Writing for Squidoo

Squidoo is yet another place to write online and earn residual income. But, residual income is not the only reason to write at Squidoo. Links placed in your Squidoo "lenses" create do follow backlinks for your other writing. Squidoo is a wonderful place to leverage your articles by adding links in your lenses promoting your writing at other sites. Google recognizes these do follow links as quality backlinks. When the page rank of your Squidoo lens goes up, so will the page rank of the articles linked from it.

In addition to using Squidoo lenses to promoting your writing on other websites, you can earn residual income off your lenses as well. Lenses are usually slow to start earning residuals. Sometimes it takes up to a year. You can see your lens views and earnings by going to the dashboard and then stats for that lens. Recently, Squidoo added a feature that allows you to see your pending earnings on each lens also. Prior to this you could not see how much a lens had earned for the month until you got paid. Payments usually occur between the 10th and 20th of the month. To see the "pending" earnings on your Squidoo lens, go into lens edit mode. Click the "stats" button at the top of the screen. You will see pending earnings for the month and total earnings over the life of the lens.

Writing for Life123

This week, I began writing at Life123.com. Looking over the website I noticed high-quality articles. This site is looking for 3rd person professional writing.

To apply as a writer, register at their website. After registering, you are considered a member that may submit an article. After your first article of at least 300 words is accepted, you are considered a writer.

I consider their pay structure to be residual, because they do not pay you on acceptance for your article. Instead they pay by views:

• $5 for the first 50 views from unique visitors
  
• $5 for the next 500 views from unique visitors
• $10 for the next 500 views from unique visitors

Twenty dollars is the maximum you can earn per article at Life123. Every writer has their own preferences as to where they like to write. When I consider how my top performing articles at eHow ($200 and above) balance out the low earning articles that make only pennies, it concerns me that there is a $20 maximum at Life123.

Because Life123 pay is based solely on views, a writer would benefit from focusing on keywords that will get views, not necessarily high paying ads. My first article "How to Make Herbal Pills" was accepted within 24 hours.

I am happy to report that my article got 9 views on day 1, before being indexed in Google. The article, "How to Make Herbal Pills" was ranked number 1 in the Yahoo search engine. I currently write for 2 other pay-by-view websites: eXaminer and Bukisa. Examiner gives me credit for all my views, Bukisa does not. I was wondering how the Life123 system would work as far as giving credit for unique views. I am very happy and feel they are legitimate. It should not take long to reach the $20 pay out for the 300 word article. My estimate on how long it will take from my previous writing experience on other websites:

• $5 - first 50 views - 1 month
• $5 - next 500 views - 6 months
• $10 - next 500 views - 1 year

Update:
My first Life123 article made minimum payout in only 11 days! My 2nd and 3rd articles are climbing in views quickly and should reach the $5.00 payout soon. If an article reaches the first level payout of 50, then you've already made as much as you would writing at textbroker (5/300) = .01666 per word. Plus, you have the possibility of reaching second or third level payout.

If you reach the third level payout, you've received $20 for the article, which is (20/300)= .06666, or 6 cents a word. That is considered very good income in the writing world.

WeHow 2009

In a year and a half of writing, I have managed to build up my residual earnings to $400 per month. I credit eHow with most of my residual income. For those of you that are unfamiliar with "residual income," it means I earn the income based on already published work. If I take time off from writing and write nothing at all, I still earn about $400 a month.

In addition to that, eHow invited me to a conference in San Francisco this year. They were kind enough to pay the travel and lodging expenses for 20 eHow writers.

While we were at the eHow conference, we gave feedback on the eHow "I Did This" tool, the eHow website, and we tested the new eHow "project tool." The project tool interfaces with Facebook and gives you a chance to get advice from your Facebook friends while completing an eHow project. When the project is finished, you have the option to publish the project as your own eHow article. Pretty cool, huh?

Chriss J, a writer that I met at the WeHow 2009 conference published a Squidoo lens about it. Her lens is loaded with photos and information about the event. Visit her lens here.

After returning home from the eHow conference, I received notification that I had been quoted in USA Today about my experiences writing for them. The USA Today article is available online.

Infobarrel

I put 4 articles on Infobarrel.com on September 8th and 9th. That was 1 1/2 months ago. My views and earnings are as follows:

Views Earnings Topic
106.....39 cents..Writing
185.....66 cents..Writing
30......00 cents..Consumer Credit
108....12 cents...Crafts

Infobarrel is a great place to write whatever you want. You can write in blog or informal style and earn some extra cash. If I have an article deleted from eHow, I put them on Suite101 if they are formal enough. If not, I put them on Infobarrel. The infobarrel website actually has a lot of quality writing. I am impressed with the websites development in a short amount of time. Payments are through Google Adsense, so it might take a while for payout. The minimum payout from Adsense is $100.

Bright Hub - Getting Started as a Writer

I heard back from my channel leader. At the end of each month, the Brighthub channel leaders prepare an "editorial calendar." The calender lists all the titles they want written for the month, the deadline, and who is going to write it. The editorial calender is done in an online document, so everyone writing for brighthub can see the calender and the open titles. After choosing an open title you email your channel leader with a title that you want to write. If they are all taken, you can always suggest your own title to your channel leader. You can only sign up for one title initially, until they can see that you have the ability to meet deadlines.

Writing for Bright Hub

Bright Hub is a new website hiring writers. The pay is enticing offering $10.00 up front payment + $1.00 payment per backlink to the article, and on top of all that residuals on the article too! You really can't beat that. The residuals can add up to a decent amount of earnings as well.

When initially publishing with Bright Hub, the title selection process was confusing. After being there several months, I have finally learned the ropes. Titles are available at the beginning of the month. Some "channels" simply give keyword phrases, rather than titles. At this time, the location of the available titles vary between channels. Some have them published under the channels writer community. Other channels have the titles available on a Google docs spreadsheet. However, in April 2010, Bright Hub is going to streamline it's article title selection process, so that may change.

If you sign up mid-month, or do not request a title at the beginning of the month, you may submit your own writing ideas to the managing editor of the channel. After your title is approved, you have until the latter part of the month to publish it. Bright Hub writing deadlines are usually a few days before the end of the month.

When you start you will have a lot of feedback from the editors about how to improve you writing according to Bright Hub's standards. I've written for other websites with editors, but I have never had so much interaction with them. Bright Hub has very specific criteria for it's writers.

According to the Bright Hub contract, writers must have a predetermined number of views by the end of their first year to remain a writer. Bright Hub articles rank well with search engines and get good exposure, so that shouldn't be a difficult task, however, new writers are limited to only 5 articles per month between all channels until they have reached proficiency. This level of proficiency is determined by a "score" that isn't clearly defined. Many Bright Hub writers have reached this proficiency level and are not capped at 5 articles a month.

West at Home

West at Home hires customer service representatives to answer phone calls on behalf of their clients. There clients include large companies such as HSN, and Virgin Mobile. Phone work isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy providing customer service and have a reliable computer and internet connection for inputting data into the client database, then West may be for you. Most calls are placing orders, entering returns and answering customer questions. Hours must be scheduled in advance, but very few hours are required each month to stay active. Pay depends on how busy you are, but you are guaranteed minimum wage.

Working at Home for Pearson

Pearson hires people to score aptitude tests at home. These are tests taken by school children in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Pearson hires at home workers to score a variety of subjects. To be hired by Pearson you must apply through their website. After you have applied and been accepted, you will have to complete employee (not independent contractor) paperwork. As an employee, you are notified by email whenever a project is available. I receive notifications from Pearson approximately 4 times per year. Each project lasts a few days to several weeks. When Pearson has work available, they ask that you work 20 hours a week. You do not have to schedule your hours, you simply log into the online scoring application and work. As you can see this is far from full-time work, but it does pay well. You can earn anywhere from 10.00 to 20.00 per hour scoring for Pearson, depending on your speed. All training is paid training. For more information on working for Pearson from home visit: How to Score Tests for Pearson