The WMF Archives

by Kerrie McLoughlin

Unless your idea of “rich” is about 10 bucks, maybe that title is a tad bit misleading. But if you want to make a couple hundred dollars a month and crank out a whole bunch of little articles that haven’t been overdone already, eHow.com might be a good fit for you (more to come on that next Sunday when I interview someone who makes actual money writing for eHow.com).

Here’s a peek inside my 2009 financials based on 17 articles I’ve written for eHow.com:
January $0.32
February $0.71
March $1.11
April $1.64
May $1.07
June $0.51
July $1.16
August $0.46
September $1.41
October $1.19
November $0.78
December $0.81

And yes, they do pay. I got a check for $10.36 in December, which got me all excited, so I added a few more articles.

To promote my articles, I added a neat little widget at the bottom of my blog, which lists my top 5 eHow articles (you can get this when you log into your own eHow account … look on the left-hand side of your Profile under Custom Widget). I also make sure that when I publish an eHow article, I connect it to Twitter and Facebook, and try to put in keywords that will be surfed often (forgive me; I’m still learning about SEOs … who’s with me out there?).

To give you an idea of what the world wants, my "How to Make a Mean Chicken Lasagna" is the one that’s made the most money … over 2 whopping dollars!!! If you want to do make more money, they make it sound like you need to check out the section of the site that shows what “how tos” people are asking that someone write. If you want a good laugh, check out some of my eHow.com titles.

For me, eHow.com is like a bad boyfriend. I’m not getting a lot out of it, but I just keep going back, hoping that it will all change if I just try harder. Now, I’m pretty sure a few of my fellow WM Freelance Connection bloggers want to kick my butt for going back to eHow time and again (I got turned down by Demand Studios, who supplies eHow with a lot of their content, so I’m just writing for eHow on my own).

Still, there’s just something about coming up with an idea, cranking out the “how to” within minutes, and then watching it appear online soon after. And it’s fun to earn cents each day while you do absolutely nothing. By the way, my results with Bukisa.com have not been as good, but I only have a few articles on there, and they are probably a little too similar to my eHows.

EHow.com contrasts with my article writing for Regional Parenting Magazines, though. I generally write a piece for an RPM for between $15 and $50. Not a lot, I know, but I still own the piece AND I get to sell it to as many places as want to buy it. So I could write a piece about Christmas, sell it locally, and then sell it to 10 more places and end up with around $300 this year alone. The next year I could sell it to 10 different places.

Bottom line on “content mills” from my vantage point: it’s fun. Some people who do it make a decent income, especially if they include photos, links and lots of other helpful tips. It’s instant gratification.

How to Get Rich Writing for eHow.com