Image via WikipediaI love writing online and making money. It just gives me a feeling of "I get paid to write! Holy S***!" And, yes, I say that out loud about once or twice per month. However, it hasn't always been easy for me to make money web writing. As of late, though, I have been turning away money in order to blog (the loneliest of web writing...especially at the beginning) and delve into the depths (and, I'm serious...it's freakin' deep down here) of residual earnings.If you don't mind, I'd like to describe my writing for money journey. Not to brag or whine to you about it but to show the newbie web writer that there are options. I'll keep it short, I promise.
Very Bad Beginnings For A Web Writer
I had always known I'd wanted to write. I grew up reading Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Mark Twain, Joyce Carol Oates and a lot of fantasy stuff. So, naturally I wanted to write horror. Because of these occurences (and a couple of people liking my writing) when I actually looked to make money from writing I turned to the web.If you're looking to make money for fiction writing, short stories, poetry, novellas...anything really, then I highly recommend, Duotrope.com. You can find all kinds of publications (print and online) looking for all genres and lengths. I quickly found out that I didn't have the patience for that kind of thing. Too competitive. You can make money doing it but you can't make enough money doing it. I just didn't have the time to write 40 short stories and shop them around for months, hoping someone would buy one for $25.
So, I kind of gave up and started playing World Of Warcraft. I still wrote of course, and submitted, but now I was doing so because I wanted to and not AT ALL looking for money. Actually, I had a few things published for free. Yay!
An Unexpected Transition To Web Content Writing
When I finally got bored of WOW, I decided to go full bore into writing for money. I was going to make it work, dang it. I typed in "write for money" into Google and found something that I hadn't ever thought would be there. Lots and lots of places to earn money writing "content" online. "Content? What the hell is this content stuff?," I asked.
I traveled that road...and read, and studied, and read some more about content writing. You mean, write other people's articles and blog posts? Hmmm..I wonder?
So, I started at Londonbrokers.net where I typed until my fingers bled for about $3.00 per a 300 world article, plus two rewrites. It was also at this time that I applied to Suite101 and Demand Studios. I was unprofessional in my applications to both but I never really gave it that much serious thought. My writing sample was denied at both places. I've never tried to re-apply again at those two web writing establishments. It's a promise I made to myself. Not because they didn't hire me..hell, I didn't deserve it...but because I didn't give them what they deserved and I embarassed myself.
By the time I caught on with Textbroker, Associated Content, Break Studios, and Independent Publishing I had learned a couple of things. Elance had been good to me as well. I studied content and copy religiously. I got better. Not great, but good.
Textbroker is by far the most consistent content site I have worked for. Break Studios is by far the most fun and pays me the most (I was chosen as a special add-on writer and my group gets $12 per 250-700 word article.) Yahoo!/Associated Content is fickle but it's nice to see your articles on Yahoo! News.
Up-front pay was great...for a while. Until I realized I could never stop working. I had to write, submit, write submit, write, submit..over and over...forever and ever...if I was going to make money. It was then I started thinking about residual earnings from web writing.
My Residual Earning Journey Has Only Recently Begun
Basically, residual earnings is when you put your content on other sites that already have a lot of traffic. Those sites, like Hubpages, Squidoo, Infobarrel, and Associated Content from Yahoo!, put ads on their domains with your content. They either pay based on the ad impressions on your content pages or per view. Cool, right? Kind of...
I have done Hubpages and Associated Content mainly and I have had limited success. My Hubpages "hubs" do well but I need to write more for a true feeling. My Associated Content articles equal about 60, and about 150 dollars in earnings. Not great...but they keep earning a buck or two per month even since I stopped writing for them. One of my articles, published on Yahoo! news was 400 words long and has made me about $40 so if you do it right, with great SEO and constantly hot topics you can do well. I was going to go full bore into writing for AC and Hubpages until....
I started to hear whispers on the net amongst other web writers. It seemed that many successful web writers had been killed by Google's Panda and its knocking the hell out of the content sites. You have to remember I came in after Panda and didn't know the "hey day" of residual earnings. Suffice it to say there were people making close to 4k a week on residual articles on sties. Google killed a lot of that. As well they should have. Despite great content writing being on many of those sites there was also a lot of shit. Many sites have had to stop taking on new writers and delete tens of thousands of articles from their pages to get back to some normalcy and favor.
My Own Domain, My Own Content
Back to those whispers I was hearing. Lots of those talented writers that were smacked by Google's Panda decided that if they could build their own domain, such as a blog, and put great content on those domains with advertising (Google Adsense, primarily for newbies) then there was no middle man. Great! All earnings, right?
The problem then becomes getting enough traffic to your tiny, unpopular domain to get people to read, get interested, come back and click on ads or buy your products. It's a struggle either way...
Here's the good news though and why it's all worth it: Google loves blogs and Google owns the search results. Sure, there's Bing and Yahoo! but Goog's is the head honcho.
And that's where I am today and why I haven't been blogging here that often. I started 5 of my own domains in different niches, the main being Blogging For Dads. It's difficult and slow..but oh so rewarding. Not making any money yet from this sort of web writing...but dang it...I'm determined to make this work.
My passion is, and will continue to be writing for me...and not writing for the web or money.
End Note: This is a long post and I didn't go back and put links to all of the writing sites that I mentioned earlier but most of them can be found in the sidebars on this site or in writing topics in previous posts.
Until next time...love ya'...Blogging Dude Out!
"Make Money, Make Blogs, Make Babies!"
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Well said, I agree your words!
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