Saturday, April 10, 2010

Bright Hub to Change the Way They Assign Titles!

Bright Hub is changing the way they assign titles. For those of you that do not currently write for Bright Hub, it is a wonderful site for writers with one huge downfall: It can be almost impossible for new writers to be assigned a title. This is because each channel assigned titles differently. A "channel" is a topic area in which they hire writers. I currently write for the Google, Green Living and Special Ed channels. Some channels are editor managed and some are self-managed. Self-managed is what BH calls it when you don't have an editor. The self-managed channels don't offer upfront payment.

Anyway, all the channels have a different, well-kept, secret location for their spreadsheet where they keep the next months content plans and titles. If you are a new writer and you can locate this spreadsheet, my hat is off to you because sometimes it seems they don't want you to find it! Of course, I am joking about that, but seriously the current process is so cumbersome. I finally found the spreadsheet for Special Ed and sent several messages to my ME about the titles I wanted to write. I didn't get a response. Hmmm.

Finally, I realized that the spreadsheet was managed like the one in Green Living, you simply type in your own name rather than waiting for an "okay" from the ME to write the title. All this is more confused by the fact that I write for Google, where not only is it a HUGE no-no to self-assign a title, but we must submit an article outline before they will consider assigning the title to us. (No, I'm not kidding.)

If all that made you dizzy, yeah, it should. I am happy to announce that Bright Hub listened to it's writers and has made plans to revamp that process. By the end of April 2010, available titles will appear in our pub tool, according to a message from my ME today. Hooray!

Oh, and one more thing for those of you that don't currently write at Bright Hub, the upfront payment is $10 for editor managed channels AND they pay residuals that turned out to be much higher than I anticipated. Bright Hub is a great gig, if you can just figure out what to write. :)

If you are interested in writing for Bright Hub, here is the information you'll need to get started.

6 comments:

Local think tank said...

can you make enough money writing for brighthub to replace a part time income?

HSSchulte said...

Local think tank:

If you wish to earn say, $1000 per month, you would need to write 100 Brighthub articles each month. The pay is $10 per article. Is this possible? Yes. It takes approximately an hour to write an article, so you would need to put in 100 hours a month to write 100 articles.

Now having said that, the first month or two, you may be limited to 3 articles. Don't quit your job until you get passed this stage. After my 8th published article, I got email saying that I no longer had a limit in how many articles I could publish each month. All writers start with a limit.

Also, this is not considering that some people with part-time jobs are incurring travel, daycare, parking, and convenience expenses that are not required working from home. The articles you publish will earn residual payments also, meaning after you've been paid the upfront fee, you will continue to earn a bit each month from all previously published articles. This should not be underestimated, as it is a tidy sum. I can't disclose the amount that is earned in residuals, but I can tell you that in the given example above, after having published 100 articles in the first month, I would only expect to have to write 95 articles the second month to earn the goal of $1000.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

hi!

your comments above were very informative, moreso than the bright hub website itself lol but just a quick question if you can help...

on average, what is the residual income...i read on the bright hub site that it is around $72 for 30,000 page views...is that likely, or are most people not going to achieve that many page views?

HSSchulte said...

Anonymous,

From the editor managed channels, (the ones that pay $10 upfront + residuals) I'm averaging .00187 per view. A little lower than the rate given above ($72/30000=.0024). The amount was changed by BrightHub in January of this year to be slightly less.

In the community managed channels, I average .00442.

In the self managed channels, (my hubfolio) I average .0038.

Note the community and self-managed channels don't offer the $10 upfront. They website is a little misleading as it seems that you have to choose to write for only one channel. I write for all three.

Good luck to you!

hina said...

hi heather

thanks once again for the info youve provided...

i now have a few other questions lol

firstly how can i write for other channels? upon checking the website it looks like i may have to 'apply' again...is that correct?

secondly, i just signed up to the editorial channel, they accept me and tell me to go over the tutorials they provide...i have done so, but i still am unable to claim any titles (it keeps telling me i have no opportunities)...i sent a message to my editor and havent received a respone...is this normal?

and lastly, what are the advantages in your experience of each of the channels ie. selfmanaged and community?

hina (i previously wrote as 'anonymous')

HSSchulte said...

Hello Hina,

Yes, you have to reapply to other channels. Once you are a BrightHub writer, it is almost guaranteed that your application to write in another channel will be accepted. Just submit your experience and a sample in that topic, if you have one. If not, I've actually just said, "I'm already a BrightHub writer and have this experience, xxx." Easy as pie.

What editorial channel is it? It's possible that there really are no opportunities in that channel, some have hundreds and some have, well not that many. If there are no opps, the standard procedure is to choose a title that you want to write and email your editor with the title, keywords, and summary of the article to see if they will accept your "suggested title." The other option is to just wait until the first of the month. That is when they post the new opportunities.

The advantage of self-managed is freedom. Keyword freedom, title selection freedom, backlinking freedom and freedom to write as often or as little as I please.

The advantage to editor managed is the upfront pay. The down-side is those dreaded deadlines.

The advantage of the community managed is that it pays slightly better in the long run than the other options.

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