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.