Revenue Share sites: Passive Income

Last week I talked about some of the content companies you can work for. This week, I wanted to introduce the topic passive income and revenue share companies and mention a few of the sites you can work for.

What is Passive Income?

Passive income is basically something that earns you money when you aren’t doing anything to earn it. Real estate can sometimes be considered passive income, interest generated from a bank account is passive income. And writing articles for a revenue sharing site is another way to generate passive income. You write the article once, but you keep earning money indefinitely.

A revenue share site usually gives you a percentage of the ad revenue your article generates for the site. They can (but don’t usually) pay you any money up front for the articles you submit. You submit an article and it generates income for you over time.

For example, I have written articles for eHow in the past. I submitted several articles there many months ago. Even though I haven’t done any work for eHow in a while, I still get a small deposit into my PayPal account every month from eHow.

Where to Get Started

There are many revenue sharing sites, and it can be intimidating to know where to start and which one(s) to focus on. My suggestion? The biggest one is to START SOMEWHERE! My biggest downfall is that I waited around way too long to get writing for some of these sites. I could be making a lot more money than I am now if I had just started.

Secondly, don’t focus on just one site. Try a few and see which ones work best for you. And sometimes sites change their rules or disappear entirely. You don’t want to see your earnings go to $0 because you only wrote for one site.

Here are some of the passive income sites you can try.

eHow

eHow is one of the most popular Revenue sharing sites. You don’t have to submit an application, you simply register and begin posting articles. If you do your keyword research, you can generate a decent income from eHow. (I highly recommend Willow’s free eHow tutorials. Very thorough.)

Currently, only American citizens can earn from eHow, so I’m sorry, friends in other countries. Also, be forewarned that eHow has started “sweeps,” where they delete articles that don’t meet their standards. So if you write for eHow, write a quality article and also save a copy of it on your hard drive, just in case. Join eHow.

Suite 101

Suite 101 is a respected company with very decent earning potential. Writers for Suite report earnings that are similar to (and many times better than) eHow earning potential. Writers for Suite 101 must apply and provide writing samples. In addition, they must follow strict guidelines when submitting articles there. Many people enjoy writing for Suite 101 because of the SEO keyword training and interaction with editors. Join Suite 101.

Askables.com

Askables is a newer rev. sharing site, so the word is still out on how much income potential is there. However, the nice thing about Askables is that they also pay an up front fee per article (after you meet certain criteria) in addition to the ad revenue. I think this one is worth checking out. Join Askables.

Bright Hub

I talked about Bright Hub on the Content Companies entry, so I won’t expound on them. They seem to be a great company and pay $10 up front for each article plus revenue sharing. Join Bright Hub.

Associated Content

Some people get their start on AC, and I admit I wrote one article for them once. But I never got into it, nor have I seen the income potential that other sites seem to have. Still, they may pay $3-$4 up front in addition to page view revenue. May be worth checking out. Join Associated Content.

Examiner

An Examiner writes about topics local to their area, and they require 3-4 posts per week, I believe. They are more of a “news” site, but they pay revenue share rather than an up front payment. I’ve heard mixed reviews about this site, but if I had the time (I don’t.), I’d definitely sign up and see for myself if there was potential there. Join Examiner.

Bukisa

Bukisa is a relatively new revenue sharing site and has a $10 minimum payout. I posted one article there and then haven’t done anything there since. I may or may not try again. Again, I’ve heard mixed reviews on this one. Some people are doing really well on it, and it may be worth your time to get in early on this site. Join Bukisa.

Infobarrel

I don’t have personal experience with Infobarrel – haven’t written anything with them yet, but it’s on my to-do list. I’ve heard good things and I’d like to check them out. Let me know if you have any experience with them. Join Infobarrel.

Hubpages

Hubpages is another one that seems to have great potential, but I haven’t given it a chance (if I had the time , I would.) I’m getting enticed by all the people who seem to have success there, but I can only take their word for it. Join Hubpages.

Squidoo

I’m putting Squidoo last because it seems to be on everyone’s ‘do not like’ list. But there are still people who use it and like it, so I’m including it. One of the main complaints I’ve heard is that the company changed their policy and locked a bunch of ‘lenses’, thereby costing people income and time. Try it if you want to. I think I’m going to avoid this one. Join Squidoo.

And those are the main revenue share sites I know about. I have recently decided to start focusing a specific amount of time on passive income every week and will update once in a while about my results. Right now my efforts are on eHow, Suite 101, and Askables. If time opens up I’ll try Infobarrel, Examiner, and Hubpages.

Are there any other passive income sites I’ve missed? What are your experiences with revenue sharing sites?

*Full Disclosure: I have included referral links on some of the links in this post. That just means that if you sign up under me, I’ll make a little money, too. (It won’t take money from you, just adds a little for me.) Thanks!

Semi-Passive income: Bukisa

Have you heard about Bukisa? It’s the new content site that everyone is talking about these days. I just signed up today, so I don’t know a whole lot yet, but I’ll tell you what I do know.

Bukisa is a lot like e-How, in that you submit content and then get a share of the ad revenue. Unlike e-How, it seems that Bukisa shares their payment structure with you.

Bukisa allows you to invite others to join, and when they do, you earn money on top of what you already are making. (You can sign up under me here.)

Unlike e-How, Bukisa requires a $50 payout, which is a bit high. e-How only requires $10 before you reach payout. However, people who have joined Bukisa have shown promising results, so it probably won’t take long to reach payout.

Some people, like Dana, are doing experiments where they add articles for a month and then log their results on their blogs. I think I will do the same. I will probably not log my final results until early January, but look for it around that time. I’m looking forward to trying it and seeing everyone else’s results. If you want, come back and share your results with us.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a new source of semi-passive income, give Bukisa a try. Add me as a friend if you want to – My username is Holli. I’ll see you there!

Freelancing as a parent

Well, as you can see, I haven’t posted to this blog lately. Pregnancy really took a lot out of me. Two weeks ago I had my beautiful baby boy, and motherhood takes a lot out of me as well.

But I am looking to balance my life and start blogging again as well as ease back into working. I am slated to take six to eight weeks off of my freelance writing, which will be a good amount of time to learn how to manage taking care of a baby as well as do all the other things I need and want to do (like shower, eat, sleep…you know, the basics.)

In eight weeks, I’ll be a pro at caring for my boy (I hope!) and will be able to manage my writing load again. I will also be able to say that I’m a work at home parent.

But until then, I’ve decided to work on my own writing. I mostly want to experiment with passive income and learn some ways to increase my earnings each month. Writer Gig shares her residual income results each month, and she definitely inspires me to increase my earnings. She earned over $600 this past month in residual income. I would be more than thrilled to be earning that much.

My goal is to be earning $100 a month in passive income by the time I am done with maternity leave. Can it happen? I don’t know, but I’m going to give it my best shot. I signed up for eHow a couple of months ago and haven’t done much with it. I think I’ll get going on that and see how it goes. I’m also going to look into writing an ebook, promoting my blogs better, and getting involved in affiliate programs.

I’ll update here with more information as I get it.