Writing for Profit

I wrote about Associated Content (AC) awhile back as a way for people in the US to make money without actually having a website. This is still true, and they will still pay you for your articles. However, they have changed how they do this.

Instead of paying you just once for your submission, they now pay once and then they pay you per page view. The amount you get paid varies depending upon your keywords and the day. But, you are still earning off of things you’ve written.

It’s not a terribly huge amount (I’ve got $0.15 for one article that has less than 100 page views), but it can add up over time. The main downside that I can see (for now) is that you have to accumulate $15 total in this residual income to get paid. My article with $.15 will need approximately 10,000 page views before it makes $15. However, if you have many articles written and get a few popular ones it can really add up. If you have 100 articles that each get 100 page views, that’d be about $15 right there. Of course, if you have better or worse keywords, your results will vary.

The other thing about earning this money is that you have to keep submitting articles or they will deactivate/cancel your account. That’s not that bad, since you only need to submit an article every three months. I’m sure you’re going to be wanting to write a lot more than that, even without the residual income.

Maybe you knew it was coming… you’re gong to have to get a real website eventually, if you want to be a professional writer. Yes, you can get a free website at various places. But if you want to be taken seriously, you are going to have to shell out some money for an actual domain name and a real web host.

Yes, the old adage of needing money to make money is still true.

However, if you don’t have the money available to set up your own website, there are other things you can do.

For the purposes of this explaination, I’m going to assume that:

1. You live in the United States
2. You are over 18 years of age
3. You have a PayPal account or will get one

PayPal is vital to getting paid online. Many places will pay you by check, but PayPal is going to come up more than once in your quest to get paid for writing.

If you’ve got everything set up, head on over to Associated Content and get an account.

Associated Content will pay you for your original, non-fiction, writing. The pay is not huge, usually about $5 per article, but it will be enough to help you get started. Associated Content articles must be at least 400 words long, though the requirements for higher pay can be different. If you’re wanting to write fiction and get paid for it, just think of Associated Content as a stepping stone to doing so.

I would suggest that you might want to write a few unpaid articles for Associated Content before actually diving into submitting articles you want to get paid for. Writers are ranked according to how many things they have published on the site and how many views those things have gotten and I believe higher ranked people can get paid more.

If you sign up for their weekly newsletter, they send out topic suggestions and requested articles that they may pay you more for. Currently, they are paying $10 for a how-to article of 600 words or more.

You may even decide that Associated Content makes you enough money and you don’t want to continue writing anywhere else. That’s fine, but that’s not where the real money lies.