Earn Residual Income by Writing for Websites by Allison Whitehead

We article writers are creatures of habit. We get so used to writing up queries and features for magazines, we tend to forget there are hundreds (if not thousands) of other markets right in front of us.

I'm talking, of course, about the internet, which has given us more opportunities than ever before to get our work published and displayed in front of a potentially huge audience.

Many markets operate the same way as magazines, and offer a flat fee for every article they buy. But the versatility of the internet also offers us a new opportunity to earn some residual income from our work, which can carry on paying us long after the work is done.

There is a handful of sites which now offer to publish the writer's work, and instead of paying a fee for doing so, they will pay you a proportion of the advertising revenue that your article generates.

Now this might sound like you're going to end up working and not getting paid for it, but I can assure you this is a good way to market your work - provided you go about it in the right way. The most important thing to remember is that this is a different way of selling your work, and to get the maximum benefit (and income) from it, you need to take a long term view.

If you decide to submit work to a site that pays you from advertising revenue, it is a good idea to create a plan of action. Common sense will tell you that the more articles you have on the site, the more chance you have of creating a good, ongoing payment from it. Throw enough mud and some of it will stick, right? Right.

So plan to submit one each week, or whichever amount you feel you can manage. Some sites only require fairly short articles of 250-500 words, which are quick and easy to write, if you stick to subjects you are fairly knowledgeable about. I have found that with a bit of practice I can write several of these in a couple of hours. Keep a notepad nearby and jot down ideas for articles as they come to you. Once you have a few ideas, write them up and submit them. If you work like this, you could have scores of articles on a single site in the space of a few weeks.

The second prong of your attack should be to do some marketing. Make sure people know where your articles are! If you submit your work to a site that pays you from advertising revenue, and you just sit back and see what happens, you will only get a small amount of traffic, i.e. only a few people will find your articles and read them.

You need to shout about it. Add a signature to all of your emails, giving people the link to one or two of your articles. If you have your own website, put some links on there. Promote yourself! Do a Google search for traffic exchanges, join one or two and surf for a while to build up some credits. Then spend those credits on promoting the links to your articles. Be creative, but don't spam.

This two pronged attack will ensure your articles generate interest over time, and begin to create a residual income for you that will continue for months - if not years - to come.

About the author: Allison Whitehead has been a freelance writer for sixteen years, and has published hundreds of articles of a wide range of topics. She also writes forhttp://www.wiseorb.com/?A=208 - which publishes articles and pays writers from advertising revenue. Allison's latest e-book, 'Hey, I Really CAN Sell My Articles!', is available fromhttp://www.lulu.com/smoo_publishing

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