photo credit: doobybrain
One passive income stream that I started last year was writing articles for eHow. Writing these articles is an excellent way to generate some additional positive cash flow outside of writing posts for Passive Family Income. The debate still remains with many fellow personal finance bloggers about spending time writing articles for eHow (or other similar sites) versus writing articles for your own site. Obviously one has more control and ownership over writing articles on their own site. However, eHow allows one to diversify their passive income outside of a blog. Writing articles for eHow not only allows me to diversify my income streams, it provides a different platform to write non-personal finance articles. For example, I recently wrote a post about potty training your children. That would be a very long stretch to include on this site. I couldn’t see maintaining a niche site just to write about potty training, so I wrote the article on eHow. That article has brought in a whopping $.04 to date.
My final results are in for the past year. I wrote 5 new articles (last month) which was a very slow month for me, due to the holidays. I have goals for the current year to ramp up my production, so I should post well over 5 articles per month from now on. I also saw a slight 4.5% increase in my earnings last month compared to the prior month. With my proposed increase in production, I should start seeing some dramatic growth in the coming months. Here are my details for the past year -
- December
- Earnings – $8.54
- Articles Published – 5
- November
- Earnings – $8.16
- Articles Published – 8
- October
- Earnings – $7.82
- Articles Published – 3
- September
- Earnings – $1.46
- Articles Published – 6
GRAND TOTAL
- Earnings – $25.98
- Articles Published – 22
I published the following 5 new eHow articles during the month of December -
How to Drink Coke and Make Money
How to find Stock Quotes
How to learn Potty Training Techniques
How to find Auto Loan Rates that fit your budget
How to use Auto Loan Calculators
Here are some great How To articles written by a few of my friends on eHow, who are building their passive income streams. I can and will personally make use of all the these articles in my future endeavors.
- How to Form Your Own LLC: Form an LLC to Protect Your Blogging Empire – by chasingthebull
- How to Make Links Work for You: Build Back Links to your Blog to Earn More Money – by chasingthebull
- How to Take Vacations During a Recession – by mosscampion
- How to Prosper in the New Year – by WriterGig
- How to Create an Online Business – by Julie Mayfield
- How to Make Money with Live.com Cash Back – by TFMiser
- How to Generate Business Names Ideas – by TheWriteGuy
How is your passive income generation coming along?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Well done, you can really see the potential earnings here. I’m doing a similar thing myself (on Bukisa) and although I haven’t made any substantial amount, yet, I love the fact that the articles work for you as time goes on – nothing better than forgetting about it for a few days and then coming back and finding out that you’ve made money in that time
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Zoe – Thanks – I agree. I have not seen a substantial income yet either with eHow, but it is exciting seeing what other more established writers are making. Good luck to you with Bukisa!
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I see eHow as a long-term passive income experiment. Instead of rushing out and trying to write 500 articles in one year, I am trying to create an average of one per day. Over the course of 2009, this should translate into higher earnings. As long as eHow remains a viable place for writers to contribute their work, I will be there. Of course, I try and spread my work out to other sites as well (such as Bukisa and Today) in case something bad happens to eHow.
I appreciate the links.
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Dusty – I think the key is diversification (as is with most things in life). As you mention – spreading the work out between eHow, Bukisa, Today, etc. I currently only am writing on eHow but am thinking of starting to write for Today or maybe even Squidoo. The problem is having the time to support all these different sites. Best of luck to you!
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Writing for eHow takes times, I agree. Writing for Today only takes a few minutes a day. I am actually doing an experiment to see what would happen if I wrote short, simple posts every day for a month instead of writing longer posts three or four times a week. So far, it seems that if you write every day, your traffic levels actually increase, even though the posts are shorter.
I guess the shorter posts match people’s shorter attention spans. Myself, I prefer to read the longer, more developed posts that you and Pat produce.
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One thing I like about eHow is I can write on topics that are different than the purpose of my blog. I can also mix and match a bit. Plus it is fun. My main focus will always be my blog, but I like the other writing as well.
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Can you clarify for me: can you get paid multiple times for the same article over time? Just curious: because if so, I can definitely see how this would be a passive income stream worth pursuing!
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Steve – Absolutely! That is the beauty of it. eHow doesn’t pay you any up front fee. However, your articles have the potential of earning money over and over and over. The two downsides that many people argue are that you have to split the ad revenue with eHow and the possibility of them going out of business someday and your revenue stream drying up. I think as long as you diversify among your blog and other possible companies, you should be all set. Good luck to you!
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Dusty – I almost pulled the trigger the other day with Today but ran out of time. Do you get any affiliate sign-up? If so, I will create my account through you. Thanks for the kind words about my posts as well as Pat’s. I agree with you about Pat’s site – I find his posts very addicting.
Dawn – I agree. I can write about non personal finance topics on eHow with the chance of earning money. Let me know if you decide to change your eHow name so I can start promoting your articles!
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