There are a variety of ways you can get paid for writing articles. You can get paid $40 cash upfront for articles, you can get paid as a share of advertising, or you can get paid on a pay per view basis. To get paid for articles you write, they have to be carefully researched and well written.
Get Paid Upfront For Writing Articles
Forget Elance and Freelancer. There are too many writers on those sites who are prepared to write 1,000 word articles for $2 each. You cannot compete with them.
There are four websites worth considering where you get paid upfront for writing articles:
- Textbroker
- Constant Content
- Break Studios
- Demand Studios
Textbrokers – Pay is 1-2 cents per word, but the work is simple and you can run off a 200 word article in 15 minutes. Pay every two weeks, by PayPal. If the description of the required piece is too long then that might be an indication that you will be dealing with someone who is over critical, and who will demand endless rewrites-These people are not worth dealing with for this price. If you do come across unreasonable demands, just cancel the job.
Constant Content – Get paid $20-50 for writing 500 word articles. Requirements are strict, but reasonable. Article titles and subjects are reasonable.
Break Studios – Simple work, you can get paid $8 for writing articles that take 15 minutes to write. Writers here report that the pay is good for the standard ands amount of work required
Demand Studios – NOT recommended. It can take 30 minutes just to find a title, then four days to write one of their articles. Titles are ridiculous, such as, “How To Find Replacement Wheel Nuts for a Ford P200 In Nowhere City, Texas”. Their requirements are totally unreasonable for the price they pay ($15) and the endless rewrites that their editors demand. As a new writer you will only get paid for writing How To type articles, which are written for eHow.com, a website that has a terrible reputation for the way they reportedly treat their writers.
Upfront payments are worthwhile if you have an urgent need for cash, but you only get paid the once, and you have to keep writing many hours a day to earn a living.
Get Paid For Writing Articles As A Share of Advertizing Earned
This is a better long-term prospect than upfront payment sites because you get paid more for writing every article, taken over a two year period. You need to be choosy about which sites you write for because you are going to be investing a large portion of your time in writing these articles.
Factors you need to consider include:
- Is the management trustworthy? There needs to be just as much trust as there is between you and your bank. You are investing irreplaceable time instead of money, so you need to be certain that your articles are not going to be deleted and replaced by management’s own articles once they start to earn well
- Are writers valued for their contribution? There are very few sites where management takes this attitude. An article site is a partnership between management, who provide the money, and writers who provide the time and knowledge. Some sites treat their writers as though the management are doing them a favor just allowing them to write there
- Is the payment system transparent and fair? Ideally the system will give you a set share of Adsense income every month, that share should be as high as possible. There should be no secret formulae used to calculate earnings and earnings should not be skewed towards popular writers to the disadvantage of new ones
- Are current writers happy? Search for the [website title] + forum or [website title] + review to find out whether there are large numbers of unhappy writers on the site. Checking an onsite forum is of limited use because some sites delete any thread that is critical of management, immediately it is started
- Do you like the atmosphere on the website? Yes getting paid for writing the articles is the main thing, but it’s better if you are happy while you are writing. If you enjoy your work you will be more productive and less stressed. Is the atmosphere a cooperative one or is there an emphasis on competition between writers
- Is the site growing? A younger website still has lots of potential growth, which is important if your income from articles you have written is to increase year on year
- Are all the good titles taken? On a younger site there will still be many good titles available
- Can you choose your own titles? Some sites only allow you to select titles from their list. You have to browse the list for the handful of titles that you feel able to write. It is best if a site has a list of suggested titles, but allows you to choose your own titles as well
- Can you write in more than one format? If a site only allows you to write in a How To format it is very limiting. An open format is much easier to write in
- Is there a helpful forum? Ideally, forum members should be helpful and welcoming to new members. Check back on previous ‘Introduce Yourself’ threads to see what welcome writers have been given
- Are emails answered? Email is the prime communication method on most sites where you get paid for writing articles. Send Admin an email about some query you have, real or imaginary. If you fail to get a response in a few working days, then assume that any email you sent will not be ansered
- Are thousands of articles deleted for no good reason? One top website has deleted thousands of highly articles that were earning excellent money for their writers and has replaced them with flat fee, commissioned articles, allowing the website to make more profit. Search for “Article Sweeps” to find out more
- Are management responsive? Are suggestions for improvements that are made in the forum taken up? Does management make changes that writers ask for?
There is only one site where you get paid for writing articles that meets all of these criteria, InfoBarrel.com. HubPages.com come second, but the atmosphere there is a highly competitive one, with writers’ articles (called “hubs” on this site) being ranked relative to each other.
Get Paid For Writing Articles On a Pay Per View Basis
This is a very poor option unless you are writing on very popular topics such as celebrities. These sites pay between 0.01cents and 0.3cents per view. They earn massive amounts from visitors clicking on ads that surround your articles, but only pass on a tiny fraction of that income to writers.
Pay per view sites encourage contributions from writers whose English is far from perfect. They also encourage very short contributions. These two factors are likely to lead to poor search engine rankings and fewer views than if you put your work onto your own blog.
Get Paid for Writing Articles On Multiple Sites
No writer should have all their articles on one website (Remember-“Article Sweeps”). Management and policies can change overnight.
As a writer you need to sign up for at least one of the upfront payment sites, because if you ever have an urgent need foe money you can spend a few days writing articles for these sites. You should also sign up for InfoBarrel and one other Adsense share site (for security of your writing income).