A Plan for Making a Part-time Income with Associated Content

I have a part-time job that I really love, but now that summer is here, it's time for me to bring in a bit of extra cash. Instead of returning to the usual fast-food, retail, or manual-labor summer jobs, I thought, why not work for myself this summer? After some research, Associated Content seemed to be the natural place to begin earning a supplementary income. Upfront payments, an established audience, a friendly community...what's not to like? Seems like everyone is talking about making money online these days, and Associated Content is helping to make it happen. Plus, I personally love to write. This could be a match made in heaven!

I'm dead serious about making Associated Content a decent source of extra money for me, so I've formulated a plan that (I hope) will help me to succeed. First, I've set some goals.

I'd like to make a minimum of $300 per month writing for AC, and I'd like to do it about 20 hours of work per week. I'm hoping that through research and practice, I'll be making about $4-5 per 400-500 word article. That means I need to write about 20 articles per week, and get at least a $4 upfront payment for each one. Since this is pretty unlikely (I am an AC newbie with a lot left to learn, after all), I've set my goal for my first two weeks fairly low; I just want to bring in $75. If I can do that, I think I'll be able to reach my ultimate goals with some patience and practice.

Along with these short term and long term goals, I've also thought about how I am going to execute this as a serious business and work-from-home opportunity. My first course of action will be to learn all I can about writing for the Internet. I'm relatively new at this, so I've got to re-educate myself on how to write for my medium. Secondly, I'm going to to try to treat my writing the way I would treat any job, to best of my ability. I hope to have regular work hours, breaks, as well as a semi-dedicated work area. I think this will be key in maintaining the discipline required to build a writing routine. Finally, I am going to be realistic. If I am dedicating full part-time hours, but I'm just not seeing the income, I'm going to have go look for my extra income elsewhere. The idea of going back to fast food makes me shudder, so I'm going to try my darndest to make that not happen!

Are you making a part-time or full-time income with Associated Content? I'd love to hear what you think! Let me know what you think of plan and goals, and if there's anything I should/shouldn't be doing in order to earn a decent return on my time investment.