Thursday, August 19, 2010

Killing Trolls and Backlink Score

Hey ya Mommas and Poppas. Grooviness, flowers and peace signs to you.

Yes, I am channeling hippies today. No, I don't now why either.

So there was some trolling last night on the wahm forums. Some guy who was doing so well writing for higher tier markets that he had the time to swoop down and lecture us lowly 'wimmin-folk' on how we could be doing so much better if we weren't lazy.

Yep, the troll called us lazy.

Well, here's a nice little tidbit that sums up why web content writing and passive revenue sites are good gigs.

I have a mere 100 articles on eHow. The last one I wrote was in February of this year. As of June, my earnings had already doubled over last year.

I am talking 4 figures here. As in thousands. of. dollars.

This is the beauty of passive revenue.

Unfortunately, the passive revenue market seems to be in flux now and I don't know if the business model will hold, which would be a huge bummer. For now, however, there's money to be made while I'm doing something else.

Dance while the band is still playing and all that.

This rocks. If I'm in the hospital, which I was earlier this year, I can still make money without worrying about deadlines or pleasing editors. If the baby is sick, I can give her my full attention. I can go on vacation and write it into a tax deduction. I can write about whatever topic I want. I can research and format as I wish.

I have no desire to garner a byline in more elite markets. Zero. I've done the 'writing is my passion' thing already. Have a few novels under my belt and have dealt with New York as well as agents (although I didn't end up selling a book, the editor flaked and quit their job which killed my book). I have published short fiction and hob-nobbed with big names in the writing world (who critiqued and mentored my work). I even started a very successful writing group that has yielded several published authors with multi-book deals.

And you know what? I'm over it! I. Don't. Care. At this stage in my life, I'm not about the glory, I'm about the money and there are a lot of pennies on the internet. If you get good at scooping them up, you can make bank.

Hey, more power to you if your dream is to write for the Big Boys and Girls. I'm not going to knock anyone for doing what makes them happy. But, it's not for me. Most magazines bore me to tears and the thought of writing the 50th annual Skin Cancer Warning Signs for Summer article (as if they haven't run a similar title every year since God was born) makes me contemplate suicide.

Not to mention book publishing is dying and is going to change so profoundly a lot of us won't recognize it anymore. So what's the point of chasing a book deal? May as well publish it myself (which I am hoping to do).

I don't want clients. I don't want hard editorial oversight (although some is okay). I just want to do my thing and make money. So far so good.

So there are my thoughts on all the 'elitists' running around so 'concerned' about those of us who don't aspire to be as 'successful' as them.

Here's a tip, go enjoy your success and stop trying to undermine ours. We don't care what you think and we don't need your approval either.

In other words, Suck It Troll.

In other news, squeeeeeeee, I got a good backlink on a niche site. Yay! Yay! Yay!

4 comments:

  1. yeah I have like 116 articles on eHow and 3 of them were written in 2010. My earnings so far this year are at $878. So yeah, they can suckit on my behalf, too.

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  2. Passive revenue is great, isn't it.

    Too bad eHow shut their doors. I know I could've made a thousand a month or more there. Wish I'd found them before 2009.

    M

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  3. I love your post! So true though. So many people feel the need to tell us we either are lazy or must just not be any good if we only make .02 a word(when we do write for clients-yep, I'm still doing a little of that)

    I thought about getting into the residual writing thing. I have a hubpages account that I set up to write a report about a little over a year ago. I posted maybe 5 or so articles, never made a penny for adsense, even up until now, but I also have not gone back to my account in forever.

    I recently set up a Squidoo account and was going to get started on that since I know someone who makes pretty good money on adsense and affiliate income there.

    I do write for BrightHub and we get paid a sum for each article as well as monthly residual. I have 5 articles on there now and 3 more I am working on this week. I made .17 in 2 weeks for 3 of those articles and thought that was a good enough start I guess. Not much, but some at least.

    Now that you say 20 articles could be a $1 a day, that is $30 a month. So, you said 100 articles on the other site. So with the same math, that would work out to $150 a month for those. So, what, roughly $1 an article per month? Sound close?

    I think I just came up with a plan. Thanks for your encouragement and I love that you are staying true to yourself and doing what you love to do in the way that you want making money on your own!

    You go girl!

    See you on the WAHM forum(kdbbiz is my name)

    Melanie

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  4. Hey Melanie: Thanks for the comment.

    On my earnings, oh no, I make quite a bit more than $1 an article on eHow. Between $2 to $4 per article per month. I will make somewhere between $30 to $40 per article this year on top of the $20+ I made last year, on the same articles.

    eHow was very very lucrative when the WCP was running.

    Suite101 at $1 per day with just 20 articles shows similar promise, although income there grows at a slower pace. I am excited about Suite and am trying to chug along to 50 articles, which is the first big milestone on passive revenue sites.

    I was looking at Brighthub, but it looks like they are pretty full--not very many openings right now.

    And I've never done well on Hubpages, haven't quite cracked that nut yet.

    Cheers
    M

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