November Earnings Update!

This month marks an exciting moment in my online passive income journey. I am only $7.50 away from reaching the $100 point! Here's the breakdown:

Suite 101: $33.53
eHow: $19.44
Amazon: $2.61
Adsense: $13.83
Affiliates: $23.10

Total= $92.51

It was by far the best month I've had yet at Suite 101. I'm not sure what caused the spike since I haven't even added any new articles in a while, but perhaps it was from article maturity. Whatever the reason, it gives me more motivation to write up more articles for them! My original goal was to reach 100 articles by the end of this year, but that goal has taken a backseat ever since I started with The Keyword Academy.

As you can see, my adsense earnings were at an all-time high as well. Most of that was earned through the first niche site I established back in September. My second niche site is almost complete, and it has even started earning a tiny amount as well. I have high hopes for my niche sites, but the struggle has been finding time and motivation to work on them. I need to implement a schedule of sorts to help me stay on track!

My eHow earnings continue to remain steady. I'm pleased at how well my few articles over there have been doing since the end of the writer compensation program.

Amazon is ticking along, although I don't really do any marketing for it. My other affiliates are earning nicely though, enough to make a nice contribution to my passive income each month.

My December goals are to finish up my second niche site and begin building strong backlinks for it as well as the first site. I also need to start researching keywords for a third and forth possible niche site, which I will begin by the new year.

Due to the lack of easy-titles (topics in my area of expertise) at DS right now, I really need to concentrate on building up my own sites and writing for them instead. DS is nice when the titles are plentiful in your preferred topics, but it can be a real drag when you start from scratch each time. I'm hoping by the end of next year I will be able to write entirely for my own sites and not have to rely on DS for filler work!

Next week I will be sharing a summary of my 2010 online writing accomplishments- what I learned, what I wish I had done differently and so forth. Be sure to check back!

How did you in November? Did you meet your goals? Do you have any goals you want to meet before the New Year?

October Earnings Update

Sorry I have been MIA lately, and this earnings update is a bit late! I have been focusing on my family and balancing writing life with mommy life. All the good stuff!

Here are the stats for those who have been itching with anticipation to see how I did last month:

Suite 101: $19.13
eHow: $19.57
Amazon: $0.00
Adsense: $3.82
Affiliates: $23.11

Total= $65.63

My Suite101 and eHow earnings seem to be holding steady. My affiliate earnings are also nicely improving. The biggest difference this month are my adsense earnings - which are purely from that single niche site I began last month. This is with limited back-linking and only a few articles. By the end of October, I was able to build up some good back links, and I am now reaping the rewards of them, although I still have some work to do. I was able to get my 2nd niche site up and running, and I am working on building the backlinks to that site this month.

By December, I hope to establish a 3rd niche site while building on the previous 2. I went ahead and renewed my Keyword Academy subscription after seeing the amazing income potential from just these 2 sites. For anyone interested in earning online income from niche sites, I highly recommend The Keyword Academy.

How did you do the month of October? Did you meet or exceed your goals?

September Earnings Update

September was a great month for me in residual income. Although Suite 101 and eHow remained about the same, my adsense and affiliate earnings were at an all time high! Here are the stats:

Suite 101- $18.42
eHow- $21.76
Amazon- $2.61
Adsense- $11.48
Affiliates- $25.00

Total= $79.27

I was able to write quite a bit this month, even returning to Demand Studios for a bit of upfront pay. The new eHow Home and Garden section currently has quite a few easy (for me) titles to choose from, so I have been churning out articles there every few days or so. I wrote 2 articles for Suite 101, making my total there 66 articles. I also added 2 more Hubs to Hubpages. After learning the interface, I am finding Hubpages to be a really fun place to write with decent residual income potential.

I made decent headway on my Keyword Academy sites. I've almost completed the content for the first niche site, and will be spending the month of October working on building links as well as setting up the second one.

By the end of October, I hope to have added more hubs and Suite 101 articles in addition to working on my own sites. I'll also be writing plenty of upfront DS articles in anticipation of the holidays to help us fund our gift and travel fund.

How did you do in the month of September? Did you meet your goals? What are your goals for October?

August Earnings Update

Is it September already?! Although I am very excited for fall and cooler weather (the heat this year has been excessive and draining), I can't believe how fast summer went by. I suppose having a new baby can help make things seem like a blur!


Here are the stats for August:

Suite 101: $18.96
eHow: $20.26
Adsense: $6.32
Amazon: $0.00


Total= $45.54


I added 4 new articles to Suite 101 in August and managed to write 2 DS articles all while dealing with a colicky baby who refused to take naps. So considering the limited amount of time I was able to put in, I am pleased with that. I also added 3 new hubs to HubPages.


At the end of this month, I started the Keyword Academy, which is where I will be placing my efforts in September (if you've never heard of TKA, read my post about it- the first month is FREE). My plan is to get through all the core videos, and make a good sized list of keywords. I also would like to buy my domains and start assembling a few websites by the end of this month.

Depending on how much time I have, I'd like to get to 70-75 Suite 101 articles (I currently have 64) in order to stay on track for my goal of 100 by Thanksgiving.

How did you do in the month of August? Did you meet your goals? What are your goals for September?

June and July Earnings Update

I'm back! The past two months have been unusually busy with the birth of our beautiful daughter. Needless to say, I haven't had much time to update, write or even get online! Now that our family is adjusting to life with a new baby, I finally have time (during naps!) to update my readers on my earnings and writing goals.

Here are the stats for June:

Suite 101- $14.83
eHow- $9.42
Adsense- $1.56
Amazon- $1.92

Total= $27.73

June was definitely a lower than average month. I added no new articles during this month.

Here are the stats for July, which was a much better month:

Suite 101- $24.27
eHow- $20.38
Adsense- $1.56
Amazon- $1.12

Total= $47.33

I'm not sure what caused such a huge difference in earnings on Suite 101 and eHow, but I'm hoping the good trend continues.

During the month of June, I also wrote 28 articles for Demand Studios. Considering my daughter was born on the 26th, and I stopped writing a week before she was born, I think I did pretty good.

Because of the lack of articles currently available in my preferred subject (gardening) on DS, I'm not sure I will be able to write as much for them in August. I'd like to try writing in different subject areas and see if there is anything I can replace it with. So, my goal for DS in August is to just write a few articles.

Due to the earnings increase, I would like to write a few more articles on Suite 101 for August. I'd like to get to 100 by Thanksgiving (I currently have 60). Since these articles are so easy to write, I don't think I'll have any problems reaching that goal.

How did you do in the months of June and July? Did you meet your goals? What are your plans for August?

May Earnings Update

May was a much better month than April. I've started writing regularly again for Demand Studios, and my residual income at Suite 101 and eHow improved if only just slightly. I've finally started earning with amazon, so from now on I'll include monthly earnings from their associate program.

Suite 101- $16.54
eHow- $14.07
adsense- $4.82
amazon- $1.90

total= $37.33

My actual income from writing was much higher than this due to writing for DS again. After a hiatus of DS, it is rather nice to be back. I feel like I have a much better grasp on how to write successfully for them than I did before. I wrote the entire month of May without a single rewrite! My favorite new feature at DS is the 'track changes' application. I love seeing what a CE did to my article since it helps me realize the types of editing my articles undergo.

With the end of eHow, I have decided to pursue other residual income opprotunities besides Suite 101. I wrote 3 articles for Hubpages this month. I'm just testing the waters at this point, so I'll update with more information once I've gotten a better article library established.

My goals for June are to write the 10 Suite 101 articles per terms of my contract as well as continue writing for DS. I also plan to add a few more hubs.

As a side note, I've started a new blog if any of my readers wish to check it out. It's called Mothering Blindfolded and is just a fun blog about my family and my journey into motherhood. I'm officially full-term as of tomorrow, so if you're wondering where I am and what I am doing when I'm not posting on Pen Meets Wallet, check it out!

How were your earnings in May? Did you meet your goals? How will/does your writing schedule change once the summer months roll around?

April Earnings Update

I'm a little late on this earnings update! But I wanted to share what I earned nonetheless. I've been very busy settling into our new apartment, and thus have not had much time for writing. Learning to navigate a whole new city alongside social obligations, camping trips and my husband starting his new job has kept me occupied.

Suite 101- $15.41- Did not add any new articles.

eHow- $11.95 - My eHow earnings are holding steady despite the cut of the WCP.

Adsense- $0.95 - Not much, but I put blogging on hold this month.

Total= $28.31

It was my lowest month since Janurary! But note I didn't write a single article during the month of April. I suspect more people were outside enjoying the nice weather rather than surfing the internet and clicking on ads!

May Goals:

-Finish organization with home office

- write 5 Suite 101 articles

- write 5 articles for DS

-resume blogging!

My goals are quite modest this month since I'll be busy getting things ready for the baby, and I'm a lot more tired these days. I hope to get into a nice writing groove nonetheless. The April break was nice, but it's time to get back to work!

How did you do in April? Did you meet your goals?

March Earnings Update

March certainly was an eventful month. Not only did we move, but we moved twice. After discovering a major problem in the original apartment we moved into, we became nomads for 4 days, living at the Holiday Inn. Thankfully, everything was resolved and we managed to find another apartment fairly quickly. However, it was very stressful, and I'm just glad it's all over.

As a result of all this, I didn't write much. Here are the stats!

Suite 101 - I wrote a total of 6 new articles at Suite in March. I am finally getting my 10% bonus! It feels so good to reach this milestone, and it just gives me more momentum to continue writing. I earned $21.18 for the month of March, which was less than I was expecting, but not all of my articles were SEO friendly in the rush to get to 50.

eHow- I wrote 4 new articles at eHow in March. I also resubmitted all of my articles to google, since someone had mentioned they might have had trouble during the UK fiasco. I'm so glad I did, since I saw a tremendous increase in earnings! I earned $14.74 for the month of March, which is my highest since November. Another thing I did was delete articles that were duds.

Google Adsense- After killing my oldest blog, I was unsure how my adsense earnings would turn out this month. I was pleasantly surprised when my earnings totaled $5.04! I didn't work on promoting my blogs at all in March, so I am pleased with it. Still pretty far away from payout though!

Total March earnings: $40.96

April Goals:

-Write 8 articles for Demand Studios (for extra baby savings)

-Write 5 eHow articles

-Write 10 Suite 101 articles

-set up home office!

I'll be working on decorating our new apartment, but I should be able to meet these goals pretty easily. I'm also in my third trimester of pregnancy, so planning for the baby will keep my busy too!

How did you do in March? Did you see an increase or decrease in earnings? Did you meet your goals?

February Earnings Update

March is officially here! Spring is literally just around the corner, and that makes me very happy! Although February was a bleak month in terms of weather, I managed to stay quite productive and write a lot.

I launched my first niche blog mid-month, and so far, I have earned almost $2 in adsense from this site. With only a small amount of content, it is already earning, which I am excited about.

February was my best month at Suite 101. I tried really hard to make it to the 50 article mark, but only managed to get up to 45. All said and done, I wrote 21 new articles- smashing my goal of 8! I also made $18.58 for the month, my highest earnings yet. Most of these articles were written mid-month as well, so March should bring about an even bigger increase in earnings.

My goal for eHow was 4 new articles, but I only wrote 3. Part of this was due to the publishing issues the site was having in the beginning of the month, and I wanted to see if it would clear up. I made $9.15 on eHow, meaning I didn't make payout. I contribute most of this to the fact that there were only 28 days in February.

I orginally wanted to write 4 examiner articles this month as well, but I have decided to let it go. There just isn't any real residual income coming in from that site. You only make money if you write, and it seems like Examiner is turning more into an upfront pay site. So for those reasons, I am quitting, choosing to focus my efforts elsewhere.

I didn't manage to query a magazine or write any fiction, but this is because we have decided to move. I've been busy packing and preparing for our relocation to a new city. This means my writing time will be limited in March, so I have adjusted my goals accordingly.

Here's the grand total for the month:

• Google Adsense- $5.06 (highest month to date!)


• Suite 101- $18.58


• eHow- $9.15


• TOTAL= $32.79

My March goals are...

• Write 10 new articles on Suite 101


• Write 4-5 new eHow articles


• Write 3 articles for niche blog (I only wrote 7 last month)

I think I can easily exceed or meet these goals if I stay on task and focused. Like I said, we will be packing and moving to a new city this month, so I'll definately have my hands full for a while!

How was your earnings in Febraury? Did you see an increase or decrease due to the Olympics and Valentine's day? What are your writing goals for March?

Tax Information for Writers

Every writer who earns an income is required to report their earnings and pay their taxes each year. For those of you new to or just unsure about the process involved, below is an article I recently wrote on how to make tax time easier for writers. I hope this helps those of you who might be filing taxes as a writer for the first time this year!

Tax Tips for Writers
Freelance Income Reporting

Avoid IRS audits for self-employed writers by keeping tax time in mind
all year round.

Read more...

January Earnings Report

It's that time of month again- evalution and reporting of earnings. My actual earnings will be down the following months, mainly because I've stopping writing for Demand Studios. If we need the extra money, then I'll write for them, but otherwise I'm choosing to stick to residual income opprotunities such as blogging and writing for sites like Suite 1o1 and eHow.


And without further ado, here are the stats!


Suite 101- $14.89 (this is almost double what I made last month, with 7 new articles added)
eHow- $11.18 (up a tiny bit from December, but still about half of what I was making)
Examiner- $0.92 (I did not focus on examiner this month)
Adsense- $0.55 (I have not launched my new SEO focused blogs yet)
Total= $27.54

This past month was largely spent outlining my specific writing goals I want to achieve in the upcoming year. February will be the first month to implement my weekly goals, so that should bring an increase in residual earnings. I hope to stick to the plan and remain focused throughout this new month. I just need to keep writing, writing, writing!

February, I'll be focusing on...

• Launching 1 new niche blog
• writing 2 new articles per week for Suite 101
• writing 4 new eHow articles
• writing 4 new Examiner articles
• Query 1 print magazine
• write 1 short story

In order to hold myself better accountable, I'll be rewarding myself with a manicure if I get all this done! I have MUCH more time available to write this month, so this is very doable.

How did January go for you? Did you see a jump in residual earnings from December? What are your goals for February?

December Earnings Update

I can proudly say that I met my goal this month, despite it being the holidays. However, I met my goal in an unusual way since the bulk of my earnings did not come from Demand Studios for once.

eHow- $10.40 (33% DROP)
Examiner- $125.83
Suite 101-$7.36
Demand Studios- $75
Google Adsense- $0.93
Private Clients- $0.00
Total= $219.52

My Suite 101 earnings are slightly up, but I did add several new articles this month. I did not blog as much this month as in the past, so my adsense earnings were down, but this was expected. I only wrote 5 articles for DS, but made up for it with my Examiner earnings, which were spectacular. I can only hope that this continues! I turned down any private client work since I was out of town for an extended period of time in December. My eHow earnings were disappointign again-only around $10-which means a 33% drop from November and a 50% drop from October.

My goal for January is to make the same amount ($200), but more than that would be ideal since we are working on saving money for when the baby comes. I may or may not have another print magazine assignment to work on as well, since I got the call that one of my queries was seriously being considered for publication (yay!). I queried this particular magazine way back in May, so it has really given me more motivation to get back to the drawing board. Since magazine writing can be excruciatingly slow, it's important to constantly churn out queries.

Some of my New Years Resolutions include:

• Clearing clutter from my home to make room for the baby
• send out 1 query a month to print publications
• Up my residual income to $100 a month (it's currently near $25)

How did you fare during the month of December? Share your goals and acheivements in the comments below.

(If you're new to online web writing, I encourage you to check out my sidebar where I post several writing opprotunities you can apply for.)

A Dismal Earnings Report... November Earnings

My earnings this month were virtually non-existant due to the fact that I hardly wrote anything. Severe morning sickness is to blame, as is sleeping over 12 hours every day! Here are the stats:

eHow- $15.50 (25% DROP!)
Examiner- $1.02
Demand Studios- $15.00
Google Adsense- $2.23
Suite 101- $6.54
Private Clients- $0.00
Total= $40.29

I was disappointed that my eHow earnings dropped so drastically. I don't expect to earn much more than that in the coming months as I've pretty much stopped writing for them.

My Suite 101 earnings were also disappointing- I didn't even make payout! Although I added no new articles in November, I still thought I would have reached the payout. My guess is that November was just a slow month on the internet overall.

I am currently less than fifty cents away from my payout with Examiner.com. I only wrote one or two short articles in order to stay current with them last month, but I fully intend to leave that site behind for good after December.

Since my sickness prevented me from writing much, I only wrote one article at Demand Studios- such a measly number compared to all my other months spent working for them!

My goals for December are not ambitious, but since I am getting back into the groove of writing, they will be challenging enough. I plan on writing at least 20 articles at DS and several at Suite 101 (I am required by contract to write 10 articles for Suite every 3 months). The good news is that I am feeling much better, and my morning sickness is finally subsiding! So I should have no problem meeting my goals for this month :-)

How did you do in November?

October Earnings

Life never seems to stop throwing me curve balls, and this month a major event happened that prevented me from accomplishing my writing goals. On October 16th, I found out I'm pregnant! Joyous though I am, it has seriously hindered my writing progress as I battle intense morning sickness and fatigue. Here are the stats!

eHow- $20.17 (no new added articles)
Examiner- $1.55 (pathetic, I know)
Demand Studios- $142.50
Google Adsense- $0.44
Suite 101- $11.76
Private Clients- $0.00
Total= $176.42

Though I am tempted to think of October as a loss, I know that I did the best I could considering the circumstances. With the upcoming month looming darkly of more morning sickness, I know I have to find a way to get around it. November is also NaNoWriMo, which I am eagerly attempting, but my goal will probably be less than the required 50,000 words since I am not feeling well. But who knows? Perhaps the nausea and vomiting will end early! We can certainly keep our fingers crossed!

On the brighter side, my Suite 101 earnings are really taking off. With just 13 articles, I have already made over $25. Each month my earnings increase nicely. My eHow earnings are also increasing, even with little productivity. I've noticed that the articles I have written in the past 2-3 months are earning the most. I think my researching has a bit to do with this!

I wrote 3-4 articles for examiner this month with little response. I am so disappointed in this site it is not even funny. I am currently only $1.65 away from payout, so hopefully I can quit after that. With such a low low pay rate, I think it's ridiculous that the payout is $25.

Next month my student loans enter repayment, so morning sickness or not, I need to try and make around $150 at least at DS. I think that is a reasonable goal!

How did you fare the month of October?

September Earnings Update

It's the first of October! Last month really did fly by, and I feel as if this month will too. September was not the best writing month for me, I am sad to say. I had many projects I was working on around the house that distracted me and was also feeling low in morale due to an excess amount of DS rewrites. Any-who, here are the stats for month:

eHow: $17.41 (37 articles)
Suite 101: $8.96 (11 articles) (will be paid from Aug with Sept for a total of $13.29)
Examiner: $2.41 (24 articles)
Demand Studios: $165 (11 articles)
Adsense: $2.46
Private Clients: $9.31

Total: $205.55

Definitely my worst month yet. I only added two articles to eHow, but surprisingly my earnings nearly doubled from last month. My Suite earnings also doubled, due to my increase in articles there (however, many of these articles came from abandoned rewrite requests on DS). I really lost motivation to write for Examiner (they are barely giving me pennies) and thus, missed payout by a few bucks. I am hoping to reach payout this next month within the first two weeks so I can get my 25 bucks and leave the company for good.

I wrote significantly less for DS, primarily due to the lack of good titles in my preferred style. As I wrestled with new formats, I got quite a bit of rewrites and even an uncalled for rejection (which was later taken off my record after I appealed it). This made me unmotivated to put out very many articles. However, near the end of the month, I wrote more after mastering two new style categories, including Fact Sheets, which pay $7.50 but take 20-30 minutes to write. This was definitely a challenging month for me at DS!

So what are my goals for October?

eHow- write 2-3 new articles or when idea strikes
Suite 101- write 5 new articles
Examiner- write enough for payout
DS- write 20 articles total or make $300
Private Clients- send in 5 queries to print magazines (1-2 per week)

Since I will be kept busy finishing research and starting my novel as well as planning for a Halloween party, I think this will be plenty challenge for me!

How did you do for September? Did you meet your goals? What are your goals for October?

August Earnings Update

Another month come and gone! I was able to write much more this month than any other, meaning my earnings shot up. Here's a snapshot of what I earned on each site (note: eHow has not updated for the last day of august yet; I cannot provide exact earnings with Suite 101)

eHow: $8.95 (35 articles)
Suite 101: around $4.50 (5 articles)
Examiner: $8.52 (21 articles, yet to meet payout, total earnings: $19.48)
Demand Studios: $345 (23 articles)
Adsense: $3.08

Private Clients: $55 (blogs, magazines)

Total: about $424.88

I expected my eHow earnings to increase more than they did. I added 12 eHow articles for the month of August, yet my earnings only increased by pennies. Needless to say, I was disappointed to discover that I missed payout (unless, I ended up making $1.05 on August 31st, which is unlikely).

Suite 101's earnings pleasantly surprised me. With one seventh the amount of eHow articles, I earned roughly 50% of what I made on eHow for Suite 101. This is encouraging and prompting me to write more for Suite 101 during the month of September.

Examiner's earnings were less than July, which was expected. I have decided to write a few more newsy articles during September in order to reach the $25 payout and then discontinue writing for them. My articles recieve only a handful of views on average, and it is simply not worth my time to write for mere pennies.

My adsense earnings were nice. Although I am years away from payout ($100), it was interesting to see the earnings double from last month. My niche blogs are slowly but surely improving! Next month I plan on putting more emphasis on those blogs in effort to gain better SEO ranking and more adsense earnings.

I had planned to write more for Demand Studios last month, but certain brief health issues prevented me from writing the last couple weeks of August. Most of those earnings are from the first two weeks. In September, I will be devoting more of my time to working on my own sites, Suite 101 and eHow, although I still plan on bringing in around $200-300 with DS.

My private client earnings stem from sponsored blog posts and an article I had published in a print magazine.

My next post will discuss September writing goals.

How did August fare for your writing?

eHow 50 Article Challenge plus earning udates

Well I have decided to embark on a writing challenge for one of my content sites- eHow. As of now I have 35 articles written for eHow and am challenging myself to complete 15 more by the end of the month. That's a little less than 2 weeks away, so I it's definitely going to be tough but doable.

I really hope that once I get a higher number of articles published there I will start to earn more. As of now, my earnings for August are the worst yet, less than even my first month on eHow. I seem to have quite a bit of "zero" days followed by extremely low earnings the next day. Several other users have reported lower earnings while some have seen a large jump. I am holding out for these last two weeks, however, in hopes that I will reach payout. We'll see.

As for Suite 101, I have completed 4 articles and finally reached over the $1.00 mark. This is much faster than my eHow articles when I first started, so there is a lot of hope there for a nice residual income if I continue to put out articles.

I am also crossing my fingers for payout with Examiner right now as well. If I continue to earn around .50 cents a day, I will reach the $25 payout finally. However, this will require me to write something almost everyday if I can, even though I have seen an increase in page views on days I do not write.

My adsense revenue has already exceeded what it earned last month (still under 10$ and far away from a payout), so that is somewhat encouraging. I also made my first eBook sale (though this was from my sister, so I don't know if I should count that!).
How about you? What are your earnings like for August this far?