November 6th, 2008 in Featured, Money

Your Expertise is Worth Money: 5 Sites You Can Write For

Plenty of people start blogging with the hope of making some money off their expertise. But it can be difficult to turn a profit on blogging: until you’ve built up a significant readership, you can expect only a few cents worth of Google AdSense revenue. There are certainly easier ways to earn money by writing about your area of expertise.

There are plenty of sites that will pay for your short articles, although several have some drawbacks. The upfront payments are often pretty low, but many will pay you a portion of advertising revenues — and they get far more traffic than most blogs do. The sites listed below make a habit of paying writers at least a little more than they’ll make starting out with a blog: if you’re looking to see some cash fairly soon, these sites can provide a decent return.

Associated Content

Associated Content has been online for almost four years. It’s a pretty simple set up: you have to create an account but you can choose to write on just about anything you can think of. You can also respond to the site’s ‘Calls for Content,’ which are requests for specific articles. They range from “Top 5 Front Load Washers” to “Cheap Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Tween Nephew.” Associated Content also pays for video, slide shows and audio.

You must have a PayPal account to receive payments from Associated Content. The site offers two types of payment: Performance Payments and Upfront Payments. The main moneymaker on Associated Content is a Performance Payment. For every 30,000 page views your article gets, you get $45 — and you can pretty much do whatever you want to promote your article and make more money. Articles continue making money fairly indefinitely. Associated Content also offers Upfront Payments for some articles, based on their own discretion. If you submit an article for an upfront payment, and it’s accepted, you can earn anywhere from $3 to $20. It’s a bonus on top of whatever your article might make from Performance Payments. Payments are only made to account holders over 18 years old, who are citizens or legal residents of the U.S.

Helium

Another fairly well-known site that accepts articles is Helium. Helium actually offers a variety of ways to sell your articles: there’s a ‘Title Finder’, where you can write an article to match requested titles, or the Marketplace, where companies partnered with Helium can post their jobs for writers. No matter which tactic you want to pursue, you will need to set up an account on Helium.

Helium also makes payments through PayPal and will only pay out if your balance has reached at least $25. Articles are generally paid a revenue share, calculated in part based on your article’s quality, its traffic and advertiser interest. You also receive Upfront Payments based on ‘Writing Stars’: if you have one Writing Star, you receive 50 cents per article published. If you’ve reached five Writing Stars, you receive $2.50 per article published. Articles published through the Marketplace, if selected by one of Helium’s partners, receives between $16 and $200.

myLot

If you don’t want to write a full article, you can earn money on myLot by participating in discussions on the site. Payments are based on how often you use MyLot and respond to discussions. You can also raise your earnings by posting content the generates discussions. For any friends you refer to the site, you’ll also earn a bonus equal to 25 percent of their earnings.

The model that myLots uses to calculate its payouts is proprietary, although I can tell you from experience that the payouts are definitely lower per post than you might get from an article on Helium or Associated Content. All payments for myLots are handled through PayPal or moneybookers, and the minimum payout is $10.

Suite101

Unlike the previous three sites, Suite101 requires prospective writers to apply. If a writer is hired, he or she will receive a share of advertising revenue for any articles as long as they are up. Suite101 has been around for 12 years and is very reliable. There is a requirement that, if you write for Suite101, you complete 10 articles every three months in your chosen subject.

Once you have 50 articles live on Suite101, you receive an additional 10 percent of ad revenue — and you get another 10 percent after you publish 100 articles. While Suite101 doesn’t pay per page view, the site says that they’re averaging about $4.20 per 1,000 page views.

BrightHub

BrightHub is another site that will require you to apply to write, and writers with a knowledge of technology are definitely preferred. There is more of an editorial process on BrightHub than many other sites that pay for written content, but the site offers payments to its writers in a variety of ways.

For the finished article itself, writers immediately receive $10. For each relevant backlink to an article, BrightHub pays one dollar. And writers receive 80 percent of the ad revenue of their articles.

My personal opinion

While I’ve spent time on all of these websites, I’ve had the best experience with BrightHub. It has a better payout for writers than most of the other options. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the easiest site to make money on: not only do you have to pass the application process, your content has to pass editorial approval. In my experience, the easiest site to actually get an article up and earning money is Associated Content. Just by posting the link to an Associated Content article in a couple of places, you can often push up your revenues to make it worth your while.

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Thursday Bram

Thursday Bram blogs about a variety of topics, from personal finance to small business. She is the author of an upcoming book on the tools and tricks you need to build a career you can take with you during long-term travel. More information about Thursday and her book, Working Your Way Around the World, is available on her personal site, ThursdayBram.com.

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Ibrahim | ZenCollegeLife.com says on November 6th, 2008 at 10:59 am

Thanks for this article. I’ve been looking for the best way to start doing some freelance writing, and this looks like an easy start!
CK says on November 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am

Just waht I was looking for! THANKS!!! I have two articles I have been writing on - not knowing where (or if) I can publish them! Now you have given me incentive to finish them and get them published! Thank you so very much!
Vincent says on November 6th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

I have never heard of these before. Great post, I should go and check them up soon.

Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
ahmedfernando says on November 6th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Cracked.com is another site for which anyone can write. It is a humor site that publishes articles mostly in a list format (top 10 bad-ass popes, for example.)

There is an editorial process. They pay 50 dollars up front if the article is published, and a 50 dollar bonus if it recieves exceptional traffic.

They have a very high reader count, so it is also a good way to promote your blog.
ahmedfernando says on November 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I forgot to mention that they put out two or three different articles and videos every day, so they do publish quite a bit of comedy work by their own readers.
G4HQ Hacking Warez MMORPG Forum - Runescape Maplestory says on November 6th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

You could also open up your own network of blogs about different topics. Then take your blog posts and make articles about those lol. It might require a bit more work, but its a good way to make more $$
FrugalNYC says on November 7th, 2008 at 1:31 am

I was compiling a list of such sites for a post myself. Can I add these to my list? One such site on my list is squidoo. They make revenue from ads, and you can keep or donate proceeds.
fayzspace says on November 9th, 2008 at 12:34 am

USD45 per 30,000 ? not bad..but it’s good if you have your own blog and maximise your earnings potential
Maggi says on November 9th, 2008 at 11:48 am

Interesting information, I will certainly be checking these out. It’s both surprising and disappointing to hear that, given the internet is truly worldwide, Associated Content will only pay US citizens for their writing?
p@r@noid says on November 9th, 2008 at 8:56 pm

This si really useful, By writing at different place we can increase the reader count of our blog/website
Ryan says on November 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

Who maintains ownership of the content I write? Do I sign away my copyright to the site?
jen brister says on November 15th, 2008 at 10:37 pm

Great post…eHow is also a another wonderful site to write for.
Torley says on November 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am

Thursday — thanx for sharing this compilation AND providing your personal opinion (instead of leaving it unconcluded without your experiences). I wasn’t familiar with some of these, and admire your prolific contributions to multiple sites!

Some of these payment schemes are pretty inaccessible — Associated Content’s seems like a very hard reach unless you do a lot of promotion.

@ahmedfernando: Cracked.com has so much hilarity, but it’s also extremely competitive. That shouldn’t discourage anyone if they really know what they’re gunning for, but helps setup expectations, e.g., you obviously have to be at least Onion-class funny. :)

Another thing to do is look for “About” or “Contribute” links on blogs, where they may have an “earn money” section. For example, Wise Bread’s: http://www.wisebread.com/about and AUDIOTUTS’: http://audiotuts.com/about
Mike says on November 21st, 2008 at 8:13 pm

Thanks for this info I’m a Short Sale expert and I just might sign up @ brighthub! Thanks for the post!
Justsayin' says on November 21st, 2008 at 8:17 pm

How do you make money writing when you end your sentences with prepositions?
Dustin Wax says on November 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 am

Justsayin: I doubt there’s a writer alive today who worries about ending sentences with prepositions. Since ending with prepositions is often the clearest and most natural-sounding way to express something, it’s considered by most to be perfectly acceptable to end with a preposition. Just ask Obama’s copywriters, who just won an election with the very sensible slogan “Change we can believe in”.
Holly says on November 23rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm

This is a great list of sites. I use my lot and have tried associated content. I have not heard of the others though so I’ll be checking them out. Thanks for the info.
Victoria says on November 24th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Fun fact: Ending a sentence with a preposition is not really an English rule. It’s Latin. Latin prepositions required another word to come after them so they couldn’t end a sentence.
Mattress says on November 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am

I really should check up on these as well. Great post, I really never knew most of these even existed.
Iowa Writer says on November 28th, 2008 at 12:32 am

Good article, and nice run down of each freelance writing site. I also appreciate that you pointed out which sites you prefer. Thanks for sharing!
gary v davis says on December 3rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Great Post, I am interested in freelance writing. And your post and a lot of the comments have been inspirational
Tabiji says on December 31st, 2008 at 7:42 pm

Thank you.
Joe H. ( Former editor) says on February 27th, 2009 at 11:02 pm

Churchill was once chastened by a self-important grammarian who raised the preposition-at-the-end-of-the-sentence rule. He rejected her advice, saying, “This is something up with which I will not put!”

However, some of the aspiring writers providing comment should realize that misspelling is still a no-no, e.g., “recieve” and “maximise”(unless you’re writing for a British publication). Also avoid incorrect word choice, e.g.,”maintains” instead of “retains”;”unconcluded without” instead of “unsupported by”, and the grammatical kludge of “By writing at different place we can increase the reader count…”

Catch these before the editor to whom you’re submitting your manuscript whips out his blue pencil or simply drops your hard work in the circular file. There are still people out there who know and play by the rules of spelling, grammar and syntax.
rajiv says on March 27th, 2009 at 1:08 pm

I feel most of these sites are for US writers
Tech Blog says on March 31st, 2009 at 9:02 pm

wow thanks, i might try to make a few bucks
James Kent says on April 25th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

Associated Content will pay performance payments to anyone. It’s only the upfront payments that they will only pay to US Citizens.
max smith says on June 8th, 2009 at 3:02 am

Great stuff..thanks for valuable info..cos its really tough to know which site is genuine.. u can also explore oboulo.com ..the best part is that they pay a royalty every single time my paper gets sold..and its really simple..m makin a decent amount..thought i’d share the same with ya’all..