Me and Associated Content
Up until November of last year I had been writing creatively full-time since 2003. I didn’t make any money to speak of, just a check here and there, for an essay in The Front Porch, an article in True Romance, a little money here and there for odd and end telecommuting jobs I took on while I searched for a publisher for my middle reader novel. My husband paid all the bills.The day after Thanksgiving changed all that. My husband informed me that he was in love with someone else, that “he loved me but was not in love with me” anymore. (Whatever.That is just a cop out to try not to hurt someone’s feelings. If a person ever tells you that, run as quickly as possible away from that relationship.)
My husband also informed me that he was moving to Tennessee. Of course I was devastated, but that’s not what this post is about. What it it IS about is the fact that I had to figure out, and quick like, how I was going to support myself. In hindsight, as we always see things clearly, I realized that I should have been making a living all along. I had never been totally dependent on someone else before. Believe me, I never will again.
So what was I to do? I needed to start making money immediately. I had just gotten started doing the paid to blog thing, which I do now full time, but back then I was only doing it sporadically and working for PayPerPost, now my main source of income, you don’t get paid for 30 days after you make a post. I began scouring the freelance job boards religiously, looking for steady work, but that takes time, to apply, to be screened, to compete with all the other freelancers who are looking for work. And I wanted to work from home. I didn’t have a car, for one thing. And I loved working from home for another.
That’s when a light bulb went off in my head. Associated Content! I had written a couple of pieces for them and it was easy work, it usually took me less than an hour to write an article and I could write about anything I wanted, and I got paid quickly. Boy did I ever get to work! I started writing 6 or 7 articles a day, seven days a week. Each article paid between $6 and $10. Within a couple of weeks I had money, MY money. And the pay to blog money was beginning to trickle in. I was SUPPORTING MYSELF!
Ok, now you are probably wondering why I am telling you all this. Here’s why. Though I love working for PayPerPost and I DO make a living working for them, I want to make more money. I want to move back to my hometown. I want to buy a car. With PPP there is a limit to the number of opps you can take daily, two per blog, which is a good thing, this assures that your blog maintains its integrity and quality of posts. Opportunities drop all throughout the day. They spread them out so that all posties get a chance to make money. Which is only fair. But it becomes mind numbing to sit at the computer, refreshing the screen, waiting for new opps to drop. So I started thinking yesterday that I needed something to do to make money in between searching for new opps.
(You may be thinking to yourself “why doesn’t she find freelance writing jobs?” I’ll be totally honest with you. I enjoy the fact that I don’t have a boss, or a deadline, that I can work my own schedule, and that I don’t have to spend time scrambling for new work. When I do decide to write something freelance it is on my own time and it is stuff that I WANT to write about. That let’s me enjoy being creative, which was the whole point of my becoming a writer in the first place.)
Enter the light bulb moment again. I had noticed that there was money in my Paypal account from Associated Content. Huh, I thought. I haven’t written anything for them in months, why are they paying me? It was only change, but still, I was curious. So I visited their site and discovered that the payments I had received were for page views of my AC articles. Wow. That means I will get paid into perpetuity, that I will always have this passive income. And I realized that if I started marketing my AC page I could make more money. There was one writer who wrote a breaking news story and made $500 in one month from page views. Then it hit me. I could write articles while I flipped back and forth between PayPerPost waiting for new opps to drop. I could kill two birds with one stone. That would keep me busy AND I would be making money. Up until I made this decision I found myself checking my email ten times a day and checking my stats five, killing time. Of course I could have been working on traffic generation or networking, but when I do that I need to give it my full attention and concentrate on nothing else. Besides, if you want to get the good paying opps at PPP you must be on your toes.
I decided to go one step further. I start a blog about Associated Content. (I love creating blogs, and I was happy to have an excuse to start a new one! And I love learning, I love a challenge, one I create for myself. ) I am going to delve into their site and learn everything I can about how to make the most of AC and blog about it.
If you are an AC writer let me know and I will add your blog or your AC page to the sidebar of my Associated Content blog. If you aren’t an AC writer but want to become one be sure to follow along and learn with me.
Man, am I ever long winded! 
[tags]associated content, payperpost, freelance writing, blogging, article writing[/tags]
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Comments
Denise,
First of all, good luck on your new venture.
I haven’t written for Associated Content for quite a while, but I did get some money from them this month. It was nice to get a little bit of money without having worked for it — I could probably get more if I promoted my articles there.
I don’t think it would be enough for me to live off of, though. Most recently, initial payments for articles were pretty low.
Here’s my link there: http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/16990/laura_spencer.html.
You could also query magazines and other publications while you worked on these two areas. (That’s the mother hen in me thinking don’t put all your eggs in one basket …)
Thanks Mother Hen! I keep telling myself the same thing but I have got this frigging mental block about queries. I have never written one, I have always just written stuff and sent it off. I know querying is the right and time saving thing to do, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to write one. I tell myself I am too tired, or it’s too hard, or that I will only get rejected, or if I do get an assignment they won’t like it, or I won’t know how to format the little box in the side of the article, and on and on and on. And for me it is really just about making a living, so why stress myself out so much? In reality I would much rather spend my time being a fiction and poetry writer. That is what I love. If I had my way I would make a living creatively, but that is a pipe dream, I know. However, if that is really my dream, I ought to start writing creatively on a regular basis so at least I would have a shot at making me dream come true someday.
So many bills, so many dreams, and so little time! 
[...] For those of you who keep up with me on a regular basis, you know that I posted this article a week or so ago about how I was going to start writing for AC again, and you also know that I started a blog called Writing Success at Associated Content at the same time. I was all fired up after seeing that I had received performance bonus payments in my Paypal account from AC, even though I hadn’t written anything for them for many months. The payments were only change, but still, I thought I could make a little extra money writing articles while I was waiting for new opportunities to drop at PayPerPost AND make money through the AC Performance Bonus for page views. [...]
[...] I blogged about my history with AC and my decision to write for them again on my blog, Freelancing Journey. Here is the post. I will be updating the sidebar as I go, pimping this blog so that eventually it will be a great source of learning for new AC writers. I hope you will take the time to visit my AC page and even subscribe! I look forward to taking you on this journey to success with me. Hold on tight, because here we go! Leave a Comment [...]