Freelance Progress Report: October 2009

As you have probably noticed, I haven't been around much lately. It has been a crazy month with trying to balance everything. However, my class ends this week and I only have a couple weeks of clinicals left. Hopefully after those two things are out of the way I can have a little more time.

On a good note, October has been a month of firsts for me. I sold my first article. I met my income goal halfway through the month. I also hit $10 on Ehow so I can finally get a payout. It has also been my best month to date. I made $497.64. Considering all I have going on right now, I can't believe I did it.

No writing for Associated Content, Ecopywriters or Text Broker this month. Although I did get my PV bonus from AC.

The Breakdown
September PV bonus-$2.06
Total to date-$123.79


Ehow continues to earn for me. I finally made enough this month to reach payout, but still didn't write anything for them.

The Breakdown
October PV earnings-$3.21
Earnings to date-$11.90


NAA continues to be my big earner. I got lucky and participated in a "push" over the first weekend of the month. For those not familiar with NAA, a "push" is where they pay extra on articles for a specified amount of time in order to clear older jobs from the assignment board. I ended up doing 15 articles that paid $1.75 extra each, netting me an additional $26.25. The writing I did during the push as well as through the following week brought me my best week for writing income. $219.72, over half of my monthly goal.

I've also been earning tips this month.

I'm getting more article requests now. It is getting to where requests make up the bulk of my writing for NAA. This month two of my clients' orders somehow ended up with other writers. The two clients were not happy with the result and resubmitted the articles for me to do rather than accept the other writers' work. It's nice to be in demand.

The Breakdown
83 articles-$459.15
tips-$7.22
Total for month-$466.37
Total to date-$1205.37

This was my first month writing for Constant Content and I got off to a good start. My very first article sold exactly two weeks to the day I uploaded it.

The Breakdown
1 article-$40
Commission paid-$14
Total for month-$26

First Article Sold!

I joined Constant Content a while back, but got busy with my other writing sites and never did anything with it. For those who aren't familiar with the site, it's one in which you can upload articles to sell for usage, unique or full rights. You choose your price. You also have the option of entertaining offers.

If it sells, Constant Content takes a commission of 35% of the sale price. Provided you have made at least $5 for the month, you get paid on the following payday, which occurs the first week of every month.

Earlier this month, I finally got around to doing something with the site. I wrote an article in response to a request for content. The request was for a basic overview of tummy tucks, around 400 words. I uploaded my article and priced it at $40 for full rights.

Two weeks to the day it was uploaded, it sold. After Constant Content's commission, I netted $26. While losing 35% to commission smarted a bit, I can't complain too much. Even with paying commission, I still made 6.5 cent per word on the article.

Now that my first article went so well, I'm going to try to keep up the momentum. My goal is to upload an article or two per week, either in response to requests or as something I think might sell well.

*Photo by StockXchange user Rawkus.

Freelance Progress Report: September 2009

September got off to a bumpy start with first my husband, then my daughter and finally me getting sick. I ended up not working for pretty much the entire first week and have been playing catch up all month to try to get to my income goal. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it to my goal of $400. But considering I missed a week of work, I'm not displeased at coming in just $36.93 short. I ended up with $363.07 in writing income this month.

Since Ecopywriters is supposed to be implementing a system to cut down approval time, I decided to hold onto them for now. I did get paid for one of my articles, but the last one is still pending. I spoke to the operations manager and she said it should be paid soon. They haven't had much selection so I only managed two articles this month.

There was a little snafu with my payment. For some reason, Paypal blocked the payment even though it had let one through previously. I ended up having to go in and change some settings before it could go through. Then, Paypal charged me a fee. I'm a bit perturbed about that. While I know I can write it off as a business expense, I don't understand why I got charged a fee. According to Suz, payments were made the same way. Payments from other sites were not charged fees. Paypal says the transaction was coded as a purchase

The Breakdown
2 articles-$21.40
Total to date-$56.48

I'm really loving NAA. Most of my work this month was done for two clients. I did do occasional articles for other clients to give myself a break every once in a while. After writing so many articles on the two topics, I think it would be safe to call myself an expert. I'm really excited about the newest feature on the site. It is an option for clients to tip writers. I am curious to see how this affects my income.

The Breakdown
62 articles-$336.40
Total to date-$739

I had hoped to have time to work on a little for Associated Content and Ehow this month, but it didn't quite work out. Since they both provide residual income, I would like to increase this by adding a few more articles to each every month. If you stopped by Ehow to check out my husband's article that I mentioned in the last progress report, thank you. The increase in views thrilled him and he's talking about doing more. On a good note, I think this month will be the one where I finally reach payout. I'm only $1.31 away.

Associated Content Breakdown
June PV bonus-$2.16
Total to date-$121.73

Ehow Breakdown
September PV earnings-$3.11
PV earnings to date-$8.69

I don't know if I'm just logging in at bad times or what, but Text Broker hasn't had a lot of level 4 articles for me this month. The few I have saw weren't topics I was interested in. I didn't do a single article for them this month.

I did put in a few bids on jobs this month, but lost out to people who were willing to take less money. While I don't expect professional rates, I'm not going to write a 500 word article for $1-2.

*Image by Christian Ferrari.

Freelance Progress Report: August 2009

August was my best month to date. Early in the month I set an ambitious goal of $400 in income from freelance writing. I'm thrilled to say I did reach that goal and even passed it by a few dollars. The new system of scheduling writing jobs is definitely paying off.

In last month's progress report, I mentioned that I had picked up two new freelance writing gigs and would discuss them more once I had a chance to get used to them. The two sites were Ecopywriters and NAA.

I've decided Ecopywriters probably isn't going to work for me. While I like the idea of a system similar to Textbroker, their payment policy is a breaking point for me. I wrote four articles for them at the end of July. I received payment for two of them about halfway through this month. The other two are still pending approval as of today. While I have no problem giving clients an opportunity to make changes, I think over a month is a bit excessive. When you add in the lack of variety and several days of no jobs available at all, it's just not a good fit for me. Unless they make changes in the near future, I will most likely be closing my writer's account there as soon as I get paid for the remaining articles.

NAA has turned out to be my favorite freelance writing site so far. The jobs are plentiful and on a variety of topics. In my first month, I have already managed to impress several clients, who are now requesting me specifically to fill their orders. One liked my original article package so much she put up five more packages totaling 22 articles for me to do.

The Breakdown
66 articles-$381.00
Total to date-$402.60

I actually did a little bit of writing for Associated Content this month, but still not much. The three articles I did were all assignments. My plan is to continue adding a few articles a month to build my residual income.

The Breakdown
3 assignments-$9.00
July PV bonus-$2.52
Total for month-$11.52
Total to date-$119.57

I didn't have a lot of time for eHow this month. I did collaborate on one article with my husband. After hearing him tell me several times that he wasn't much of a writer, I was expecting to do the majority of the work. I told him all he had to do was write down the steps to the project for me and I would take it from there. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn he is actually pretty good at writing. I ended up only having to add some safety information and do a little fine-tuning for SEO.

He's quite pleased with himself and asks me daily how many page views it is up to. If you want to check out the article (and make him happy by increasing his page views), you can find it here.

The Breakdown
6 articles
PV earnings for month-$3.63
PV earnings to date-$5.28

Textbroker got put on the back burner while I focused on NAA. When I did look on the board for assignments, most were either on topics that I was unfamiliar with or ones that required a lot of research. I ended up only doing one article for them this month.

The Breakdown
1 article in the 4 rating-$5.95
Total for month-$5.95
Total since start-$175.20

*Photo by Christophe Libert.

Freelance Progress Report: July 2009

July ended up being a pretty hectic month for me and I fell short of my income goal. Between my husband and my father-in-law both being hospitalized and running here and there taking everyone for doctor's appointments and tests, I wasn't home that much. When I was home, a lot of my time went towards designing new business cards and a website for my husband's business.

Most of my writing was done the week my husband was out of work. He took over taking care of our daughter and the house, which freed up my time for writing. I registered our daughter for Head Start and now we're waiting to hear if she got in. If she gets in, I'll be able to do more writing during the day, which should increase my income substantially.

I started my phlebotomy classes the last week of July. It's paying off in an unexpected way. Thanks to what was covered in our first two classes, I came up with a few article ideas. I've set aside some pages in the back of my notebook I use for class to jot down article ideas.

I picked up two more writing jobs this month, Need An Article and Ecopywriters. I'm still getting used to them, but so far I'm enjoying writing for both sites. NAA has really impressed me with their open communication policy. Unlike other sites where you rarely get to speak to the staff, NAA encourages communication. I'll have more details on both sites once I get a little more versed in them.

The Breakdown
Ecopywriters
4 articles-$35.08
NAA
4 articles-$21.60

Associated Content once more got pushed to the side in favor of better paying options. I did do one article, an assignment, but other than doing a little promotion to drive traffic to my articles there, that was the extent of my work for them.

The Breakdown
1 assignment-$2.00
June PV bonus-$2.91
Total for month-$4.91
Total since start-$108.05

I had joined eHow a while back, but for some reason, I never followed through. This month I did put up a few How to's. I'm pleasantly surprised by the result. While they don't pay upfront like the other sites I write for, their pay for page views is better than I expected. With only 5 articles, I made close to what I got from Associated Content and I have 36 articles up on AC.

The Breakdown
5 articles
PV earnings-$1.65

With joining two other writing sites this month and learning the ropes with them, I did very little writing for Text Broker. Despite being told that the move to a level 5 would take a few weeks, I still haven't heard anything or noticed a change in my rating. I'm a bit disappointed.

The Breakdown
1 article in the 4 category-$4.55
1 article in the 3 category-$2.00
Total for month-$6.55
Total since start-$169.25

This month I joined RedGage in an effort to get more exposure for my writing. I added links to all of my Associated Content and eHow articles. It seems to have helped a little. The day after I added links to my articles, my AC page views went up. They did come back down, but are slightly higher than they were before. I'm going to keep experimenting to see if I can find a method to consistently drive traffic to my articles.

The fact that you can earn money when people click your links on RedGage was an added bonus, but since I joined just before the end of the month, I only made a few pennies. I'm not too concerned about the money issue since my main reason for joining was to get more views on my articles.

*Photo by Marc Garrido i Puig

Freelance Progress Report: June 2009

This month I added another paid writing gig with Review Stream. The pay isn't the greatest-a few dollars per review, a fraction of that if they consider it a bulk review. Thankfully, all of my submitted reviews were paid at the full rate. You can review anything-products in your home, local businesses, etc. I did a couple reviews on supplements I take and a few on local businesses. Judging from some of the reviews I read on the site, they're not too picky about how good the writing is.

It is a little different from other writing sites in that it doesn't have a log in. Initially, I thought it was a scam, but I did a little research and it appears they are legit. I don't plan on it being a big money stream, but it's okay for a little extra when I don't have any other work to do.

The Breakdown
3 reviews at regular rate-$6

I haven't did a lot of work at Associated Content this month. This is partially due to the fact that writing assignments have been few and far between. Most of the assignment list is made up of video and audio assignments. While I have the equipment to do those type of assignments, I prefer writing. I haven't claimed the few writing assignments because they have all been on topics I'm not familiar with. While I don't mind researching, it's just not productive for me to do that much research on an article that only offers a couple dollars. In the time I spend researching something I have absolutely no knowledge on, I would have been able to write a couple articles for TextBroker or a handful of reviews for Review Stream and made a lot more money. With limited time to write, I need to make sure the pay is enough to compensate for the time spent.

I did run into a problem with my Father's Day article. Apparently someone stole it and "spun" it. When I was checking the standing of my articles on the search engines, something I do on a regular basis, I came across the other one. The idiot who stole it was not the brightest crayon in the box. Their spun version made no sense, not to mention they neglected to steal the second page of the article. This is the first time I've ran into an issue with any of my articles and it was frustrating. Logically, I know it's bound to happen if my articles are online. However, that doesn't stop me from feeling very ticked off at the person for ripping off my article.

The Breakdown
4 articles
1 assignment-$3.75
3 offered upfront-$9.09
April PV bonus-$0.30
May PV bonus-$1.79
total for month-$14.93
total since start-$103.14

I ended up giving Textbroker the majority of my writing time this month. They've had pretty steady work almost all month. Of the articles I wrote, only a couple were in the 3 category so I made out pretty well. I definitely surpassed last month's income with the site.

I got lucky the other day and snagged an article that paid between $14 and $28. It ended up being a little more work than I had expected, but I did get it finished. Even with falling short of the upper limit (which I almost always hit with other articles), I still made $23.58.

I did send in my request to be moved up to a 5 rating. One of the editors answered my request and said that they would review my writing. She also let me know that the process can take up to a few weeks. So far, I haven't heard anything back other than that and I'm still at a 4 rating, but I'm not giving up on it.

They had another bonus weekend, but I only got a $1 bonus, just like the last bonus weekend. It never fails; I'm always busy doing other stuff when one is going on so I end up missing out on a nice bonus.

The Breakdown
9 articles in the 4 category-$75.10
2 articles in the 3 category-$10.00
bonus weekend-$1.00
Total for month-$86.10
Total to date-$162.70

July will be my last month before I add another aspect to my already busy schedule. I start classes at the end of the month to become a phlebotomist. I still plan to continue in my efforts to make a career as a freelance writer, but phlebotomy will give me a steady income while my business gains momentum.

*Photo by Sigurd Decross.

Freelance Progress Report: May 2009

Second month down and still going good with Associated Content. I slowed down a little on my writing for the site since I added Text Broker. Also, between dealing with my chronically ill husband's two hospital stays, babysitting my rambunctious nieces, and my great-grandmother passing on, I've had a busy month.

Anyway, I added another 13 articles, 10 of which were assignments. The 3 non-assignments were offered upfront payments.

I was pleasantly surprised by my Mother's Day article. Initially, I wasn't going to do one since the web is saturated with holiday content, but I finally came up with a niche. It has turned out to be my top-performing article so far, although my yoga poses for kids article is fast closing the gap. What really surprises me, though, is the fact that the article is still getting views despite Mother's Day being over.

The breakdown
13 articles
10 assignments-$33.75
3 offered upfront-$8.38
total for month-$42.13
total since start-$91.96

This month I joined a site called Text Broker. It's a bit different from Associated Content. You choose from the list of assignments in your rating or lower. Once the article is complete, the client has all the rights to it. I've written 10 articles so far and made $76.60. All of my articles have had high ratings from both the client and Text Broker.

Text Broker's FAQ says that if you consistently are rated high, you can request to be moved up to a higher rating. Since all mine have been high, I'm thinking about it. I'm rated a 4 right now and it's a decent jump in pay-from 1.6 cent to 5 cent a word-if I move up to a 5.

The Breakdown
8 articles in the 4 category-$64.40
2 articles in the 3 category-$11.20
bonus weekend-$1.00
Total made-$76.60

I'm happy with my progress so far, but if I want to make a career out of freelance writing, I need to buckle down. I'm going to have to work out a schedule for writing and find some other freelance writing gigs. While these sites are fine for now, I'm hoping to get to the point where I do my freelance writing directly for the client instead of a go-between.


*Photo by Matthew Bowden

Freelance Progress Report: April 2009

After much research, I decided to start with Associated Content to get a feel for writing for money. I joined up April 20 and wrote 19 articles by the end of the month. Six were assignments; the other 13 I came up with on my own. Of the 13 I came up with on my own, 9 were offered upfront payments, 2 were display only and 2 were denied upfront payment.

The Breakdown
19 articles
6 assignments-$15.75
9 articles offered upfronts-$24.08
bonus-$10.00
total made=$49.83

I know it doesn't seem like much, but it's okay for a start, especially since the month was 2/3 over before I even started writing. Considering I only spent a little time writing and I'm still learning SEO, I'm happy.

*Photo by Channa