Revenue Sharing Site Skepticism

When I first started looking around for online writing opportunities, I saw that a number of people used sites like Helium or Associated Content. The idea behind these sites is that people write whatever they feel like, hoping to generate hits, and then the site partions out shares of revenue from Google ads (or whatever other ad service they use) based on your hit count.

Now, this sounds like it might be good for some people as an alternative for blogging. But since you basically get paid like a penny for every 100 (or more) hits, it takes plenty of time for anything to come your way. (And, no, you can’t just click repeatedly…I checked, of course. It counts unique IP addresses.)

I went ahead and tried a bit of it, anyway. I went for Associated Content because they have different options for how you get paid. You can either get a tiny sum up front or do the hit-count-over-time thing. I tried both. I got just over $4 for some rather idiotic “Humorous Graduation Quotes” article that the site had on their “requested” list. And then I just threw this together based on my minimal experience so far:

“How to Maintain a Freelance Career and Go to Graduate School”

As of this post, it’s been hit 160 times with no comments.  And, according to AC’s “estimated” page hits/payment calculations, I’m owed 20 cents. I think, though, that you only actually get money from revenue if you accrue over $20 or some such.

So you can see how these sites might be useful if you just bleed language. But considering that one of my clients pays me $20 an article for the same length (about 500-600 words), I think I’ll stick to my clients.

Of course, you should still go check out that article. I need more pennies.

First post and first tip

I stumbled into online freelance writing while wasting time in a coffee shop surfing when I should have been editing my dissertation. I saw an ad to write a few quick book review blurbs on Amazon for $50. Since I needed some spare cash (who doesn’t?), I figured I’d try. But that required an Elance account, which required me to figure out what Elance was, which required me to see that people were getting paid to do some relatively simple writing tasks for relatively more money than I’d ever been paid to write before.

A few bids and a few hours later, I was about $500 richer.

So here I am, still on the cusp of finishing my dissertation, but also on the cusp of a second career as a paid writer. So far, I’ve only been using freelance as supplemental income, but with the adjunct market for next semester looking grim, it may be primary soon.

Thus, the blog. Why not start relating some experiences, tips, and even questions for what I now know is a huge community of full time and part time freelancers?

And no fault if I want a little self-promotion along the way.

But I’ll start with a useful tip: one of the best things I’ve discovered about a lot of online freelancing are groups that do subcontracting or that exploit other sites’ ad revenue programs. A number of places do this for eHow.com, I’ve found. My current favorite is Demand Studios which pays $15 for every article you write through them to post on eHow’s site. What’s amazing about this setup is how little they actually require from their writers. I’m not saying I do a bad job, but you can suggest almost any topic, write what amounts to 400 words, and get paid reliably. I’ve been messing with it on and off for about 3 months now, and I’ve made about $1000 for basically writing single-draft “how to” pieces when I have a spare minute or two…and I mean literally only a minute or two. I’m essentially being paid for afterthoughts.

Check it out.