Mahalo Makes Big Changes - Contributors Suffer

Hi all,

Three days ago Jason Calacanis of the revenue share site Mahalo made a big announcement that will completely change the way contributors earn money at Mahalo.  Apparently, it will leave thousands of writers for the site out of a job.  Hmmm, sound familiar? You can read about the changes to Mahalo by clicking here.

Personally, I never wrote for Mahalo but I did join a few months ago to check it out. I found the site to be confusing and never could figure out how to make money there.  After spending what I thought was too much time trying to figure it out, I simply walked away.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who found it confusing because that was one of the main complaints of users to the site.  The few who did figure it out earned a pretty good income, or so that is what I read.

If you wrote for Mahalo, I'd love to hear about your experiences and what you think of the new changes.

Happy Writing,
Deanna

Simple Articles that Earn Good Income

Hi all,

Even though I can no longer contribute articles to eHow (the old fashioned way - I don't have the energy to do it through DS yet), I still track my earnings there just for the fun of it.  I am happy to say that my earnings have continued to rise each month.  What fascinates me most is the very first article I wrote for eHow in June 2009 titled "How to Stop Belly Bloat".  Even though this was a pretty simple article to write, it continues to increase in income each month.

Article Earnings

The belly bloat article started out earning a little over $2.00 the first month and then kept on climbing.  In April 2010, the article earned $10.37 for the month. In May it earned $14.36 and so far in June it has earned $10.93.  It wouldn't surprise me if it breaks $15.00 for this month.  In all, so far, the article has earned $82.95 for the past 12 months.  Now, I know there are people who have earned much more each month/year for an article at eHow, but my simple little belly bloat article still amazes me. It didn't take long to write and I never thought it would earn that much money in a year's time.

If I had sold that article on Constant-Content for its going price of around $30, that is all I would have ever made from it.  I would be out $52.95+.  Or if I had placed it on another residual earning site like Triond or Associated Content, I wouldn't have earned anywhere near what I've earned at eHow.  I'm happy it's still sitting on eHow, earning residual income.

So, What's My Point?

This is not a post to encourage people to sign up and write for eHow through DS or to discourage people from writing for Constant-Content, AC or Triond.  I like all of those sites and write for them all (except DS for the time being).  I just wanted to point out how a small article that you think isn't worth all that much can earn a good income through a residual site.  When you write an article, you never really know how well it will do - that is part of the fun/frustration with writing.  There are always little surprises along the way.  So, if you come up with an idea for an article, no matter what Google's tools tell you about earning potential, write it and post it anyway.  You may get a happy surprise.

I wonder if I should start a belly bloat website?? Seem like it may have good earning potential. (Ha, Ha)

Happy Writing,
Deanna

Many Assignments Available Right Now at Seed.com

Hi all,

Whether or not you are already a writer for SEED.com, I wanted to let you know that right now they have dozens of articles available to write about vacation destinations for families that pay $50.00 each.  They are looking for good pieces that give first-hand knowledge advice on where families should stay, what restaurants to eat at and what sites to see.  Examples of towns they are looking for are Buffalo, NY, Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, Berlin, Germany and many, many more cities around the U.S. and around the world.  If you are a traveler or live in one of the cities they want reviewed, you can write one or more of these articles with the chance of selling it.

You do not have to apply to write for SEED.com. All you need is to set up an account and start writing and submitting.  True, you have to send in your article and compete with other writers, but if you are a good writer and have the information they want, you can certainly be in the running for selling your article to them. If your article isn't chosen, no problem.  You own all rights and can sell it or place it on another site.  If you want to learn more about SEED.com, you can read my review here.


Happy Writing,
Deanna

Experts123 Update

Hi all,

A reader recently asked me if I had posted any articles to Experts123 under my "expertise" column and that motivated me to do so.  Experts123 is both an up-front pay writing site as well as a revenue share site and they also have a feature where you can apply to be an expert on a particular subject. (You can read my original post on Experts123 here.)  A couple of months ago I applied for the Alternative Medicine expert and was accepted.  But since then I have been busy writing for Suite101 and other sites and didn't submit any articles.  I finally did submit two articles and they were accepted and are now on the site.  The articles are:

Dandelion Leaf to Lower Blood Pressure

Pau d'Arco: Herbal Supplement for Inflammation and Other Health Conditions

Please stop by and check them out if you get a chance.  It would also help if you click the "Like" icon - this helps on raising my income. Thanks.

Being an Experts123 "Expert"

The Experts123 Expertise column is a new feature to the site.  Once you have been approved for your expertise, you then have to have two articles approved for revenue share by the editors.  After they have been approved, you are on your own and can submit as many articles directly to the site as you choose.  You can submit reprints from other sites (your own articles, of course) although they would prefer fresh content.  The pay per 1,000 clicks ranges from $1.50 to $2.00, so unless you have a high amount of articles there, the pay isn't much better than Associated Content.  However, since I can place reprints on Experts123, and since I am also the Alternative Medicine Examiner, then I can reuse some of my Examiner articles to earn a few extra cents? dollars? per month.

You can also combine your income at Experts123.  If you are approved to write up-front pay articles (on average around $10 per article) then you can do a few of those and add in your revenue share articles' money to reach the $20 minimum payout each month. 

What Do I Think about the Expertise Column at Experts123?

Truthfully, I almost didn't bother to submit articles for my expertise because I can make the same amount of revenue share at AC and I already have many articles there - so why do the same at another site?  But, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided I should give it a try and see how much income can be made.  Most of my articles will probably be reprints from Examiner, so I won't be doing additional work.  Since my Examiner articles seem to get lost in the shuffle after the first few days on the site (meaning I make the majority of my money off of them the first week they are posted) then maybe it isn't such a bad idea placing them on Experts123 for some extra milage.  I'll try a few and see.

What I do know is Experts123 pays on time and they are a good site to write for if you are doing the up-front pay articles.  However, they are a Beta site right now - so who knows - they may disappear sometime in the future.  If they do, I won't really be out anything since I will own the copyright to all of my articles.

Are then any Experts123 experts out there? Would love to hear how it is going for you.

Happy Writing
Deanna

(Photo by Deanna Sletten - This little bird hit one of our windows last week and was stunned for several minutes, sitting on our patio, before flying off.  I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of it. )

Loving StumbleUpon

Hi all,

I belong to many social bookmarking sites but today I have to gush about StumbleUpon.  For those of you who do not know, StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking site that you can join and place summaries of your articles on to drive more traffic to your articles on other sites.  Many of the writing sites like eHow, Suite101, Triond, HubPages, etc, have StumbleUpon in their "share" boxes so you can easily access the site and place your articles there.  It's free, it's easy to use and StumbleUpon can help to drive high volumes of traffic to your articles. 

Why I Love StumbleUpon

I have been a member of StumbleUpon since May, 2008 and I try to place links to all of my articles there.  The most success I've had there has been with my Suite101 articles, however my eHow articles do quite well there too.  Yesterday, an article I had placed on Suite101 two days prior titled "White Tea: Health Benefits May be More Effective than Green Tea" received 1,031 views that came directly from StumbleUpon.  Total views for the article overall for the day from all sources were 1,159.  So you can see what a difference using StumbleUpon made.  Today that same article already has a little over 200 hits from StumbleUpon and climbing. Now, imagine if I hadn't used StumbleUpon for that article.  Yesterday's total hits for that article would have only been 128. That is a big difference.

This isn't the only time I've had a good turnout of views from StumbleUpon.  Generally, when I write an article for Suite101, I can expect to receive between 200-400 views from StumbleUpon alone in the first 24 hours.  I have had articles that after several days, or even weeks, suddenly receive 400-500 views in one day from StumbleUpon - I have no idea why.  And as I search through my StumbleUpon pages, I see some high views for many of my eHow articles as well.  Of course, there are many that only have 1 view each on StumbleUpon - but that is the risk you take.  I do suggest that anyone who writes articles should join StumbleUpon and list your articles there.  It only takes a minute to list an article, but it might make a big difference in your view count.

What I've Been Up To

This month I have been working on adding new articles to Suite101 to up my income there. Suite has been trying some new things, like an Idea Keyword Generator, and they are now letting you write timely news articles that are placed under Google News immediately.  They have a contest this month to write 20 articles in 30 days - and I may just make it - but we will see.  I am also writing my 3 articles for up-front pay at Associated Content and a few articles for Examiner.  My goal this summer is to load up Suite101 with articles and see how high the earnings climb. 

I was really happy to see that my eHow articles earned a good income for May and they are doing well this month also.  My earnings haven't dropped at all even without adding any new articles.  In fact, the earnings have risen by a few dollars each month.  I hope this trend continues.

Happy writing,
Deanna

Income Increases at Triond and Suite101

Hi all,

The month of May showed some surprising increases in income for me at both Triond and Suite101.  I did add articles to both sites, but normally, adding additional articles doesn't always mean a spike in additional income right away.  And since Triond is completely passive income for me, it was nice to see the numbers increase.  Here's the rundown:

Triond

I've been with Triond since February, 2008 and have never really taken it seriously as a residual income site.  I have been rethinking that this past month.  At Triond, you can earn money three different ways - through their residual income program, through Google Adsense and by earning a small portion of money from the earnings of writers you refer.  Before Google Adsense was added, I generally only earned about $3.00 per month off of the 21 articles I had on Triond.  Then Triond added the Google Adsense program in November, 2009 and at first it didn't look so promising.  In November 2009 I only earned $1.26 extra from the Google Adsense income in addition to the approx. $3.00 in residual earnings.  However, this began to slowly change.  In April, 2010 I noticed that my Google Adsense earnings from Triond had risen to $4.58 for the month. Now, I agree that isn't a lot of money, but remember that this is totally passive income for me. The articles I post on Triond are ones that I also post on other sites as well as sell for a small Use fee on Constant-Content.  So, earning the $4.58 from Google plus the $3.00 from Triond - in all $7.48 - for the month while also earning money from the same articles at other sites seems like a win-win situation.  So, in May I decided to add 6 more articles to Triond - all articles that I also posted elsewhere - and I earned $7.39 that month in Google Adsense along with $5.33 in residual earnings for a total of $12.72.  Not bad, considering these articles are earning money on other sites as well.

I've decided not to ignore Triond any longer and will continue to add articles to the site to see how the income increases.  I like Triond because there are no minimum articles you have to submit in order to continue to write for the site or to be paid.  There is also no minimum payment amount you must reach before they will pay you.  The only rule is that you must submit articles that have not been published anywhere else, then after they are published on Triond you can place them on other sites. It will be interesting to see if the income continues to grow and by how much in the future.

Suite101

The month of May was also a good one for me at Suite101.  If you've been reading my blog, you know that I've had my doubts about Suite101's earning potential.  However, since I stopped writing for eHow/DS, then I have decided to put more effort into Suite101.  In May I only added 4 new articles at Suite, yet my income doubled.  So I am going to work on building up my article list there and see if the upward trend continues.  I realize that many people earn a good residual income at Suite - so I have to be patient and hope I will too in the future.

How did all of you do for the month of May?

Happy writing,
Deanna

(Photo by Christian Ferrari @ christian-ferrari.blogspot.com)