Share revenue is the way the majority of paying websites work. You get paid depending on how many views the ads that accompany your articles get. The sites usually have a once-per-month payment to a PayPal account. With revenue share websites, you have to wrap your head around the fact that they are long-term money-makers. You won’t be taking a Caribbean vacation anytime soon in the payout from such websites but you can in time.
List My Five appears to be an up and coming share revenue website. You can pick any topic you wish and write a top five list on the subject. Popular reads on the site include the Top 5 Jokes About Chuck Norris, Top 5 Highest Paying Careers in America, and Top 5 Signs of Heart Attacks in Women. As you see, any subject goes. But List My Five is relatively new in the revenue sharing website game and earnings are minimal until it builds up readership and gains Google AdShare power.
As of press time, Canadians can join List My Five and make lists but they can’t collect payment. The website states, “List My Five WCP participation will be available for Canadian citizens and other countries shortly.” If you decide to opt in to the website, keep an eye on whether they have the ability to pay Canadians.
Demand Studios is a favourite website to write for if you are looking for a quick paycheque. Demand pays twice a week to your PayPal account and they always pay on time. Once you are accepted as a writer for them, you choose from a constantly changing list of titles to write from. I write for Demand when I need extra cash to pay the electrical bill and have done articles including Restaurants Near the Beverly Hills Hotel, Sympathy Gift Ideas for Teens, and Specifications for a 2500 International Backhoe. As you can see, the topics run a wide gamut. They have nitpicky guidelines but after a couple articles, you get used to the requirements. The majority of articles for Demand are posted on eHow and LiveStrong. The typical pay is $7.50 for a 200 word blurb and $15 for a 400-500 word article.
Demand Studios does have its critics. Some of the editors can be unrealistic and the frustrations are too much for some writers to tolerate. If you can ignore the politics of Demand and look at it as a business, you can make some decent cash.
Suite 101 needs to be thought of as a long-term investment in your writing. The way it works is that every time someone clicks on one of the ads that Google runs alongside your article, you get a share of the revenue. It varies greatly from article to article and you won't know which ones will do the best until you start seeing your statistics. The more you can learn about search engine optimization and keywords, the more page views you are likely to get which can lead to greater revenue for you. You can republish your work from print magazines on Suite 101 but nothing that you've already distributed online can be reposted. I write for Suite 101 and when I first started I was getting a few pennies a day; now I average about a dollar a day. It doesn't sound like much but when you see your revenue exponentially increase as you post more articles on the site and get more page views, you can see the potential in the long run. As a bonus, it is nice to continue to get paid for the work for years to come.
Tom Gray writes for Suite 101 and shares his experience, “I am not a "newbie" writer; I came to Suite101 with almost 150 items in print. I came to Suite101 with the intent of recycling some of that old material, but soon learned that online writing is a whole new field. So I was a slow starter, and it took me two months to make $10. I almost quit several times, but the support of editors and other writers was invaluable (it's a true writers' community) and did continue, to eventual success. It's not real wealth, but my Suite101 earnings accrued over the past year will go a long way to paying for our two months down in Arizona.” Gray is a snowbird that continues to write for Suite 101 while in a warmer climate.
Associated Content is another popular website with writers looking for paying gigs. Like many of the other sites, it pays better to think of it as a long term monetary gain website; the more work you get on the site, the more money you will make. You choose a topic to specialize in and then you pick articles from the assignment desk (basically a list of articles). They will offer you an upfront payment – around $2 in the beginning but the upfront payment can be $10 and up – and then you get additional payment based on your page clicks. That figure varies but in the beginning it averages around $1.50 per 1,000 page views. The more views your articles get, the higher your rate will be for page views. You also get a couple of assignments given to you each month in your topic.
Factoidz is a revenue share site similar to Associated Content. You get a small upfront payment and then you get additional payment based on the number of page views your article receives. You also get bonuses as you publish more pieces; consistency is key.
Bright Hub is like Factoidz and Associated Content. One complaint about Bright Hub is that it is overly complicated so put on your thinking cap when you check out the website.
This is obviously just a tiny sample of the writing opportunities available online. There are many other websites I didn’t have the opportunity to mention – Article Income, Text Break Studios, Broker, All Voices, Constant Content, Answer Bag, Examiner, Life Tips, Bukisa, Firehow, Fixya, Helium, Hubpages, InfoBarrel, Knol, Natural News, Triond, Wise Bread, Wise Geek, Seed, and Squidoo, among many other – and they may be profitable writing opportunities.
If you decide to give online writing a try, good luck!
Toby Welch - Toby is a full-time freelance writer who specializes in magazine articles, online writing, e-books, and manuscript editing.
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