Earning Through iWriter

iWriter is a site I discovered recently that allows people to make money by writing articles. Clients request articles that they need to be written, and provide special instructions to the writers so that they know what they are expected to write. The client will give details on the tone that they require the article to be written in (professional or friendly), the word count, keywords that should be used and any other information they feel is relevant.

Writers can then claim the articles they wish to write and are given a time limit to submit it. The time frame depends on the word count and ranges from two hours up to five or six. If a writer fails to complete the article in the specified amount of time, it is returned to the job list for another writer to claim. This keeps it fair and ensures that only dedicated writers are claiming assignments.

To start off with, the payments aren't very big, but as you write more articles and clients give you good ratings, you can move up to Premium or even Elite writer status, where the payments become significantly better. I am still currently at the standard level, but managed to earn $37.29 over three days and received my first payment today (proof below).

In a couple of days I should have enough ratings to move up to Elite level.

To move from Standard to Premium, you need at least thirty reviews and an overall rating of 4 stars.
To move to Elite level, you need at least thirty reviews and an overall rating of 4.6 stars.

I currently have a rating of 4.8 after 17 reviews.

I will keep this blog updated with my earnings and successes with iWriter, as it is now where I'm putting most of my focus at least until I move up and start to earn more for each article, where I'll be required to work less to achieve the income that I am looking for.

For more information on iWriter including the payment levels, visit this page.

You can join iWriter here.

I Squidoo, Do You?

In the last post I mentioned that I'd found three or four websites that I was going to focus on to generate some income for myself online. The one that I've been focusing on the most as of late, and one that I know has the potential to bring in a lot of income when used correctly, is Squidoo.

What is Squidoo?

Squidoo is a community website that is free to use and allows members (Lensmasters) to create pages, known as lenses, for things that they are interested in. You can create lenses on almost anything. If there's a particular hobby you have, you can create a lens telling people all about it. A lot of people make sales lenses with the sole purpose of generating income. It is still important, however, to add a lot of text and relevant information on sales pages to draw interest. People who are searching for things generally don't just want to be sold to. You have to be tactical about it.

How do I Make Money Through Squidoo?

There are several ways to earn money through Squidoo. One of these is through Squidoo's tier payout system.

How do Tier Payments Work?

Each lens is given a Lensrank, based on its performance on Squidoo. The higher, the better. There are four tiers that a lens can fall into. The amount that is received per month is dependent on Squidoo's income, as the tier payouts are royalties made through income generated through the ad pool which Squidoo then splits with its Lensmasters.

Tier 1 is reserved for the top 2000 lenses and receives the biggest chunk of the ad pool. The money earned through Tier 1 lenses on a monthly basis is typically above $40.

Tier 2 is for lenses ranked 2,001 - 10,000. Tier two lenses can expect to make $6-8 per month.

Tier 3 is for the next 75,000 lenses and typically pays out 30 - 40 cents per month.

Tier 4 is for the rest of the lenses up to 100,000 and typically doesn't pay more than 10 cents per month.

For more information on Tier payouts, take a look at this lens by Greekgeek on Squidoo.

Amazon & eBay

Most lensmasters make their money on Squidoo through affiliate sales. Amazon and eBay are the most common ones used, and you can join both affiliate programs through Squidoo and there are modules in place that you can put on your lenses to direct people to products.

As Squidoo is such a high profile website, they get the best affiliate rates with Amazon, and by joining their affiliate program you will earn almost the same as if you were using your own Amazon affiliate link, even though you're splitting the royalties with Squidoo!

Text Link Ads

As a lensmaster you have the option to turn text link ads on or off on your lenses. Text link ads are advertisements linking to outside sites that are cleverly inserted into your lenses. They are displayed in green and underlined in your text. If this is not something that you want on your lenses, then turn the option off. By turning it off, however, you will be decreasing your chances of earning money and losing out on possible royalties.

Succeeding on Squidoo

It takes a lot of hard work and persistence to succeed on Squidoo, and it does not happen over night. It can take months, even years, for people to make enough income through Squidoo to live on, and most people don't reach that stage. There are, however, several success stories, and many lensmasters make decent money every month, with some earning thousands.

Succeeding on Squidoo takes more than just creating lenses. You need to implement some SEO techniques to drive traffic to your lenses. If nobody sees the products you are advertising, then there's nobody to buy them. The more traffic you bring to your lens, the more likely you are to make a sale.

I realise that this post is rather vague, but it would be pretty impossible to delve into very feature of Squidoo. The best way to find out what it is all about is to sign up and discover it for yourself. There are plenty of articles loaded with information to help new lensmasters learn the ropes and to get started. Once you get the hang of it, you'll find that it is easy to create lenses and start to make money. It will take some time to make any significant amounts, but as with anything, if you persist and keep at it, you will see results.

You can join Squidoo here.

And so it begins...

Well, actually, it started a long time ago. I don't remember exactly when, but I'm willing to bet it's been about two years since I first decided I wanted to make a living online. I had some great help from some great people back then, but eventually I grew tired of trying to compete with all the Internet Marketing Gurus and realized I was never going to make it in the world of safelists and traffic exchanges.

I tried. I poured money, time, frustration into it and went days without sleep to try and make a few dollars online, hoping that one day one of the many programs I'd signed up to would make me rich like they promised...

Now, though, I've smartened up a little bit. I'm no longer buying into those "get rich quick" schemes at all. I don't have the time that I used to have to spend hours a day surfing, racking up credits in traffic exchanges to promote my newest affiliate link. I'm not bothering with matrices, cyclers, lists and referrals. I've turned my attention to the one thing that has remained a constant in my life since I was about twelve years old... Writing.

Over the last few months I've researched to find out just what it takes to be a successful writer online. I'm not talking about this blog, either. I've come across some handy little sites that I'm going to be using to try and make a living working from home alongside my studies. I'm not looking to make a fortune. I don't want to be a millionaire; I just want to be able to live comfortably and have some sort of income instead of waiting for my student loan to come along every three months.

I don't have the time to find a part-time job in the "real world". The last one I had wouldn't let me work less than twenty hours per week. That may not sound like a lot, but when you add in eighteen hours of class time, two to three hours traveling per day to school/work, and then another eighteen hours I'm supposed to spend on doing my assignments so that I can actually come out with the qualification I'm studying for, not to mention the extra-curricular activities I take up to go along with my course (managing a band, promoting shows, scouting for a record label...) that doesn't leave a lot of time for eating, showering and sleeping.

I've already decided on the sites I'm going to focus on to try and make some money to live on, and I'll detail them in separate posts so that this doesn't become an essay. I'm not expecting to become rich. In fact, I'm not even shooting for what a regular part-time job would give me. For now, I just want to work my way to making a couple of hundred dollars a month.

Now, I  know that's going to take some time, but I'm focused and determined and, with a combination of these three or four websites, I should be able to get there eventually. It may take three months, it may take six... Hell, it might even take a year or more. As long as I'm earning SOMETHING, it's better than where I'm at right now.