I recently joined this website, Helium.com, which I have been spending quite a bit of time on lately. I joined for a couple reasons. First, I wanted to see if, in fact, I could make money from my writing by writing for another site. I have written quite a few articles for free which have been picked up by various sites and published, but the only money I have ever made has been through selling articles to print magazines. With the current blog frenzy, I decided dammit, it's my turn to make some frickin cash.
Second, I joined to keep my writing skills sharp. After all, even if I didn't make any cash, I would still be seeing my stuff in print and it would force me to keep writing and to hopefully, with each article, improve my skills. Finally, I joined Helium because it gave me the opportunity to have my work put up against that of writers from around the world and have mine rated against theirs, a kind of hot or not type of deal.
Since joining on Oct. 1, 2007, I have written several articles. As of today, Oct. 9th, I haven't made a whole heck of a lot of money (I'll get more to that in a minute), but I have been writing my ass off. And yes, I do believe my skills have improved a little. If nothing else, I have been driving my girlfriend crazy with all the blogspeak and telling her about every little advance my articles make.
On to the money part. The way Helium works is like this: I post an article. That article gets read by millions of adoring fans from around the world. Hopefully something I write makes them want to click the Google ads on the side of the article. Helium.com gets cash for that click, and I get a small percentage. At the same time, my article is pitted against other articles and rated based on the content of the article. The higher my article rates, the more it is seen.
Now, here's the fun part of the rating system. In addition to getting higher ratings and being seen more often, Helium offers weekly contests in various categories. Each category has 25 topics you can write to. When you write an article in one of these categories, and it rates high, you receive points. At the end of the contest week, the writer with the most points gets 1st place, and $75. 2nd place gets $25, 3rd place receives $10 and 4th through 6th place receive $5.
During this last contest week, I wrote 5 or 6 articles in the Business category. Apparently, they were well written enough to garner 2nd place in that category's contest. Here's where it gets even better. Every week, ten or so different categories are featured, with 25 topics in each category. Being that my articles rated the way they did this first time around, I have decided to target more categories. Hopefully, my articles will become good enough to continue rating high, and I will win 1st or 2nd in several categories. At this point, all this writing becomes financially viable.
Oh, and the percentage of the Google ads clicked? I have made a whopping .07 cents thus far. Now, like I said, ultimately my goal is to keep writing and hopefully improve my skills by doing so. Any pocket change I make above that is perverbial icing on the cake. We'll see what happens. Until then, let me know what you think. Here are my articles:
A GUIDE TO DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING As of this writing, rated #1 out of 2 articles
A GUIDE TO PERSONAL INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET Currently rated #1 of 2 articles
EMPOWERING YOUR STAFF LEADS TO BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE Currently #6 of 15 articles
A STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT Currently #1 of 9 articles
COMPANY BLOGS AND THEIR VALUE FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS Currently #3 of 8 articles
TIPS FOR ORGANIZING A MEDIA EVENT Currently #2 of 5 articles
THE PROS AND CONS OF DESIGNING YOUR OWN SMALL BUSINESS WEB SITE Currently #7 of 8 articles
SHOULD LAWS BE PASSED TO LIMIT GUN OWNERSHIP FURTHER? Currently #1 of 3 articles
GETTING OVER YOURSELF: MAKING THE TRANSITION FROM THINKING TO WRITING Currently #11 of 58 articles
MANAGING DOWNTIME Currently #1 of 1 articles
As you can see, I ain't doing too bad in the whole rating game. But then, I knew I would fare well. That's why I write - because I can, and I can do it well.
As I continue down the Helium.com path, I will update you here. As always, your comments are welcome.
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