One of the latest passive income streams that I have started is writing articles for eHow. In fact, I just published my first article this morning on eHow. The article is titled How to sell covered call options. I have always had a passion for options trading, which is also on my list of passive income streams. Recently, I have been asked by several readers to write some posts on my experience trading options as an income stream. I thought that this article would be the logical choice for my first attempt at writing for eHow. If you get the chance, take a look at it and let me know what you think.
Writing articles to earn income is something that I have been doing for some time on PFI. I have written several sponsored posts in the past few months for SocialSpark and PayPerPost. I have had good success in writing articles for both of these social networks to date, and have earned a decent amount of income by writing these posts. However, one of the downsides of writing articles for these social networking sites is that you don’t get to choose the topic and must follow the guidelines laid out by the advertiser. While I try to select articles that fit with the overall personal finance theme of this site, it can be difficult making it work. In addition, once your posts have been approved, you get paid once. Since these advertisers will not allow you to put any other 3rd party advertisements within the post (such as Kontera), you are limited to one payment for your work. That really is not passive at all!
There are two aspects of writing articles to generate income on eHow that I really like when compared to SocialSpark or PayPerPost. The first item is that you get to write about what you know and like. Take my first article I mentioned above. I have experience trading options and really like to talk about it, so I wrote an article about how to use covered call options to generate income. The second item is that you have the opportunity to get paid over and over. I consider any article written on eHow as a residual income opportunity. While you are not guaranteed to get any payments for your work, you do have the opportunity to get paid for your work many times depending on the popularity and demand of your articles.
Do you write for eHow, SocialSpark, PayPerPost, or any other sites that pay you for your work? What types of experiences do you have? I would like to hear back from my readers to get their opinions on this topic!
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Dawn 09.05.08 at 10:41 am
I have posted a couple articles for eHow, but haven’t made any income off them yet. On the other hand, I am not sure that my articles would be high on the “must read” scale. Yours is a good one - certainly something not a lot of people know about and many people would like to!
Dawn 09.05.08 at 1:35 pm
pssssst. Just an FYI I nominated you for the Pay it Forward award. Its just a fun little thing between pf blogs.
The Family CEO 09.05.08 at 2:03 pm
Congrats! I have loved writing for eHow. In fact, I just posted my 100th article there. The residual income opportunities are tremendous.
Good luck to you!
Tight Fisted Miser 09.05.08 at 7:18 pm
That is a good article and I might actually use it someday. I might write something for eHow myself.
I’ve written a few articles for Associated Content. They pay you $3-$4 an article plus a small amount for page views a month. I’ve only been making pennies from the page views but it is passive income. If you could become one of the more popular writers it would be decent extra income.
Scott @ The Passive Dad 09.06.08 at 5:06 pm
I think you hit it right on when you said ehow allows you to write about what you enjoy. It’s tough to get excited about writing posts that are for products we would never use ourselves. ehow could be a great source of income. I’ll read your article this afternoon.
passivefamilyincome 09.08.08 at 7:42 am
Dawn - Thanks so much for the nomination! I am also interested in reading your articles on eHow. Do you mind forwarding me some of the links?
CEO - I got the idea and inspiration for starting to write on eHow from reading your blog. Thanks for all the helpful info!
Tight Fisted Miser - Thanks for the compliment! I have an account with Associated Content as well but have not written anything there yet.
Scott - I think we share the same feelings on this one. I have a lot more inspiration writing an article about trading options compared to promoting products. I am just trying to use those articles right now to generate some income until I start earning more income from my other sources.
Maria 10.17.08 at 9:58 pm
I am a huge fan of passive income from online writing! I have been writing eHow articles in my extra time for almost a year. I have already earned $1,000 in eHow residuals this month; I have 212 articles on the site in the Writers Compensation Program. This is one of the best revenue-sharing sites I’ve experienced so far.