12/13/13

Writing Articles for Upfront Pay vs Writing for Revenue Share Sites


Have you ever read a freelance writing blog or website that tells you how AWESOME revenue share sites are for earning extra income? Usually, those tips are written by freelance writers who work from home and earn a bit of pocket change working on some cheap-skate revenue share sites.

Now, don't get me wrong - there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with earning a few extra bucks on the side from your writing efforts. Good for you! It's a great way to earn some pocket money.

What I'm talking about are those freelance writers who really want to make a real, sustainable, full-time income from their writing skills. You won't find any realistic tips to further your freelance writing career by following the advice from someone who earns a few pennies per hour on a revenue-share site.

How do I know this? I've joined up and made contributions to a few of those sites in the name of being able to research my reviews honestly and thoroughly. You can see two of them here:

Bubblews - http://ravens-writing.blogspot.com/2013/10/can-you-really-earn-money-writing-for.html
HubPages - http://ravens-writing.blogspot.com/2013/04/more-passive-income-from-freelance.html

All the freelance writing "tips" you've read from other beginners tell you it's a good idea to write lots and lots and lots of articles. Unless you're on Bubblews, then you're told to write lots and lots and lots of posts that their community call "bubbles".

You're also told not to expect much while you're still starting out. Rather, you're encouraged to keep submitting more content to a website you don't own and you don't control so those faceless website owners can get richer off your efforts while your popularity is still growing.

Let's Do Some Math...

I hear you groaning over there "oh, Bianca you're such a math-nerd". But seriously, math can be awesome fun for proving where your time and writing efforts are better spent.

Let's assume you spend 5 hours per day writing articles or posts for a revenue-share site, such as Bubblews. You spend another hour finding ways to promote your articles and entice other people to read them so you can earn a few extra pennies. You connect to a lot of other people, read their stuff, leave a comment and hope like crazy they bother to read yours in return.

By the end of the week, you've worked 30 hours and you've earned $25 (if you're lucky). YAY! That's less than a dollar an hour... if you can manage to get page views high enough... if you can get that many people viewing your articles... if the site's advertisers actually pay enough to warrant paying you a few cents for that post...if the site's cheap web-hosts actually keep the site online long enough for you to post anything on there...

If you do the same thing for 12 months, you'll have earned a grand total of $1,300... maybe. Remember, the amount you earn is shared revenue. If the site you're writing on loses their advertisers or changes their advertising modules, or if Google changes their algorithms again, your income could easily go way DOWN. You're also heavily dependent on making sure you can get lots and lots and lots of people to view your articles or posts.

Every. Single. Day....

All year long. Without stopping.

What's the Alternative?

Now let's look at it a different way. Let's assume you spend two hours writing a well-researched, well-written 700 word article and you submit it to a good marketplace like Constant Content or Ghostbloggers or Daily Article. You charge $78 for your effort. The marketplace takes their cut and you're left with $50 in your pocket that you get paid for right away.

You've earned $50 for 2 hours work. That's $25 per hour. Not awesome, but certainly not bad. Imagine spending 30 hours per week doing the same thing? That's a potential income of $750 per week if you did this full time. That's money you receive right now without having to spend hours promoting someone else's site or spend waste time commenting/liking/interacting. You simply move onto the next order.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Let's just stick with spending only two hours a week, writing one single, solitary article per week at $50 per piece. You put that in the bank and you earn 4% interest on your earnings. After 12 months, you have a guaranteed $2,704.12 in your account. Not a bad effort for 2 hours work per week.

It's also more than double what you could earn if you spent wasted your time on a crappy $1 per hour revenue-share site and the money is guaranteed. It's not a guess. It's not a maybe. That money is yours.

How does it look side by side:


Revenue-Share Site
Selling Articles
Words Written
100 per post
700 per article
Number of pieces written
20
1
Sub-total words per week
2,000 (+words written for comments)
700
Number of comments left
100 (about 20 words per comment = 2,000)
0
Total words per week
4,000
700
Number of connections required
50
0
Time spent per week
30
2
Amount earned
$25 (maybe)
$50 (after fees)
Earnings after 1 year
$1,300
$2,600
Guaranteed Payment
No
Yes

Okay, so based on this example I know I would rather spend 2 hours earning $50 I can spend right NOW than spending 30 hours earning a variable and unpredictable amount of money that may never arrive. Besides, once I've earned my money, I can go hang out at the beach or in my boat and relax and enjoy the company of my husband and my daughter and my dog and the rest of my family. I'm not "bubbling" for 12-13 hours a day into the small hours of the night to earn an extra 3 cents.

Of course, I happen to work more than 35 hours per week writing articles for various clients and marketplaces ,so I do earn more than the examples shown here. It's not difficult. It's not slavery. It's not rocket science.

However, if you're still starting out 2 hours per week is a great start for someone wanting to start replacing income from a job with writing income. It's also a very handy part-time income for anyone already earning money elsewhere.

Comparing Accurately

Just to ensure that I'm giving accurate comparisons, in the past month I spent 30 minutes per day - AFTER I'd finished actual properly and respectfully paid writing assignments - spending wasting time on Bubblews to see whether the "claims" of various bubblers were actually true.
(here's the original post: http://ravens-writing.blogspot.com/2013/10/can-you-really-earn-money-writing-for.html)

Yes, I got paid twice - despite the fact that lots of writers don't get paid by this site. If I spent 30 minutes per day on the site I earned a little more than $25 per month.

If I spent 30 minutes per day writing articles, I earned $50 per day which adds up to more than $1,100 per month. TWO HOURS PER DAY compared to more than 30 hours a week....

Gee... let me think for a moment.... Um $25 per MONTH on a crappy revenue-share site paying pennies or $50 per DAY? Hmmmm.... take a moment.... think about it.... what would you do?

Get the idea?

Even if you sold your articles for $10 each and write five articles per week, you're still earning $50 per week, which is still $200 per month - and still far more profitable than spending wasting time on a site like Bubblews.

Math lesson over.

19 comments:

PA said...

Yeah, math lesson is over! I agree with you, I definitely agree with you, but I will figure out if my writing skill would sell in these portals, any idea?

Lee said...

I think you're pushing a no-win cause here, Bianca. Those people willing to write for a few pennies per hour will never have enough confidence in their own abilities to aim at proper freelance incomes for their time or effort. I applaud your efforts to help them break out of the slave-labor ranks, but I think your efforts are in vain.

parsibagan said...

Hi Angel, I signed up with `GhostBloggers' today as a `content provider.' However, post confirmation, I am redirected to their `buyer' section. I have emailed their support section. Let me wait for their reply.

Daily Articles has provided me with some good income. The highest amount that I received for a single article from that site was $35 (after deducting their commission).

Will keep you updated. What peeves me is that most overseas sites only accept native-English writers. You'll be petrified if you read articles by some of their writers. I cannot understand the reason behind this discrimination.

Cheers & Sunshine,

Sanjay aka Parsi

work from home said...

Nice And Informative Website. Please Keep Continue Such Kind Of Effort. Contact Us For freeancing or home based job works. We Deal In online part time jobs, online job sites, freelance writing, data entry jobs, freelance sites, business card designAnd Other Company Related Freelancing or digital makrkiting services.. Our Website- https://broxer.com/work-from-home/https://broxer.com/work-from-home/

FanStory said...

Thanks for the awesome blog. I really like how you included the restrictions for the different contests as well.
Poetry Websites

jhon said...

advertising, business, email marketing, facebook services, fun and bizarre, gift ideas, graphics, music & audio, programming, SEO, silly stuff, social marketing, technology, tips & advice, twitter services, video, writing, youtube servicesniche relevant backlinks

Unknown said...

I am grateful to you on the grounds that your article is exceptionally useful for me to continue with my exploration in same region. Your cited illustrations are all that much significant to my exploration field.This is extraordinary! It really exhibits to me where to broaden my online diary
วาดการ์ตูน SD

lettyharry said...

I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own BlogEngine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.
ตัดต่อวีดีโอ

sandeep kumar said...


ResGenesis is a large and rapidly growing community for screened, talented. Freelance opportunities are high in marketplace and see how working with ResGenesis.com
freelance

Harish Kumar said...

"This is a really good tip particularly to those fresh
to the blogosphere. Simple but very precise info… Thank you for sharing this one.
A must read the post! Blogging
"

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing such an informative blog. I appreciate Academic blogs

Academic Writing Help

WomenFreelancer said...

Informative blog for those who prefer freelancing over the 9-5 job,
This blog is being helpful for all the job-seeker.
Thanks for providing the information.
If you are a freelancer and looking for an opportunity then register at @WomenFreelancer

Jahangir Khatri said...

i have entre most of the articles re your website now, and i basically following your fashion of running a blog. I bonus it to my favorites weblog web page list and might be checking sponsorship soon. Please test out my web site as ably and take me know what you think. How to make freelance business look professional

Unknown said...

Amazing blog i really like your blog studioawest

Moin khan chouhan said...



website content writer


Are you looking for a website content writer? Loop of Words offers the best website content writing services for your website promoting. Call us - +91-9654937973



http://www.loopofwords.com/website-content-2/

Mouni said...

Resources like the one you mentioned here will be very useful to me ! I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful
Best Content Writing Services in Mumbai
Best Content Writing Services in India

Rockerstop - Freelancing Sites in India said...

Nice Post…

I’m having interesting information regarding Freelancing Site in India, Hire Freelancers India, Hire A Freelancer in India and Best Freelance Websites India

parsibagan said...

Too much spamming on this thread.

celebwiki said...

I'm trying to find out what the most popular blogs are when it comes to news and views and cell phone stuff whatsapp video status ..