Bukisa Passive Writing Income Payment Update: Payment Number Two

I have just received a payment from Bukisa for $12.10.

While I haven't been aggressively working on making money with Bukisa since my first month, they are demonstrating to me that they are a good source of passive income because I've done very little since my last payment two months ago to earn this money.

Bukisa Payment

Bukisa paid me $12.10 USD yesterday, bringing my total earnings so far up to $38.40. For the most part, the last $12.10 earned in 2 months was done without much effort. I do have 47 articles on there that have been there for nearly six months so I can say that this is mostly passive income that hasn't required much (if any) action from me after the initial posting.

If I were to put some regular effort into my Bukisa account, I'd probably see more results but what's also great is that because I have a large network, a bit of my income comes from the network instead of just my own content. Many of the people in my network have created accounts and never published anything but a few people in that network have a fair bit of articles in their profile.

If I take time to post more articles and do some linking, I'm sure I could bring more income in through this passive income source. Maybe I'll soon do another 30 day experiment in being aggressive with daily posting and regular linking strategies. I'll let you know!

Bukisa Improvements

What I do like is that the Bukisa folks have listened to members and are updating the site regularly with new features and improvements that they've been asked for. They're also very receptive to feedback when you contact them on social media channels. They've recently added a new Bukisa widget (see below) to help you get more traffic by displaying your articles in your sidebar on your blogs and Web 2.0 pages. They seem to be anxious to make their members happy. Case in point: their original payment amount threshold was $50.00. They've updated it to $10.

Bukisa's Payment Model

If you're interested in trying out Bukisa, here's a link into my network: here. You can post how-to articles and videos and earn for page impressions. For April 2009, the Bukisa index is 3.42 which means you'll earn $3.42 for every 1000 page impressions. That applies to your page impressions but you earn a fraction of the index for page impressions within your network down several tiers.

I should say that beyond getting page impression earnings I'm also seeing traffic come to various blogs through those links and that could mean Adsense earnings, writing jobs, and affiliate marketing sales for me.

I'll post another Bukisa update when I receive another payment.

Gotta love passive income!

Where Are All The Big Writing Jobs?

In my last post where I talked about what to do when your writing work well runs dry, I got a comment asking about big bulk writing clients:

“I'm wondering how exactly you go about finding the big clients in the first place. I'm not talking about the clients you can write articles for, but the ones that provide bulk work that you can then subcontract to other writers. Those are not the kind of jobs advertised in any writing site I've ever visited. Do you contact the clients directly to ask for work, even if there's no advertised job? Do you look in some special website to find these jobs? I've always been curious to know how that works. DB”

Thanks,DB for your question.

I work on a lot of large scale projects and some small ones too. I have been subcontracting for about a year and writing for over 2.5 years full-time. I have a lot of clients. As I get work, I decide whether I can (or want to) do it myself or sub it to one of my team members. I've gotten here partially through help and through a lot of hard work.


Writing Agency Work

It took me a fair amount of time to build up my client list. One of my first jobs when I got started in 2006 was with a writing agency and that company is still my largest client. Because of this client I started my own little writing agency.

The writing agency owner started off just as I did on her own and grew her business slowly so that she eventually went looking for help. I found out about her through a writing friend that I met in the blogosphere. She’s a very smart businesswoman and an excellent writer with a lot of clients. She has taken several years to build up a large client base.

Last year she offered me a team leader role and I put together my own team via Craigslist ads and job postings in two writing forums plus on my blog. The writing agency owner actively pursues new clients through bidding sites and offline as well. She has more than just your average online article buyer as her clientele. She has some clients that she visits and consults and meets with regularly both locally and even in other countries. Her online business is run very much like a brick and mortar business as she has in-house staff and also has remote writing teams as well.

SEO Writing

Beyond the agency, I also have three different search engine marketing companies as clients of my own. One of these companies was a gig I found on a writer’s forum when they posted an ad to replace their regular writer. It started off as a small job but the company was acquired by a larger company which worked out really well for me. As their needs grew, I simply added to my team.

Another of my larger clients came to me through a referral from a writing friend and
I have several smaller clients as well. Some order a lot and some come to me periodically and use me regularly for things like blogging, article marketing, sales letters, press releases, e-books and reports plus other copywriting work as well. I have enough of these clients that I typically stay quite busy. Some came from jobs I applied to online and some were people who found me either through my website or through word of mouth referrals. It has taken time to build a list of clients and develop a team of writers so that I can show to clients I'm capable of managing bulk writing orders.

Organic Search Engine Marketing

Besides the original agency, I get work and clients on my own as well. I market myself as a writer online through my own website and through social networking tools so that clients that are looking for writing services in my areas of expertise can find me.

This works very well and some large writing jobs have come my way via this method as well as some of my more profitable writing jobs of my own. My own website means I have work coming in through many sources automatically and often without my having to apply at all. I also apply to job postings that I find online at times when I see something that looks very promising and I have other income sources through passive writing, about ten of my own blogs and affiliate marketing. Being busy can make constant job hunting difficult to keep up with, hence my last post about finding ways to get work quickly when things slow down. I'm usually busy but if I don't keep up my marketing efforts I can experience the occasional lull.

It takes time to build up a large enough client base to keep yourself busy and it's not always easy to manage a team of others. Working on large projects can also mean a discounted rate and a lot of project management and multitasking. I will admit it can be challenging at times but I love what I do.

Thanks again, DB for your question. I’m happy to answer any reasonable question that I can on this blog. I got my start in writing for a living from reading blogs of other writers who freely shared their tips and writing job leads and so this blog aims to share my freelancing journey with others so I can pay it forward.
Cheers,
Dana

Giving Yourself A Raise in Freelance Writing

I've given myself a raise in my freelance writing business. I'm the one with the corner office (quite literally) so it's up to me to give it to myself. To grow and be happy I need to like my job and have enough money to live. What I'm now doing to try to raise my writing rates is this:

Negotiate periodic increases. When I negotiate a new contract with a client I'm now telling them up front that every six months I review pricing with clients and they are subject to increases. This way, I'm not locked in to the same prices forever and when I'm ready to raise rates, they are already using me and seeing what value add I bring to their business.

I have a client I've been dealing with for a long time and they pay me a bulk rate but I wish I'd thought of this when I negotiated the contract. Lesson learned.

Quote higher on new client quote requests. New clients are finding me through search engines and through word of mouth. As long as they're finding me, I have nothing to lose when I quote them.

How else can I raise my rates unless I choose to raise them when I quote? I figure if I'm busy enough I can afford to quote higher than I usually do when something falls in my lap. If I don't win the order, nothing lost. I know a lot of writers (that I'm just as good as) will charge more than I do and I want to improve my status as I go on just as I did in the business world.

I am not about to rob clients blind but I deserve a cost of living increase yearly as I develop my knowledge and skills and prove my worth and the only way I'll get it is if I decide to pursue it. Besides, if I quote high and they want to negotiate (and I really want the gig) I'll have wiggle room.

Find more streams of income. I have a blog post that's been earning me monthly income for 2 years despite taking only 5 minutes to write. I'm going to find more of those so I more have passive income and can be choosier about writing assignments and gigs I accept.

A huge part of self-improvement is avoiding complacency. If you want to make $100 an hour and you're only at $15, only you can command that extra $85. When you get to $100, don't settle. Stretch your legs and strive for $200.

Figuring Out The Best Time To Do Your Writing Work

This morning I read a post by Problogger about doing tasks in batches and what he said made a lot of sense. I also had a light bulb moment shortly afterwards.

I recently wrote about my batching my freelance writing admin work on Sundays so I keep on top of my books and have a lighter day in the week. I was already doing a few things Darren talked about but he goes a step further than I and some of his tips make a lot of sense to me.

Darren's advice includes the fact that instead of writing a blog post once a day you might choose to spend one morning a week writing out the posts for the whole week and post-dating them. Instead of checking e-mail every five minutes, you might pick a few times a day to handle tasks like e-mailing and responding to instant messages. Great advice, Darren Rowse! I've often written about multitasking and how it can actually harm your productivity if you end up with Writer's ADHD.

Beyond benefits of batch processing and productivity traps I'm also learning that there are times when I'm better equipped to be successful.

This morning I had to do something I normally do every Thursday night for a client. It was an enlightening experience. This task involves writing several articles and then submitting them to nine online locations. It involves a lot of cutting and pasting and tweaking. I've tweaked my methods for this task several times and have found ways of cutting the submission times but it never fails to become arduous for me.

I love the subject matter and enjoy writing the articles but every single Thursday night you'll find me at my computer and probably with a grumpy face. I toil with the cutting and pasting. It feels like it takes forever and the result is that I'm often making silly errors like pasting the keywords for one subject into the section of the other one and making mistakes in signature lines that result in broken links. I always go back to make sure I haven't made errors but it takes ages to finish the task. I always feel exhausted at 11:pm or 12:am on Thursday nights getting this done. Because I don't love the submission process, I procrastinate until literally the 11th hour. I've decided I'm now going to do this task on Thursday mornings.

This Thursday I was zonked from another assignment so my client told me I could finish later so I planned to do it Friday night instead. Late last night when I planned to do it, I got turfed off my pc early due to a thunder storm so I did my submissions this morning. This morning I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed and I think I cut the submission time in half and they were error free the first time I did them. Valuable lesson learned!

Not only is batch processing a great idea from an organizational perspective but figuring out when you are at your best for certain tasks could increase productivity and result in more polished and error-free work.

PayPal: Friend or PayFoe?

I just might have coined a new phrase: PayFoe. I haven't Googled it so don't know if it already exists. I was updating twitter to note I'd gotten my Adsense payout today straight in my bank account. No fees, no waiting. Wonderbar!

PayPal isn't really my foe as it is how I get most of my online writing money. It also allows me to pay team members and get subscriptions, pay for web hosting plus buy the odd thing online. Here's a bit of what I love and hate about them.

I love PayPal payment notifications but hate the fees I pay. I also don't much like it when it sends an e-check to someone instead of just pulling the money from another currency.

I also don't like the hefty payment fees I pay to get my own money. They don't pay me interest when I leave my money there and many say that the longer you leave it there, the better the chances of having it frozen so I always grab it asap.

I don't like the fact that in Canada we don't get to have debit cards.

I don't love the fact that when I want to pay a slew of money requests at once it takes FOREVER! I have to manually look up each one instead of being able to do a bunch of payments without subscribing and paying for a premium service. They get enough of my money thank you very much! So I go back to the main page and do a find all money requests and scroll for each one!

What do I love about PayPal? I do love that despite what it says about 5 to a zillion business days for the transfer that it takes 48 hours during the week. I love that I know the precise minute the funds will arrive in my bank account although I don't love the fact that every once in a while the money will mysteriously take a day longer; usually when I really really need it!

So, do you love PayPal or hate them?

I have read horror stories about account holds for 90 days and other problems and touch wood I've never had that type of a problem. I have used services like MoneyBookers as well as have clients send me the odd cheque or internet money transfer but PayPal still looks to be the industry standard. I do love getting the odd cheque in the mail as it feels like free money sort of and I love that Google direct deposits.

I read a nightmare story recently on the Warrior Forum about a $50k PayPal hold for 3 months and have also heard people who've used them for years swear they've never had a problem.

One thing I do hate is that I sort of came up with the idea of PayPal before they existed. Yep, that's right. I have been in the IT world since 1991 when I was 19 and started working for an IT VAR and back in the very early days of the internet and online shopping, I talked about a plan based on the need for a service for people without credit cards who wanted to buy online. Dang, eh? Too bad I didn't act on it.

Freelance Writers: Don't Let Your Manners Get In The Way of Getting Paid To Write

Etiquette is important when you want to establish yourself as a professional but it should not be at the sacrifice of your business.

Don't be afraid to ask about money early in the negotiations with a client or potential client. It's to your advantage to approach the subject with confidence and without apology. You both know the score and that you are a freelance writer who writes to earn.

I often see opportunities that are paid with byline or that are a little low paying but offer a lot of good for your career but too often, I think freelance writers are afraid of hurting their image by asking about money. Most freelance writers do it for money despite their love for the craft so it's important to take the right approach on the subject to minimise your exposure for loss.

When you negotiate a writing project, you need to have clear expectations of what is expected of you and when you'll be paid. It's much easier to do the job you're being paid to do if you know up front what to expect. Here are a few money related tips for you:

New Clients And Writing Project Deposits

If it's a new client, ask for a deposit and don't start the job until the deposit clears. If they are frightened off, either they are new to the industry and not convinced you won't rip them off or they are not to be trusted anyway. If you establish yourself as a professional and treat the negotiations as such, new clients won't be suspicious of your motives. However, you must be sure you deliver on time when you have been paid a deposit or you probably won't have repeat business.

Milestone or Interim Payments

It's ok to arrange interim payments if it is a long project that eats up a significant amount of your time. You won't know if it's possible unless you ask. It can be difficult to write for several weeks without money coming in and frankly when it's a new client, it's easier to chase for a week's pay than four weeks of pay so it's something to consider. Milestones are also a great idea for ensuring that you are on target to meet the client's expectations. Better to do a rewrite on a week's work than a month's!


Invoice Immediately!

Invoice as soon as you send the job. If I'm being paid by PayPal, my invoice is a PayPal invoice. The minute my assignment is in, I'm making arrangements to be paid.

I like the PayPal invoice as it tells them immediately, "The work is in, now pay for it!" I also like to initiate the payment myself with the PayPal request instead of waiting patiently for the client to manually pay me. They don't have to look up my e-mail address or ask me for my PayPal e-mail account and the clients have the ability to pay me with the click of a button instead of manually paying me and if I need to, with the click of a button I can send a 'reminder' notice. I rarely simply use the reminder notice on PayPal, mind you. I'd rather ask the question and give the client an opportunity to answer me.


Following Up On Past Due Invoices and Understanding the Details of Payment

If the buyer is not meeting their agreed commitment, it's ok to follow up. Don't stew and worry about your money, find out what's happening as soon as they're late. If a client falls outside their normal habits for payment, I send a quick and polite follow up e-mail. There's nothing wrong with this and it's not bad manners. As freelancers, we don't necessarily have a weekly paycheque so we live by the ETA our client gives us for our payment.

My last suggestion is that you find out how they will pay you up front. This is something I've struggled with a few times with clients. If they're sending a cheque, you know your own bank's policies and to account for snail mail but if you are expecting a PayPal payment and you get an e-check instead of a live payment, it's a lousy feeling when you weren't expecting it. Depending on the country you're in and the country the client is in it can take weeks for it to clear so when it's indicated that you'll be paid by PayPal, there's nothing rude about asking if it'll be a live payment or an e-check.

Talking about money isn't rude when you are a freelancer and on the contrary it's a detriment to your livelihood so approach the subject confidently and professionally.

The Last Mile of A Big Assignment

I wrote about writing through the blur not long ago. Sometimes you just have to in order to get done even if you're seeing blurry because you've been staring at your computer too long.

Last night I faced the final five articles of a fifty article assignment. I knew it going to be a long day yesterday and I had 9000 words for this assignment to do. 2% keyword density and it was written for a UK audience so I had to have my thinking cap on. I needed it to be done for many reasons.

One: I need to hit the deadline and take care of my client who relies on me.
Two: I need to invoice this sucker. It was worth almost $600.
Three: I’m so tired of writing on this subject, I don’t want to write about it ANY MORE!

Here’s what I did to stop myself from leaving the last 3000 words until today despite that little voice in my head telling me to just go to bed.

* Stretched
* Drank a bottle of water
* Got up and did something else for five minutes
* Got a snack
***Then solidered on.

I finished the job at 12:45 a.m. I was happy it was done and although I yawned while doing the invoicing, I felt good. The last one was not easy. I started to wonder if it even made sense but shook the sleepies off and re-read it before submitting. Another project done, more experience under my belt, more money on the way in.

Go me!

How do you get through that home stretch when your body and your brain are both telling you it's time to give in?

Get Paid To Link

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative online jobs you can get into but it requires a lot of time and effort and can be a significant time investment before it bears any fruit. There are many programs you can sign up as an affiliate under and you can post the ads on your website, on your blog and in your signature line as you visit forums and blogs.

Some programs you can join up directly with and others are managed by a company such as Clickbank or Commission Junction. Many online entrepreneurs earn quite a lot of money through these programs. Here are a few tips:

-Don't spam anyone. You won't get very far
-Be strategic about your ads. Put related ads on your website. Put related and relevant ads on your site.
-Use individual blog posts as well as your main blog to advertise specific links and banners for extra exposure and especially when you have a great related product
-Write just enough information to get people interested enough to click to find out more. Let the advertiser sell the product instead of writing a sales pitch.
-Don't over invest in PPC before you are getting enough traffic to warrant it.
-Visit related websites for marketing and layout ideas *but don't be a copycat!
-Don't overdo it with the ads otherwise you'll make your visitors uneasy. People don't like to be bombarded with pop-ups and eye straining ads.
-Rotate your ads regularly so regular visitors don't zglaze over out of seeing the same things every time.
-If you use Google Adsense, be careful of the ads you also place on your blog or website. Be cautious you aren't breaking the Adsense TOS by advertising things such as gambling or pornography.

There are loads of ways to make money online. As a writer, I make most of mine through writing but have had some success with affiliate marketing as well. Because I have several blogs, I do use several programs on each one that seems to be related to each blog's niche. My health blog has diet sites, vitamins and gym equipment ads. My writing blog offers work at home, writing and employment ads and I've recently started a cooking blog that I'm looking at related gourmet kitchen equipment ads for. I know there are website built for affiliate marketing alone that earn the website owners a significant amount of income!

Get Paid To Blog

This week's focus is on various ways that you can get paid to write and today I want to just touch lightly on blogging. There are many posts on this blog about blogs as well as in my blogroll. Blogging is a great way to get your thoughts and creativity out there without any worry about an editor's red pen. It's also a great way to make some cash.

Here are some very basics on blogging. Dig into my archives and my blog roll for more information. You can blog as a career to earn money or blog to help build clips to get other writing jobs or even do both.

1) Blog for Google Adsense and affiliate marketing revenue. People and companies will pay you to post on your blog once your blog has good rankings and plenty of traffic.

2) Paid blogging companies like Blogsvertise and Blogitive will pay per post for a short post and clickable link on well indexed blogs.

3) Companies and people will pay you to maintain their blog for them. Many ghostbloggers make very good money. You can also work for blogging companies that host multiple blogs like b5media.

I first started a blog because of what I'd read in an article in Reader's Digest about blogging as a p/t income. Little did I know that the steps I took would land me a new writing career and home based business. My first blog was a hosted blog on writingup.com. I only earned a few hundred dollars directly from the blog through blog posts and a little bit of Google income but it earned me a heckuva lot of indirect stuff. I met experienced writers there who mentored me and used the blog as a showcase for my writing work and as a result now have a full time living getting paid to write and recently started giving other writers work as well. If you're a writer and want to sell more books or earn more money, start a blog.

Get Paid for Forum Posting

This week I'm going to tackle the subject of different ways of getting paid to write. This week I'll write about a different way to earn money through your writing skills.
Today's subject is forum posting.

When I first started my delve into working at home, I got my first well paid gig as a forum poster. I helped jump start new communities by posting forum messages and keeping conversations going. It was a fun job and I was well paid for it. It worked so well that a company who owns several forums hired me to manage five forums for them. For six months I worked about 12-25 hours a week managing, moderating and running a forum. I paid some paid posters, ran contests and tried to up the traffic while keeping the tone on point and managing spam and flaming. If you are an online social butterfly, forum posting might be for you.

My first forum posting job was through odesk.com who is a virtual staffing agency. I have also seen many forum posting jobs and agencies listed on webmaster forums like www.sitepoint.com and http://forums.digitalpoint.com. Forums can also be a great way to win prizes in posting contests and seo contests.

Tips to be a great paid poster:

-Figure out what the focus of the site is. If it's a technical forum, brush up on your tech skills. If it's a forum about saltwater aquariums make sure you spend a little time researching the subject so you'll be able to write interesting posts
-Avoid starting controversial discussions that could incite flaming among members
-Paid forum posting jobs are not to be used to do your own self promotion. Most webmasters will request that paid posters refrain from using signature links, etc.
- Start new threads with open ended questions in them to get people responding.

Forum posting can be a full-time, part-time or supplement your income between other gigs kind of job.