How I Plan to Make More Money Writing for Associated Content: Update One

It's been almost one year since I wrote about how I plan to make more money writing for Associated Content. Since I first published that article on AC last April, I now have approximately 130 articles published on Associated Content. In this year since I developed my writing plan for AC, I turned my attention to a few other writing sites, but now I'm back to writing for Associated Content with renewed vigor.

In this article, I discuss what parts of my plan did and didn't work out for me, why I came back to AC, and how I plan to make more money on Associated Content in the coming year.

My Writing Plan for Associated Content: What Worked For Me

In my earlier article about how I plan to make more money writing for Associated Content, I discussed my intention to write 100 articles per month for AC. I talked about how setting up various folders on my PC to keep my workflow organized, and brainstorming a list of article ideas, were part of my plan to increase the number of articles I published on Associated Content each month.

I found that these parts of my writing plan worked out very well. I regularly brainstormed a list of article ideas for Associated Content and kept it by my PC, so I would never lose time figuring out what to write about. I wrote stories for Associated Content in batches of 10 articles, and then uploaded them to AC all at the same time, and I found that doing these things really increased my productivity as an Associated Content writer.

In my experience, all the parts of my plan to make more money writing for Associated Content that had to do with actual writing of articles and organizing my workflow, worked out very well for me. I set a goal for myself of publishing 100 articles on Associated Content per month, and divided the month into thirds. Ideally, I would publish about thirty pieces on Associated Content by the tenth of the month, approximately 60 or more by the twentieth day of the month, and so on, until I had met my goal of adding 100 articles to my Associated Content library per month.

In early May 2008, by the tenth of the month I had written my thirtieth article, and was on track to complete my 60 article by the twentieth of that month. However, something stopped me and completely threw off my plan, causing me to pull back from writing for Associated Content and publish many of these already finished articles on another site.

My Writing Plan for Associated Content: What Didn't Work For Me

For me personally, my plan to make more money writing for Associated Content was completely derailed by the sudden lack of upfront offers for my AC articles, and extremely low offers on some pieces. I carefully searched the AC library to write unique product reviews to send in to Associated Content for upfront offers, and wrote in exactly the same way that I had always prepared my articles and product reviews.

However, in May 2008, I would send in a batch of ten articles to Associated Content, and have extremely low offers that barely scraped three dollars, after receiving previous offers in the range of four to five dollars. Then the worst happened--out of my batch of ten articles submitted to Associated Content, all but one or two were rejected, and the few that did get accepted received the lowest offers possible.

This completely disrupted my Associated Content writing plan, I lost momentum and didn't stay on track to finish 100 articles that month, and I looked around for other places to publish my work. A friend told me about a writing site where I could publish my work called Triond; the site offered no upfront payment for articles (just page view revenues) and I really liked the community there. I discovered that I could publish my articles first on Triond, then also publish them on Associated Content, as display only.

In the summer of 2008, I began to add content to my Associated Content library as display only, sometimes working on Triond a lot, then also publishing my articles on Associated Content. In the fall of 2008, I also discovered the website Xomba, which pays its writers a share of Google AdSense advertising revenues.

I've been very happy writing for Associated Content, Triond, and Xomba, juggling the three writing sites and possibly looking for new places to publish my articles also. In that time, I've developed a completely new writing plan to make money working as an online writer.

My Revised Writing Plan for Associated Content 2009

Looking back over the past year, I can see that my mistake was to put all my eggs in one basket as an online writer. I will never focus my writing hopes just on one writing website ever again, because if for some reason offers dry up or revenues decrease and you've become dependent on one writing site for all your income, then you'll never reach the goal of financial freedom as an online writer.

I could have gone back to the drawing board and tried to figure out how to write for upfront offers from Associated Content, but I've discovered that I really enjoy writing about the things that interest me, even if they don't produce upfront pay at AC.

My new plan to make more money writing for Associated Content centers on steadily increasing my performance pay based on my display only articles. One of the silver linings of writing for Associated Content is the performance bonus program. The increase in performance pay tied to your overall page views is a great advantage of being an Associated Content writer.

I've noticed that since I've had one hundred articles published on Associated Content, my performance pay has increased. At the beginning of 2009, I reached Clout Index 8, which means I now earn $1.60 per 1,000 page views; I'm looking forward to reaching Clout Level 10, and earning $2.00 per 1,000 page views!

One thing I really appreciate about Associated Content is how my earnings are so steady. I took a few months off publishing on Associated Content last year, and still earned about the same performance bonus each month, though I didn't add any new articles in that time. In February 2009, I decided to see if I could add more articles to Associated Content and boost my performance pay; I published about 16 articles and my performance bonus tripled that month.

The final months of 2008 and early 2009 were terrible ones for the economy, and that's been reflected in my earnings at Triond, which have fallen off quite a bit. Even my once reliable Xomba earnings are down since the start of the New Year. However, last month I enjoyed my highest earnings ever for my display only articles at Associated Content. I'm also really proud of my Associated Content library of articles, and the fact that I am one of the Top 1000 Associated Content Producers for 2008.

So my new writing plan involves trying to write 100 articles per month, or as many as I can, and publishing on Associated Content, Triond, Xomba and possibly other writing sites also. I'd like to build up my Associated Content library with 100 articles per month, so that I can receive increasing performance pay based on page views. My strategy is to eventually make enough money from residual income streams from my published articles on various websites (including Associated Content) that I can generate a healthy part time, then eventual full time, living as a freelance writer.

Will this be possible? I'm already on my way. It may take a while for my residual passive income streams as an online writer to become substantial, possibly even years, but I believe that diversifying my writing across a few websites, and generating monthly residual revenues, is the way to go as an online writer.

I'll be issuing another update in the coming months to let you know how it all worked out; in the meanwhile, I'll be working hard writing for Associated Content and other sites. Good luck with all your writing!

For more thoughts about my writing life:

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