Now You Can Make Even More Money on HubPages

If you are already a Hubber you will probably already be aware that Hubpages have just announced a new competition. If, on the other hand, you have never before ventured into the world of hubbing, now may be as good a time as any to sign up for hubpages and begin writing hubs because if you do you will then be able to enter the HubPatron of the Arts competition.

The competition began on the first of this month and contestants could win "$50, $100, and even $500 in prizes!" just by submitting qualifying material (poems and poetry, creative writing, and photo galleries).

Maybe the chance of winning a possible $500 does not inspire you. It's not a huge amount of money, is it? But bear in mind that a good hub can generate a nice passive income for many, many years to come and some of the most successful hubbers make a lot more than that each and every month, from hubs that they created years ago.

I have other commitments and it is not often that I create a new hub, so it is doubtful whether I will ever reach those lucrative dizzy heights of professional hubdom, but I still receive revenue from the hubs that I have already created, so I am not complaining. Maybe you can do better though, so why not give it a try? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You can find out more about Hubpages and/or sign up here (remember it is free to join) by clicking here. Then just click link at the the top right hand corner of the page if you want to find out more about the competition.

Maybe this will be for you, maybe not, but either way good luck with your online ventures.

Where Have All The Free Bookmarks Gone?

Earlier this year I became a member of the She Told Me website. If you are not familiar with She Told Me allow me to enlighten you. The whole idea revolves around 'scoops.' If a member found an interesting article or website they could then write a brief discrispton and publish on She Told Me along with a link to the site. The thing I liked about it was that I could use She Told Me to generate links into my articles.

Sadly things seem to have changed somewhat since I last logged into the site, several months ago. I logged in today and discovered that I am now only allowed to post comments and vote on other people's scoops because I am a 'free member.' If I want to publish a scoop of my own it will cost me $5 a month, or $12 for the year.

What a pity! I like the site, but I have no intention of paying to use it. What can I say? I much prefer to make money online than to spend it, and that whole 'You've got to speculate to accumulate' thing does not appeal to me in the slightest.

I used to use Xomba.com in a similar fashion and considered it to be a great resource: Publish a bookmark and generates an inbound link for your article. Many people are still doing this, but I got banned from the site for 'breaking their rules.' Actually it was more a case of they changed the rules. That's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes though.

Arachnids with Attitude: The British Spiders That Bite

There are around 640 species of spider living in the UK. The vast majority of them are content to just get on with their thing and leave us poor old human beings alone. A few species have, however, been known to bite. The chief culprit is the false widow spider and a dozen of it's cousins have, at times, followed its bad example: Do British Spiders Bite?

Write Articles, Get Paid! and Get Paid 50% More for Doing So

It has been quite a while since I logged into my account at Write Articles, Get Paid! but I have just paid them a visit and I see that they have upped their rates by 50% and are now paying $1.50 for each article instead of $1. They are also accepting 400 word articles as well as 700 word articles.

I must admit that these days I find it hard to motivate myself to write for so little money, so I probably will not be writing anything for them any time soon. $1.50 is better than a slap in the face with a wet fish though, and I know that many people would be glad of it, so if you want to give them a try why not pay them a visit.

I also noticed that they now offer payment through MoneyBookers as well as PayPal.

Write Articles, Get Paid! are not a scam site, by the way. They pay their writers on a weekly basis and I know that from experience because when I first discovered the site I wrote several articles for them and was paid for every one of them. If you are thinking of giving them a try, but would like to know a little more about them before you do so check out my review of the site.

Is ReadBud a Scam? Latest Update

I have been a little busy lately and, as a consequence, I have not been writing much. If you have visited my blog before you will, no doubt, be aware that I am spending some time ‘reading and rating’ articles at Read Bud to see if they eventually pay up at the end of it all, or if, like so many other people I reach the minimum payment threshold and discover that I wasted my time for nothing. Nada! Zilch!

How is it going? Slowly.

In my last post I reported that the site was down and speculated that the world may have seen the last of Read Bud. It was back up the next day though, so I continued with the process of ‘reading and rating.’ It’s about as much fun as watching paint dry, by the way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, many people report that as soon as they reach a balance of $30 in their Read Bud account the amount of articles offered dwindles. In the same post I confirmed that the same thing happened to me. I can now further report that as soon as the balance in my Read Bud account reached $40 I found that I only got 3 articles to rate and it’s been the same every single day: 3 articles; no more, no less. It is going to take a long time to reach the $50 payout threshold and I am supremely confident that when I do reach it (if I reach it) I will not get paid. I really don’t know why I am wasting my time. There must be easier ways to make money. Like selling a kidney, or something. Fortunately I am not doing this for the money. I hate scams and if this is another one I am itching for the chance to add my voice to all the other voices that are warning people about Read Bud.

Anyway, we will see what we will see. I’m going to watch some paint dry.

Have We Seen The End of Readbud?

The Readbud website was down all day yesterday. My browser just couldn’t find it at all. Has Readbud shutdown? I don’t know, but it makes me wonder. With so many users complaining that they haven’t got paid, it seems unlikely that the site could continue to go on indefinitely.

This is not the first time the site has been down though. I did some checking and discovered that it used to go down a lot: What is Wrong With Readbud?     Readbud Down?

Real Life Screaming Skulls

Screaming skulls are not just the invention of fiction authors and film producers. In England stories of screaming skulls are legendary. More often than not the origins of the skull are a little hazy, and have often been proven to be untrue, but all of these stories share one thing in common: whenever the skull is removed from its home it screams. Poltergeist activity may also occur in the home, along with other symptoms of a haunting, and this goes on until the skull is returned to its preferred resting place: Screaming Skulls: An English Tradition

Is ReadBud a Scam? Latest Update

About five weeks ago I began my investigation of the supposedly paid to read site ReadBud.com. After I had read several articles like this one I began to believe that ReadBud was just yet another of the many internet scam sites that promises to payout, but never do so.

A lot of people report that the site initially provided them with enough articles to accrue a little over $1 a day in their ReadBud account. Then when they reached a balance of $30 they were given less articles, in many cases, were only accruing 20 cents a day. The ReadBud users then persevered with the site until they reached the $50 payout threshold. Sadly ReadBud never paid out.

So far my experiences with ReadBud are exactly the same as those I have read about. In the beginning I was getting an average of 15 to 20 articles a day and accruing $1.00 to $1.30. Then when the balance of my ReadBud account reached the magic £30.00 mark it was as if a switch had been thrown, the results were instant, and I now receive an average of only 6 articles a day, which only allows me to accrue about 30 cents a day. Of course this means nothing anyway because I am absolutely convinced that ReadBud is a scam and that they do not have any intention of paying their users anyway.

I shall continue to read and rate articles at ReadBud until I reach their payout threshold of $50. At this rate it will take a very long time, but at least I will not be wasting too much of my time rating their articles. I will write an update when I reach $50 and if and when they do not pay me I will also, very gladly, post another update. If you are reading this article because you are considering joining ReadBud in order to make a little extra money I would advise against it. Time is money, so why waste the one when it is unlikely that you will ever get the other? I can, however, vouch for the integrity of the Triond writing site. Triond has a payment threshold of just 50 cents, they pay me every month and the articles that I have written for them should continue to generate revenue for the rest of my life. HubPages is also a genuine site, but it can take a lot longer to receive any payment from them because the revenue is generated through Adsense and Google Adsense has a minimum payment threshold of $100.

The Real Positronic Brain is On its Way

Over seventy years ago Isaac Asimov began writing his first robot stories he gave them positronic brains that enabled them to not only think for themselves, but to also learn from their mistakes. Robots that could think! It was a fantastic idea and it was not long before the term ‘postitronic brain’ began being used by other science fiction writers. Positronic brains were mentioned in more than one episode of Doctor Who, they also turned up in the movie i Robot, and Star Trek the Next Generation’s Mr Data also boasts a positronic brain. What began as science fiction, however, may soon become science fact because recent breakthroughs in technology may enable computers to function in a similar manner to the human brain: The Positronic Brain: Science Fiction May Become Science Fact.

A Twenty Percent Bonus is Better Than No Bonus

When I heard about Triond’s February bonuses I had every intention of writing 20 or more articles so that I would qualify for a 30% bonus payment. My output fell short, however, and I only wrote a total of 15 articles in February. That is okay though, because I will still receive a bonus of 20% and I even without the bonus my earning for the month are considerable higher than last month.

Is ReadBud a Scam (4th update)

It's about 1 1/2 weeks since I joined the ReadBud site and I've got to say I'm more than a little bored with it, even though I only selected a few subjects, that I am genuinely interested in. To be totally honest I am tempted to never return to the site again, but I want to see whether they pay me once I have read enough articles to reach their payout threshold of $50. I will be genuinely surprised if they do pay up because I am reading too many reports that say that ReadBud is a scam site.

Anyway I have been given an average of about 18 articles a day to read and have made about $1 a day - if they ever really do pay anybody that is. Wow! A whole dollar. It's not enough to bother with, is it? I think my time could probably be better spent writing articles for Triond. At least I know from past experience that they pay up.

I will post further updates about ReadBud next month.

Google Anounces New Weapon in their War Against Content Farms

Google recently announced the realease of a couple of new extensions to the Google Chrome browser and they contain new algorithms that are designed to filter out sites that offer poor quality content and they say that the worst offenders are content farms. How this will affect sites like Triond remains to be seen, but remains king of the search engines, they weild a lot of power, and can easily make or break an online business:  Will Google’s New Algorithms Mean The End of Triond?

St. Catherine's Wheel

Have you ever wondered how Catherine Wheels got their name? If you have you might be surprised to learn that it is not a nice story. Modern day Catherine Wheels are a spinning firework, but they were named after the big, spiked wheel that St Catherine of Alexandria was stretched across when she upset the Roman Emperor, Maxentius: How Catherine Wheels Got Their Name.

Facebook Prank Causes Worldwide Panic

It all began on January 9th. Panic spread across the net and many Facebook users began downloading their photographs from the site before they were lost. Meanwhile, other users  were busy exploring their options. Where would they go? MySpace? Twitter. Once Facebook bit the dust they would need a replacement. Except Facebook was not and is not going anywhere, the panic had been caused by a spoof article posted on The Weekly World News Website that stated that Facebook would shut down on March 15th: Facebook Shutting Down? That’s About as Likely as Martians Putting Down!

Is ReadBud a Scam? (Day 3)

Today ReadBud provided over 20 articles for me to read and if they ever pay up today's earnings are nearly $2. It is going to take a long time before I reach the $50 payment threshold so I think it is a little unrealistic for me to post daily updates, so my next update on this will be next week. I'm still checking other sites and everything I am reading suggests that ReadBud is a scam. Here is a forum post from a guy who reached the payment threshold. Two months later he was still waiting to be paid and found it impossible to contact ReadBud about it.

Is ReadBud a Scam? (Day 2)

This post is a continuation of yesterday’s post which marked the beginning of my investigation into the paid to read articles site ReadBud.

I logged into ReadBud today and read all the available articles. There were a few less than yesterday and I was a few cents short of making a dollar. It will be interesting to see how many they offer me tomorrow.

My antivirus went crazy a few times as I was reading articles though, and I find this rather worrying because the sites I normally visit never present a problem and I cannot remember the last time it activated. I use a Firefox browser and have the NoScript extension installed. NoScript is a free extension that provides extra protection for mozilla-based browsers and it only allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plugins to be executed by sites that you trust. It also gives the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Yesterday when I visited ReadBud I allowed NoScript to block just about everything on the site except for what was needed to rate the articles. Today I set it to temporarily allow all on the pages. I won’t make that mistake again. I am still a long way off being able to say whether or not I think ReadBud is a scam, but the site does appear to have some worrying cross-scripts on the pages, so if you do decide to read articles at ReadBud I recommend that you have a functioning antivirus program installed on your computer and NoScript might be a good idea as well.

How to Diet Without Dieting

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary the definition of a diet is:

‘a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one’s weight.’

Some diets that are diets in name only though, because they have little to do with what the so called dieter eats or drinks: Six Ways to Diet Without Dieting

Is ReadBud A Scam?

I just stumbled across a site called ReadBud and at first it seems to offer a pretty good deal: read articles online at the ReadBud site and get paid for doing so.  The rates of pay are not specified on the website, but are available to read when you become a member of the site.

These are the rates:

• Under 100 : 1 cent
• Between 101 and 200 : 2 cents
• Between 201 and 300 : 3 cents
• Between 301 and 400 : 4 cents
• Between 401 and 500 : 5 cents
• Between 501 and 600 : 6 cents
• Between 601 and 700 : 7 cents
• Between 701 and 800 : 8 cents
• Between 801 and 900 : 9 cents
• Between 901 and 1500 : 10 cents
• Between 1501 and 2000 : 15 cents
• Over 2000 : 20 cents

So ReadBud are promising that they will pay their members 1 cent for reading an article of 100 words or less and 20 cents for reading an article of 2,000 of more words. In order to be paid every article must be rated. Not reviewed, just rated at between one and five stars. It takes just a second to apply the rating, and it is not a very long job to read the articles, so it should, in theory anyway, be possible to make a dollar or two a day. Not a lot of money, but it compares very well to sites like Write Articles Get Paid.com that pay a dollar for writing an article because I can read a dollars worth of articles a lot faster than I can write them. That only works though, if ReadBud actually make good on their promise and pay up. Unfortunately there are a lot of people online that are saying that ReadBud is a scam.

ReadBud claim to make payment by Paypal when $50 has been accrued, but many people are saying that although the site initially offers many articles a day, the amount of articles available begin to peter off the closer that you come to the payout figure. 

The ReadBud site is rich in advertising and some members are claiming that they only way they managed to receive more articles was to click on ads while they read. In fact I have read some reviews that state that the site encourages people to do so by clicking on the Bidvertiser Ads. To encourage clicking like this would be click fraud and against Bidvertiser’s rules.  I am only seeing Clicksor ads on the site so cannot help but wonder if ReadBud have lost their account with Bidvertiser.

I have checked a lot of sites, blogs and forums and there are a lot of people claiming that they are finding it hard to reach the minimum payout limit. A few people say that they have reached it, but have never been paid, and that’s bad news because the world does not need another scam site. I have seen a couple of forum posts that state that the site is not a scam and that they have been paid, but such cases are few and far between and I cannot help but wonder if the people who claim to have been paid are ReadBud staff members or the owners of the site. It is all too easy to set up a false identity on a forum and then post false information and lies. I think that more independent reviews of ReadBud are needed and have decided to see if I can make any money at ReadBud. I joined ReadBud yesterday, read and rated several articles and have now accrued over $1. It will be interesting to see if I continue to make $1 a day, and if so for how long. It is my intent to use the ReadBud site every day and keep an accurate record of how things go. I will post the results here on my blog and if I do get paid I will take that as a positive sign.

If you are thinking of signing up for ReadBud you may also want to check out what PTC Investigations have to say about the site. They did get a payout, but still believe that ReadBud is a Scam. You can read their full report HERE.

You may also want to read some of the posts at the Digital Points Forum.

I will post more on this tomorrow, by which time I should have read and rated a few more articles. I am not going to post the exact number of articles that I have read though. Nor will I say exactly how much I have accrued. I want this to be an independent review of the site and if  I use precise figure the people at ReadBud might be able to tell who I am, and if they do they may very well pay me just so that I can confirm that they are the real deal. To be honest with you though, my first impression is that this site is a scam.

The World's Most Disgusting Diets

Some diets are just too disgusting for words. Tapeworms, cotton wool balls, a few gallons of man juice; it's amazing what some people will do to try and loose weight: The World's Most Disgusting Diets.

The Famous Fans of the Five Finger Discount

They would seem to have it all, but even those with fame and fortune are not above helping themselves to a five finger discount: The Strange World of the Celebrity Shoplifters.

Hey! I've Got New Funds

I just checked my email and discovered that Triond have sent me a payment. It's not much, that's all right because I ignored them for nearly two years and only began submitting fresh articles at the back end of December. Having said that, even though I was not doing a thing on Triond I still received a payment from them last July and if I'd had as much content then as I do now I would have probably been receiving a small payment every month. So that's something to think about. With Triond you really can generate a passive income stream.

I plan to continue writing articles for Triond because I am curious to see how much income I can generate in a month and if I can beat it every month. I am also curious to see what happens if I stop writing for a while because that is when I will see how much the real passive income is.

At the moment it seems likely that next month's payment will be a little bit more than this month's, but Triond are offering up to 30% in bonus payments for February so I can't really go wrong.

What's Worse Than a Rat? A Giant Rat

In February 2010 a giant rat was captured in Fuzhou, China. Six months later giant rats turned up in England and invaded a housing estate in Bradford. One of them was 2 ½ feet  long. It was shot, but four more escaped. Giant rats have also turned up in the USA and an Alabaman man shot a monster rat that weighed in at a staggering 97 pounds. It took three shots to kill the beast: The Biggest Rats in the World.

Made and Remade: Scum

The film Scum was released in 1979 and is a no-holds-barred depiction of life within the British Borstal system. Due to the film’s extremely violent nature and the profuse use of foul language Scum became one of the most controversial films of the 1980s and Mary Whitehouse campaigned to have it banned. Being banned was nothing new for Scum though, because it was a remake of a television programme that the BBC decided not to broadcast because they deemed it to be too violent: Scum Was a Remake, But Nobody Knew It.

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No Longer Confined to the Tower, The Wandering Ghost of Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn was executed in 1536 and it is probably not surprising that her ghost is reputedly a long-term resident of The Tower of London, where she spent her final days. Unlike other ghosts though, Anne Boleyn appears to get around and sightings have been reported from many different areas of the British Isles.

The ghost of Anne Boleyn has been sighted at Blicking Hall,  Hever Castle, Salle Church, Marwell Hall, Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle. So it would appear that Anne Boleyn’s ghost gets around a lot more than the average phantom: The Wandering Ghost of Anne Boleyn.

The Unruly Game of Mob Football

A GAME OF MEDIEVAL MOB FOOTBALL

If the legend is true. the game of mob football began with a bit of a kick about with a severed head. The game caught on, but using a ball instead of a head. Even with a ball though, it remains a rough game and, in some part of the UK,  it remains a popular bank holiday activity. What am I talking about? The game of mob football. A game with very few rules and where the players have even been known to loose their lives instead of a penalty.

Mob football continues to be a popular game in certain areas of the UK. In Sedgefield, there's a game every year on Shrove Tuesday and the local shops have been known to board up their windows for the occasion. This may seem a little extreme, but  this is not an ordinary game of football. It's mob football and in mob football there are very few rules.

The game of  mob football did not originate in Sedgefield and it is not the only place where the game is played. It is a very old sport, however, and there is a rather nasty legend that states the game was originally played with the head of a Danish Prince who had once ruled England, but had been deposed and beheaded.

 Mob football can have any number of players and it is not a team sport. In fact the game can get so rough that in the past people have been known to loose their lives during play.  Apparently in 1,280, and then again in 1,320 some players had fatal accidents because they were carrying sheath knives while playing.

Traditionally mob football can be played on any bank holiday, including Christmas and New Year and other places where you can witness a game include Ashbourne in Derbyshire and the Orkney Islands, where it is known as the Ba Game.

The Hands Resist Him

It appeared on eBay in 2,000. The sellers claimed it was a haunted painting and it was an instant eBay hit. The listing had over 30,000 page views and the winning bid was for a staggering $1,025. Rather a lot of money for a painting that was found discarded behind a brewery. The Hands Resist Him is now one of the most famous haunted paintings in the world, and this is regardless of the fact that is would appear that it is nothing more than a normal painting with an unusual theme. Hype sells and some people just cannot resist getting their hands on something that is believed to have a supernatural bonus thrown in for free: The Hands Resist Him, a Lesson in Hype.

Cursed Painting: The Crying Boy

Back in the1980s pictures of The Crying Boy were a very popular thing to have hung on your wall. Then something strange emerged. It was noticed that a lot of houses that had a Crying Boy in them were burning down. In nearly every case the picture survived the blaze: The Curse of the Crying Boy Painting.

The 27 Club

Apart from singing, what do Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix have in common? I'll give you a clue, they share it with Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.

Any idea?

The all died when they were twenty-seven-years-old: The 27 Club.

A Short History of The Ritz Cinema

The Ritz cinema at Thirsk was built in the middle of the 19th Century and began its life as a Mechanic’s Institute, but by 1912 Mechanic’s Institutes were pretty much a thing of the past and Walter Power renamed the building The Picture House and began showing silent movies, which soon became known as ‘Powers’ amongst the local community: A Short History of Thirsk's Ritz Cinema.

Triond Offer 30% Bonus Payments For February

Triond is one of my favourite paid to write sites and it is also one of the few sites that offer the chance to earn money without signing up for a Google Adsense account. I have an Adsense account, but it is never good to put all of your eggs in one basket and I like the idea that my Triond earnings form a seperated income stream. I must point out, however, that if is possible for writers to integrate Adsense into their Triond accounts if they want to and that if they decide to do so their overall earnings are likely to increase.

If you have often thought about writing for a paid to write site, now is a very good time to become a Triond writer because this February the Triond team are offering their writers bonus earnings.

• Publish 5 articles and get a 10% bonus.
• Publish 10 articles and get a 20% bonus.
• Publish 20 articles and get a 30% bonus.

A 30% bonus! That’s not bad at all and it should be easy to achieve as well. Five articles a week would do it and, remember, with Triond your articles can be as long or as short as you want, and so you do not need to write 20 long and wordy articles to receive the bonus. Want to find out more about how to write for Triond? Just click here.

The Chair

Just before they hung him, Thomas Busby laid a curse on anybody who sat in his favourite chair. The chair now hangs from the wall of the Thirsk Museum, but for many years it remained at the Busby Stoop Inn. Many visitors to the inn scoffed at the curse and some of them even went as far as to sit in Busby’s chair. Some of them were dead within just a few hours: Busby Stoop's Cursed Chair.

Medicinal Leeches Not Old Hat

In the olden days leeches used to be the prescribed course of treatment for any and every ailment. If you had a cold they got out the leeches, if you had gout they bled you, if you'd fallen on your behind and bruised your tushy it was leeches again. It's not like that now, but medicinal leeches still have their uses: Have You Got Any Leeches For This?

Call Him Orlock If You Want, But He's Still Dracula

The courts ordered that all copies of the 1922 movie Nosferatu must be destroyed, but that was a long time ago and the movie managed to survive. Why did they make such a ruling? Because of copyright infringement. The movie was based on Dracula and the director did not have permission to make it, so he made some changes. Count Dracula became Count Orlok and Van Helsing became non-existent, but the changes were not enough to disguise the truth. It was still Dracula: Nosferatu, The Movie That Should Never Have Been.

New Article About ZoZo the Ouija Board Demon

When you search the net for real life Ouija board stories most of the ones that you will find concern people’s bad experiences with the boards and the name ZoZo comes up in an incredible amount of the stories. I have been interested in this subject for a while now and finally got around to writing an article about it: The ZoZo Phenomenon.

Xomba Bookmarks Now Need to Be Longer

I have been posting a few bookmarks at Xomba lately. It is a good way to drive some extra traffic to my articles, but Xomba also offer a 50/50 Adsense revenue share. This means that Xombies can earn money on their bookmarks as well as gaining some extra traffic.

The minimum amount of words in a bookmark used to be 50, but that changed a couple of days ago. Now the minimum amount of words needed in a bookmark is 100. The minimum requirement may have doubled, but I still think that bookmarking at Xomba is a very worthwhile practice and the minimum length for articles is only 200 words. Check out Xomba here.

Yorkshire Legends: The Drummer Boy

I’ve always been fascinated by myths and legends. Many years ago I heard the story of the Drummer boy who met with an unknown fate while trying to trace the route of a tunnel that was believed to connect Richmond Castle to Easby Abbey. My thoughts turned to that story the other day, I wrote an article about it, and it is now available to read at Authspot: Yorkshire Legends: The Drummer Boy.

My First Article Sale At Constant Content

Last December I decided to write an article to try and sell on Constant Content. It took a day or two for the article to be reviewed, but it was posted on the site on 31^st December.  Today I received an email from Constant Content informing me that my article has been sold.

When you post an article at Constant Content you can offer the buyer different rights to your article:

• Full Rights: This is the most expensive option for the buyer, but purchasing a Full Rights license allows the buyer to treat the work as their own. They can edit it in any way they see fit and even put their own name on it and say that they are the author of the work. The real author has waived all moral rights to their work.
• Unique (Exclusive) Rights: As soon as a buyer purchases a Unique Rights license Constant Content  remove the article from their site and neither they nor the author can sell that article again. In purchasing Unique rights the buyer has bought unique content for their site. It has not and will not be published elsewhere. The buyer is free to make some changes to the format  and to add any links that they may want to, but they have not got the right to edit the article and it must be published under the original author’s name.
• Usage License: This is the cheapest option for the buyer, who may make changes to the format and add some links. Many people can purchase the same usage rights on the article though, so when a webmaster buys only usage rights they are not guaranteed a unique content for their site. As soon as usage rights have been sold,  Full Rights and Unique Rights are no longer available for that article.

I sold the usage rights on my article for $20. Constant Content then took 35% commission  on the sale, leaving me with $13 in my account at Constant Content. This is not too bad for a 500 word article and there is also the possibility that I may sell further usage rights on the same article. 

If you want to find out more about Constant Content just click here and visit their site.

The Monkey Hangers

Residents of Hartlepool are often called Monkey Hangers. It's a strange name to call anybody, but the reason why they are called Monkey Hangers is stranger still. Don't believe me? Check out my article at Authspot: The Monkey Hanger Legend.

Wallace Wattles and The Science of Getting Rich

I recently read The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. It is an interesting book and I felt like learning a little more about its author and what inspired his to write what is probably he best self-help book ever. If this is something that interests you as well you can find out more about Wattles and his book by reading my article at Authspot: Wallace Wattles and The Science of Getting Rich.

Why I Will Not Write For Helium

A few years ago I decided to write a few articles for Helium Knowledge. I did not expect to make much money, but I thought that my articles might generate a nice passive income that may mount up over the years.

I used a pen-name and wrote two or three articles for them, but it was not long before I became disillusioned with the site and gave up on it. I just found the site too time consuming.

One of my articles was very highly rated, but I have never received a penny for it. A couple of years after I joined the site I logged back in and asked why I had never been  paid. I received an email that informed me that I was not entitled to any revenue because I had not maintained the minimum amount of activity on their site.

I think I should have taken a closer look at their user agreement before I joined.

From Section 5:

Ad Revenue Share: Helium shares its ad revenue with its active members based on their level of activity and value that each member brings to the Site. Helium’s revenue sharing model is based on the value you provide to Helium, and as such, Helium operates as a co-op. As the site continues to grow in quantity and quality of content, the ad revenue increases and the ad revenue share with our members increases.

Now that does sound pretty good, doesn’t it?

But!

As long as members remain active on the Site, their revenue share earnings continue to accrue. Members’ Accounts become “dormant” in the event that they fail to “participate” in the Site. “Participation” is defined as maintaining a minimum of 1 rating star. (A rating star requires a minimum of 40 quality rates within the last 90-day period. Please see the Helium Star Levels page for more information on rating stars.) If a member fails to maintain 1 rating star, his or her Account will become “dormant,” which means the member will cease to earn additional revenue share until such time as their Account is re-activated through participation. If an account is classified as dormant, prior earnings are not lost (other than as outlined herein), and the Account can be reactivated by the member at any time by participating as outlined herein.

And there you have it. I checked today and one of my articles at Helium is rated no.2 out of 59. That is a pretty damn respectable rating, but because I am not active I do not qualify for a penny.

I like the idea of developing passive income streams and Helium just does not offer this. Even if I had become one of their top writers, what would happen if I was hospitalized for a few months or became inactive on the site for some other reason? All that work would have been for nothing because the revenue from my articles would be stopped. This is a poor comparison to sites like HubPages or Triond.

Two years ago I wrote one hub for Hubpages and then forgot about them. I did not even log in to the site, but there were not penalties and I continued to receive revenue from the Hub. I have a lot of respect for HubPages, have recently completed two more hubs, and will probably write some more; but if I don’t at least I know that I now have three hubs that will continue to make me a passive income whether I log in again or not.

Triond are also very fair to their writers. I joined Triond in January 2009, wrote a few articles for them and submitted some photographs to their Picable site. I made my last submission on the 30^th January, got distracted by other things and forgot all about them until June 2010 when they sent me a paypal payment. It was not much, admittedly, but I had been inactive for about one and a half years. I may have forgotten about Triond, but they had not forgotten about me. Much respect, Triond!


The initial payments from content mills like Triond and HubPages are not very much, but I firmly believe that if a writer perseveres with them it is possible to make a very good passive income and if what I am hearing is correct some of the top writers at such sites are doing very well indeed – no day job required.

With the magic words ‘PASSIVE INCOME’ firmly planted in my mind I intend to write more articles for sites like Triond and Hubpages.

But Helium Knowledge? I would not touch them with a ten-foot bargepole.

The Real Dick Turpin

When I was a kid I read a book called Rookwood,written in 1834 by William Harrison Ainsworth. The highwayman Dick Turpin was quite an important character in the book and he came across as being quite heroic.

Then when I was a little older I used to love watching the Dick Turpin TV series. Richard O'Sullivan starred as Turpin and, again, he was quite the hero. When I began looking into the life of the real Dick Turpin though, I got quite a surprise because he was nothing like the Turpin is in my book and on the TV. This prompted me to write an article about him. So if you want to know the truth about the highwayman why not pop on over to SocyBerty and read Will The Real Dick Turpin Please Stand Up!

Review: Write Articles Get Paid.Com

I’ve experimented with a few different sites that pay for content and when I heard about Write Articles Get Paid! (WriteArticlesGetPaid.com) I was curious to see if it was a scam. As far as I can tell it isn’t a scam, but I don’t think it will be making anybody into a millionaire, and that’s for sure. They pay $1 for each article.

It is easy to sign up as a content writer for Write Articles, Get Paid! Just put a few basic details such as your email address onto their application form. That’s it. Simple! Then you have access to their members only area and can begin writing for them.

The membership area is very basic and has just three pages:

• Member Home. Provides a quick overview of your earnings to date, your articles under review, and your accepted articles.

• My Account. This is so basic it’s incredible. It shows your name and the payments you have received. I do not think that this section is working correctly though, because it shows my name, but says that I have not received any payment even though they have sent me $14. Fortunately the correct amount is listed on the member home page, which seems to work okay.

• Submit. This is where you write your articles. It provides a keyword phrase and the keyword phrase is also the title of the article. Below this is a basic editor for you to write the article in.

There is, however, no contact form or any way of finding out how to contact the owners of the site. There is not a FAQ section, or a help section. Everything is very basic and self explanatory so it is not hard to figure out how to use the site, but if you have any problems, as far as I can see, you are on your own.

One of the most annoying things about Write Articles, Get Paid! is the keyword phrases they give you to write about. Here are some typical examples:

• mother son dance songs wedding

• hyperglycemia symptoms signs

• how early do pregnancy symptoms start

• fashion games for girls only

They then tell you:

This article must be between 400 and 600 words long and the keyword density should be 2-6%, so make sure to use this exact keyword phrase several times in your article!

The problem is that the ‘exact keyword is often gibberish and next to impossible to use in a sentence without it looking ridiculous.

Here is a tip: If you do decide to write for Write Articles, Get Paid! and the system gives you a keyword phrase that does not make any sense just press delete and you will be taken back to the member’s home page. Then return to the submit page and you will find that you have a new keyword phrase to work with.

The articles are only short, but they do take a little time to write and you get just $1 for all that work. It’s not a lot of money and to be honest I would rather write for a content site like Triond or Hubpages and earn a passive income from my work.

Write Articles, Get Paid, pays at the end of the week, usually on a Friday, but I have known it be on the Sunday. There is no minimum pay out,  so if you only write one article, and earn just $1 it will appear in your Paypal account at the end of the week.

All in all this site is not for me. I do not want to do all that work for so little money, but if you take a look at some of the jobs listed at Get A Freelancer.Com you will see that plenty of people are willing to write or rewrite much longer articles for $1 and they have to bid for the jobs to do so. If their’s is not the winning bid, they do not get the work. At least with Write Articles Get Paid you can just log in, start writing, and get paid, so if you are going to write for a pittance this seems the better way to do it.