The Ultimate Writing App List

Making money online generally requires two things: a lot of patience and a lot of writing. I can’t help you with the first, but I can help with the latter.

You see, I have been writing for most of my life and have only recently begun to monetize it. This usually involves either creating your own website and pasting affiliate links and advertisements on it (kind of like this blog) or submitting your writing to somebody else’s website, like Associated Content or Review Stream. In both cases, you will need to back-up your content and anything else you have done for the site.

The solution is simple on blogs powered by a system like WordPress, but for sites to which you submit content and it is published, what do you do? I present to you the ultimate writing application list.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free, online, backed-up solution for writing anything. It can also accept Microsoft Word documents and process them, and documents can be exported to popular desktop writing applications and word processors.

Zoho Office

Zoho is a free online office service that provides a lot more than just a word processor, including an organizer. They also offer a lot of additional services for a fairly low rate.

Windows Live Writer

I am writing this post in Windows Live Writer. It can work with nearly all blog systems that work with the Atom or XML-RPC publishing protocols, including Blogspot, WordPress, Typepad, LiveJournal, and many more. Note it is only for blogging, rather than article writing.

Notepad++

If you need to paste directly into something that does not require (or allow) HTML tags, you will need to write your article directly in the field on the website or use plain text. Notepad++ is more for programmers with its syntax highlighting abilities, but I keep many things, including my to-do list, in plain text and edit using Notepad++.

Darkroom

If you have trouble with distractions, Darkroom is for you. Based off Mac-only WriteRoom, Darkroom is a full-screen plain-text editor, which means you can work on your content without distraction. I encourage you to use it if you are working on something lengthy and have trouble with distractions. Also check out similar (with more features) Q10.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a best-of, which is why it is not a 100-list (plus, I get distracted easily – I’m not using Darkroom). Whatever your writing needs, these apps will get you through the trouble.

Oh, and for the record, Microsoft Word or Open Office do not make this list because they include XML markup, which is a huge no-no for online writing – especially for pasting content into fields.

The Art of the To-do List

Because I am a huge fan of personal productivity, I of course wrote this nice little article on the One-Year Tightrope titled “The Art of the To-Do List” which tells all about how to create a great to-do list. Also check out the Balanced Business series.

Review: Associated Content

I began writing for Associated Content about a year ago when finances were getting difficult and I needed some quick income without having to wait for the application process to a real full-time job (at the time, Albuquerque’s job market was already crashing and has not improved since, unfortunately). A roommate told me about the money she was making writing for Associated Content, so I decided to give it a try.

How it works

Associated Content is a site which pays you to submit original articles you have written, which they will then publish and pay you for the views generated. They also have an up-front payment option for most categories of articles, though I’m finding few actually end up accepted for this.

How I work

I treat Associated Content like an internship and write when the fancy strikes me and I have a topic idea that I think will sell well on Stumble Upon or a similar website. I treat the page-view money (currently CPM $1.50) and any up-front payment as a bonus, which happens on about 2/5ths of my articles so far. Recently, I have had a higher – around 50% success rate – after figuring out what sells well to the editors.

Sometimes, articles you think sucked will actually do incredibly on Stumble Upon when somebody picks it up. Most of the money I have made through the site has been random bouts of social media love, which each generated over 1,000 views.

My opinion

I think Associated Content is a decent site with a few misguided editors. The people who review articles are often seemingly stingy and will easily refuse something you have worked on for hours for upfront payment. I like the prompt payments, and they are certainly legitimate, but I don’t know that I write for them as often as I could – or, rather, should – so I don’t have a lot to say. If I ever start writing for them very frequently, I will update with a fresher review.

Survival tips

Surviving the editorial process is kind of difficult. Here are my best pieces of advice:

• Follow trends before they become burned out and others pick up on them.
• Learn what the editors like early on and write only that material.
• Search for every topic idea on both AC and Google before you start planning it out. It’ll save you a lot of heartache.
• Treat page-views as income and up-front payments as bonuses. This is the only way you will maintain your sanity.
• Don’t get disappointed easily. If you do take criticism hard, or have little patience, do NOT use this site. I assure you it will suck.
• Have little pride in your writing and change your writing when they do criticize your topics or approach.

That’s all I have to say for now. I’ll be updating this list from time to time as I learn something new. Hope I helped somebody.

How I Make Money Online

Image by DavidDMuir via Flickr

I realized recently this blog has me writing about making money online, but I haven’t actually explained how I do it. This is just a run-down of the programs and systems I use for getting active income (I have no passive income sources, other than AdSense advertisements and affiliate sales, of which there are few).

Paid Surveys

Surveys are the bulk of my online income. I usually make anywhere from five to 15 dollars per day taking surveys through various websites for about one or two hours of work. This is similar to any other part-time job I could get, and I can do it at home with little effort other than checking email.

I have enjoyed surveys for about two months now and have received a lot of payouts so far. I have a lot pending, as well.

I will post my totals for each website in the near future, and probably update it monthly, as others have done. I just need to add up totals first.

Article Marketing

Many, many websites will pay you to write for them, and perhaps I will write a list sometime soon of all the sites I have used and continue to use to get a passive and active income. The majority of my payment has been through Associated Content (view my profile), adding up to around $100 over the past year. Articles can pay either performance or both up-front and performance payments, which is a nice little bonus. The trick to being happy with Associated Content is to treat performance as your main income and any up-front payment as a bonus. That’s how I keep myself writing.

I have also been enjoying Review Stream, which pays you $2.00 to review just about literally anything. I am only half-way to their $50 minimum payout threshold, so I will not post a full review for a while (I usually do two or three per day for a few days, and then get burned out for a week).

Playing Games

I don’t really do this nearly enough to post a thorough review, but I have a little bit of experience. The major source of free stuff is Club Bing, which is run by Microsoft to promote their new search engine.

Also, for cash, there is Moola, which pays cash for successfully beating other players. I’m not very competitive (rather, I should say, I don’t like losing), so I have not played much, except for against a friend a few times.

Reading Emails

Another new way, which I have little experience with so far, is using MyPoints. The site pays you points to click on links within emails, in addition to shopping through their site and completing surveys. I haven’t got nearly enough points (they usually send about one email per day), so I cannot vouch for them. My friends have said good things, though.

Amazon’s mTurk

Amazon’s mechanical turk is a service provided by Amazon that is dedicated to crowdsourcing. Workers are paid to complete simple tasks which are unable to be performed by computers for a rather small payment set by the requester. Usually, the payment is only about a penny, but I have seen some tasks which were simple and paid $0.08 per hit. I made $30 in around an hour doing that, though the task is only one day per year. Transcription tasks are also fairly simple to do, and if you can type quickly and have a good knowledge of English grammar and spelling and can understand broken recordings, you can easily make a reasonable amount for a moderate amount of work.

That’s about all I do to make money online. There are efforts in the works, like this blog and the One-Year Tightrope, but other than that, I have done very little. I think making money online tends to take a lot of up-front effort with very few returns for a while. If you want to see quick returns and have a lot of patience, I recommend you try surveys. It may take a while to figure out what’s going to work best for you, but it is worth it in the long run.

Selling You On SurveySpot

For the last year, on and off in binges, I have been using the free survey-taking service SurveySpot.com, which pays cash in return for users taking marketing research surveys (This isn’t a clone of Cash Crate, for example).

Survey Spot is different from other services in three areas. First, its site looks like it was created in 1997 and hasn’t received an update since (Note: Actually, as I’m writing this, they are rolling out a new design that truly looks, well, clean!).

The second difference is the means of distribution. While most services offer occasional email updates with most actions taken through the control panel, Survey Spot sends email updates about every new survey to the user’s email address. This can lead to spam, of course, so definitely sign up for a spare free email to use solely for surveys.

The final difference is the availability of focus groups. These alone make it worth a sign-up, because many services do not offer them. Focus groups don’t come often (maybe one low-dollar one per week and two high-value ones per month), but when they do, they go quickly, so be sure to watch your email like a hawk if you ever want to get one.

Survey Spot pays reliably (I can testify as I have received multiple checks from them) and somewhat promptly. Surveys generally take between two and six weeks to process, and then payment is an extra week with a few days added for mailing. Their minimum payout is only $5, which is between two and five average surveys or one if you are incredibly lucky the first time (I have seen some focus groups offering up to $20).

Survey Spot was the first service I joined, so perhaps it is just a first love and therefore impossible to get over. All I really know is that I think it is a great, reliable service with some adorable and, much like any person out there, flaws.

Not Jaded, But Close

I'm a college student and therefore need money to pay for things like rent, tuition, food... When I was living in Albuquerque, the job market was so incredibly bad, it was impossible to get a job anywhere. I was rejected from five places (one even rejected me three times) one month, and ten the next. Desperate for sustenance, I asked one of my roommates for help. She told me about Associated Content and eHow. Ten minutes later, I was on my way to making money online.

I had worked on blogs before, so I knew a little about keywords and search engines and sucking up, so it wasn't until a few months later that I stopped trying to write full-time and began working as a personal assistant with a couple close friends of mine.

If you want to, try other things

I can honestly say that I regret beginning writing at Associated Content et al. It was a bad idea from the get-go. It began innocently enough, with me thinking that between odd jobs, writing, and web design, I could earn enough money to support myself. I actually did, for a month. I paid $400 with that month's work and only had to rely on $50 from my loan refund for the rest.

Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and I was paying an extra $50 for rent and the cost of food tripled (one extra mouth, plus wanting fancier tastes than Ramen and potatoes). I slowed down on writing and started looking for more web design and regular jobs.

Rejected time and again, I started to get depressed. My grades went to hell and I tried to pull them back up, which took even more time out of writing. I understand the concept of passive income, but at that point, I needed money that day, not two years later when an empire was constructed.

I dropped writing completely, save a few random entries in my personal journal and school assignments. I made the biggest mistake when I did this: I have learned now: all things in moderation. Don't expect to get all your content written in a week, and don't stop writing because you haven't made enough.

So if you're looking for advice on writing for a living online, making money through article marketing, or even joining an affiliate network, this is the place for you. I don't claim to have all (or any) of the answers, but I am certainly learning new things every day, and I will be sharing them with the public here.

For now, my best advice is this:

Don't get manic. If you try to do too much too quickly, you'll get burned out, or your quality will suffer because of the repetition and speed. Take your time, think up a thousand article ideas, and then aim for one every couple days.

The other advice?

Promote. People don't find advertisements and affiliate links in a vacuum. You have to show them where it is, first.