When Writing for Upfront Pay Has Residual Results

Much has been written about the wisdom of writing for upfront pay vs. writing for residual income. Up until now, I have mostly been focused on writing for residual income. I have already blogged about the fact that my online residual income goes toward paying cash for my daughter's college education, which is one of our financial goals. Another goal we have is paying off debt, and lately I have been feeling that our progress in that area has been too slow. I wanted to do something to speed it up, and I had started to consider looking for a part-time holiday job or tax season job. That's when an email from Demand Studios landed in my inbox.

Up until this point, I had written exactly three articles for Demand Studios (now called Demand Media Studios). Each was an eHow article for an upfront payment of $15. I had since decided that writing for Demand was too time intensive and not much fun, and I focused on residual income. But since I was considering taking on some part-time work, and since the email from Demand was an offer to write personal finance articles for a $20 pay rate instead of $15, I decided to take a look.

Upon logging into Demand, I updated my bio, and starting browsing available articles. I quickly claimed several and set about writing one. It took a while because I had last written for Demand over a year ago and I had to reacquaint myself with their requirements. Still, it felt good to know that when I was finished with the process, I would have $20 in my pocket (or, more correctly, my Paypal account) that could be applied to the credit card we are working to pay off.

How to Turn Up Front Payments into Residual Income

In the time I was considering looking for a part-time job, the though of writing for up front pay never occurred to me, even though I had done it successfully in the past. The Demand email caused me to rethink writing flat fee articles, as long as the money was applied to my debt. My reasoning is that every dollar that our debt is paid down results in reduced interest payments and an increase in cash flow, which becomes a kind of residual income.And while I could continue to write flat fee articles indefinitely, using the money to pay off debt gives it a finite time frame, in a way that using it to pay for ongoing expenses does not.

During the time that we're paying off debt, I plan to research other kinds of residual income that are not writing related. My thinking is that if I still want to continue writing for up front pay, I could use the money to invest in a residual income investment such as dividend paying stocks, thus using writing to create residual income in a non-direct way.

A Helpful Demand Studios Ebook

As I was about to begin working on my next batch of articles for Demand Studios, I ran across the ebook, Demand Studio Secrets, by experienced Demand Studios writer and copy editor, Kent Ninomiya. In addition to writing and copy editing for Demand, Kent has reviewed writer bios, reviewed writer applications, moderated eHow articles, managed eHow topic guides, and was the first ever Featured Creator and winner of the Quality and Quantity Award from Demand. In other words, he knows what he's talking about and this is 182 pages of quality, insider information about succeeding as a Demand Studios writer.

I read Kent's ebook before I began my next article at Demand, and I can say without a doubt that it provided me with valuable information, even though I had already been accepted at Demand Studios and had four articles approved. (If you haven't yet applied to Demand or have had your application rejected, Demand Studio Secrets can help you with that process. Remember, Kent has worked as an application reviewer at Demand and has approved and rejected many writer applications.)

Demand Studio Secrets is offered at a cost of $19.99, which is simply amazing to me. I made it back with the first article I wrote after reading it. The sections on writing strategies and improving my scores have been especially helpful to me. I plan to write a more detailed review of the book in the future, but for now I'll give you my three word review: worth every penny. It's one of the least expensive ebooks I have read and it's been one of the most valuable.

Click here to read more about Demand Studio Secrets

Conclusion

Since I received my Demand Studios email and read Kent Ninomiya's ebook, I have earned $120 in the span of a view days to apply to my debt. Writing for upfront pay is definitely going to speed up our debt reduction efforts and Demand's twice weekly paydays (they pay via Paypal on Tuesdays and Fridays) is helping to keep me motivated. And the good news is that my residual income will continue to grow in the meantime.

What's your split between writing for up front pay and writing for residuals? I'd love to hear other thoughts on the topic.

Redgage Earnings

I use the Redgage site for two things: to create backlinks to my other online content and to upload photos. As I wrote about earlier, Redgage is a great site to use to earn some money for your photos, particularly if those photos don't meet the criteria for photo stock sites.

I'm guessing that I log onto Redgage about once a month or so to see what's happening with my content and to upload a few more links or photos. Recently I logged on and discovered that my account stood at $48.20 in earnings. You are eligible to withdraw money in $25 increments, so I put in my first withdrawal request (Redgage pays by sending you a Visa check card, which they refill for future withdrawals).

A quick check of my account shows that it took me a little over a year to earn that money. My first earnings were in August, 2009. My earnings break down as follows:

Content earnings: $5.35 (I currently make 88 cents per each 1000 page views of my content.)
Feature bonuses: $17.85 (Anytime your content is featured on the Redgage homepage, you earn a bonus. Usually it's in the neighborhood of a few dollars.)
Contest Earnings: $25.00 (Redgage holds a daily $25 contest, and I won during September. You earn entries by uploading content, writing original content, and referring others to the site.)

I've requested a $25 withdrawal to my Redgage Visa check card, and hopefully I'll soon be able to do that again.

Probably the biggest benefit of Redgage, however, is that it allows me to create do-follow backlinks to my other online content. The way the site is set up, I can do that with anchored text for exactly the keywords I want to target. Redgage can be glitchy, but this morning I found it working fine and very quickly created about 20 backlinks.

If you'd like to create backlinks to your other content, or simply earn some extra money through page views and bonuses, I encourage you to sign up for Redgage today (referral link). It's free and easy to do. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Sign Up for Redgage (referral link)

September Earnings Report

September was a great month in my efforts to earn residual income online.

eHow Earnings

I wasn't sure what to expect out of eHow, as August was my best month ever. My earnings did decline, but not by much, and September ended up being my second highest month ever at eHow, with earnings of $244.95. This brings my total eHow earnings to date to $4457.97. 


It's so exciting to see eHow earnings remain strong this long after the change in the Writers Compensation Program. I currently have one article with earnings of about $345, two additional articles with earnings between $200 and $300, and four articles with earnings of between $100 and $200. With 204 articles published at eHow, my average earnings per article is currently $21.85 and that will only continue to grow each month.

Cash Back Sites

My payouts from these sites was $128.62 from Mr. Rebates and $62.88 from Big Crumbs. I post more detail on these passive income streams at my blog Make Money with Cash Back Sites.

Adsense

My Adsense earnings were down a bit from last month. The total for September was $27.14. Hubpages contributed 44% ($11.94) and Xomba was responsible for 43% ($11.74).

Amazon

Amazon earnings held steady at $32.31. Xomba was responsible for over half of my Amazon earnings at $16.73. The rest was fairly equally split between Hubpages and eHow.

So, all told, I almost reached the $500 mark last month. Reaching that regularly would be a major milestone for me. So, onto October. How are your passive earnings doing?

Five Important Reasons to Write Your Articles in Batches

When writing for revenue sharing content sites, it’s easy to get distracted and jump all over the place. You write an article here on weight loss, and then another one there on making money online. As writers, most of us have been in that situation where it’s hard to concentrate and we wonder if we’re making any progress.

One solution to this predicament is to write articles in batches around a single topic. How many articles is up to you, but I have found that five articles is a good number for me to shoot for. Here are some of the reasons why this writing style can be helpful:

1.       It helps with writer’s block. The most difficult thing for many content writers is deciding what to write about. If you can focus on offshoots of existing articles, instead of coming up with entirely new topics, you’ll be way ahead of the game when it comes to avoiding writer’s block.

2.       If you are doing any research, you can make greater use of that research in multiple articles. Why research for one article or two when you can put that same research to work in five or more?

3.       You can focus more easily. By not skipping around, you can stay focused on the topic at hand and, hopefully, get a stream of consciousness going that will result in more output.

4.       Easier linking. If you write five articles on the same topic on a single site, you can link all of those articles together and hopefully keep the reader on your pages. You can also make use of other sites and backlink to your articles all at once. It’s a more efficient way to work.

5.       The related articles section will work for you. Most content sites have a related articles section in the sidebar of their pages. If you’ve written a lot about a topic – particularly if that topic is a niche one – you stand a good chance of those related articles being yours. That equals more exposure for you.

So the next time you’re cranking out an article, see if you can come up with several related titles to create at the same time. I think you’ll see your productivity soar.

Residual Income Earnings Update for August

August was an exciting month for my growth in residual income. Here are the details:

eHow

I had a record month at eHow and, if the forums are any indication, a lot of other people did too. My eHow earnings for August were $270.73. That is 27% higher than last month and 17% higher than my previous high. Since writers can no longer add articles to eHow (unless they do it through the Demand Studios platform, which I am not doing) this represents completely passive income. I continue to be grateful for this revenue stream for as long as it lasts.

Cash Back Sites

August was another great month for earnings at Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. I've posted a report of those residual income numbers at my blog, Make Money with Cash Back Sites. The short story is that I added 33 new referrals at those sites and had payouts totaling $75. This does not include the rebates I earned for my own shopping at those sites. I continue to be quite excited about these streams of residual income.

Adsense

My Adsense earnings were $33.71. $19.71 of that came from Hubpages and another $9.07 came from Xomba. Other sites contributed the rest. As quickly as possible I'd like to get to the point where I'm making the $100 payout from Adsense each month.

Fun story: The last time I deposited an Adsense check, the teller at my bank asked me, "How did you get a check from Google? That's cool."

Amazon

In August I made $29.18 from Amazon. The breakdown was $22.52 from links on eHow articles, $6.06 from Hubpages, and $.60 from Xomba. Again, I'd like to get this amount to $100/month as quickly as possible.

The most valuable Amazon resource I've run across is Paula and Wanda's Amazonian Profit Plan. I've followed these ladies for quite some time and was so pleased they decided to put their plan down on paper and make it available to all of us. I'll use their technique with Hubpages, since I've had some success with them so far, and Paula and Wanda even mention Hubpages in their blueprint (although their real recommendation is to own your own sites). But I'd also like to use their method to write more Amazon reviews at Xomba, as they have one of the most attractive Amazon policies of all the revenue share sites.

Conclusion

So all told, I'm at $400+ for the month in residual income. Although $400 is not a huge number, I can reasonably expect to make that or more next month and the month after with no additional work. But I plan to do additional work to push that number to $500, then $1000 and beyond. I firmly believe if I can make $400/month online, then I can make $4000/month. It's simply a matter of scale.

I'd love to hear about your residual income or online earnings for August. Please leave a comment or a question and let me know how you're doing.

eHow Earnings for June and July 2010 and a New Residual Income Goal

My eHow earnings remained at $200+ for both June and July. The final total was $216.22 for June and $211.80 for July, bringing my total earned from eHow to date to $3942.29. What's left to say about eHow? I'm not doing any backlinking or other form of promotion. It's completely passive income at this point and I'm grateful for whatever earnings it continues to generate.

The real growth in my passive income streams is happening with referring others to cash back sites like Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs (two sites that I use myself and can recommend). I've posted a report of those residual income numbers at my blog, Make Money with Cash Back Sites. Pop over if you're interested!


I've had an idea floating around my head all summer that I've decided to officially make a goal. That goal is for each of my residual income streams to reach $100/month on a consistent basis. Of course I don't plan to stop there. After I reach that short-term goal I can either bump the amount or add additional income streams or both. Here's where I'm at so far:

• eHow: eHow is a consistent $200+/month performer
• Mr. Rebates: My income from referring others to Mr. Rebates is fast approaching $100/month and many months it has exceeded that. I expect it to be there consistently soon.
• Big Crumbs: I made over $40 at Big Crumbs last month (again from referring others to the site) but this residual income stream is far from consistent. I think it has great potential, however, so I plan to try and get it there soon.
• Adsense: I'm currently making around $25/month from Adsense, mostly from Hubpages, Info Barrel and a couple of blogs. Adding content to these sites will help boost this amount.
• Amazon: Last month I made $26 on Amazon, from affiliate links in my eHow, Info Barrel and Hubpages articles. Again, adding content here will help boost this.

Getting all of these revenue streams to $100 as quickly as possible (and keeping eHow at $200) would effectively double my monthly residual income. And it's all very do-able. It's just a matter of doing more of what I've already done.

I'd love to hear how your residual income efforts are going and what goals you may have as we head into fall and beyond. Please consider leaving a comment and letting me know.

eHow Earnings for May

I'm really late this month posting my eHow earnings update and for no good reason. In fact, May was the best month I've ever had on eHow. My earnings were $230.42, bringing my total eHow earnings to date to $3514.27. June doesn't appear that it will end up that high, but I should still break $200. I hope your eHow earnings are holding firm too!

Writing for Upfront Payments: A Textbroker Review

Okay, I have to admit it: I'm kind of addicted to Textbroker. Like a lot of "old" eHow writers, I've been experimenting with other online writing sites. One thing I've learned is that you can read all the comparisons and reviews you want, but in the end you've got to give writing on each site a try and see which ones work for you and writing for Textbroker.com definitely works for me.

Making Money with Textbroker

I wrote my first article for Textbroker on May 12, requested my first payout of $20.50 yesterday and received the money in my Paypal account today. I've got more money pending already.

I've written 15 articles for Textbroker and they've ranged from $1.43 - $2.75 per article. (I'm a level 3 writer.) The word counts have ranged from 175 words to 400 words. These articles are quick and easy to write! Some of them are actually more like blog posts and I believed will be used as that by the person who bought them.

I'm purposely picking articles that will require little to no research on my part. For example, one article I wrote was for a housekeeping site and it was about tips for cleaning windows. I actually did several articles for that same client and none required any research at all. Some articles are even just re-writes of other information. Those can be very quick as well.

Now obviously no one is going to get rich writing $2-$3 articles, but the hope is I'll be able to move up to a level 4 or even level 5 writer, where the payouts are significantly larger. But even if I don't, I will probably continue to crank out these lower-paying articles from time to time for some quick pocket change.

A Break From Residual Earnings

Up until now I've been primarily focused on earning residual income with my writing. That is the name of this blog, after all. But it's also kind of nice to just sit down from time to time, bang something out, and get paid for it. Writing for upfront payment is especially good if you've had unexpected expenses come up or you've simply grown a little tired of watching the residual income trickle in. In fact, on of the things I like best about Textbroker is that I can do some residual income writing, take a break and write a couple of quick Textbroker articles, and then go back to the residual stuff. At the end of the day I like knowing that I've made some progress on building my residual income but I've earned some 'immediate money' too.

A Textbroker Expert

Now clearly I'm very new at the Textbroker game but my interest in Textbroker was piqued by someone much more experienced. Linda Everett, who goes by the name 'Grandma' on a lot of online sites and blogs, is a former professional copywriter who began writing for Textbroker in 2008. Since then she has progressed to the point where she can earn $2000 - $3000 per month from Textbroker. In fact, she recently had a $300+ day. Recently she wrote an eBook, Grandma's Little Black Book: How to Make Money Freelance Writing for Textbroker, and she's the perfect person to have done it because of her success with the site.

Grandma's book is 19 pages long and it's best suited for those who are brand new to the Textbroker.com site. In it she shares a little bit about her background and her experience writing for Textbroker, including earnings information.

She then goes on to share lots of basic information about the Textbroker site and how it works. This is the kind of information that it can often take new writers a while to figure out on their own. Things like:

• The Textbroker skill levels and how to move from a 2 or 3 to a 4 or even 5.
• How to get paid from Textbroker.
• How to set Direct Order rates. (Direct Orders are when a client requests an article(s) specifically from you. This can be one of the benefits of writing for Textbroker.)
• Information about Textbroker Clients.
• A section of Advanced Textbroker Tips.

Grandma's Little Black Book sells for $15, which you can easily make back in your first day or two of writing articles at Textbroker. As Grandma points out in her book, 'Even if you write one small article per day, it can bring you about $100 in income a month.' You can get more information about Grandma's book by clicking the Buy Now button below.

The Bottom Line on Textbroker

I enjoy writing for Textbroker because the assignments are varied and the work is quick. While my earnings has been minimal to this point, it is possible to earn a more significant income by advancing to the 4 or 5 level of writer. Grandma is the perfect example of that.

I also like knowing that if I needed to generate some money quickly I could do it through Textbroker because they pay twice a month.

If you have any questions or comments about Textbroker, please leave a comment below. I'll be happy to do what I can to answer them.

April Earnings at eHow

I was so eager to see how this month would turn out at eHow since we were told in early April that we could no longer add articles to the eHow Writers Compensation Plan, but that our existing articles would continue to earn. My April earnings were down from March, but still my second highest month ever at $206.28. Since I added no articles in April, this represents completely residual income. My total eHow earnings to date now stand at $3283.85.

Despite the fact that I was already an approved writer at Demand Studios, I don't plan to do any writing there for the time being. Frankly, the articles are just too much work for the money. I would rather invest my time on other sites and creating other residual income streams. But I am glad to have the eHow articles as a residual income stream for as long as it lasts. In a way this change at eHow has freed me up to focus on other things and that is a positive.

I hope your April was good, at eHow and otherwise. I'd love to hear where you're focusing your efforts now.

See also: My Mr. Rebates Payout for April

Affiliate Marketing with Xomba

Just a quick update. I made my first Amazon affiliate sale with Xomba today. It's a product I had some luck with at eHow, back when affiliate links were allowed in the resource section. I created a separate Xomba tracking code in Amazon Affiliates so I could be sure where the sales were coming from and was pleased to see it had come from Xomba.

There are basically two ways to use affiliate links at Xomba:

1. Create bookmarks using the affiliate link. You can link directly to your product. In addition to putting the affiliate link in the bookmark space that Xomba give you, I would create another one in the body of your bookmark description.
2. Write articles that include affiliate links. Xomba articles only have to be 150 words long so this is easy to do.

You can sign up for Xomba for free. Where are you finding success with your affiliate marketing?

Xomba Earnings Update

I'm exactly two months into my experience at Xomba so I thought I would give a quick update. I've added 241 bookmarks at Xoma (mostly to my eHow articles and some other online content). I've also written 34 articles, although some are fairly short with Xomba's 150 word minimum. In two months' time I've earned $23.68. I certainly hope that keeps up as I am 100% okay with a $10+ per month residual income stream, mostly for posting links to my other online articles.

I'm not aggressively adding content to Xomba, but I've become so familiar with the interface there that I do go there to post bookmarks (backlinks) and occasionally write a quick article that I think will be a good fit for the site. I'm still the Business and Entrepreneurs Feature Writer and if you're considering adding content on Xomba, I encourage you to apply for one of the several Feature Writer positions they have available there. It can only help your exposure on the site.

If you're interested in joining Xomba, I would be honored if you'd consider signing up using my referral link. Please send me a friend request once you're there!

Make Money Fast with Redgage

I've earned $8.75 in two days on Redgage. While I've been a member of Redgage for a while, I recently re-visited the site to buiild some backlinks to my eHow articles and other online content and was pleasantly surprised by my earnings.

How to Make Money with Redgage

Redgage is a site where you can write original content, create links to your other online content (like eHow articles) and upload photos and video. You earn a small amount for views on your Redgage content (pennies really) but Redgage also pays out bonuses for content that they feature.

I've earned $16.25 on Redgage and $13.80 of that has been feature bonuses. I don't think my experience is unusual. The bonuses (and daily contests) are the way to make money on Redgage and that is why it's possible to make money quickly there.

Redgage and Photos

My most recent feature bonus of $3.80 came from a picture I uploaded. It's a picture I took at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and it accompanies this blog posting. I'm kind of excited about the potential to earn feature bonuses for photos at Redgage because I've been interested in Michael-John Wolfe's information on making residual income with stock photography. I even tried uploading a few photos to a stock photography site and had them rejected because of low resolution, non-commercial subject matter, etc. Because of that experience I had tabled the idea of pursuing stock photography as a source of residual income. But with Redgage I can upload some of (what I consider to be) my more interesting photos and earn some residual income from them. That's encouraging to me!

Redgage for Backlinks

One of the best reasons to use Redgage is for backlinks to your other online content. Creating a backlink at Redgage is similar to creating one on Xomba or She Told Me. You copy the link, give it a title, write a short description, and then add a few tags. It takes very little time to do and the links at Redgage are 'do-follow' so they're especially valuable. Redgage is a great addition to the collection of sites where you can actually make money with your backlinks.

Signing up for Redgage

If you'd like to give Redgage a try, you can find it at Redgage.com. If you'd like to sign up as one of my referrals (I'll earn extra "raffle tickets" for the daily $25 contest) you can sign up using this link: Sign up for Redgage. Either way, be sure to send me a friend request once you're there. My user name is TheFamilyCEO.

Three Ways to Make More Money with Your Existing eHow Articles

So the dust is starting to settle and the information is being sorted out around eHow's change to using the Demand Studios platform for all it's content. eHow writers are learning whether or not they have been pre-approved for Demand Studios or whether they need to apply at DS to be able to continue writing how-to articles for eHow. They're also making the decision about whether they want to continue writing for eHow at all.

Regardless of where you are in your decision-making process, the fact remains that you probably have a bunch of eHow articles that you've already written still live on the eHow site. And according the eHow, you will continue to earn from those articles with the same algorithm you already have.

So what can you do to beef up earnings on the articles that are already on the eHow site?

1. You can backlink to your existing eHow articles. There are a variety of ways to do that but two places where you can backlink to all of your eHow articles and earn money in the process are Xomba and She Told Me. I've already written about my Xomba experiment in backlinking to my eHow articles. Recently I joined She Told Me and I'm starting to experiment at that site as well.

2. Another thing you can do is to re-write your highest earning eHow articles for other sites. If you've written an article for eHow, chances are it's on a subject you either a) already knew a lot about or b) did the research necessary to write on it. In fact, you probably have groups of articles on eHow written around various subjects. You may find it surprising how easy it is to re-write articles on that topic for another site.

At first I was reluctant to do this because the 'how-to' format was something of a security blanket for me. Staring at a blank page was a little intimidating after writing 200+ eHow articles. If you find yourself in the same boat, remember that you can still write in how-to format for other sites. In addition you can create other 'security blanket formats' that might help you get the writing ball moving forward. This article is an example of that. '____ Ways to _______' can be a format where you fill in the blanks depending on the article you're writing.

You'll find publishing articles at sites like Xomba and Info Barrel a real pleasure and re-writing articles you've already written can be a real shortcut to getting content up fast. You can also write different articles on similar topics for revenue share at Demand Studios.

3. Finally you can improve the SEO of the eHow articles you already have up. If you look at your earliest eHow articles, you will probably discover that you've learned a thing or two about SEO since you started writing. Make some changes in the keywords, etc. and see if you earnings on those articles don't improve.

So this can all be summed up in three tips:

1. Drive traffic to your existing eHow articles.
2. Examine your successful eHow articles and write similar articles on the same topic at other sites.
3. Improve the SEO of your existing eHow articles.

An Additional Note About Putting More Time Into eHow

I know some are less than trusting about eHow's claims that our WCP articles will stay up and continue to earn. I feel about this the way I felt when I wrote about what I thought was the future of the WCP over a month ago: the WCP articles may not last forever but they're there for now and I might as well maximize my ability to earn money from them. Especially since they are already written and aged. I don't need a guarantee that they will be there forever because there is nothing in the online business world (or offline business world for that matter) that will be unchanging. My strategy is to:

• Make my best guess about what is worth putting my time into. 
• Give it my all. 
• Adapt and move forward when someone moves my cheese.

Changes at eHow: the WCP and Demand Studios

By now you are probably aware of the changes taking place at eHow as it relates to the Writers Compensation Program and Demand Studios. If not, you can get up to date by reading this blog entry. As I expressed in my thoughts on the future of the WCP program, I'm not surprised at these developments. And as I speculated in that post, they are grandfathering in the articles that already exist on eHow as part of the WCP. We will continue to receive revenue share payments on them as we always have; we just can't add any more except through Demand Studios.

Since I am already approved as a Demand Studios (DS) writer, I can continue to add eHow articles with a revenue share payment through DS. Other eHow writers will have to apply for the ability to do that. I don't know at this time if that is something I will do with any regularity.For me it will depend on the following:

1. What is the publishing experience like at DS, especially as it relates to copy editors and having articles approved?
2. Is the DS revenue share payment algorithm as lucrative as the WCP has been? (On the forums, Julie the Community Manager, assured me that the DS algorithm was based on the WCP one, but I'm not sure exactly what that means.)

As Oprah would say, here is what I know for sure:

• I won't be removing my current articles that are up at eHow, as others have suggested they are doing. In fact, I'll continue to drive traffic to them in an effort to keep their earnings rising.
• I'm especially glad that I undertook the Xomba experiment as it helped me with the point listed above and also gave me some experience writing extensively for a new platform. (Here's a quick update: my Xomba earnings now stand at $16+ plus, primarily from creating bookmarks to my eHow articles.)
• I will continue to explore other methods of building residual income, like the Mr. Rebates passive income stream I posted about earlier today.

What are your thoughts on what is going down at eHow? What are you plans for moving forward?

Another Great Source of Passive Income: Mr. Rebates Referrals

Last week I received a deposit of $110 in my Paypal account but it wasn't from eHow. It was from another great source of passive income for me: Mr. Rebates. In fact, so far this year I've been paid  almost $500 from Mr. Rebates. My deposits have looked like this:

• January: $240.14
• February: $83.85
• March: $62.47
• April: $110.41

Most people know Mr. Rebates as a site where you can earn cash back rebates on your online shopping. They're great for that; I use them for a lot of my online shopping. But the fact is that of the $497 I've earned with them this year, only $2.50 was a rebate for shopping I did. The rest were referral commissions. You see, when you refer someone to Mr. Rebates you get 20% of the rebate amounts that they earn. Forever. And it doesn't cost the person you referred anything. Their rebates are the same either way.

There are other sites where you can earn money for referring people: Cashbaq, Ebates, and Big Crumbs just to name a few. But I've had the most success by far with Mr. Rebates. If you're interested in creating a passive income stream with Mr. Rebates here are some things you need to know to get started:

1. Signing up with Mr. Rebates is free. In fact, it's better than free. You get a $5 signup bonus credited to your account.
2. Mr. Rebates has over 2000 stores and many are places where you probably already shop: Dell, Overstock, JCPenney, and Best Buy to name a few.
3. Mr. Rebates pays once a month You can request a payout via either check or Paypal once your account reaches $10 (including your signup bonus and any referral commissions). I used to request payouts sporadically but now that my referral commissions are more significant I request a payout monthly. 
4. Mr. Rebates is rated 'A' by the Better Business Bureau. I have had numerous payouts from them for both shopping rebates and referral commissions and have never had an issue.

You can refer people to Mr. Rebates via a number of both online and offline methods. That includes flyers, business cards, article writing, emails, etc.If you're interested in using Mr. Rebates to create a passive income stream for yourself, I would suggest signing up for free (affiliate link), exploring the website and making a purchase or two through Mr. Rebates to see how it works, and then choosing one or more referral methods to begin referring others.

If you have any questions about Mr. Rebates or creating passive income in this way, don't hesitate to let me know. I'll be happy to answer anything I can. For more information about this type of residual income stream, see Make Money with Cash Back Sites. Or if you're just interested in saving some money on your online shopping, visit my blog Shopping With Mr. Rebates.

eHow Earnings are Back on the Rise!

March turned out to be my best month ever on eHow. My earnings were $225.98, nearly 10% higher than my previous high. This brings my total earnings at eHow to over $3000! That's an exciting milestone for me.

I did very little writing in March so I think this has to do with eHow fixing the UK issues as well as some backlinking I've been doing to my eHow articles from Xomba. Residual income is wonderful!

Speaking of residual income, I plan to soon share some details about another great source of residual income for me. If you're interested in passive/residual income I hope you'll subscribe and stay tuned for more information.

How was your March at eHow or otherwise? Hope it was happy and prosperous!

Related info: Want to see your eHow earnings rise? Read my new, longer review of Writergig's eHow ebook.

A New Review of Writergig's eHow Ebook

I've already reviewed Writergig's Ebook, How to Creative Passive Income on eHow.com on this blog and I have interviewed her as well. Recently I wrote a much longer, more detailed review of her book. Over 1000 words total. I hope you'll take a moment to check it out!

A Change at Xomba

If you're confused by Xombytes and Xomblurbs when writing at Xomba, you don't need to be confused any longer. Xomba is now simply referring to them as Articles and Bookmarks, which is a lot less confusing. To summarize:

Bookmarks (the old Xomblurbs) allow you to link to any other site or article on the web - including your eHow articles - by just copying the URL and writing a 50 word description. Articles (the old Xombytes) are full-blown articles, but are still very easy to write with only 150 words required. I can usually create a Bookmark of one of my eHow articles in under a minute.

I am still in the process of bookmarking all of my eHow articles on Xomba. I like the idea of backlinking all of my eHow articles and creating an additional residual income stream for me at the same time. To date I have written eight articles and entered 161 bookmarks at Xomba and have earned $10.92 in the process.

Read an Ebook Week: My eHow Ebook Recommendations

I love ebooks. I first took a chance on one before I really even knew what they were - back in 2001 - when I bought a 'how to sell your home by owner' ebook. I bought it, read it, and sold our house in six days for almost full asking price. That ebook gave me the information I needed to do that and I've been an ebook believer ever since.

So I was excited to learn that this week is Read an Ebook Week. I'm a little late to the party since today is the last day, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to share my favorite eHow ebook: Writergig's How to Earn Passive Income at Ehow.com. As I've mentioned before, Writergig was the first person who showed me what was possible with eHow. Here's how she puts it into perspective:

"You'd need $240,000 in the bank at 5% interest to earn $1000 a month in residuals...but I earn more than that each month from my "bank" of eHow articles." - Writergig

Powerful, isn't it? If you'd like to know more about Writergig, you can read my interview with her here.

Here are some other interviews by eHow ebook authors:

• Cyn Vela
• Anthony Delgado
• Annalise Kaylor
• Janet Ford

And, finally, my compare and contrast review of four top eHow ebooks.

Happy reading and happy Read an Ebook Week!

My Thoughts on the Future of the Writer's Compensation Program at eHow

There has been a lot of speculation on the eHow forums and on message boards and blogs all over the internet about eHow's plans for the Writer's Compensation Program (WCP). I'd like to share my thoughts on the issue, but want to point out that I have absolutely no inside knowledge of the issue and no real beef with eHow. This is only my opinion based on a year and a half of active participation in the site.

First some background:

Basically, there are two kinds of writers on eHow, although some of us fall into both of these categories:

1. Writers who signed up for free accounts through eHow and participate in the WCP. These writers put up articles on topics of their choice and are paid exclusively through a revenue share arrangement with eHow. Articles written by these writers are identified as 'User-Submitted Article' under the author's name on the eHow website.
2. Writers who have applied and been approved to write for Demand Studios and are paid by them. Demand Studios writers write articles by choosing titles generated by Demand Studios and are paid either a flat fee or a revenue share, depending on the article. Articles written by these writers are identified as 'eHow Contributing Writer' under the author's name on the eHow site.

I have spent the bulk of my time writing as a WCP writer because I much prefer the experience over writing pre-selected titles and I think the revenue potential is greater. Having said that, I think it's clear that eHow is focusing on the Demand Studios writer and that the DS writer is the future of the site as is evidenced by:

• Providing a health insurance option for them.
• Creating a beta group of DS writers to be paid $80/article.
• Focus on the DS model in comments by Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt.

Additionally, there just doesn't seem to be much attempt to keep the WCP writers happy. Communication with these writers is poor and the bugs on the site are almost enough to drive anyone away. It's not that I think they don't care, I just don't get the sense that the WCP is the focus or priority it once was.

Having said all that, I will still continue to write at eHow. Why? Well, the search engine results and article compensation are great. Additionally, if they do decide to discontinue the WCP, I have no idea when that will be so I keep writing until it happens. It may be far enough down the road that I have time to generate some nice earnings in the meantime. Finally, if they decide to discontinue the WCP there is always the chance that they will choose to 1. keep it open to existing writers or 2. grandfather in the WCP articles that exist on the site and continue to pay revenue share on them. In any of these cases, it is worth my while to continue writing at eHow.

The bottom line is that we just don't know what will happen with eHow and, frankly, that is the case with any site we choose to write for. We are always at the mercy of those who own the site. That doesn't make it an inherently bad situation; it's just something to always keep in mind.

It is worth noting that the eHow community managers have said there are no plans to discontinue the WCP. I believe that they believe that to be the case so I take them at their word. What I am saying is that it is obvious to me the WCP doesn't seem to be the focus of the site and that could result in the WCP experience continuing to get more frustrating and less rewarding. Everyone has to make their own cost/benefit analysis when it comes to writing at eHow or any site.

I will always be grateful to eHow for introducing me to revenue share writing. I've learned a ton from the community and by writing there. I had almost no knowledge of SEO or keywords or affiliate marketing before eHow and now I do. And I've met some amazing people there (both online and in person). It's almost like eHow is my 'first love' when it comes to writing and internet marketing. :-)

Whether or not you continue to write for eHow (and, as I said, I plan to continue) it is to your benefit to diversify by writing on other revenue sharing sites and maybe even creating some sites of your own. I'm having a ton of fun (and some good results) writing for Xomba and I plan to expand to other sites as well. It just makes good sense.

The good news is that you can leverage the writing you've done at eHow to help you on other sites. Write on the topics that have proven to be winners for you at eHow. Create backlinks to your eHow articles and earn a revenue share in the process. Re-write your eHow articles in other formats and you have ready-made content for other sites. There are lots of possibilities and you may find yourself re-energized like you felt when you first discovered eHow.

So that is my opinion for what it is worth. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on the issue.

February Update: eHow and Xomba Earnings

eHow Earnings

eHow earnings seem to be getting back on track. My February earnings were $183.59, a 15%+ increase over January. They still haven't rebounded back to my October high of $205 but I do feel we're moving in the right direction. As I like to point out every month, almost all of this was residual income as I only wrote five eHow article in Feburary.

Xomba Earnings

While eHow was having publishing issues in February, I began an experiment using Xomba to build a residual income stream while creating backlinks to my eHow articles. I posted my first Xomblurb (a link to an eHow article with a 50 word description) on February 18. Since that time I have posted approximately 90 more Xomblurbs linking to my eHow articles, which I estimate has taken me only a couple of hours to do because these 50 word blurbs are so easy to write.

Last Friday I told you my Xomba earnings stood at $4.35. Today they're at $5.99 so they continue to grow.  I love this for two reasons:

1. Like eHow, Xomba is another source of residual income and I've become very passionate about residual income.
2. The income I earn at Xomba is primarily a result of creating links to my eHow articles, so it is win/win.

I'd love to hear how your February turned out, both at eHow and at other online sites. I hope you'll take a moment to share.

Making Money with Xomba

In the comments of my last Xomba post, Gayle asked me if I had any tips on writing for Xomba. Keeping in mind that I've only been focused on Xomba for a little over a week or so, these are some of the things I'm doing that might be helping with my Xomba earnings:


1. If at all possible, become a Featured Author as it increases your exposure on the site. I am a Featured Author for Business and Entrepreneurs and there is another opening in that category. (There are two Featured Authors in each category.) There are openings in several other categories as well. Pick something you have some experience with and use your eHow articles as part of your 'resume'.

Your only requirement to keep your status as a Featured Author is to write one Xombyte (minimum 150 word article) every two weeks and post it in your category. That is so easy to do! You are free to write in other categories as well.

2.  Vote for your Xombyte or Xomblurb once you have posted it. Content is featured on the site, based in part on the number of votes it gets. In some cases it doesn't seem to take very many votes to get your byte or blurb featured.

3. Post lots of content. As I mentioned in my last post, it takes almost no time to write a Xomblurb. I estimate two minutes or less. If you look at my list of Xomblurbs you can see that their posting times are all 2-4 minutes apart. That includes the time it takes to copy and paste my eHow link, type in a title, choose a category, type in five tag words, type my 50 word description, and submit the blurb. In a few cases I even uploaded a picture.

You won't believe how easy it is to post a Xomblurb until you try it yourself. Consider doing ten a day until your entire eHow library is linked to.

That's really all I've done so far to generate $4.35 in earnings and put up backlinks to 70+  of my eHow articles in about a week's time. If my Xomba experiment continues to go well I will probably work on some other things like including affiliate links and linking my Xomba articles together to see if I can bump the earnings even more.

Remember, Xomba also rewards you for referrals to the site with 10% of your referrals' earnings. The 10% comes out of Xomba's cut, not the writer's so you can feel good about generating residual income this way as well. The links in this blog post are my referral links. I hope you'll consider signing up for Xomba using one of m y referral links, but either way, please request me as a friend once you're there!

The Xomba Experiment: Backlinks and Earnings

During eHow's recent publishing issues I was looking around for another site on which to write. Like a lot of people I've dabbled a little with other sites, but this time I decided to be a little more focused and pick one site and stick with it for a while. My goal was to build backlinks to my eHow articles while earning some money for my efforts.

I decided to focus first on Xomba for the following reasons:

1. Xomba has something called Xomblurbs, which are basically just bookmarks of other online sites. With a Xomblurb you can link to an eHow article. It requires a 50 word description of the article you are linking to, which I found can be done in a minute or less.
2. Xomba is looking for Featured Authors in various categories and it's very easy to become one. I applied for the Business and Entrepreneurs Featured Author and was approved and on site within the day. In order to keep my position I need only write a new Xombyte (150 word articles) in my category once every two weeks.

So, here are the results of my Xomba experience about one week in:

I've written 2 Xombytes (full articles) and 70 Xomblurbs (50 word links to my eHow articles). My goal is to have Xomblurbs with links to all 200+ of my eHow articles within the next couple of week. Xomblurbs honestly take me just a minute or two to write and they're actually kind of fun to do. And the publishing with Xomba is reliable and seamless...a nice change from eHow! :-)

I'm sure you're wondering about earnings. In the last week I've earned $4.35 at Xomba. That really got my attention! All of this was done primarily by building links to my eHow articles and currently I have links to less than half. Imagine when all my articles are linked. Again, I've found it takes about a minute (as in 60 seconds) to write a Xomblurb linking to an eHow article.

Here are what I consider to be the pros and cons of Xomba:

Pros:

• Easy (and free) to sign up.
• Reliable publishing and good customer service.
• FAST indexing. It's not unusual to see my Xomba content in the search engines the same day. Many times my Xomba results is right there alongside my eHow result.
• Ability to use affiliate links in Xomba content. As you may know, eHow just set a policy prohibiting this. I read of one person online who is having good results just writing short reviews on Xomba and linking to Amazon products with affiliate links. I think this has a lot of potential.
• Ability to become a Featured Author.

Cons:

• 50/50 Adsense split is not the most generous out there. (Having said that, I've been happy with my Xomba earnings.)
• Links on Xomba are not 'do follow' links. 'Do Follow' links carry more juice as backlinks so this is a drawback.

I'll update you with my continuing Xomba experiment over the next few weeks. As I said, my goal is to get all of my eHow articles backlinked with Xomblurbs and to write at least enough in the way of Xombytes to keep my Featured Author status.

It might be worth it to you as an eHow writer to conduct your own Xomba experiment by creating Xomblurbs with links to your eHow articles. The time investment is not great so there's not much to lose. You can sign up with Xomba for free here. (You'll need a Google Adsense account to earn with Xomba. If you don't have one, there are easy instructions on how to get one under Xomba's help tab.)

Disclosure: The Xomba links in this post are referral links. That brings up another way to earn with Xomba: you earn 10% of your referrals' earnings and the amount comes from Xomba's cut, not the writer's cut. It's another good source of residual income. I feel that I should point out, however, that none of my earnings listed above came from referral income because I didn't have any referrals during that week. So it is possible to earn income at Xomba just from writing and linking.

Choosing eHow Keywords with the Google Keyword Tool

Wondering how to write eHow articles that pay? Well a helpful guy named Nate (barrelroll on eHow) has written a free, one-page guide on how to pick profitable keywords with the Google Keyword Tool. Nate has been writing on eHow for less than a year and his earnings have grown to over $650 per month.

Take five minutes and see if you can't learn something from Nate's free article about using a free keyword tool. It's the most 'to the point' explanation I've ever read.

Write for eHow is Now on Facebook!

If you're a reader of this blog and also on Facebook, consider becoming a fan of my new Facebook page. And if you're not on Facebook, consider this an invitation to join. The social and professional networking possibilities are amazing! And it's a lot of fun too.

Write for eHow on Facebook

A Two Month eHow Earnings Update

I see that it's been two months since I've updated my eHow earnings on this blog. Like a lot of eHow writers, I suffered a dip in earnings during December and January. After two consecutive months (October and November) of $200+ earnings, my December earnings were $189.85 and January's were $158.54. Ouch.

How much of this was due to the UK fiasco at eHow, I'm not sure. With the earnings algorithm kept secret, we never really know. I do know that eHow has made good on their promise to give us a little bonus in earnings in January to make up for the lost UK earnings. My January payment ended up being $175.55, which amounted to a $17 bonus.

The good news in all of this? It's the same as always: residual income. I wrote exactly one article in December and one in January, which means my earnings for those two months, $365.40, were almost entirely passive income! I love that!

So despite the poor communication, and the buggy site, and the monthly rule changes, I plan to continue writing at eHow. It's still fun for me to come up with how-to articles and put them up on the site and see how they do. Some of the ones that become successful continue to surprise me.

Speaking of successful eHow articles, back in June I blogged about my first $100 article. Since that time, that article has almost reached the $200 mark. In fact, three more of my articles have now passed the $100 mark and three more are within $10 of doing so. So it shouldn't be long before I have seven $100+ articles.

There is no way I could have predicted that these would be the articles to cross the barrier and do so well. While I have learned a ton about key word research and still employ it, there is still a lot of mystery and luck involved when it comes to making money online.

So how's that for a silver lining for these past two dreary months? Residual income and $100+ articles are what we'll keep me plugging on at eHow. How have your earnings been?

Related info: Learn how to make money with eHow from one of it's top earning writers. This is the person who first showed me the earning power of eHow and how to harness it!

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