Finding high paying online writing opportunities is difficult if you have no experience with online writing. But, you can gain that valuable experience, while making a little extra cash, with several online markets geared towards the new web writer.
You won’t get rich and you probably won’t become famous, but you will gain the experience you need to begin writing for more lucrative markets.
There is no shame in starting on the ground floor and working your way up.
Associated Content
One of the easiest places to start is Associated Content. AC accepts articles of 400 or more words on almost any topic.
Review and Payment Offers
Once you submit an article, it will be reviewed in anywhere from 3 days to two weeks, depending on how busy they are.
AC will make an offer on your article that ranges from $3-$20. If you accept the offer, your work will be published within 3 days.
AC makes payment through paypal on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There are no fees deducted from your paypal account for AC payments.
Page View Bonus
If AC does not make an upfront offer, you have the option of publishing for free and earning money from the number of page views it earns.
The current rate for page views is $1.50 per one thousand views. This number increases to $1.75 and $2.00 per thousand as your readership increases. A page view bonus is paid out on the second Wednesday each month.
The pay isn’t great and tends to be on the lower end of their scale, although they do tend to pay new writers a bit better for the first few articles.
Exclusive vs Non-exclusive Rights
You can offer your articles for either exclusive or non-exclusive. When you sell exclusive rights, you are giving up your rights to ever publish this article again. With non-exclusive rights, you are free to publish it elsewhere.
You are under no obligation to publish more articles and can quit at any time.
Communication
Associated Content does not have the best track record when it comes to communication with its writers, called Content Producers or CPs for short.
If you find an error in an article after publishing, it can be nearly impossible to get them to fix the error for you.
They will not allow you to remove or edit an article once it is published.
Formula for Upfront Payment Offers
AC does not disclose its formula for determining the amount for their upfront offers. It appears that offers are determined by how well the article will align with advertising, your personal page view average, whether or not it will be found by search engines (keyword density), and how likely it is that the particular topic will be searched for by readers.
My Experience with AC
When I started writing for AC, a little over a year ago, I knew nothing about keywords and search engines. Garnering page views was rough going for a while. It took me several months to reach 10,000 page views.
Take a look at some of some of my earliest articles and compare them with my most recent to see how the use of keywords and avoiding the Six Common Internet Writing Mistakes has improved my writing style and increased my page views.
It’s rather embarrassing to share these older articles, but if it helps you in your quest to become an online writer, then at least they can serve as teaching tools. God knows they aren’t serving any other purpose.
A year later I have over 150,000 page views. As I approach my second year anniversary of joining AC, my pages views are hovering at 450,000 views. That’s not really a high number when compared to some of the full-time writers on the site, but it’s not bad for a part-time writer who squeezes in a few article here and there when I’m not busy teaching.
Read the Terms of Service
If you are looking to get your feet wet with some online writing, Associated Content is a good place to start. Be sure to read all of the terms of service, and do not agree until you fully understand what rights you will be selling to AC.
Photo Guidelines
Pay close attention to the photo guidelines and absolutely do not submit any photo you are not sure you have a right to submit. AC’s policy states that any CP (content producer) who violates their photo guidelines will be issued a lifetime ban from AC. Ignorance of copyright law is never an excuse. See my page on Finding Photos for more information on using photos.
You can find more resources for online markets for you work on the Freelancing Online page.
