Summer Writing Update | Brief eHow Review

Summer Writing & Brief eHow Review

Update 04/05/2010: Due to a hugely unpopular move by eHow and parent company Demand Studios, there no longer is an eHow writing program open to writers. If you're looking for other ways to break into writing online, I suggest having a look at my Constant-Content Review or Demand Studios Review (which may also need updating depending how this all goes down). Avoid Helium.com, and keep hacking away at the dream. It may have gotten a little bit harder as yet another employer chose not to respect their writers, but keep at it.

Original freelance writing blog post & original eHow review
First of all, thanks to everyone who has left comments or sent encouraging e-mails. It always feels great to know people are reading your writing, that you're getting some great positive support, and that you're making a difference and helping out. I also want to congratulate those of you who have been doing very well on Constant-Content - an extra few hundred a month is nothing to sneeze at and one of you just cleared $500 in about 4 weeks. Very impressive.

For those of you who haven't read the last post, or caught wind of it elsewhere, I'm in the middle of a major writing marathon. I'm trying to really push for a shift from conventional freelance writing to more of a passive income/residual income mode of making a living writing. I have AdSense blogs, affiliate sales, etc. helping in this pursuit, but I'm naturally a writer first, and so a lot of my focus is trying to really build my online writing in places where it can earn me a good residual income.

So far in 9 days (not counting today because I'm still working) I've wrote 36 articles on eHow, which is right on schedule for my 3.5/day average to make my summer goals, 10 hubs for HubPages for the challenge (putting me behind my ideal schedule), as well as several miscellaneous articles and about a grand in freelance work that's above and beyond my normal weekly projects. Between trying to prepare for a move and everything else going on in the personal life, it's not a bad effort.

Which brings me to a brief review of the eHow website, which I haven't given a thorough look at yet on this blog. After spending long enough writing on this site to give it a fair shake, I have to say this: I'm a Big fan.

One of the things I immediately like about eHow is that it allows you to build a passive or residual income, something that is much more difficult to do with many other online writing websites. In other words, if you write a good article that continues to get traffic, then that article is going to continue earning money for you long after you've finished writing it. It has taken me a few months, sped up by buying and studying (the then available WriterGig's ebook on improving eHow freelance writing earnings) I strongly recommend buying a copy for anyone interested in making a serious passive income with eHow. It's worth the buy - especially since the advice in there had me recoup my investment in one month, so there's not a lot of risk.

Another thing I love about freelance writing for eHow: it's a very easy format. Since the "how to" set up of the website sets up the template for every article, it's very easy to whip up an article in 15-20 minutes if you know what you're talking about. For writers like me, this format helps organize my thoughts, which is not always my strength. For writers who really like step by step formats, they're just going to thrive.

Another plus for eHow is that it can be considered its own income stream for individuals who are also working towards the full time residual income online. What's this mean? The income you get from your articles is from splitting any advertising revenue your articles generate. But you don't use your own AdSense account. This means that your AdSense earnings and eHow earnings are completely separate streams of income. Just as with anything else, diversifying is the key, so having eHow as an income stream is very helpful in the overall writing goals.

Another giant plus is that eHow has a really active and good online community. There are a lot of helpful people here, and you find out pretty quickly that making a lot of money on eHow isn't a random thing: there are several hard working writers on this site who make a very good monthly pay out, and also are often more than willing to share advice with newer less established writers.

Finally, I really enjoy eHow because I've seen solid gains in earnings every single month I have wrote articles for them, and eHow is an authority site. What does this mean? It means Google sees eHow as a trustworthy site, so articles you write for them are more likely to show up high in the search rankings, which brings more traffic, more exposure, and more income. When you're learning about Internet Marketing, AdSense, or how search engines work, you'll learn why this is such a huge deal.

Anyway, this is a semi-brief update because things are still crazy here. Thanks again to everyone reading, and I can't recommend eHow enough. It's a fantastic place to write for a long term passive income. Best of luck to everyone, and keep writing through the recession. Freelance writing is a long term endeavor, but it's worth it.