know your way around the site and how to use the various features. The minimum requirement is to bookmark at least 10 pages in each category and to achieve a 'footness' of 1000. The latter is a kind of sociability index and it shouldn't take more than a few days to qualify, after which you'll need to request from support to activate your Adsense code. Once done, then all your bookmarks will be earning money, even those added during your trial period.

Although traffic to Tagfoot is not as yet as high as to the other sites, the ease of bookmarking and the overall site design means this is an attractive addition to the paid to bookmark sector. SheToldme is very new so has good potential to gain referral income as well as having increased visibility of your own bookmarks.

How to Write Something Unpopular

2009-07-29T11:37:00.002+01:00

Now, everyone wants to be popular. We want admiration, we want comments, we want fame and fortune. So online writers try to write popular pieces. Unfortunately, trying too hard just doesn't work. Today I came across an article "Five Things You Should Avoid Writing About". It was worthless rubbish, but it was popular rubbish. However, it was popular precisely because it was unpopular with a large number of commenters. It's a really difficult trick to pull off consciously. The writer thought he was obviously being sensible but people who've been writing online for far longer just thought it laughably juvenile. Writing something offensive is not the idea - that will just lead to flames and possibly deletion. But to write something so banal that people feel the urge to respond and tell you how you've wasted a few minutes of their lives is pure genius.

Try it and see if you can pull it off.

Get Paid to Blog at Weblogs

2009-07-28T12:40:00.005+01:00

Step right up and apply to blog for one of our 90 fine blogs -- or suggest a blog topic and maybe we'll start a new blog! WIN bloggers are paid to blog as little or as much as they like, are unfiltered, and can shift from blog to blog within the network. Our only requirements are that you be totally honest with your audience and passionate about the subjects you cover. Talk to our editorial team if you're interested!

Some of these blogs are already well-established, such as Engadget, but there are many niche themes to suit all tastes and interests. Not all are in English either, so if your native tongue is Chinese or Spanish, or a handful of others, then take a look at which blogs are available. If you're really passionate about a subject that doesn't yet have a blog then make your sales pitch, but make sure you already have your own personal blog which you update regularly and with a few killer posts. Good luck!

How To Write Articles For Cracked.com and Get Paid

2009-07-27T11:33:00.003+01:00

Now, you may, or may not, enjoy the scurrilous humour of Cracked.com. You may, indeed, have been blissfully unaware of what Cracked.com is. But if articles such as "5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy" or "7 Insane Ads That Have No Clue What They're Selling" sound hilarious then you too can ape this style and get yourself published on Cracked.

Cracked are always on the look-out for warped individuals who have not yet been institutionalized. So if you'd like to boost your online kudos or have nothing left to lose then take a look at how Cracked can give meaning to your life. There are a few hoops to jump over and lots of cracks to fall through but don't worry... just be yourself. Many on the forum try far too hard to be funny all the time, even when just logging in.

You may, or may not, have what it takes but... give it a crack!

Backup Your Twitter Data and Blog with Bloggled

2009-07-26T07:11:00.003+01:00

I have written before on the frustration and loss of work that comes from having one's Twitter account suspended. Since writing that piece have noticed numerous other people equally bemused and angry at Twitter's seeming disregard for fairness.

It isn't just the loss of the account - it's easy enough to open a new one - but all the accumulated data that goes with it. It takes time to grow organically and having hundreds of followers wiped from your network is just not funny. The loss of tweets is perhaps less serious but they could be a source of new links that you just never got round to bookmarking. Twitter itself has no backup feature. This in itself is an oversight but let's not forget that Blogger only recently introduced a backup facility to save blog contents.

Well, in steps Bloggled and its Twitter Backup utility. Now you can periodically save everything so that if your Twitter account is ever suspended it will only be half a disaster. Bloggled has a 30 day free trial for its Twitter Backup service, after which it costs $4.99 per month.

Alternatively, as Twitter sends out an email every time you have a new follower you should save those in a dedicated folder. This doesn't help you remember who you yourself are following. In this case you'll have to save each twitter page that lists your followers. I know, tedious, hence you may find the Twitter backup service useful. It will also automatically backup Blogger blogs, just in case you forget.

Writers Wanted With a Background in the Auto Industry

2009-07-17T06:30:00.004+01:00

Title: Looking For Writers Who Have a Background Within the Auto Industry

Description: Looking for writers who can assist with our aftermarket car parts online store, insixthgear.com or also known as ISG. We carry aftermarket parts for Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, and more. Our line
includes body kits, wheels, suspension kits, brakes, engine upgrades, and accessories.

Looking to pay .04 cents per word ($40 per 1,000 words) . This project is from the ground up so there is plenty of work to go around.

Subjects: Sample can be the the first body kit on our inventory list, which is the ABT Sportline.

URL: http://www.insixthgear.com/body-kits.htm

All content must be unique.

Other notes: Writer must be knowledgeable in what types of cars each body kit caters to. Some companies cater to Japanese, German or American cars.

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To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

How to Blog Without Killing Yourself

2009-07-07T08:10:00.003+01:00

The original title was “Scalable Blogging Behaviors: How to Grow from 1 to 1,000,000 Readers” and the content did not change.

In the presentation below, including detailed screenshots, Tim Ferriss covers…

- Why I blog
- How I blog and select best practices
- Frequency and tools — best times and days to post
- Blogging myths and how to harness data for better results
- Testing design and surprising findings that can be copied
- How I address comments and community building
- How I write and research for good social media response
- 20 minutes of audience Q&A on Twitter, branding, outsourcing, and much more

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed giving it.

From the Blog of Tim Ferriss.

Articles Wanted on Aquarium Fish

2009-06-26T11:39:00.002+01:00

Title:Fish Profile
Description:I want the structure of all articles to be the same. Here is how I want them:

1st paragraph: should talk about where the fish is from and what's is natural environment.

2nd paragraph: should describe the fish. This part is really important. People should be able to identify the fish after reading this.

3rd paragraph: Should talk about keeping this fish in the aquarium. Here are examples of what I am looking for: ideal setup, water parameter and best condition, aggressiveness, compatibility with other fish, feeding,
hardiness, minimum tank size and any other important fact about this fish.

I wrote over 600 saltwater fish profiles like this. If you know about aquarium fish and have some good references, writing this article should be quite easy.

I will buy full rights for this article.

Please contact me if you have any questions
Amount of articles:17
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:500 - 600
Subjects:Celestial goldfish
Ranchu goldfish
Lionhead goldfish
Pom-pon goldfish
Telescope-eye goldfish
Moor goldfish
Ryukin goldfish
Oranda goldfish
Pearlscale goldfish
Fantail goldfish
Jikin goldfish
Platy Fish
Oscar - (Astronotus spp.)
Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae
Moenkhausia pittieri
Hemigrammus bleheri
Date requested:2009-06-25

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To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Selling on Ebay Articles Wanted

2009-06-26T11:32:00.001+01:00

Title:Ebay selling
Description:Just looking for 400-600 word articles about selling on ebay
Amount of articles:3
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:400-600

As three articles are needed by the publisher it may be prudent to ask what the focus should be. As Ebay continues to be popular, if your articles are not purchased by this particular publisher you can leave them on Constant Content priced to sell to other website and blog owners.

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To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

The Complete Google Analytics Power User Guide

2009-06-10T16:18:00.002+01:00

This is a useful series of articles on how to set up Google Analytics and how to understand the wealth of data available to you. Google Analytics is a powerful way to analyse traffic to your site but it can be an intimidating environment for the novice user. Google Analytics was originally designed to be integrated with Google Adwords so that advertisers could track the effectiveness of their campaigns, such as which were the most profitable sources of traffic. However, it can now also be integrated with Google Adsense so that publishers can also see which are the best performing pages and how people reach them.

As I am writing this with writers in mind, and specifically article writers on revenue sharing websites, I will go through some of the articles with this particular focus. If you wish to dive in immediately then just go to VKI's "The Complete Google Analytics Power user Guide".

The first thing you obviously need to do is set up a Google Analytics account. This Setup Checklist is a useful guide to the whole process. But before doing so it is worth asking a couple of questions. What do I need to be able to use Google Analytics? And, how can it help me?

The first question is particularly important as in order to make use of Google Analytics you will have to be able to insert a tracking code into your website. If you have your own website or a blog then just follow the Analytics help pages on where to insert the tracking code and you should have no problems. However, if you are only writing for third party websites then this user guide stops here! As of writing, the only site I know of where you can integrate your Analytics tracking code is Hubpages - if anybody knows of other sites that have enabled this then please let us all know. If you are writing at Hubpages then read on.

If you're still with me then the second question is worth thinking about. The Google Analytics Profile pages and Reports can look complicated so it is worth focussing on what precisely you wish to achieve so that you can put together the most relevant tools and ignore the rest for the moment.

If you are writing online then probably the most important metric is your Adsense earnings, but this is not necessarily the case for all writers. You might be making more from affiliate links than Adsense and wish to analyse those. You may even be making a significant income from freelance contracts from your website and wish to see how prospective clients navigate through to the all-important contact page. You may find that you're getting significant traffic from unexpected countries but that they are not clicking adverts because your articles are not targeted enough to those nationals. All of these things can be done through Google Analytics but it's worth knowing why you might need it and why it might be worth the time and effort spent in learning how to use it.

Now that you've setup your Goggle Analytics account, what now? The Setup Checklist is the best place to start, but I'll write a little more in the next article.

"Why credit report errors appear on my credit report and how to fix them" Article Wanted

2009-06-04T10:05:00.002+01:00

Title: Why credit report errors appear on my credit report and how to fix them.

Description:Please try to identify a lot of reasons why the errors get into the credit report. Explain how these errors can be prevented.

Did you know that simple mistake in your name in credit application will automatically add this name as a variation of your name on your credit report, a mistake in social security number will be added to the report as well.

Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:600

Subjects:Please don't write simple blah blah, I need facts and examples, be detailed. Try to dig deeper and find more reasons. The article should be logical from beginning to the end. I will pay for this article $40 for unique rights and $50 for full rights if I like the article.

-={}=-

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Articles Wanted on Registry Tools and Registry Cleaners

2009-06-03T05:43:00.002+01:00

A number of articles are needed about Windows Registry cleaners and tools.

Firstly, five reviews wanted of 350 words for each of these products:

- RegCure
- Registry Mechanic
- Registry Easy
- Jv16 Power Tools
- Perfect Optimizer

Reviews to include the following headings: Summary, Pros, Cons, Likes, Dislikes, and Bottom
Line. Must be unique and should have more than 50 words per paragraph title.

The same publisher is also looking for 4 articles of 450-600 words on Registry Cleaners in general: how to, why we need registry tools, tips, and so forth. The aim is to help prospective buyers understanding what the process the need make to keep their computer safe, fast and like new.

2 Articles about "How To"
1 Tips Article
1 Article About News and "Why we need a registry tool"

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Article Wanted About Adam Lambert

2009-06-02T05:12:00.002+01:00

Title:Adam Lambert
Description:I would like a short post on why Lambert has so many fans
around the world. It must be positive.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:300

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Article Wanted on Making Natural Beauty Products at Home

2009-06-02T05:10:00.001+01:00

Title: Natural Beauty Products
Description:Using natural foods you can find in your fridge to make your
own beauty products at home.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:300

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Articles Wanted on Forex Trading

2009-06-02T05:07:00.001+01:00

Title: Forex Articles
Description:Looking for someone who can write 15 articles about forex.
Some of the articles can be generic, others educational and a few
comparing various forex platform providers such as fxcm, dbfx and
forex.com.
Amount of articles:15
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:350
Subjects:forex
fx trading
forex platforms
Date requested:2009-06-01
Other notes:Need them all within 1 week

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Making Sense of Google's Adsense Reports

2009-05-31T09:18:00.007+01:00

I have been asked a few times about the meaning of some of the data in Google's Adsense reports, so here is a short list plus some strategies to increase earnings.

The basic reports page within Adsense gives numbers for Page Impressions, Clicks, Page CTR, Page eCPM and Earnings.

Page Impressions and Clicks should be fairly obvious. Note that Page Impressions shows the number of times your page or article has been viewed, not the number of ad impressions. So if you have three Adsense units on one page it will still count as one page impression, not three. The Adsense for Feeds data, however, gives the actual number of ad impressions.

Page CTR is the Click Through Rate and is simply the number of Clicks divided by the number of Page Impressions expressed as a percentage. Your Earnings are obviously the total value of all the Clicks and is the actual amount you will be paid once you have accumulated at least $100 in unpaid earnings by the end of a calendar month.

The value that seems to cause some confusion is the eCPM, which is the "effective cost-per-thousand impressions". I have no idea why they have called it this as a "cost" is to the advertisers whereas for publishers like us it is an "income". Anyway, to cut through the confusion, all this number really represents is the your Earnings divided by your Page Impressions - that's all! However, this raw number is likely to be in fractions of a cent so to make it look more meaningful it is scaled up by a factor of one thousand. So if you look at your Adsense earnings and have exactly 1,000 Page Impressions then your eCPM will be exactly the same as your Earnings. One direct comparison that can be made is with those revenue sharing websites that pay per page view. Associated Content pays $1.50 per 1,000 page views and Bukisa pays a variable amount but roughly $3.50 per unique page view. Your eCPM should be much higher than these.

One value that Google does not give in their reports but which I find useful is the average earnings per click. To keep track of this you'll need to download one of the csv files and calculate the figure within a spreadsheet: it is just the Earnings divided by Clicks. These earnings per click (EPC) can then be compared to the theoretical Cost per Click (CPC) published in Google's Keyword Tool, as well as to the Potential Earnings (PE) that I described in my article on finding the most profitable keywords.

So, what can we do with these numbers? The ultimate aim is obviously to increase our total Earnings but a quick look at some of these basic statistics can be a guide to what to do in order to drive up that income.

A high CTR but low eCPM shows that your articles are well-focussed with relevant adverts that people click but with low unit values: this would show up in your spreadsheet as a low EPC. Analyze your pages to see which keywords are being picked up then put these through the Keywords Tool to see whether there are higher paying keyword combinations within the same topic. It may just be a matter of adding more focus to the keywords or writing more articles about very specific areas within your broader topic.

A high eCPM but with low CTR shows that the articles are generating high-value adverts but few people are clicking them. Sadly, your article may be too good! Your article may be so good that readers don't need to look elsewhere, or you may have too many links within your text. Remember that people are more likely to click on a contextual link rather than an obvious advert. Try either taking out all the links or, alternatively, create quick bookmarks and link to those instead. Give people a good reason to want more and hopefully that extra is an advert.

A high eCPM with average CTR but low Page Impressions means having to focus on generating more traffic. Everything seems to be working well apart from the lack of readers. One thing is to link your articles together. This may be a link to your private blog, to an index page or contextual links to previous articles. The other thing is to start promoting your articles on social bookmarking websites. Sure, they don't in themselves earn money directly but they can be a good source of traffic. Don't spam them as they will ban you for it, but try to promote one of your articles plus one other site and you should be fine. One other trick is to do a search for your article's keywords and see which links come in the first two or three pages. Many will be blogs or forums or news sites; if there is an opportunity to comment then do so with a link back to a relevant article. Yet again, spamming can be counter-productive as your comment may be deleted and you will be banned from commenting again.

A very low eCPM is a sign that your articles are just not generating very much income. Writing about philosophy, life, the universe and everything may be personally enriching but it won't fill your wallet. If you're happy doing so then fine. If income is of secondary importance but you'd quite like to dine out at Google's expense every so often then think about mixing a few quick and tightly focused bookmarks to complement your longer articles.

The ultimate aim is to increase one's total Earnings. Hopefully I have shown that even with the basic report data it is possible to see which areas need some work to improve that all-important monthly income. Any other advice you feel I've left out then please leave a comment.

Articles Wanted on Natural Weight Loss

2009-05-22T08:24:00.003+01:00

Title: Natural Weight Loss
Description:I am currently collecting articles related to Natural Weight
Loss, Fitness, and everything related. This is for a holistic web site and
therefore I will only be considering articles written with such an
audience in mind. I'm ONLY buying full-rights articles!
Amount of articles:100
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:any
Subjects:Natural Weight Loss
Fitness
Exercise
Dangers of "Bad Dieting"
Anything else you think may apply.
Date requested:2009-05-21
Other notes:I am limited to paying $25 for an article, and will accept
ONLY full-rights articles. Please don't waste my time or yours submitting
anything else, it's very annoying and will get you nowhere.

To find out full details please click on one of the links above. This freelance job is being offered by a third party and is listed here On Writing Online for the benefit of writers wishing to earn an income from contract writing. Please do not contact me directly as I have no further details. Thanks and good luck!

Twitter Account Suspended? What to do next.

2009-05-20T13:25:00.000+01:00

What To Do If Your Twitter Account Has Been Suspended

Your Twitter account has been suspended. You're confused and angry and want answers. You're not alone; this is becoming a frequent occurrence and Twitter admin like to hide behind some fairly nebulous terms of service.

The bottom line is that Twitter reserves the right “to refuse service to anyone for any reason at anytime.”. They can suspend your account for any reason without telling you why. If you know why you're account has been suspended then you probably won't need to read this and can merrily go ahead and create another account. If you're afraid of losing the network you have established and any reputation you feel you have gained then read on.

Twitter has gone from a lowly start-up to a major online presence in a short time, but their resources are just not keeping up with their new status. This seems to be affecting both their physical resources such as servers and bandwidth as well as their human resources such as their help system. If you feel that you need to use Twitter then you will have to protect yourself from account suspension and the consequences that arise from it, but that's for another article.

One example of this is that Twitter's help pages have a number of dead links. This look bad and means having to go the long way round to find out how to complain about your account suspension. There seem to be two ways to seek to get your account reinstated.

Twitter Support

Twitter Support currently uses the Zendesk platform to generate help tickets and (hopefully) answer them. This means they have two URLs that point to the same place:

http://help.twitter.com/entries
http://twitter.zendesk.com/entries

If they ever stop using Zendesk then the first URL should still work.

If your account has recently been suspended and has not been deleted then you can login to this helpdesk with the same details as your Twitter account. Some people have found it expedient to create another Twitter account and use those details to open tickets about their suspended account. This can be useful as some users have found they can no longer login to the helpdesk if their Twitter account was terminated. The downside is that if Twitter upholds the original account suspension then you may find your new account also targeted. This choice is yours.

Online companies often hide behind the anonymity the internet affords them and Twitter is no different. You will firstly receive an automated response, which merely means a human may eventually look at your case. Most people's reaction is to then send an angry reply. From reading some people's stories the best way to get your suspended account reinstated is to make a clear logical case that you have done nothing against Twitter's TOS.

Mistakes happen and there are unpleasant people out there who want to take you off the net just because they don't like your politics, religion, race, sexual orientation or whatever. There are also spam rings on Twitter and if you unfortunately follow one of them accidentally you may be flagged as part of the ring. Whatever the reason for your suspension you might, or might not, get to know and can then act upon it either with a new account or your reinstated account.

Get Satisfaction

The second place where you can complain about your Twitter account suspension is at Get Satisfaction. This is similar to Zendesk but has the advantage that it is also a forum and other users can comment on your case and share experiences. This means you're not alone in dealing with Twitter and can see who has been reinstated and who hasn't.

Get satisfaction also has a section of Twitter Known Issues. This lists known bugs on Twitter that have led to various account problems such as the inability to login, tweets or followers gone missing and accounts accidentally blocked. If you had a lot of followers you can try to get them to support your reinstatement here. That, however, assumes you've kept an offline list of your followers: how many people do that?

Will you get your Twitter account reinstated?
Maybe, maybe not.

How long will it take?
How long is an elastic band? They seem woefully under-staffed and have seen accounts reinstated after 2 months!

Is it worth the aggravation?
That really depends on how much effort you've put into your Twitter community. If you really feel you haven't done anything wrong then it is worth pursuing as otherwise you're likely to fall into the same trap with a new account.

Where can I find Twitter's Terms of Service?
Here are Twitter's Terms of Service and Rules Policies. The section that probably affects most people is their Twitter Rules page.

Good luck... just don't hold your breath waiting.

Articles Wanted on Affiliate Marketing

2009-05-19T06:38:00.002+01:00

Title:Affiliate Marketing Blog Post
Description:I am looking for folks with knowledge of affiliate marketing
to write blog posts on the subject. I am looking for exclusive rights to
this content under the unique content category. Again I want to be able
to have some go to writers I can rely on consistently.
Amount of articles:ongoing
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:500-800
Subjects:The subject again is affiliate marketing and I'm looking for
quality content. I want to be able to review the article in full before
purchase.
Date requested:2009-05-18

Please note, this job is available at Constant Content; to see full details just click on the links and sign up. This is published here for the benefit of readers of On Writing Online and to show that there are freelance opportunities beyond revenue sharing websites, but please do not email me about this as the work is offered by a third party. Thanks.

Make Extra Money Using Monetized Short URLs in Articles and Twitter

2009-05-16T10:49:00.004+01:00

You've all heard of Tinyurl: the short URL service that turns long unwieldy URLs into short ones you can easily post on forums, chatrooms or micro-blogging sites like Twitter. Well, that's nice but now I've found two services that have monetized the short URL market - adf.ly and Linkbee.

How They Work

Linkbee and adf.ly work in very similar ways. Just as you would with Tinyurl, just input your long URL and the services will abbreviate them for you. The diference is that when someone clicks on your link there is an advert before they are taken to the actual website. You are paid for every click-through. As both systems are fairly new the rates tend to vary, but even so, it is an extra bit of income for your contextual links.

The adf.ly service just has interstitial adverts, which are monetized landing pages before automatically going to the actual link, with the user able to click directly to the target website if the advert is of no interest. Linkbee has both interstitial adverts and the option of displaying a banner above the website, which is within a frame. Indeed, Linkbee also has an option not to show any adverts at all so you can also use it just as you would Tinyurl, or any other URL shortening service. The other neat thing about Linkbee is that you can also pick your own link URL (so long as it is still available).

Short URLs in Twitter

If you're using the micro-blogging service Twitter then you'll know that any URL you may enter is automatically abbreviated. Now you can use your own abbreviated URL and make a bit of money out of your tweets. I've tried it and, so long as you keep your URL short then Twitter doesn't abbreviate it a second time. This is also useful in terms of branding your links, which is impossible to do with automatic URL shortening.

Short URLs as Marketing

Tinyurl has been around for a long time and although you can select your own short URL using, for example, your website name, the chances are that anything really good and meaningful has been taken a long time ago. However, both Linkbee and adf.ly are fairly new and there are many good keywords that are still available. So, even if you're not interested in monetizing your links you can still use these services to capture and keep those marketing keywords that are important to you. Once you have created a short URL nobody else can use it (otherwise complete confusion would reign) and you can also change the target URL whenever you want too.

Make Money from Short URLs

However, the main benefit from these services is that you get paid for people clicking your links. Remember that people are more likely to click contextual links than they are text adverts (unless they are really interested in the advert). The actual payouts vary a lot and you will need to check their current rates but are generally about one to two dollars per thousand clicks. This does not, at the moment, seem very high, but remember that this is now an additional revenue stream to any adverts you already have. Both Linkbee and adf.ly will pay via Paypal and have similar minimum payouts of about $15-$20. This means you will need quite a few thousand clicks before first payment but, as already stated, treat this as a nice little bonus. If you publish a lot of bookmarks then this will be a good source of traffic, although do read the TOS of each site as some will allow only the original URL to be posted.

Overall, this seems to me a welcome step forward. Will users be irritated with the adverts? Well, they are not pop-ups or pop-unders so they are really no more intrusive than many corporate websites that have adverts crawling across the screen with a well-camouflaged 'close' button. The links still go to where they are supposed to go, so you're not redirecting users to an altogether different website. It is best to experiment and see if you get any feedback. With Linkbee there is the option to have no adverts at all and it is simple to change this status to any existing URLs you may already have created.

One last thing is that both Linkbee and adf.ly have referral programmes so you can make a bit of extra money by getting your friends to join or promoting your affiliate link. In closing, I think these will be great for Twitter and contextual links.

Email Me

2009-05-12T06:13:00.000+01:00

I've had a few requests about this and, strangely, Blogger doesn't have an email facility without revealing one's email and therefore open to harvesting and spamming.

So, if you'd like to send an email to On Writing Online that isn't related to one of the articles or posts, then please send your message here as a comment. Include a reply email and I will respond directly.

Many Thanks

Writing for Adsense Revenue: Miracles do Happen!

2009-05-08T07:30:00.005+01:00

There has been a lot of recent chat on Xomba about writing online and how to earn a decent amount from Adsense advertising. This shows, firstly, that there are a lot of new members, and secondly, that the advice from older members should be more accurate as they themselves gain in experience. There are, however, a few points that I don't feel have been aired enough.

Do you feel lucky?

There are times when one article will earn hundreds of dollars in just one day. There have even been articles that have made thousands! These are rare, but they do happen. Luck plays a big role in this. But like many other things in life, you need to work at being lucky. I wrote a similar thing about getting a book in print - luck plays a huge part but so does working to generate your own luck. Some things you cannot control and some things you can - concentrate your efforts on those things you can control and prepare to be lucky. This isn't to denigrate those writers who've earned big, but I'm sure they were both very happy and very surprised when an article went viral. They couldn't predict what would happen but they saw the opportunity and worked towards being successful.

Most lotteries like to advertise the obvious fact that if you don't play you can't win. the other obvious fact that they don't advertise is that most people lose. Writing online is similar in that if you don't write you won't earn, that your jackpot is also largely out of your hands, but the difference is that you can actually win something every day.

One of the things that attracted me to Xomba was that I made some money on the very first day - if memory doesn't delude me was 27 cents! - but was more than I was seeing on some other sites. I also found Xomba by accident as a link from a Google search. So, I figured, these people have done their SEO and they know how to place adverts, and they have a layout that encourages interaction and further reading. Not many other writing websites have all of those elements together.

Mix and Max

I must say, I haven't hit a jackpot as yet, however, I have recently had some success with one article generating a few hundred dollars over a couple of week. Firstly, to show what I mean about luck, the same piece was posted in three places - only one of them grew, the other two went to sleep. Why? I think because the audiences are different. We can't control what happens to our writing - who posts a link where - but we can work at analysing what works where. The other thing is that this article isn't even an article: it's a simple bookmark! Again, work at what works and prune the rest.

Writing original content takes time and skill. Whatever you're interested in, try to mix your output in order to maximize it. I've written in my On Writing Online blog that the joys of revenue sharing bookmarking sites is that you can be making money before you've even finished writing your article, just by bookmarking your sources. Don't worry, the chances of anybody following the same trail and duplicating your original article are minuscule. If you can write one or two good articles a day and bookmark maybe half a dozen sites then that's probably a decent day's work.

Drop those dead donkeys

Use your Adsense account data and Google Analytics to see what is working and what isn't. Different writing websites will develop their own communities and styles and what is popular on one site may not be on another. There are only about a dozen revenue sharing writing websites at the moment so worth trying 2 or 3 at the start and maybe drop one that isn't working and try one new one on the list. Use the revenue sharing bookmarking sites to promote your own articles as well as your other bookmarks. Use some of the popular social bookmarking websites to promote your own writing - mix in some of your other bookmarks so you don't get flagged for spamming (you often won't know it, but you will be!).

On the subject of pruning what doesn't work, if you decide to stop writing for a website don't delete your account. Those articles will still be listed and could still be earning. There is one website where I stopped submitting work as it didn't seem worth the time. I'd login once a month just to see if anything was moving and to my surprise found that my earnings were slowly increasing to the point where it was worth putting some effort into it again. Some long tails are longer than others.

Waiting for Lady Luck may not seem much of a strategy but as you can see, I'm not advocating sitting back and waiting for the finger of fate to stab you in the ribs! All your work is slowly but surely loading the dice in your favour. The point I'm trying to make is that the social web is a complex system and that trying to push it doesn't always work - sure, if you already have an army of followers it's easier but if you're reading this then I'd guess you're not at that stage. A better analogy is to scatter your seeds across the social web and, miraculously, some of them will grow and you will reap the harvest. I don't think there are any magic beans waiting to be found.

Wag that long tail

Most sites will also tell you that this is a long-tailed game: the more you write the greater the probability of having some articles do very well while others provide a steady income. What nobody tells you is how long the tail is! I suspect some people just get tired of seeing a few cents here and there and get disheartened. I had to stop writing last December because of travel and having to sort out certain things. I was expecting income from articles already published to trail off, and it did. But what was more worrying was that as I started writing again it just wasn't picking up. Was I doing something wrong?

Well, looking back and looking at the trend the income was actually growing again and steadily. (There was also the issue of advertising revenues across the net falling so this didn't help.) I was just looking at it too closely and on a daily basis there can be huge variations. Download your Adsense data into a spreadsheet and calculate something like a 50-day average; that will give you a good idea of progress. Going from an average of $2 a day to $3 a day doesn't sound like a recipe for giving up the day job as yet, but that's a 50% increase. Another 50% increase did actually take it to $4.50 per day, on average, for the following month, and that means getting paid every month.

So how long has that taken? Well, I'd say if you can hit that within 6 months then you're doing well - perhaps other writers have done better, only they can say. It also depends how much time you're willing to spend not just on the writing but also marketing and analysis. If you hit on a jackpot then these numbers will get blown away and you can start thinking about how to turn this into a decent income - or splashing it all on some object of desire!

Being lucky takes work. Be prepared for it.

Key points

Success = Work + Luck

Write about what you enjoy

Mix your output - articles plus bookmarks

Analyse what works where

Prune what isn't working

Spread yourself on the social web

Look at your long-term income growth

Enjoy the challenge!

Six Writers Who Accidentally Crapped Out Masterpieces

2009-04-22T10:25:00.001+01:00

The original article is on Cracked.com, so don't expect any deep literary analysis but rather an amusing stroll through half a dozen accidental masterpieces.

6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thomson

I suspect "cracked out" would be more appropriate in this case, as Fear and Loathing erupted onto the public as the incoherent ramblings of a bored Thomson recording all the things that didn't happen at the motorbike race he was supposed to be covering.

5. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

This surreal tale of twisted logic spun into a children's book would have remained a family heirloom had Carroll not been badgered into publishing it. Yes, Carroll is a strange character in his own right but in an age when suffering from epilepsy was liable to lead to a stretch in bedlam it was better to be weird and free.

4. Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Burgess himself considered it one of his weakest works, writing that it was, "... knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die." I know, success is hard to take when all your other books get trashed.

3. Franz Kafka

Literary genius doesn't always come with a bloated ego and in Kafka's case any sense of self-worth had been erased as an extension of his insurance day-job. Luckily, his executor ignored Kafka's wishes to have everything burnt and promptly published it all. Kafka wrote for himself, something to bear in mind when screaming at the world for some success.

2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was just 19 when she penned this now classic gothic horror story, trumping her more illustrious literati friends Byron and Shelley. All a product of being holed up in the Alps with no satellite TV and with two guys who couldn't keep their pens out of the ink-well.

1. William Shakespeare

He did it for the money, the adulation and having a neat lifestyle at a time when most jobs would either be the death of you or would get you in someone else's line of fire. He didn't even bother publishing his plays as that meant other theatre companies could copy them. Shakespeare wrote popular plays as otherwise an empty theatre would mean getting a real job. Sometimes, the fear of poverty can be a creative spur.

So is there anything we can learn from this? One thing that has gone unnoticed is how fast all of these works were written. When you know what you need to write, just do it - and do it quickly! Revising your revisions is a recipe for a patched quilt, not a bestselling novel.

The other mantra that is often chanted is "think about your readers". Frankly, apart from Shakespeare, who wrote plays and therefore needed an audience, the best writers write for themselves. The readership is an abstraction consisting of solitary individuals - your readership is one person, one at a time. Write for yourself - if you can't stomach it then chances are that nobody else will. Actually, even when you think you've written a masterpiece chances are that it isn't. The point, however, is that unless you write for yourself, the chances of it being above mediocre are vanishingly small.

Kurt Vonnegut, Miss Snark and the Search for Your Unique Style

2009-04-21T04:43:00.001+01:00

This blog is largely about trying to earn some money writing. It is therefore rare that I discuss writing styles and the mechanics of writing. However, sometimes I do come across interesting articles and don't feel this is going too far astray sharing some of them.

As I recently wrote in The Statusphere for Writers and Journalists, a writer's voice is one's brand - we have little else to offer save for words that move to action. But does that voice sound like your own, or has it been fabricated in a vain attempt to succour success? As Kurt Vonnegut says, there are styles that demand the eradication of the writer - the literary equivalent of a government form. If that is your metier then the style of clarity and brevity is your zenith. In Vonnegut: How To Write With Style, the author stresses that whatever voice you choose to adopt clarity and brevity are not so much matters of style as of good hygiene. Rambling should be preserved for country walks.

To find a subject you care about, and to sound like yourself, are recurring themes. Aping another writer's style is not going to reproduce their success. What can be successful is to transpose a style from one genre to another. The literary geek or the barrow-boy market analyst both work because of the seemingly counter-intuitive juxtaposition of style and content. Find your own voice... then do a bit of oral hygiene before inflicting it upon your readers.

Talking of hygiene, pity the literary agents who have to read through what nobody else will ever read because it is just too awful! Miss Snark is a literary agent with a blog. Actually, the blog has been silent for a long time but has been kept online as it has a wealth of advice for writers, especially novelists. Her Crapometer is particularly revealing in how she judges the first page of a novel. Here both style and content are crucial. There is no point trying to sound like an author who has already been published. Also, the imagination is an infinitely fertile plane and although there is nothing new under the sun you can cast new shadows. The novel as novelty has to be taken seriously if you're going to get an agent to read more than the first few pages.

I don't think that creating one's own style is all that difficult. I think what is difficult is putting an end to the thought that copying someone else's will duplicate their success. In a world full of noise being unique is the first step to being heard.

The Statusphere for Writers and Journalists

2009-04-20T08:34:00.002+01:00

When Walt Mossberg was asked, "are newspapers worth saving?" the WSJ journalist replied,"It’s the wrong question to ask. The real question we should ask is if whether or not we can save good journalism.” He continued, “Think about it. Of the hundreds, thousands, of newspapers around the country, there are really only a few that matter. Good journalism and journalists, on the other hand, are worth saving.”

Seems like yet another traditional profession is going through a tech-tonic shift caused by the internet. When distribution costs are minimal and income streams at the mercy of advertising revenues, what does the future hold for journalists? To be fair, there have always been freelance journalists and perhaps their numbers will just increase. What the successful ones are embracing - and what their publishers should also be concentrating upon - is the growth in social media.

This all sounds like more hype for social networking, blogging and community building, but these movements are not going to go away any time soon. As publishers experiment with social media tools they are at the same time locked into their traditional way of thinking as they also test out micro-charging systems and other payment methods. After all, consumers are there to consume, not to just interact then flutter away to the next social buzz.

But journalists and their publishers are now up against bloggers and blogging networks that have had to survive and thrive under the new rules. Marketing people love to talk about brands, but in the case of written content I'd rather call it a voice. Columnists who have personality, insights and engage with their public across the social media networks are creating their own voice. If they were to move to a different site I'd bet many users would follow them. The dedication is to another human voice, not to the corporate brand they may be flying under.

However, all of this means extra work for the writer who wants to succeed. Your personal voice, or brand, has to be created through your own energies and dedication. As in so many other areas, the freedom to freelance comes with an obligation to do all those other tasks that were the responsibility of the publishers, such as marketing, advertising and distribution.

The Statusphere is another of these ugly hybrid words designed to conjure up this new world of fast-moving social interactions. In contrast to the blogosphere, the statusphere is the sum of interactions and contacts that can form across multiple social media websites. However, in all the hype it is easy to forget that this statusphere has no memory - the interactions are ephemeral and what remains are the connections formed. For this reason alone I very much doubt the death of blogs or websites as repositories of histories.

However, one thing that the statusphere is changing is the direction of information flow. Once it was quite simply from publishers to readers, with a trickle of feedback. Now, any article that has the good fortune to spread virally has also spread out of control of the original author. This is good for voice recognition but has already become unwieldy keeping track of one's own influence as so much discussion can happen off-site, or off-blog. It is common to see discussion on a social bookmarking site being far more active than at the site of the original article. People read what they read where they read it and comment where they are - there is no protocol to go back and comment on the source.

Keeping track of all this is surely the task of automated scripts - that do not yet exist and are sorely needed. If all of this gives you a sense of statusfear then just concentrate on your most successful social arenas and let the rest of the network take the strain and bring to you those well-deserved new readers. As this blog is for general writers rather than specifically for journalists, how does all this affect you?

If you are earning from freelance contract work, then perhaps very little. If, however, you are writing for third party websites such as revenue sharing networks then you already have some help in distribution and marketing. But to really spread your own voice you will need to manage this statusphere in the best way you can. The bookmarking and interactions are all your responsibility. The bookmarking is rarely done automatically, although some have added semi-automatic scripts to speed up the process for you. Experiment with spreading your wings and just clip those websites that are not pulling in new readers. At the same time don't forget to engage with those that do show genuine interest or the network will flow elsewhere. Decide where "home" is, set the wheels in motion and let the network do the work.

Paid Bloggers Wanted at Dyalogues

2009-04-19T07:01:00.003+01:00

Dyalogues is looking for bloggers interested in engaging in public, two-way conversations (in the form of reviews, like Siskel & Ebert, and debates) on technology, politics, or arts & entertainment. It is like blogging back and forth, but having the resulting conversation published in an attractive, easy-to-read format.

We are looking for bloggers who:

* like expressing their viewpoint in an honest, engaging way (about politics, movies, books, technology and gadgets, etc.)

* can invite a friend or fellow blogger to participate with them (they will be paid too!)

* can provide feedback to us

Each completed, approved dyalogue earns each participant $5 (so $10 in total). So you can invite a friend who writes well, too, and they will earn $5, too. Because you have a lot of freedom to choose your topics, you can have a lot of fun talking about the sorts of things you'd discuss anyway.

Here are some samples (to get a feel for the format):
Review > Books: http://www.dyalogues.com/sample/on-beauty-by-zadie-smith.html
Debate > Politics: http://www.dyalogues.com/sample/should-illegal-immigrants-be-granted-driver-s-licenses.html

You can participate in a number of dyalogues concurrently, and with different people, if you like.

Note that Dyalogues has passed its private alpha stage and is now in private beta in preparation for a public beta launch. This is why - for the moment - it is best to request membership in pairs so that you are guaranteed a debating partner.

For contact details please click here.

Freelance Writing Jobs at Textbroker

2009-04-18T07:03:00.005+01:00

Textbroker is a mediator between writers and content clients. Anybody living in America can register as an author at Textbroker. There are only few exceptions to this which can be looked up in our Terms of Service.

After a short application text you will receive your first quality classification. You can then directly view and accept client orders (OpenOrders). Often there are more than hundreds of orders to choose from.
Also, there is the possibility of you specifically being requested by a client. This order type is called a "DirectOrder". DirectOrders are usually assigned when a client is pleased with an author's previous work, or if an author stands out because of his excellent profile.

Payment is made by Paypal once a minimum of $10 is earnt and a payout request is made. As they use Paypal rather than sending cheques it seems odd they insist on US residency, but there you go!

For everybody else in the world the site has one useful page which is how much money they pay writers. Their sliding scale goes from $3.50 up to $25 for a 500 word article.

This is a similar service to Elance, but if you're just starting out and find Elance complicated then Textbroker can help build your portfolio of work before launching towards more lucrative contracts.

Articles Wanted on Breast Augmentation Surgery

2009-04-14T15:12:00.002+01:00

Title: Breast augmentation surgery
Description:I am looking for three articles, one on breast augmentation
asurgery in general, one on the two types of implants (silicone vs
saline)and the safety of the implants, and finally an article about the
different incisional patterns that can be used, namely periareolar,
inframamary, or transaxillary. The purpose of the articles is to be put
on a plastic surgeon's web site and be informative
Amount of articles:3
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:150

Go to Constant Content for full details and to submit your article.

Reviews of Forex Software Wanted

2009-04-14T14:51:00.002+01:00

Title: Reviews of forex software
Description:I need honest reviews of forex software written in the first
person. One article per software, needs to be a fairly well known
software.
Amount of articles:5
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:500
Subjects:signal software
charting software
trading software

Go to Constant Content for full details and to submit articles.

Make Money Writing News Articles at AllVoices

2009-04-08T17:34:00.000+01:00

AllVoices bills itself as "The first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere." It is thus essentially a citizen journalism website, so the focus is on news rather than general articles. Joining is free and there is an incentive program based on page views. However, they currently pay only by cheque. So if you don't live in the USA and don't have a US Dollar account you'll have to think seriously if the bank fees to process a dollar cheque are really worth the effort. If you do live in the USA then this could be a profitable string to your bow.

Go to AllVoices.

Network Blogging Survival Tips

2009-04-07T07:21:00.001+01:00

I find the obsession with “top 10” lists slightly puerile; there may only be six or seven really worthwhile points dragged out into a neat decad. Anyway, you can read the full “10 Network Blogging Survival Tips” at Problogger. Here I have tried to distil the essentials.

= Don't be put off by the seemingly low base rate. The remuneration package is likely similar to a sales job with basic plus bonuses. The better you perform, the more you will earn.

= Don't blog on a topic you don't care about! This is self-evident – you will get bored and fed-up and it will show in your writing. This is not the same as starting to blog on something you know nothing about. If you're interested in the topic then being a newbie can be positive as you will have a refreshing view on the subject.

= Be a team player. You're working for a network, and by definition a network has more than one person. As in many industries, you may be competing with other bloggers for eyeball counts and subscribers but the whole network sinks or swims together. Do your share of the rowing, whether it be participating on forums, training sessions or special events.

= Hit that quota! If you're having fun, your blog is growing and there are no real life issues then this shouldn't be too hard to do. But if you have multiple blogs, or something happens that means you are physically unable to be online, then be prepared. Make friends, invite guest bloggers, share your success and you will be able to call on cover if you need it. Expect the unexpected.

Erm... that's it, I think!

Good luck.

BlogHer - The Community for Women Who Blog

2009-04-06T03:10:00.003+01:00

On Writing Online is primarily about making an income writing online - or at least some income! I don't want to branch out too far on this as there are plenty of ways of writing without making a penny. However, here is a website where there is potential but no guarantees.

I say this because although BlogHer is a blog network for women, their page requesting new bloggers seems to be frozen in a state of 'wait and see'. However, there seem to be new bloggers joining so this may just be a ploy to see who really really wants to join the network. Actually joining the site is open to anybody but getting some money is an altogether different thing.

To get a flavour of BlogHer here is a bit of their vision statement.

At BlogHer, we're working together to deliver on the same mission we wrote at a kitchen table in 2005: To create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community, and economic empowerment.

Working together, BlogHer's members are building a unique community for women online:

* A do-ocracy where BlogHer doesn't serve women online, but rather creates opportunities for all women online to help ourselves and work together to voice and achieve our individual goals - professional, technical, social and personal.

* A robust BlogHer community hub equipped with the tools we need to deliver on our mission, branching out beyond a single blog to create a true community resource and meeting place.

That's visionary enough for now! And, before anybody asks: men can join too!

Articles Wanted on Dating Websites, Advice and Tips

2009-04-05T19:47:00.001+01:00

Title:Urgent Article Request
Description:We urgently require 500 word + articles using the following
keyword phrases: -

fresh new dating sites
dating profile tricks
how to be a sugardaddy
rich women looking for men
newest dating sites
internet dating vs modern dating
newest dating site
dating tips
dating advice
rich men in america
professional matchmakers
new dating sites
dating your friends ex
meet rich sugar daddies
dating advice for women
best online dating sites
latest dating site
online dating tips
dating tips for men
latest dating sites
dating ideas
best dating sites
wealthy women dating
rich men dating sites
dating professional women
online dating advice
top dating sites
internet dating sites
dating older men
meet friends online
meet rich men
dating older women
dating younger men
new online dating sites
single dating sites
dating agencies professionals
singles dating websites
best dating websites
best dating site
dating sites in uk
dating site wealthy man
new dating site
online dating websites
wealthy dating sites
dating web sites
matchmakers
how to meet women
best online dating site
best online dating
dating single women
uk dating websites
matchmaking sites
date a millionaire
uk online dating agency
best dating website
singles and dating sites
how to find a sugar daddy
dating sites online
singles dating sites
internet dating tips
dating single
match making sites
match making services
on line dating websites
top online dating sites
sugar daddy dating sites
Amount of articles:As shown
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:500 words

To see full details and to submit articles click here.

Articles Wanted on Pregnancy and Baby Development Calendars

2009-04-04T12:16:00.004+01:00

Two articles needed, as described below.

Title:Pregnancy Calendar
Description:I am looking for content for a weekly pregnancy calendar (from
conception to week 42). For each week there should be around 100-200 words
on how the baby is growing and another 100-200 words on what the mother
may be feeling and/or how her body is changing and/or how her life is
changing.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$250+
Length of article:9,000 - 15,000
Subjects:Pregnancy, foetus development

Title:Baby Development Calendar
Description:I am looking for content for a weekly/monthly baby development
calendar (from newborn to age 3).
- From newborn to age 1: weekly entries (so 52 entries)
- From age 1 to 3: monthly entries (so 24 in total)
Each entry should have about 100 words on the stage of development of the
baby.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$250+
Length of article:7500
Subjects:Baby development

Both articles have been requested by the same publisher. To see full details then login to Constant Content.

New Age and Holistic Health Articles Wanted

2009-04-03T11:20:00.003+01:00

Title:New Age/Holistic Articles

Description:I need articles related to subjects in the field of New Age
health, holistic health, alternative medicine, and general wellness. FULL
RIGHTS articles only!
Amount of articles:10-20
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:at least 500 words
Subjects:Anti-Aging, Women's Health
(holistic approach), Meditation, Yoga, Zen gardens, herbs, vitamins, feng
shui, and just about anything New Age or holistic-based will be
considered. Date requested:2009-03-31 18:57:14 Other notes:I will ONLY be
purchasing Full Rights articles. These must be unique and original and
never used anywhere else.

For full details click here.

Free Online Image Watermarking Tools

2009-03-28T06:03:00.004Z

Although this is not so much about writing it is about protecting any of your own images that you may post on the net. Hotlinking to your images not only takes away some of your bandwidth but also infringes on your copyright. Even if an image is just copied and reposted, it's still a copyright issue.

There is very little one can do about this apart from adding a watermark to your images. These should be something obvious, such as your website domain. Then, although someone is still using your images without permission you're at least getting free advertising.

Any serious graphics package such as Paint Shop will have a watermarking tool. If, however, you either don't have such a package or are away from your normal computer and need to edit something quickly, then the two websites below offer a quick free watermarking tool.

Watermark Tool and Pixelrig both offer pretty much the same service, just depends which one you most like the look of. If you know of any others then just leave a comment.

iPhone Blogger Wanted

2009-03-27T15:43:00.002Z

I'm looking for a blogger with an iPhone to write about iPhone related topics.

Most of the articles will consist of titles similar to "Top 10 apps you can't live without." I will provide the topic, you will look for the apps and write about 4 sentences for each app.

Other articles will be about recent news from the iPhone world. I will submit topics, maybe similar posts from other blogs and you will write either a summary or full story.

-Must have an iPhone
-Frequency will be 2-4 posts a week depending on demand
-Topic submissions from you are welcomed but not required

Go to the application details.

Paid to Blog at Today.com

2009-03-26T08:04:00.002Z

Today.com provides tools for both new and experienced bloggers. For those new to blogging, we offer free blog hosting. We invite you to create a blog right now. For those with an established blog looking to generate more traffic, we offer free submission to our blog directory.

Today.com also claims to pay its bloggers but, without logging in, I can't find any indication of how much. Also note that applications only accepted from certain countries.

Freelance Home Writers Website

2009-03-22T09:59:00.006Z

I was actually just browsing the About.com section on freelance writing and found this article about Freelance Home Writers. The general advice is... don't bother! More importantly, don't waste your money.

The FAQ on Freelance Home Writers has lots of vague statements but, surprisingly, nothing about how much the service costs. The service claims to provide members with regular job opportunities for freelance writers. That seems fine in itself but when you sign up you suddenly realise there is $2.95 "free" trial for one month. If you then back away and read their terms of service you realise that you will also be committing yourself to a recurring monthly membership fee of $47. When one can check Craigslist for free, and even signing up to Elance is free, $47 is a lot to pay for a service that doesn't even have direct contact with the jobs being advertised.

You can, of course, cancel the credit card direct debit but there have been online grumblings that this proves to be easier said than done. Avoid the grief, avoid Freelance Home Writers.

I also post writing job opportunities as I find them. The best thing to do is bookmark all the sites that post job openings for writers and, if possible, add them to your RSS reader so you can quickly see if there is anything interesting.

Freelance Writing Jobs Network Blog

2009-03-22T09:09:00.004Z

There's more to freelance writing than just words. You need to know the business of freelance writing to have a satisfying, successful career. You've come to the right place.

At Freelance Writing Business Tips, you'll learn customer service tips, business tricks and financial advice to take your freelance writing career to new heights.

Freelance Writing Jobs began in May 2005 as a way to help other writers, especially Work at Home Moms, find decent paying jobs. More than three years later its succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve expanded from being a little writing leads blog run by a “mommy blogger” to the number one online community for freelance writers.

OK, apart from the hype it's a pretty good site! Especially useful in making that step from earning pocket money as a part-time writer to going for it as a full-time freelance career.

Go to Freelance Writing Jobs.

Current Writing Jobs at About.com

2009-03-22T08:27:00.003Z

You too can be a Guide at About.com. After the initial training there is a fixed monthly income plus bonuses based on traffic and popularity. Below are just a few of the opportunities currently available:

15-Minute Fashion
4-Wheel Drive
Baby's First Year
Digital Video Recording
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Stay-at-Home Moms

and a few more. Just go to About.com's Apply to Become a Guide page and make sure to read the FAQs.

Men with Pens - Helping Writers and Freelancers

2009-03-20T09:23:00.002Z

Smokin' Business Tips

To Help Writer, Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
Make a Decent Living Online

We build sites, create designs and write copy that draw customers to your blog or business – because that's how it should be. Our years of experience, creative finesse, expert skills and killer business sense make sure we fit your needs just right.

As the sales pitch says, these guys are writers and web designers and want your business! There is, however, a lot of useful information for freelance writers. Not so much on the "where can I make money" theme, but rather in helping you get your mind around certain issues about being a freelancer. Very much in the work smarter camp rather than the work harder routine. Enjoy the site!

Go to Men with Pens.

Articles Wanted on Travel in Asia - China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Singapore, Philippines

2009-03-18T13:12:00.001Z

Title:Asian Travel Articles
Description:Travel articles related to different locations throughout
Asia.
Amount of articles:3
Price per article:$30-40
Length of article:800-1200
Subjects:China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Mongolia,
travel, asia, cities

Title:Mongolia travel article
Description:Travel article on Mongolia
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$30-40
Length of article:800-1500
Subjects:Mongolia, travel, asia

Go to Constant Content for full details.

How to Detect and Stop Plagiarism

2009-03-18T12:13:00.004Z

Stopping plagiarism seems to be impossible through protective methods of defence. The only methods available are reactive, but at least there are such methods and you can be kept aware if your articles have been plagiarized. You can then do something about it and have the offending material removed.

Using Javascript

I mentioned defensive methods of protecting your original content from being copied. There are numerous code snippets, largely written in Javascript, that can be inserted into you webpages and thereby disable many browser and mouse functions. Such scripts can stop the highlight and copy commands, they can disable the right mouse button and thereby avoid the context menu popping up and various other features. However, a determined plagiarist will have no problems getting around such basic defences:switching off javascript in the browser being the most obvious. It is also likely to irritate other normal users who may suddenly wonder why they can no longer do such simple navigation tasks such as opening a link in a new tab. The nature of the internet is that as soon as a person lands on your webpage all the information they need will be cached.

Copyscape

Copyscape is a service that protects writers and content buyers from plagiarism. There is a free service that lets you input one of your article web pages and Copyscape searches to see if there are any similar pages in existence. However, the rest of their services require payment. Their Premium service allows searches for blocks of text before online publication as well as a tracking system so you can keep tabs on any copyright infringements that require your response. You can also filter results to avoid flagging up copies that you are posting to article directory websites. As of writing this service costs what seems a low 5 cents per search, but if you have 100 articles that comes to $5, and if you are checking them every month that can soon start to add up.

The alternative is to use their CopySentry services which automatically check for plagiarism on either a daily or weekly basis. This service starts at $4.95 a month for 10 pages plus $0.25 for any additional pages. This seems poor value compared to their standard 5 cents a page but useful if you don't know how to automate their API. One interesting thing is being able to set the sensitivity of the searches and find pages even if they have been slightly edited.

Given the costs involved in using Copyscape I suspect that the service is not so much for writers but for buyers of written content. For example, Constant Content uses Copyscape on their site and this makes sense as it gives buyers confidence that an article they are paying for is genuinely original. A buyer can very quickly check if the article appears elsewhere and they may be less interested in it being copied in the future. As a corporate expense it may be justified but for the freelance writer it seems to me expensive considering there is an almost identical service for free.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a new service, still in beta, that will search for a string of characters as it crawls the net and send you an email alert whenever a page is found that includes a matching string. This means you can enter any long unique string from one of your articles and let Google do the same as Copyscape but for free. You can decide on how often to be informed, either once a day, once a week or as it happens. Google will then either send you an email or you can add the alert to a feed and view it in your favourite feed reader.

For the struggling online freelance writer this strikes me as a better option. You won't be able to input the whole text but Google accepts a maximum of 2048 characters in its search queries. This means try to pick fairly long sentences with what seem to be a unique combination of words. Remember to put the whole string in quotation marks otherwise it will search for the occurrences of each word anywhere in the document, rather than the words in the order written. If you start getting too many false flag alerts then you can just go into your Alerts account and edit the string of text. You can also use Google's Advanced Search features but you must then copy the whole query include the advanced tags from the Google search box into your Alerts search.

Watermaking Text

Watermarking of images and documents is a common way to embed a copyright notice that is almost impossible to remove. Indeed, adding a text watermark to an image means that anybody copying it will actually be giving you some free advertising. But watermarking text – plain text rather than a document such as Word – is very difficult. The very nature of plain text means that trying to embed any other kind of code can easily be traced and removed by any determined plagiarist. For example, there are scripts to embed invisible Unicode characters into the blank spaces between words. However, I think most writers want to concentrate on their writing and have a method that is both simple to implement as well as simple to check if and when an article has been copied.

Look at this phrase: iťs оnly a simрle methоd. It looks ordinary enough, but copy and paste it into your wordprocessor. Notice anything strange? If you have an automatic spell checker switched on you will notice that nearly the whole phrase is flagged as incorrectly spelt. It looks perfectly ordinary, can be copied and pasted and still look perfectly ordinary, but some of the characters used are from the extended character set. The would-be plagiarist notices nothing out of the ordinary but you can now use Google Alerts to warn you if this phrase is ever used again.

The advantage of this method over simply using Google Alerts for every article is that you can generate maybe half a dozen key phrases using non-standard characters and not worry about adding a new Alert phrase every time you post a new piece of writing. The key phrases can also be relatively short and common instead of looking for long unique phrases for each article. This obviously won't stop the plagiarist but it will alert you to when it happens.

And Finally

As we've seen trying to lock your precious articles away from thieving plagiarists just doesn't work. The open nature of the internet means that many things, apart from your articles, are open to abuse. There are, however, ways of keeping track of your original content and keeping informed about any acts of plagiarism. Getting the offending content removes requires a number of official letters stating your claim of copyright. These steps will be left for another article.

Despite Recession, Social Media Marketing to Rise. Good News for Writers?

2009-03-17T09:30:00.000Z

During a recession corporate budgets are tightened, workers laid off and those grateful for a job are supposed to increase productivity. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise to see that social media advertising is due to increase, at least according to a new survey released by Forrester Research.

The reasoning behind this increase is that social media advertising is comparatively cheap compared to other forms of marketing. With social networking, blogging and user-generated content as the most popular marketing channels it would seem that there should be an increase in the amount of work for writers, and especially writer-bloggers. However, just below these top three are mobile marketing, online video, widgets and podcasting, meaning that a lot of the image-centred advertising skills will also be in demand.

I think this should encourage those freelance writers who need to make a living to look at writing and blogging contracts rather than just writing on revenue sharing websites. One small warning is whether the assumption that social media is cheap is due to its effectiveness or that social media experts are working for peanuts. I don't think those who badge themselves as professionals come cheaply but with content producers living around the world some sites seem to expect we can live on crumbs. This is where being already active within social media platforms is a distinct advantage.

How to Find Which of Your Articles Are the Most Profitable

2009-03-16T19:05:00.003Z

The question of which articles are the most profitable is one that crops up over and over again. It is wrong to assume it is always the most popular articles. There is also a balancing act between low traffic high cost per click (CTC) and high traffic low CTC keywords.

If you have your own website or blog you can easily use Google Analytics to get a wealth of data about which articles are doing best, how users come to your articles, which search terms your blog ranks highly on, and so forth. But writing for a third party website such as Xomba or Hubpages means it is not possible to use Google Analytics. The problem is that to enable Analytics you need to insert a special code into your page header, and this is only possible to do if you have admin access.

There is, however, a slightly time-consuming but nevertheless feasible way to get this precious data of which articles are winners and which are sleeping. The only way I can see how to do this is to create a custom URL channel in your Adsense account for each article.

Once your article is published immediately copy the article URL and create a URL channel in your Adsense account. You should already have a general URL channel for your writing site, such as xomba.com. Now you will have a channel for each article, such as:
xomba.com/my_first_article
xomba.com/my_second_article
and so on. Note that Adsense channels leave out the http:// and you can also leave out the www.

There is, however, one problem here, which is that you have a limited number of channels available in your Adsense account. Last I looked there was a limit of 200 channels available. If you are writing maybe just one article a week this is not a great problem, but if you are writing numerous articles across multiple websites that 200 is going to shrink very rapidly.

As the aim is to find the most profitable articles the only solution to this limited number of channels is to slowly delete those articles that just haven't been earning. You will then be able to see your best articles and be able to decide what to write next. Unfortunately this also means that if a "dead" article springs to life in the future you won't know about it.

It isn't a perfect system but seems to me the only way to get article-specific data on revenue sharing writing websites.

Let me know if it works or if you have any problems setting up Adsense channels.

Make Money Writing at Triond

2009-03-09T11:59:00.004Z

From Triond's How it Works:

Using Triond is easy:

1. You create original and unique content in any format.
2. We publish your content on the most relevant website according to its topic.
3. You get more recognition and more readership while building a portfolio and earning revenue.

It's simple; you create, we publish, you earn.

Creating Your Content

Whether you write, photograph, record or compose, you can submit your creation to Triond. We accept all original content on any topic, including written articles, pictures, audio, and video. No matter how you created it, we can publish it.

Get Published Online

Once your content is submitted and approved, we will publish it on a website within our publishing network that best suits your topic and target audience. Our network includes niche websites with topics ranging from poetry and literature, to business, sports, travel, health and wellness, and many more.

Triond helps showcase your content so your work gets maximum readership and you earn recognition. As soon as your content is published, it begins generating revenue from several income sources, such as display and contextual advertising that appears on the pages of your content. We share with you 50% of the revenue generated by your content.

Payments are made monthly on the 15th of the month for earnings you have accumulated up until the end of the previous month. You can receive your payment by PayPal, check or Western Union money transfer.

Note that Triond does not have a referral or affiliate system and, looking at their help section, have no plans to do so.

Triond's Websites

One strange thing is that it seems relatively difficult to discover which websites Triond owns and to which it posts your articles. I finally found a list on the Triond official blog, so here it is:

AuthSpot - for fiction writers

Autorneto - Spanish language website

BeyondJane - women's magazine

Bizcovering

Bookstove

Cinemaroll

Computersight

Gameolosophy

Gomestic - home and garden

Guyava - Hebrew e-zine

HealthMad

Kleep - video sharing

Loudio - audio sharing

Megera - Hebrew creative writing

Musicouch

Newsflavor

Nisha - Chinese language site

Notecook

Picable - photo sharing

PurpleSlinky - humour, weird and off-beat

Quazen - English e-zine

Relijournal

Rimemos - Spanish creative writing

Scienceray

Socyberty - social issues

Sportales - Sports portal

Telewatcher

Trifter - travel writing

Webupon - internet stuff

Writinghood

Worth just checking the website you think your writing fits into best as you will also get a feel for which categories exist within each site. Some of the names are less than obvious so have added a brief description above.

First Payment from Writing at Suite101

2009-03-07T12:53:00.002Z

One writing website that seems to get little attention in the plethora of "Make Money Writing at X" articles is suite101. No doubt this is due to their lack of a referral system and therefore little incentive to promote them beyond links to one's own articles. But this On Writing Online blog is about making money for writers, not always about making money from writers! So it is worth taking another look at suite101, especially as I just got paid by them!

Firstly, the payment wasn't astronomical, but I did manage to edge past their minimum $10 payout. The thing is, I had stopped writing there for a couple of months as I was moving around and had other things to do. But when I came back to looking how my writing was doing on various sites, that's when suite101 was a pleasant surprise. In contrast to the pathetic cents accumulated at Associated Content and Hubpages my suite101 account was just a couple of dollars short of a payout. Even without an affiliate system the articles on their own do seem to get the views and the clicks to make writing profitable.

I have thus returned to writing regularly for suite101 and hope the second payment will not be too long in coming. The one thing about writing at suite101 is that they have very strict rules about how articles should be written. They also demand one-year exclusive rights to your articles so that you can only copy them elsewhere after a year from their first publication. On the plus side, this means there are no cut-and-paste articles and the quality of writing is overall good (if sadly unemotional and bland). There is also an increase in profits by becoming a Feature Writer for a category. Indeed, there are still many topic categories that seem under-represented by writers so, if your writing is good, it is relatively straightforward to be elevated to Feature Writer status.

Overall, suite101 demands a little more work than some other writing websites but the rewards seem to be commensurate. From the still fairly small sample of my own articles I can say that earnings there are about 20 times higher than at AC and HP combined!

Articles Wanted on Cheating, Affairs and Relationship Problems

2009-03-04T17:35:00.001Z

Title:Articles about Cheating, Affairs, Relationship Problems
Description:Looking for articles about cheating and affairs (signs of
cheating, reasons men cheat, reasons women cheat, catching a cheater, cell
phone monitoring, from the point of view of a mistress, etc.), signs of
attraction (is a man/woman attracted, etc.) and relationship problems
(mending a broken heart, preventing a partner from cheating, improving
relationships, getting a guy/girl, etc.).

Preference is for edgy advice and opinions. I also prefer the option to
buy full or unique rights to the articles. The $10-20 price range is for
standard rights; would pay $20-30 for full rights.
Amount of articles:10
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:600+

Sign up to Constant Content for full details and to submit your article.

Article Wanted on Cholesterol

2009-03-04T17:32:00.003Z

Title:Cholesterol Diet
Description:Cholesterol Diet: Diet tips for reducing cholesterol
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:400
Subjects:Write an article about cholesterol diets. Give information and
advice for healthy eating to people with high cholesterol levels. How
important is it to have low cholesterol intake? What are the dangers of
high cholesterol diets? Can you lower your cholesterol levels by eating or
avoiding certain foods?

Sign up to Constant Content for full details.

Make Money Writing at Bukisa

2009-03-04T10:31:00.004Z

Bukisa is a fairly new revenue sharing article directory and social networking website.

For Writers

Bukisa accepts articles in many categories and they prefer informative pieces, how-to guides, educational instructions although they do accept creative writing such as prose or poetry. In spite of the social side of the site there does not seem to be a drive towards opinion pieces or commentaries.

Bukisa does accept previously published material so long as you can prove that you have the copyright to the material. The easiest way is to sign up to Bukisa using the same username as elsewhere, especially if you are copying from your own blogs.

Other Content

Apart from articles Bukisa also accepts videos, slides or presentations as pdf files as well as audio files. As for articles, these have to be the copyright of the account holder.

Making Money Writing

Bukisa pays out a fixed amount per 1000 unique page views of your articles. This so-called Bukisa Index currently stands at $3.72, so you will be earning $3.72 per 1,000 unique views. Although this is much higher than, say, Associated Content's miserly $1.50 per 1,000 note that on Bukisa multiple visits by the same reader will only count as a single unique visitor. As writing sites like Bukisa and AC and Xomba all seem to average about 2 page views per visit perhaps the real earning potential is about par. Note that the Bukisa Index will fluctuate depending on the website's overall earnings and is adjusted on a monthly basis. Minimum payout is just $10 based on accrued earnings calculated at the end of the month and paid within 15 days of the next month by Paypal.

However, as Bukisa is fairly young there is plenty of room to grow and as they have a referral system that is a second way to improve earnings by promoting your Bukisa writing.

Articles Wanted on Dating Advice for Men and Women

2009-02-26T12:20:00.002Z

Title:Urgent Article Request
Description:We need articles based around the following keyword phrases:
-

= how to be a sugardaddy
= internet dating vs modern dating
= dating your friends ex
= dating advice for women
= wealthy women dating
= rich men dating sites
= dating professional women
= online dating advice
= dating older men
= meet friends online
= meet rich men
= dating older women
= dating younger men
= new online dating sites
= best dating site
= dating site wealthy man
= new dating site
= wealthy dating sites
= how to meet women
= best online dating site
= dating single women
= date a millionaire

Each article must be at least 500 words in length and must contain 5 - 10%
density of a keyword phrase.

Each article must use only 1 keyword phase.

Up to $10 will be paid for each article.
Amount of articles:Around 15
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:500 +

Many Articles Wanted Today on CC - Education, Banking and Dog Breeds

2009-02-24T13:31:00.003Z

Lots of writing jobs available today from Constant Content. If you're interest in any of the articles just click on the title and either login or signup for a new account.

Title: How to choose the right dog breed for families
Description:This should be in story format for 6 year old children. 500 words. MIx of fiction/non-fiction. I see a mother and daughter walking in neighborhood and they run into different breeds and discover which is right for their family because the little girl wants a dog.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:500

Title: Online Education
Description:look in 'subjects'
Amount of articles:up to 10
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:250-400 words

Title: Education in the 21st Century
Description:Education in the 21st Century; how the internet has transformed education.
Amount of articles:3
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 600

Title: The Impact of the Recession on Your Education.
Description:The article should emphasize how this recession is giving more value to a higher education. 1- People with higher education usually have a more stable job/career. 2- Earn more money. 3. Education can make you more alert of what is going on in the economy and thus help you prepare for a decline.
People who do not have a degree can get their degree without leaving their current job, by enrolling in an online degree program.
Amount of articles:3
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 500

Title: What is Accreditation? and what it means for you.
Description:The article should discuss what University accreditation means and how universities are accredited.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 500

Title: How to Apply for Financial Aid
Description:1. The article should discuss how students can get financial aid for their university/college degree. 2- how many types of financial aid there are, such as 'PLUS loans, Stafford, Perkins, etc.
Amount of articles:2
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up tp 700

Title: Having your Employer pay for your tuition.
Description:The article should explain how can a student get his/her employer to pay for the college/university tuition. And give examples of companies that currently provide it.
Amount of articles:2
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 500

Title: What is a Scholarship? And how to apply?
Description:The article should explain 1- what is a scholarship, 2 how many types of scholarships. 3 how to apply for scholarships.
Amount of articles:2
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 600

Title: What is Diploma Mill and how to avoid them.
Description:There are numerous fake universities that offer degrees. The article needs to explain what are diploma mills how can students spot them.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 500

Title: How to Organize your Home Office for Online Learning
Description:How to stay organized and manage online learning. The title is self-explanatory.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:up to 500

Title: How to Research Online?
Description:the article should explain how students can do research effectively for their online classes.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:up to 500

Title: How to manage your family without sacrificing your education..(or vice versa)
Description:Title is self explanatory.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:up to 500

Title: Online Banking
Description:Online Banking Articles - see subjects.
Amount of articles:1 - 4
Price per article:$50-100
Length of article:400-800

How to Really Find High Value Keywords

2009-02-19T10:50:00.004Z

There are lots and lots of articles about the importance of keywords in search engine optimization (SEO) and plenty of articles about how to find them. Unsurprisingly, they all say the same thing. If you are hoping to make some money from Adsense advertising then the starting point is to use the Google keyword tool in Adwords. That will give you a long list of keywords closely related to your input keyword, with average search traffic and cost per click (CPC). However, one thing I haven't found is any advice on how to prioritize which keywords are the best earners.

For example, is a keyword worth $10 and with an average of 20,000 searches per month really worth more than a similar keyword worth just $2 a click but with 1.2 million searches? In terms of probability theory what is most important is the expectation value of each keyword. This is what I'm going to describe in this article and what I am going to call the Potential Earnings.

Using Google Adwords Keywords Tool

Firstly, a few small points so that you download the most accurate data. Login to your Adwords account. If you don't have one yet just create one and you can use the same login details across all Google tools. I know that Adwords is for advertisers rather than publishers but you are under no obligation to pay for adverts and the Keyword Tool is free to use. It used to be available without logging in but recently I was forced to create an account, hence assume this is now standard for everyone.

Before you input the keyword(s) to analyse just have a quick look at the 'Results are tailored to the following country' information. This usually defaults to the country in your account details. If you are creating an article or website aimed at a different country then change these details. If your article is aimed at a global audience then set the appropriate language and then the country as 'All Countries and Territories'.

Now input your keyword or keywords and click 'Get Keywords ideas'. You will get more results by having each keyword on a separate line rather than one keyword phrase, and I also keep the synonyms option on as one never knows whether similar words are actually more popular.

At this point you will have a long list of keywords, their Cost Per Click (CPC) rate and search data for the previous month and the current monthly average. You may, depending on your default setup have other data columns. Now, a lot of this is not all that useful for our purposes. Soon we will download a csv file and analyse the data in a spreadsheet, so there is no point downloading data that we are going to delete in the spreadsheet - best do it now.

If your target audience has a seasonal theme to it, such as Christmas or Valentine's Day then looking at the data for that particular month, say December or February, makes more sense than the average monthly search traffic. Otherwise, for evergreen content I think the monthly average traffic is the best indicator.

So, the only columns we really need are obviously the keywords themselves, the CPC and the monthly traffic. All the other columns can be deleted. At this point, just make sure the CPC rates are in your currency of choice. You can get a feel now for the most profitable keywords. By clicking the CPC heading you will see which are most expensive keywords in your topic area. Also, by clicking on the Search Volume heading you will see which are the most popular keyword combinations. As you can see, sometimes the most volume does not correspond to the highest CPC rate. We are now just two steps away from finding out which keywords are really worth money.

Analysing Your Keywords in a Spreadsheet

At the bottom of the keyword list are three links to download the data to your computer. I personally just download a generic csv file, which is a comma delimited text file and can be viewed in any spreadsheet package. If you only use Excel then there is an Excel csv option, but if you use any other package leave this alone as Excel adds some extra information to its files that are useless and will confuse other packages.

Now open up the csv file in your spreadsheet. What we are interested in doing here is basically to multiply the CPC rate by the search traffic. The method of doing this will depend on your package, but the basic formula is fairly generic. If you followed the above advice you should only have three columns, with the keywords in column A, CPC in column B and traffic volume in C. What we need is a fourth column with the formula =B2*C2 and then copy and paste this throughout all the rows of data. You now have a fourth column that you can label Potential Earnings.

As I intimated above, the Potential Earnings combines the CTC and traffic to give a more accurate picture of what the expected earnings are for particular keywords. Often there is a balance between high CTC and low volume compared to low CTC and higher volume. This calculation means you don't have to make these judgements - it is all in the numbers!

The last step is to sort your keywords with the highest PE at the top. Again, the precise method depends on your spreadsheet package, but usually just highlight all the data, look at the sort function, pick the PE column and sort in descending order.

Now you can really see which keywords are top of the heap!

Example Potential Earnings Calculation

One brief example to show that results can sometimes be surprising. I chose a less popular keyword as things like insurance and money have fairly clear and obvious top keywords. I tried the keyword 'keyword'!

The top 5 in terms of pure CPC were:
keyword ads
keyword bids
keyword advertising
keyword ppc
google keyword finder

However, the top 5 in terms of our Potential Earnings were:
keyword
keywords
keyword search
keyword tool
google keyword

As you can see, these are totally different to our first list. The sheer volume of search queries means that our PE is much higher for this second list than the first. Indeed, 'keyword ads', the highest earning CPC is way down in 62nd place in our top PE keywords because of very low traffic. The decision as to whether to focus on a high CPC low traffic niche is up to you, but now you have a tool to help you make that decision.

I hope this quick and simple method of calculating the true Potential Earnings of each keyword will help you focus on which websites or articles are worth spending time on.

(c) Rycharde Manne

~o~

Archived at Article Network

Make Money Blogging with payu2blog

2009-02-19T07:09:00.005Z

Make Money Blogging

We have all types of bloggers in our network some have been earning money with their blogs for years, others have just started. It makes no difference to us how long you have been blogging. If your blog meets our requirements then you can make money blogging in our system and you can count on Payu2blog to deliver that consistent steady income from advertising on your blog.

Join payu2blog

To get started earning money with your blog fill out the online form at payu2blog. Make sure to include your contact information and blog address(s). If you qualify we will contact you by email. Blogs must be at least 90 days old and have regular posts during this period. Because of the volume of requests, you will receive a confirmation email only if you're blog is accepted.

It is not easy to see if your blog is in the right topic area for which advertisers are interested, but it only takes a few seconds to apply so worth trying your most commerical blogs first.

Articles Wanted on Personal Coaching

2009-02-17T16:19:00.002Z

Title:Article Writer on Personal Coaching
Description:I need a total of 100 articles on personal coaching. Each
article needs to be 500+ words. Payment will not be sent if the deadline
is not met, or if the article does not pass Copyscape. I will start a
writer off with 1 article to see if they can meet my standards. You must
be willing to send this article on spec. I might decline it and you won't
be paid. You are welcome to sell it elsewhere if it is declined. I can pay
$4 per article if the article is accepted. Payment would be made on the
27th of this month via PayPal.
Amount of articles:100
Price per article:$10-20 (says $4 above, best to verify)
Length of article:500+
Subjects:Personal Coaching

On the plus side the full information includes the 100 titles of the articles, so just pick the one you can do quickly.

Article Wanted on Jobs for Work-Life Balance

2009-02-17T11:25:00.001Z

Title:Jobs for Work-Life Balance
Description:Article looking at the jobs available for the best possible
work - life balance.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:500 - 1000
Subjects:work life balance, jobs, careers

Article Wanted on Top Companies for Graduates

2009-02-17T11:01:00.002Z

Title:Top Companies for Graduates to Work for
Description:Looking for an article discussing the best companies for
graduates to work for, and why.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:500-1000
Subjects:jobs, careers, graduates, students

Articles Wanted on Home Decor

2009-02-17T10:55:00.002Z

Title:Many HOME DECOR Articles NEEDED!
Description:We are looking for someone to write articles about home decor
products that we offer. Each article must be approx. 300 words and we pay
$5 per article. Hundreds of articles are needed.
Amount of articles:100+
Price per article:$10-20
Length of article:300
Subjects:HOME DECOR - Bedding, Baby Bedding, Posters, Wall Art, Fabric,
Pillows, Blankets, etc.

Articles Wanted on Men's Fashion and Style

2009-02-17T10:46:00.002Z

Title:Men's Fashion and Style Articles
Description:I am looking for content in the category of men's fashion and
style (clothes, accessories, news, blogs, cars, and lifestyle).
Amount of articles:20
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:200 to 500 words
Subjects:Men's fashion and style Date requested:2009-02-16

Qassia Change of Terms

2009-02-16T03:50:00.004Z

As of February 8, 2009, we are only accepting previously unpublished, original material content. Material that appeared previously on your website, third-party content, or anything else previously published on the web is no longer being accepted. We have taken this measure to expediate the screening process.
Please DO NOT mark material that is already on the web as "Unpublished Original" to get around the restriction, as this will result in the immediate termination of your account.
Our apologies and thank you for your understanding.
We have been banning an average of a dozen users a day since February 8 for posting regurgitated material. We ONLY accept virgin material now, and you WILL be banned for life WITHOUT QUESTION and WITHOUT WARNING if you post something that has previously appeared elsewhere on the web and label it as "Unpublished Original" content.

The above is a recent message posted on Qassia. So it seems they now only accept original content. I don't know why that should be as before one could post either original or copied content, so long as one held the copyright. I suspect people were abusing the system. Although both types of article would earn the same in revenue sharing terms they did earn different amounts of Qassia Dollars. These QD did not turn into real money but are a way to reward the most active users and the best voted content. So if people were posting as original material stuff that wasn't then they would potentially earn more QDs and hence gain more exposure. This is just my feeling about this.

However, this now changes the viability of posting at Qassia. On the positive side it is a worthwhile attempt to have original content, but I must say that given my paltry earnings at Qassia - even with a very highly rated piece - I personally am reluctant to spend the time writing original material. However, different topics seem to do well on different sites. One important thing is that:

You may publish content with us that you intend to republish elsewhere later on. Please wait until the intel has been screened and published on Qassia prior to re-publishing it on another website.

It often takes 2 or 3 days to get an article screened, so it means waiting for that length of time then being able to post it on other websites, including your own. The screening process on Qassia means that 12 people have to review and vote on an article before it is officially published and starts earning revenue. No adverts are shown on the article page while it is being screened. On the one hand this is a good way to self-monitor the site content and avoid spam and complete junk. On the other hand I'm sure it affects earnings.

Another website that demands original content is suite101. In their case each article is monitored by a team of paid editors and, after a trial period, the default setting is that articles are published immediately - and start earning immediately. Suite101 pays 50% of advertising earnings compared to Qassia's 100% of revenue on advertising on your article pages. As always, you'll need to experiment and make a choice.

Article Wanted on America's Economy

2009-02-13T08:34:00.002Z

Title:America's Economy: Dead or Alive
Description:A picture of how our economy is performing. How many jobs have
been lost in the last 5 years? Last Year? Current state? Are the jobs lost
primarily in the non-degree sectors or people with college degrees and
above? Any real numbers would be great. America borrows a lot of money
from other countries, who do we owe and how much? Is there a plan to ever
really pay the money back? Does this stimulus package help in anyway? What
do economists think about our future economy?
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$40-50
Length of article:300-500

Article Wanted on Obama's New Cabinet

2009-02-13T08:30:00.000Z

Title: What is Obama's Cabinet Working On?
Description:An investigation on what Obama's cabinet members are working
on. Special projects? Key goals for 2009?
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:300-500
Subjects:President Obama's Cabinet members

Article Wanted on iTunes software

2009-02-13T08:27:00.001Z

Title: Description of iTunes software and its major functions.
Description:I am looking for a short, informational article on iTunes
software. Essentially, 1-2 paragraphs explaining the purpose and major
functions/features of iTunes. It should be directed towards the average
user and it should also highlight any major changes or features that have
been added throughout its history (including the specific version release
that included these additions). Finally, if there are any important
technical issues that someone downloading an older version should be aware
of, please include them.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:200-400
Subjects:iTunes Software

Sales Marketing Web Copy Wanted

2009-02-13T08:22:00.001Z

Title: Seeking Sales/Marketing Web Copy - Full rights price
Description:I have some marketing material that I need to have transformed
into web copy. Looking for direct response type copy that creates
ACTION.

I have three documents of sales/marketing copy @ about 3,000 words each
but the outcome will depend on what it takes to get effectively the
message across.

The readers of this copy are Managers, Directors and VP's of Sales
organizations so it must be compelling and direct.
Amount of articles:1 to start with more to come to the right person
Price per article:$250+
Length of article:3000

WinAmp article wanted at CC

2009-02-13T08:10:00.000Z

WinAmp Description article
Description:I am looking for an article on WinAmp software. This article should be a few informational/descriptive paragraphs about what the software is/does, major features, distinguishing features, publisher info, and important changes over the years (including reference to any major version releases). It should also highlight (if possible) notable or popular versions and why. Finally, if there are any 'forced upgrade' issues or older version support issues, that should be mentioned as well. Please keep it simple and to the point, easy to read and objective.
Amount of articles:1
Price per article:$20-30
Length of article:200-400

How to Gain Momentum from Social Media Websites

2009-02-11T13:11:00.002Z

How many times have we seen articles climb up the social bookmarking ladders and wonder... Why? How often do your best-written most-researched articles just sit there earning crumbs and then something you've knocked up in no time rockets to success? Well, the internet seems to run on momentum. This is not so very different to what I wrote on getting published – do the hard work, be prepared and push that momentum when it happens.

Hot Stories

Perhaps the easiest way to generate momentum is to pitch yourself in the slipstream of a news story that is already hot. It is very easy to quickly bookmark these stories on places like Xomba and Infopirate and earn a bit of money in the process. But to really grab other people's attentions you'll need to do some quick research and create a value-added article. This could be a comparison with competing products or a brief historical overview to put the news story into context.

When there was much talk about LIBOR interests rates I wrote a piece explaining in layman's terms precisely how LIBOR is calculated and the inherent flaws in it. The article continues to get steady views even today.

Popular Sources of Stories

Look closely at the most popular stories on a particular social bookmarking site and see which websites the stories originate from. You will quickly realize that some news sources have a loyal following of social media users. If you're lucky enough to bookmark an article first then you can go away and write your article as mentioned above in the near-certain knowledge that it will be voted up. You will then have extra kudos when you come to promote your follow-up article.

For example, Yahoo Buzz is filled with stories from Yahoo News, so don't bother trying to Buzz up the same story from another site – join the herd and you'll get noticed. And if your follow-up article is based on a piece on Yahoo then this is where to promote it.

Focus Your Efforts

There are over 1000 social media websites on the internet. You need to find the ones that seem to work best in your particular topic area. The previous section will give you a very good idea. Some news sources have also decided to focus on maybe just half a dozen bookmarking sites. Don't try and be clever to bookmark a site on a different social media site and expect it to succeed. It is worth experimenting but keep those speculative tasks to one at a time and see what works and what doesn't. As I said near the top, sites like Xomba and Infopirate are not yet considered in the top rank but the huge advantage there is that you're already earning money on your bookmark before you've even written the article!

For example, I tend to use StumbleUpon for my science and religion stories rather than Digg. StumbleUpon has a religion category and various related groups whereas Digg has no such category and similar articles are scattered across the site, often ending up in Arts & Culture. Why waste my time Digging when I can Stumble more easily!

Creating Your Own Momentum

For the lone online writer this is the hardest to achieve. It could potentially be very lucrative but it needs some careful planning. You can Buzz and Digg and bookmark your own articles on pretty much all the social bookmarking sites and then hope for the best. Luck happens! You need to try and that's fine but how would you plan such a promotion? Without a ready-made receptive and cultivated following your efforts could look like spamming. Sure, tweet your followers, message the groups you belong to and maybe post the story on some forums. Just be careful your story doesn't get buried just because your efforts at generating traffic look... manufactured. By far the best source is the readers you have following you on your blog or writing website. Encourage them to vote.

Buying Success

There are now website services that can generate the momentum you need to make a huge social splash. They are not free and it is probably the worst thing to do. As I said above, the algorithms used to calculate a news item's success are usually a well-kept secret as social bookmarking sites attempt to keep their listings as free of spam and artificial hype as possible. Getting caught once will result in your being banned from that site immediately. Not exactly what you paid for is it!

Overall, use the skills you have to your advantage. Whichever websites you write on will have a better search engine placement than your personal blog. Use that muscle rather than dreaming of the big break-through. Cultivate your readers, ride the trends with new insights and slowly build up that blog. One day the hoards will be at the gates and if your blog has more than one article worth reading then you're a star!

20 Airport Lounge Articles Wanted at CC

2009-02-10T07:19:00.003Z

Subject: New Public Request for CC Community: 20 Airport Lounge Articles

Title:20 Airport Lounge Articles
Description:Please read this brief in full as we need specific content,
don't just write about the subjects given on your own. There are details
we need included. Writers that follow what we are after will get a LOT of
work over this coming month.

We are looking for quite factual writers on this project as the topics for
the requested content have to be accurate. This will mean researching the
desired page topics, all of which can be found at the following
websites: see Constant Content

Amount of articles:20
Price per article:$30-40
Length of article:300 - 400

Join Constant Content for full details and the ability to submit articles.

Get Paid Being a Citizen Journalist at Digital Journal

2009-02-10T06:21:00.003Z

First up, the fun stuff anyone can do: Every member of DigitalJournal.com (Citizens and Citizen Journalists) can post blogs, upload photos, join Groups, comment and vote on articles and photos, and subscribe to news and alerts. These actions can be done by anyone.

However, we also offer everyone the chance to get paid to report news as a Citizen Journalist. At this time, we’re only offering payment for news articles written by Citizen Journalists so the blogs, images, Groups and other activities are meant to build community (they’re unpaid).

In a totally unique revenue-sharing initiative, DigitalJournal.com is the first online community where Citizen Journalists actually get paid for contributing. Unlike most websites where bloggers post for free (and the company takes in all the ad revenue), DigitalJournal.com shares a portion of its advertising revenue with all Citizen Journalists through what we call our “moneypot.” With an always-growing cash pool, every single Citizen Journalist gets a chance to compete for a share of the moneypot. The more you contribute, the more you earn. Scores are determined based on how many articles you contribute and how high they rank.

At the beginning of the month, all accounts that exceed $10 will receive an email notification on how to collect payment via PayPal (if you do not have a PayPal account, you will be sent a prompt to create one). All earnings are in U.S. dollars.

In order to become a paid Citizen Journalist, you must submit a sample of writing. Create an account on the site then click the “Post News” link in the top orange bar and you will be prompted to submit a short bio and sample of writing. Note: You’ll only have to do this once – as soon as you are approved you can post news as often as you like.

Textalyser

2009-02-09T14:22:00.002Z

Welcome to the online text analysis tool, the detailed statistics of your text, perfect for translators (quoting), for webmasters (ranking) or for normal users, to know the subject of a text. Now with new features as the anlysis of words groups, finding out the keyword density, analyse the prominence of word or expressions. Webmasters can analyse the links on their pages.

=

A simple and fast keyword analysis tool. Does what it says it does without too many frills in website design. Very useful in adding those few extra words to boost keyword density of your articles.

Go to Textalyser.

Initial Thoughts on Writing at Squidoo

2009-02-02T05:48:00.003Z

I only recently signed up to Squidoo. It is, after all, one of the top sites for online writers in terms of traffic, but then again, one can't do everything simultaneously - multi-tasking can well turn into over-extension. But with articles to re-cycle I thought it time to sign up.

What at Xomba are called Xombytes, and Hubpages are Hubs, at Squidoo they are called Lenses. A Lens is just a webpage. Like Hubpages, apart from your text there is a wide range of other modules such as polls and advertising units. Earnings at Squidoo are calculated by their admin so there is no immediate earnings such as having your Adsense code on Xomba. They do, however, update our earnings on a daily basis. For many people the upside of this is that they don't personally have to sign up to affiliate schemes such as Amazon and eBay, or even Commission Junction. You can just focus all your attention on creating the best possible Lens.

Because of the huge flexibility in Lenses I see that many of the most popular ones are regularly updated with new links, images or extra notes. Rather than creating 10 articles on "Make Money Writing Online" it seems that writing just one Lens and putting everything into it appears to be more popular. Perhaps there is a good reason why this style of presentation works on Squidoo, and this is also one feature I find baffling.

How does anybody find your Lens? The Squidoo homepage has nothing of interest on it and is an eyesore. There appears to be nowhere to go apart from clicking the least pointless article title or looking down at their informational links. The only other option is to do a search. This indeed seems to be the only way of navigating Squidoo; either by searching or by clicking tags. All the category or tag pages rank the articles with the most popular one at the top. There is an option to list the most recently updated but on first impression that isn't the same as being just published. There is nowhere a page showing the most recent articles! Nowhere! Strange.

But now it makes sense as to why people create these mega-pages. The only way to get readers is to search for a bunch of "friends" or groups who might be interested in your article and build repeat business by updating it. Unless you pick a category with few articles you're going to be seeing yours stuck down in the nether region of #100,000. If you like the idea of creating a few mega-articles then go ahead but, in contrast to other sites like Xomba or suite101 I don't see too much search engine traffic as yet.

One thing that may explain its high visitor traffic is that they do allow articles on adult topics - always a winner! As they are not wholly dependent on Adsense they can adjust their advertisers to fit the categories. So the second reason to join Squidoo is if you're into writing adult material - or reading it!

I will see how things develop with Squidoo but the one lesson is that there are no quick bucks to be made there.

Make Money Bookmarking Sites and Articles - Have Found Only Two

2009-01-29T08:32:00.006Z

Bookmarking has become all the rage, with people Buzzing and Digging and Stumbling all over the net. But just as there are revenue sharing article directories, like Xomba, what about some bookmarking sites with the same revenue-share programs. I mean, it can't be that difficult!

Well, there is one article that I keep finding copied in various locations that lists over 100 revenue sharing websites. Many are for sharing videos or photos so I didn't look at those. There were, however, about 30 potential sites for writers. Many of those we already know, like Xomba and Associated Content, Hubpages and Squidoo, and a few more. However, what about simple bookmarking sites?

Bookmarking your own articles can be a good way to get more traffic and, hopefully, a greater income. The big ones are very crowded and it really is a hit-and-miss affair on which go viral and which get quarantined. I'll write more on which ones seem best, but here I was specifically looking for ones that pay. So what did I discover?

The article I quoted above with all those links is over a year old and obviously a lot can happen in a year. Many were dead links with the admin giving up. Most had actually removed their revenue sharing program - I assume the original article was correct so something must have happened for the admins to scrap their program. A small number were still running but felt like the webmaster had gone AWOL as the entries were full of spam and adverts with little or no worthwhile content and precious little traffic. I found only two that seemed functioning - Xomba and Infopirate.

Xomba is a very interesting mix between articles and bookmarks - called Xombytes and Xomblurbs. You can use it to both post longer articles and to bookmark to either third party content or to your own articles published elsewhere on the net. I must admit that other writing sites seem to have more features but there is no doubt that earnings on Xomba are currently higher than anywhere else. I don't really know why this should be, but pages do appear on Google search very quickly, there is an active community exchanging comments on articles and a light but effective moderation, thereby avoiding complete rubbish. You don't have to be a writer to use Xomba, just join and post your bookmarks there. Xomba pays 50% of Adsense revenue to you.

The only other site I found that is currently earning money is Infopirate. This is a much smaller site than Xomba but, for some reason, it is getting the page views and the advert clicks. After all, that's the only thing that matters. As of writing it has about a tenth of the traffic of Xomba according to Alexa but, as mentioned above, it hasn't folded and although has precious little community activity that could change with more people using it. Infopirate also has a handy and very simple bookmarking toolbar button - not one of those huge add-ons that take over your browser! Infopirate pays 80% of Adsense revenue to you.

So... unless anybody knows other bookmarking sites that pay, these are the only two I've found. Sure, some blog features on some writing websites could be used to bookmark content but that isn't what they're designed to do. So why has revenue sharing bookmarking not taken off? What went wrong? lack of traffic could be one reason as pointless running a server if it costs more than the revenue. A dedicated admin is also required to stop the sites turning into a spam feast. But some, such as Newsvine, seem to be running effectively but abandoned their revenue sharing. Perhaps in the end it boils down to content. If thereis money to be made then a bookmarking site is going to be filled with adverts and links on topics that seem to generate the most income. This may well swamp a site with noise so that people genuinely interested in other topics just cannot find them easily. Perhaps that is just in the nature of giving people money for doing something. I don't know the answer to this question but interesting to ponder it. One personal experience may have the solution.

I started using Flixya but noticed very quickly that most articles were either copy-and-paste from dull article directories or copies from advertising websites. I know it is supposed to be for videos and photos but they do claim a significant article category too. I'm sure they make their money from the media listings but if they were only an article website and had the same content I still wouldn't bother using it.

So, if you like to share your bookmarks and earn some money, or link to your other articles, blogs or websites, then it looks to me like Xomba and Infopirate are your best bets.

Writer Wanted at Wedding Mantra

2009-01-19T17:54:00.002Z

Wedding Mantra is a wedding blog filled with tips and how-tos for Singaporean couples.

Written in a casual style, Wedding Mantra is chock-full of information on everything from how to make that dream wedding come true to buying your first car afterwards!

We're looking for contributors who are genuinely passionate about this work - writing articles, doing research, etc and most importantly, connecting with real folks!

We've got loads of exciting ideas in store for Wedding Mantra and we're looking to put together a team to help us get the magazine off its feet and have it running!

We want to make this magazine yours as well as ours. We need folks who genuinely care. About us, about Wedding Mantra and especially, our readers. If that sounds like you, this job is for you.

Read Me Buzz Me Digg Me Love Me

2009-01-19T09:14:00.000Z

The day is young and filled with the aroma of coffee. The screen blinks on and opens a window onto the world. Check emails – delete most of them, read the rest later. Oh! There's one from a friend. New photos on blog to behold. I have three half-finished articles I should really have a look at as they sit there like unfinished sandwiches waiting to be wasted. But let me see what's new, what's news. A row of tabs line up to form my little universe. News feeds, blog feeds, video feeds. Read me, watch me, look what I've made mummy. Stock markets down, death tolls up, buzz me, save me, bookmark this to tell the world. Hello! Be my friend. Digg it, dugg it, dig me too. What's hot, what's not, seems random, chaotic. I mean, something has to be at the top of the rubble. Scroll, scroll, click, click, scroll. More windows spying on a granulated world. A grain of sand or a pearl of wisdom. Read it, comment it, save it, buzz it, digg it, mix it, max it. Shout it out, shout to me. Be my friend. Follow the links, trying to reach the source, but links upon links just go round in a circle. What's hot and what's rot. The clamour to be seen. Be my friend. Read me, buzz me, digg me, love me. Click me, tick me, come see my pics of me. Naked and distant I just want your money. Adsense with nonsense as keywords collide. Going back to the source I save my sources. The truth doesn't matter, it's the prizes that count. Round two, going back to the feeds that feed me. Titles with hooks to sucker the sick. Myspace is your space with no room to move. Tweets and twats invading my screen space. Look at me, look what I've done. My tube is your tube, I parade for the crowd. I stumble and fall and go back to the source. The digging continues, I'm almost there now. Digg this, bury that, shout it out that I wanna be a star. What's hot and what's crock. Read me, digg me, buzz me, feed me. I've done it, I'm there, close the curtains, close the crap. Stop the surfing, for a while. Write my own piece to join the crowd. Read me, buzz me, digg me, love me.

Do you love me?

100% Revenue Share Writing at Flixya

2009-01-15T13:41:00.002Z

Flixya started life as a video bookmarking and sharing website. It now includes photos and blogs as well as videos. The startling thing about Flixya is that it pays out 100% of the Adsense revenue generated on the pages you yourself have created. How do they do this?

Well, I managed to track down a Flixya Case Study from Google that explains this. Because of the number of pages not created by one author - I guess things like blog lists - they are still able to turn a profit on clicks from their own adverts and still pay members 100%. I think this really raises the bar for other social networking sites. When will Facebook start paying its users?! However, one word of caution is that I have also seen a couple of people run into problems visiting their own pages as the Adsense adverts will be their own. I don't know if Flixya has fixed this but until I use the site more I'd be cautious about visiting one's own pages too often.

For writers the obvious place to head for is the blogs section. All your articles will be listed as part of your blog and there are the usual features of comments and voting. I haven't as yet had a chance to explore everything fully so will report back in a month or two.

One strange thing I noticed when looking at Flixya's Alexa traffic is that there has been a dramatic rise during December 2008 followed by a precipitous fall! It looks like they implemented some sort of automated service that seems to have back-fired so that they then had to place some limits on activity. Their admin blog seems strangely silent on this matter but a few blog comments talk of rule changes late December.

So although writing is not its primary focus, writing at Flixya, or at least copying some of your other content, could be profitable.

Writing at thisisby.us for Revenue Shared Earnings

2009-01-15T10:23:00.003Z

What is thisisby.us?

thisisby.us is a site where anyone can contribute anything they write -- news, opinions, how-tos, humor, politics, technology -- anything at all. Rather than having an editor decide which content is the most interesting and most relevant, the readers decide which pieces are most prominently featured and highly rewarded by viewing content which piques their interest and voting for content they enjoy. Our ultimate goal is to be an excellent source of user-created written content.

==

Revenue share is calculated based on 50% of the total income received by thsisby.us. They then distribute this to writers in proportion to the traffic and positive votes they have received for their articles. This means writers cannot check earnings on a daily basis.

Sadly, and seemingly like so many other sites, thisisby.us is only useful to people in the USA. If your accrued earnings come to over $25 then you will receive a cheque in US Dollars. This means you need to be able to deposit the cheque cheaply as it is pointless spending more on banking charges than the income is worth. For those of you in the USA this may be another place to copy your existing content.

Traffic Comparisons for Squidoo, HubPages, Associated Content, suite101 and Xomba

2009-01-14T10:28:00.005Z

I will try to do this every month or two, having a quick look at the Alexa traffic data for different revenue-sharing writing or article websites. Before I look at the traffic statistics just a few things to bear in mind. Alexa only measures traffic, not earnings potential. Whilst this may be a useful guide to the potential number of views your writing may get, it doesn't seem to (in my experience so far) bear much relationship with earnings. This, however, may have more to do with the article topics than with either the design or revenue-sharing formula of each site.

So here we go, these are the 3-month average Reaches for each site as a percentage of all internet traffic. I think the Reach is the best measure as it shows real comparisons whereas Rank is highly volatile and websites with similar traffic can appear to have very different Ranks. I have, however, included the Rank in brackets just to show this as well as whether traffic has gone up or down compared to the previous 3 months.

Squidoo.com = 0.148 (510) down
HubPages.com = 0.138 (595) up
AssociatedContent.com = 0.126 (769) up
suite101.com = 0.069 (1,641) up
Xomba.com = 0.029 (3,876) down/up

I have not included Triond as the data is not meaningful because they syndicate the articles across many different sites.

If I've missed out any websites that should be included then please leave a comment.

Squidoo has highly volatile traffic compared to all the other sites. I don't know why this should be.

The Xomba data shows that while the Reach has gone very slightly down its Rank has actually increased.

My highest earnings in the past 3 months have been from Xomba, but it is the site on which I write most as it was also the one with most immediate success.

So, have a plan in mind and keep an eye on both your own personal traffic and earnings. It could be that different communities have sprung up within different websites and hence that different subject areas will have more success. There is no magic formula, just experiment and see what works for you.

CopyDesk agency for professional writers

2009-01-12T19:23:00.002Z

"CopyDesk, Inc., is the outsourcing and placement agency dedicated to providing businesses with professional writers. Only writers. We do what we know best; our recruiters are writers themselves. So we know the difference between someone who can write and someone who can write.

If you want a subjective opinion of a writer's talent, ask the writer's mother. If you want an objective opinion, ask another writer. In other words, ask CopyDesk. Ask often."

The site continues in this punchy style. If you don't know what you're doing then don't bother them! However, if you're an experienced writer, with five years experience, a portfolio of work and the desire (or need) for either freelance or full-time work then take a look.

If you've already been frightened away then just take a read of their article on Content Careers in the Digital Age. It may, indeed, be possible to move in the opposite direction - from web to print media - with effort and talent. Talent? We've all got that, surely!

Documentation People Recruitment Services for Authors and Writers

2008-12-10T18:22:00.002Z

Documentation People is an independent business specialising in the provision of recruitment services within the documentation skills sector.

With over 25 years experience recruiting within the documentation environment, you can be assured
that the team at Documentation People will understand your requirements.

With one of the largest candidate databases of technical authors, editors, online Help specialists, bid writers, process & procedure authors, project managers and documentation managers located throughout the UK and Europe, you can be sure that Documentation People has the right personnel to fulfil your documentation recruitment needs.

If you are looking for assistance in recruiting the right personnel for your business then please visit our Clients page to find out more about our services. If you are a candidate looking for either a contract or permanent role then please visit our Current Vacancies or Candidates page to find out more about the services we offer.

Freelance Writing Jobs at AskMen.com

2008-11-27T15:15:00.003Z

AskMen.com continually accepts applications from freelance writers looking to work on topics other than those listed below. If you would like to submit an application as a freelance writer for a topic not listed here, please click the link for instructions on the submission process page.

As of writing, the following positions are available, but these may, of course, change:

Freelance Dating Writers

Freelance Power & Money Writers

Freelance Sexuality Writers

Freelance Car Writers

Check out AskMen.com New Job Posting for current details and applications.

Analysis of How to Make Money At Blogit

2008-11-08T12:09:00.004Z

Now, Blogit is a slightly strange concept in that bloggers and writers pay a monthly fee to enable them to use the Blogit platform. The bloggers earn money when other paying members read their blogs. Note that this is a zero-sum game as far as the fees are concerned. The strangest thing is that the casual reader also has to pay the same fee, which of course is similarly distributed. There is no income from any outside sources such as advertising.

Now, paying a subscription is no different to a hosting fee, but this particular business plan reminds me of all those long dead attempts to create private internet networks, such as AOL and Compuserve. As the rest of the internet surfers cannot read your Blogit articles what's the point? I guess there is a point in creating a community and by paying a fee it should, theoretically, limit the amount of poor and worthless content.

Data from Alexa shows blogit.com as having a 3-month reach of 0.0014% which is much lower than Xomba, and considerably lower than HubPages and AssociatedContent. Most of their traffc comes from the USA and India, with also significant users in South Africa, Pakistan and Indonesia. Blogit is most popular in those four countries outside the USA.

So, if the idea of a blogging community is appealing, what's the best way to make some money out of Blogit? Although Blogit advertises that you can subscribe for as little as $9.95, this is only true if you pay for a whole year in advance. The cheapest basic package costs $12.95 on a monthly basis. Half the subscription fee goes to Blogit's owners and the other half is paid out in proportion to which other blogs you read. If you only read one other blog then 100% of the money is distributed to that one writer. So, if one person subscribes and then a friend also joins as a referral the cost after 3 months is as follows

For 2 people for 3 months

Fees = 2 x 3 x $12.95 = $77.70

Income = 0.5 x $77.70 = $38.85

One referral fee = $20

Total cost = $18.85

So for just under $19 you get 3 months basic membership for 2 people - that comes to just $3.14 per person per month. If you don't make more than that after 3 months then it's probably not worth it.

For any further persons joining your inner circle, the calculation is similar.

For 3 people for 3 months

Fees = 3 x 3 x $12.95 = $116.55

Income = 0.5 x $116.55 = $58.275

Two referral fees = $40

Total cost = $18.275

This comes to just $2.03 per person per month.

This all assumes that your inner circle only look at each other's blogs. This may be hard to enforce in practice but should be the aim. After your first 3 or 4 months review your incomes. Referral commissions are one-off payments so after that your average monthly fee will start to creep up. If you're not seeing worthwhile income coming from Blogit then just give up and write elsewhere. But with a well-defined strategy leading to such a low real monthly fee then it may be worth a try.

Earn Money Writing on HubPages

2008-11-08T10:37:00.002Z

HubPages is an income sharing article writing platform. What we would normally call articles are known as hubs. The reason for this is that each article, or hub, is highly flexible in terms of content and layout so that you can experiment and be highly creative in how your hub looks. Each hub consists of capsules, which can be either content such as obviously text, images, videos and so on, or activities such as polls, or advertising capsules which is where you earn your money.

On HubPages you not only earn from Google Adsense but you can also have your affiliate advertising from Amazon, Ebay and Kontera. The earnings are split 60-40, with 60% going to the writer. Your earnings are accumulated through your own affiliate account so that HubPages is not involved in handling your money. This is done by having your advertising links showing 60% of the time. There are also referral earnings for signing up new Hubbers and for directing traffic to particular hubs.

Editorial policy is a little complex but basically they want original content (don't they all!) on which you have the copyright. The flexibility of their hub concept means you can add interactive elements such as polls to keep your readers interested - on one of my first articles there are, as of writing, no comments but a number of votes on the poll. There is also a slightly mysterious system of giving scores to both individual hubs and to each writer so as to maintain the quality of the site. Having been a webmaster in the past I do understand that it is sometimes better to keep any scoring algorithm secret otherwise people will act in ways to just manipulate the scores.

Overall, HubPages is an interesting platform and you should experiment with layouts to see which ones are most profitable and most read.

What is Fibonacci Poetry?

2008-10-28T11:59:00.003Z

The term Fibonacci Poetry seems to have been coined by Gregory K. He describes how he thought up the idea:

"At the 2005 SCBWI-LA Writer’s Day, poet-novelist Ron Koertge mentioned the idea of “warming up” each day by writing haiku. To paraphrase what he said, writing haiku keeps you in tune with the importance of word choice and how you can say so much with so little… with the goal being that subconsciously you will continue to be aware of both points whenever and whatever you write.

I was intrigued, but my geeky mind immediately began to churn. Why just haiku? I wanted something that required more precision. That led me to a six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8 – the classic Fibonacci sequence."

In an age of abbreviations the Fibonacci poem is now often shortened to a Fib, with the poet known as a Fibber. There are websites that will accept your Fibs for publication but the main purpose, at least for the originator, was to devise a closed quick yet subtle exercise to explore the richness and vividness of a few choice words.

I also saw that one comment on the Fib blog had a neat palindromic Fib, with the structure 1-1-2-3-5-8-5-3-2-1-1. Clever!

here is an example:

This
Post
Is now
At an end,
Well, I gotta shoot.
So leave a comment now my friend.

AlienSkin Magazine

2008-10-28T07:47:00.002Z

AlienSkin Magazine

Published Bi-Monthly Online

Share In The Adventure

Enter the world of Speculative Fiction. Journey through our virtual magazine and plunge into the strange and unusual. Inside you'll find tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Leave your reality behind. Enter the realm of the unknown—where anything can happen.

AlienSkin Magazine publishes science fiction, fantasy, and horror tales that possess a speculative element We ONLY accepts Email submissions.

We DO NOT accept Simultaneous Submission, Reprints, Novel Excerpts, Serialized Stories, Snail Mail Submissions. We are not interested in stories that contain excessive blood, gore, vulgarity, erotic elements or child abuse. Nor are we interested in inflammatory hate pieces. Do not send us Flash stories under 500 words or over 1,000 words.

Limit your submission to only 2 submissions per author per month. This does not include submissions to our contests, to our micro fiction section, or our Fibonacci sequence poetry.

Flash Fiction ~ Submissions are OPEN
We pay $5.00US/story of 500 - 1,000 words.
Payment by chec or Paypal.
Our word counts are firm.
We publish 11 - 15 Flash Fiction pieces per issue.

Micro Fiction and Fibonacci Poetry also accepted but no cash payments offered, just exposure.

Please check out the AlienSkin Magazine for full submission details and any updates to their terms.

If any of the above information is out of date please let me know by leaving a comment.

How To Help Yourself Get Your Book Published

2008-10-26T09:49:00.003Z

There are so many articles with advice and tips on how to get published that what the world needs is another one! Thing is, as every writer is trying to do the same thing how can you stand out from the crowd?

Firstly, are you writing fiction or non-fiction? The two are rather different in the way they are considered by publishers. If you are a first-time fiction writer then there seems to be no short cut to actually writing the book. Unless you are already well known the chances of an advance on a novel are next to zero. Below I am going to concentrate on non-fiction writing but, if you are writing a novel within a well-defined genre then some of these tips may well help you too.

Do you need an advance?

We would all like to receive a nice fat advance for our new book! But if this is going to be your first book then you need to ask yourself whether you actually need an advance. In a sense, spending a year trying to get a publishing deal when you could have spent that time actually writing half the book can be a fruitless diversion of energy and resources. I cannot answer that question for you, but just consider how much income you already have, how long it would take to research and write the book and whether you need to take time off work in order to complete it.

Advances are usually split into three tranches; you receive a payment upon signing the contract, another one upon delivery of the manuscript and the last one when the book is actually published. There is some flexibility in the percentages of the payments so if your research is costly in terms of travelling, or you need to stop your normal job for some months, then you can negotiate for a higher first payment. Note that, if you have already written a large part of your book, then steps one and two may come in fairly quick succession. This will avoid the notorious author trap of having spent the first slice of the advance without having completed writing! Yes, it happens all the time!

What do publishers want?

From my experience, publishers rarely know what they actually want - they just know what they want when they see it! This is typical reactive behaviour but perhaps understandable when one is forced to look at hundreds of potential books. It is similar to market research questionnaires that often ask the same question prompted and unprompted, to see the difference between what people recall compared to what they can remember. Publishers work in a similar way, so you as the author need to prompt them into not only looking at your work but also reading it and feeling good about it.

The minimum publishers will ask for when considering a work of non-fiction is a one-page summary of the whole book - what it's about, why it's important and who will buy it - plus a list of chapters and a paragraph summary for each chapter, and also one whole chapter written (to show you can write). This is the bare minimum and should be considered as your sales brochure. Indeed, as any author knows, printing and posting a whole manuscript to many agents and publishers can become very expensive. I have seen that publishers themselves know this to be expensive and so when they are promoting a new book at one of the major book fairs they will often produce small brochures; they are known as "blads" (Basic Layout And Design). The blad is a sales brochure that publishers use to sell to other publishers for co-editions and translations. Especially if the book is illustrated, the blad is a small advert showing the look and feel and style of the new book and is around 20 pages or so. It also costs a fraction of the price to produce.

Turn your proposal into a blad

So, there is no reason for you as an author not to create your own blad with all the details listed above. It will probably be a little longer than the standard 20-page brochure, but it will be a lot shorter and cheaper to produce than a full manuscript. If your book demands illustrations then it is critical you include some examples. The honest truth is that if an agent or publisher does not like your blad then they probably won't like the manuscript either. But there is nothing more powerful than having a reader ask for more! If you send a whole manuscript then the agent can take it or leave it. If, however, you send your publishing brochure and they like it, then you are in a powerful position to negotiate a deal and an advance to complete your masterpiece. It also gives the publisher some input into your overall content.

A book, or rather, a non-fiction book has to be considered more an industrial product than a work of art. By this I mean that many people will have an input into the final look of the book. It is still your book but there will be editors and designers who take pride in seeing a little bit of themselves in the final object. By presenting a taster of your book you're showing that you know what you're talking about and can do so eloquently, whilst also leaving open that some of your themes or chapters could be under discussion. Listen to such advice as you never know, you may have missed something important.

Go forth and multiply

So now that you're armed with the essence of your book distilled into the perfect sales brochure, what do you do then? This really depends on the subject matter of your book. Is it a travel book, a history book, or maybe cookery or science or education? Whatever the subject area is, there will be a culture around that topic. A lot of agents and publishers actively seek out new talent. Many established writers already have their favourite agent or publishers so the publishing industry is always looking outside of their box. It may not seem like it reading one rejection letter after another, but that's where there is nothing more persuasive than personal contact. The art here is to make it seem as if they found you!

Your chosen subject area of expertise will no doubt have cultural events such as exhibitions, fairs, conferences, lectures and so on. Go there, be seen, and talk to people. This is, after all, something you are interested in, and passionate about. Don't be a bore trying to sell your book to everyone you meet, just enjoy the event but keep your publishing radar switched on. Take copies of your blad with you but be judicious about who you give them to. Writing is a competitive sport so avoid handing out copies to other authors in the same field. This may seem cynical but assuming as we are that this is your first book then you are not in a strong position regarding any possible plagiarism.

There will often be publishers at fairs and conferences - if it is a good conference there will definitely be publishers there. This is perfect! You are in your element, surrounded by people interested in the same things as you, with publishers trying to sell books on your favourite subject. The person you really need to speak to is the editor in your field. The sales staff are there to sell books that have already been published but the editor is always looking to the future. Be enthusiastic, but not desperate. You're an expert, you have a great idea, you have proof that you can write, just ease up and make friends. Swap business cards (oh yeah, get yourself some cheap business cards), hand over your blad and see where it leads. Whatever happens, you have made a very important step forward. You have direct contact details of an editor and he or she now knows who you are. You will at the very least get a considered and honest judgement of your work, rather than a standard letter, and if they like what they hear you're on your way to your first book contract.

Writing for eHow

2008-10-25T09:18:00.002+01:00

At eHow, we invite all of our members to make money from the articles they publish online. Through the Writer Compensation Program, anyone* can get paid for the original articles they contribute to eHow. It's FREE to join eHow, and FREE to enroll in the Writer Compensation Program... so what are you waiting for? Join eHow today and start making money writing How To articles!

How To Earn Money Writing How To Articles

At eHow you don’t have to be a professional writer to earn cash for your writing; you just have to be knowledgeable about a topic and passionate enough to share your writing with the world. Join eHow’s Writer Compensation Program, write How To articles about what you know, and start making money today!

* Must be a U.S resident, age 18 or older with valid tax payer identification.

==

Sadly, if you are not a resident of the USA then forget about eHow. You can, of course, use it as a marketing tool to promote your writing, just like any other article directory. As they pay using Paypal there seems no good reason not to accept writers from other countries, but that's just how it is.

If you are a US resident then this brief snippet from eHow FAQ will be of interest.

==

Q. What is my payment based on?

A. You get paid per article. Your article's earning potential can be based on a combination of several elements, including the amount of times it's been viewed and its category. The more useful your articles are to the reader, the more money you could make. Check out our tips and guidelines, like adding photos, and eHow's most-requested topics page for How To ideas.

Q. How soon will I get paid after I submit each article?

A. All payments for work displayed on your My Earnings page during that month will be deposited into your personal PayPal account before the end of the following month. If you earn less than $10 over the year, you'll be paid via PayPal at year's end. Once you've joined eHow's Writer's Compensation Program, you can keep track of how much money you've earned by visiting your My Earnings page.

Q. What is the pay range per article?

A. Technically, there is no pay range per article. Simply put: The more useful your articles are to readers, the more money you could make. One good way to attract a larger audience and possibly make more money is by adding photos to your articles. Our tips and guidelines and eHow's most-requested topics page will help you get started.

==

Therefore, unlike other online publishing websites a writer really has no idea of how much an article could earn nor will earn. I cannot find any formula that would serve as a useful guide.

On the plus side, eHow gets a lot of traffic. As of writing, Alexa ranks it at 550, and eHow is currently getting nearly double the reach of AssociatedContent. So whether you're doing it for the money or as a marketing tool, eHow is worth submitting to.

Earn Writing Articles for Digital Bits Skeptic

2008-10-18T10:15:00.000+01:00

Mission Statement of Digital Bits Skeptic

To publish quality articles promoting skepticism and critical thinking.

To educate the public on topics important to the skeptical and critical thought community.

To provide a forum for people to share their articles and debate respectfully with others.

To pay writers for published work, ensuring professional, community-built articles that span a wide range of topics.

Digital Bits Skeptic is looking for articles promoting skepticism and critical thinking. Using a broad definition, remember the Digital Bits Skeptic tagline: “Skepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture”.

So you’re interested in writing? Great! We’d love to have you. Browse through the site to get a feel for topics and writing styles, or see the “About DBS” page for topic ideas. Then continue reading here for submission details.

Briefly,

1) Your article idea must be approved before we will agree to publish it. Contact us by email with your idea.

2) The article can’t have been published anywhere else on the Internet. “Published” includes being on the Internet in any form, including forum or blog posts.

3) Article length must be at least 500 words.

4) Author payment of $20 USD will occur after publication. PayPal is preferred.

Scribd For Free Documents And Marketing

2008-10-06T06:25:00.000+01:00

Scribd is a essentially a document publication platform. Launched in March 2007, it now boasts more words than Wikipedia, and is in the top 300 websites in the world. As a writer, there are two main ways you can use Scribd.

Publish on Scribd

Scribd is a kind of democratic library - anybody can self-publish their articles, essays and books. Creating an account is free and you can upload documents in a variety of formats. Many documents are little more than advertorials, informational articles whose main task is to market the services or websites of the writer. There is no way currently to earn money directly from this, but it can be part of an overall marketing strategy and I think Scribd should be included alongside other article directories. One thing I have noticed recently is that all documents are now crawled by search engine bots, so that the actual texts are now indexed including, of course, your links back to your site.

Scribd for Writing Ideas

There are also many books on Scribd, including many out of copyright, as well as research papers, transcripts and lengthy essays. If you are stuck for a writing idea and are tired of trawling the news feeds, then Scribd can be another source of inspiration. You could write a book review, or summarize technical papers, or write a commentary on an essay. With millions of documents available there is no lack of choice. Treat it as your personal library.

iPaper, The Scribd Document Platform

Scribd could be just another document directory, but they have also developed their own document reader, iPaper. This is similar to Google's book reader and enables one single platform to read different document types. Just like YouTube, the iPaper can also be embedded into a website so that users can read the document without leaving your site. The advantage of Adobe's Acrobat Reader is that the documents are a fraction of the size and hence faster to view. I think this is especially useful if you have created a complicated image-rich content, such as a magazine article, which can be very time-consuming to duplicate as a web page.

Overall, I have found Scribd a good source of texts and a useful place to post polished lengthy articles. Just like when YouTube started, there seems no obvious way that the owners make any money, so expect increased advertising at some point. For the moment, the experience is clean!

Make Money Writing and Social Bookmarking at Xomba

2008-10-05T17:36:00.000+01:00

Xomba is a very interesting mixture of articles and social bookmarks. Like some article directories, you can submit articles and receive a share of the advertising revenue. these are known as Xombytes in the Xomba lexicon. But unlike any other article directory I have seen, Xomba also allows you to create quick bookmarks to other sites you like or wish to promote. These Xomblurbs just require a quick summary of the content and a link. You can also add comments to both articles and bookmarks, as well as vote on your favourites.

One of the joys of Xomba is that you could be earning money on articles you haven't even written yet!

In the course of researching an article, we often come across interesting information or websites that we bookmark and note down for future articles. On Xomba, you can create a quick Xomblurb in a minute and earn some income before going back and writing your full article, which you can then submit as a Xombyte.

Income is shared 50-50 between you and the website owners. You will need your own AdSense account and the Xomba script rotates the adverts so that yours will be shown half the time, and if somebody clicks one of the adverts the income is yours. This means your income is part of your total AdSense account rather than waiting for the website owners to send payment. By creating a custom channel you can even check that your adverts are actually appearing at around half the number of page views.

Even better, Xomba also has a referral system with which you can also earn 10% of the income of your affiliates forever. I think the creators of Xomba have latched onto an important model. There are many members who use it on a daily basis, thereby creating instant readership. As I said at the top, it combines income from article writing with a social networking and bookmarking environment.

On Writing Online

2008-10-05T12:27:00.001+01:00

This website is dedicated to writers and would-be writers setting out to earn some money from writing online. If content is king then writers are the king-makers. No website can succeed without a strong content and dedicated visitors. Whether you are taking your first tentative steps towards writing, or are already having some success and earning money, we hope to have something of interest for you.

There are two main features we will highlight: Resources and Articles.

There are some article websites where you can earn money directly, such as Associated Content and Xomba. There are others that are basically article directories and your earnings are made indirectly by driving traffic to your own website or blog. Our resources will cover all these different platforms, from direct income generating sites to marketing and content creation.

Our articles will try to bring together the collective wisdom of the internet's writers. Just to show that those article directories can work, we will have a mixture of in-house articles and syndicated content with our comments. Even if we may disagree with a writer, their ideas may well work for you.

We hope you will find On Writing Online stimulating and profitable.

On Writing Online