Showing posts with label making money online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making money online. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?

What is the Medium Partner Program?

Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?
Image by PixLoger from Pixabay, edited on PicMonkey


I joined the Medium blogging platform in 2016, before the beginning of the Medium Partner Program (MPP.) A blogging friend had said the platform was a good place to have a presence. I discovered it was a good place to keep some of my posts from sites that had died until I could post them elsewhere. So in 2016 old posts I'd republished were all I had on Medium, and only a few of them. I didn't post anything else because at the time there was no way for someone like me to earn money at Medium.

In February 2019, my HubPages friend Glenn Stok told me about the Medium Partner Program that now provides an opportunity for writers like me to earn money. But there's a catch.

It takes money to have that opportunity. One must pay $5.00 a month or $50 a year to join the Medium Partner Program. That link provides all the program details and everything else you need to know in order to join the MPP. Only you, though, can decide whether it's worth the money to get this opportunity.

Should You Join the Medium Partner Program?


I asked Glenn, "Is it worth the money to become a MPP member?" His answer convinced me to give it a try. No one gets any affiliate commission by recruiting members, so he had no reason to exaggerate his results and I don't think he would anyway. He wrote a comprehensive article on Medium and the Partner program so I see no reason to try to rehash it here. He did an excellent job. Here's the link to Glenn's article: How to Make Money Writing Articles Without Ads on Medium. I prefer to tell you my own opinions based on my results and the other opinions I found was I was surfing the web.

My Experience as a Medium Partner Program Member


February 2019


I joined the Medium Partner Program on February 5, 2019. At the time I had nine posts there left over from 2016. I put five of them behind the paywall. The other four did not meet the content guidelines for the program. The pay period ended on February 24, so my work was only behind the paywall for 19 days in February.

Here is a chart of my first payday on February 27, and the money did go into my account on time. Post titles are on left. Earnings for each post are on right. Red letters are for posts removed from dead or non-paying sites. Green letters show posts I removed from HubPages, revised, and reposted on Medium. Blue letters show the name of Medium publication where a post was accepted and now appears. You can see that not all my old posts made money, but some did. Articles published on Friday-Sunday of a week often don't start getting views counted until the next week. Pay weeks go from Monday - Sunday. Where there is no publication, it means I didn't submit to a publication or the publication didn't accept that article.

During this same period, with 44 featured hubs, I earned $5.10 on HubPages.


Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?

March, 2019

In March I revised and republished more of my old stories and added some new ones. Here are the results. Again, the blue script shows what publications accepted the articles. The red shows where the revised articles originally appeared if they weren't on the last February image. PP stands for Persona Paper. Bub stands for Bubblews. Some articles from either of those sites may have appeared on both and I can't always remember which only came from Bubblews. Green still represents hubs (HP) revised and moved here.

During this same period, with 44 featured hubs, I earned $9.27 on HubPages.

Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?

April 2019


I have not repeated the sources here, but I have included the publications that accepted my posts. I did not  repeat the publications for the articles that earned nothing this month. You can see that although I made more money this month, some of the articles that earned money last month earned nothing this month. Unlike sites like HubPages, an article may have a short earning life.

During this same period, with 44 featured hubs, I earned $12.45 on HubPages. (Note: I have not written anything new on HubPages for a long time and interact there rarely now, but I do publicize my Hubs on social media. )



Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?

Update January 29, 2020


I added many more posts in 2019. The list is so long now that it would not fit on one screen in an image. There were only three months when I did not make at least $5. Those three months occurred during and just after the time in July when I went back to listing and selling books online and had to transfer a lot of records and establish new selling venues.

Selling on Instagram took much more time than selling from my Biblio store. In spite of not having time to write more than about 2-4 posts a month during and after July, my total earnings for 2019 were $123.61. After taking out my membership fee, I still had $73.61 left. This month, I've earned $5.58 so far. I will renew my membership next month.

 Even if I'd not broken even, I still would have been happy with the value I received from all the posts I read by others daily. Many were on subjects like brain health, written by experts, that I might not have searched for, but were conveniently served on Medium.

Conclusions from My Results


Unpublished Posts Moved from Other Sites Can Earn On Medium


I currently have thirty posts on Medium. Twenty-six are behind the paywall. Four are not. Of those behind the paywall, only eleven were written just for Medium. "Starved for Attention," which made the most the first month, made nothing the next two months. It was previously on another site, revised, and moved to Medium. "Jason, I'll Always Love You" was picked up by a popular publication, P.S. I Love You, and earned only .18 in February. In March it was my highest earner. It still did well in April.

Articles Published by Publications Usually Get Seen by More People than Those Published Independently


In the second month, some of the articles were picked up by publications, some of which I didn't even submit. Articles that appear in popular publications with lots of subscribers are distributed more widely than those one self-publishes. However, inclusion in a publication does not guarantee more earnings.

Curated Articles Get Wide Distribution and Usually Earn the Most. 


My three curated articles have performed best for me so far. When you put your article behind the paywall you can also choose to have it sent to the curators for consideration. They pick which articles Medium itself will promote in its newsletters that go out to all Medium subscribers. Curation gives articles the best chance to be seen by lots of eyes. These are my curated articles so far.


Medium Earns More for Me Than HubPages on New Articles


On the other hand, older Hubs retain more earning power than older Medium posts. Working together Medium and HubPages give you the both of best worlds. Would I make more on HubPages if I kept submitting more hubs and interacting as much as I do on Medium? Possibly. The statistics I gave for HubPages above my earning charts are for my original account. My Squidoo transfer account makes almost nothing there, and it's those articles I plan to revise and transfer to Medium or somewhere else. 


Review of Medium Partner Program: Should You Pay to Earn?
Image by isuru prabath from Pixabay, edited in PicMonkey 


Medium Is a User Friendly Site for Readers and Writers

After a struggle with the quirks of the WordPress and even the Blogger editor, Medium's editor is simplicity itself. One can just concentrate on writing. It's the words and the images that are important. No quizzes, polls, videos, etc. are considered important post ingredients as they are on HubPages. The focus is on what you say. I  like not having to sell anything to make money. I would like to focus on stories and ideas as opposed to products. 

As a reader, I also like reading Medium posts because they're not full of affiliate links and ads. You can read all the way through a Medium article without encountering one pop-up asking you to subscribe to a newsletter. Readers can concentrate on content. I think many people subscribe for that reason. 

There is a wealth of interesting content on Medium. Many Medium members are not writers, but readers. They are not part of the Medium Partner Program, but they are the ones who read our work and help us earn for our writing. 


What I Like Best About the Medium Partner Program


Medium allows me as much freedom as I want. I can write in any genre. I can apply to a publication or not. I can write on any subject, though some subjects won't earn as much as others. As long as I follow the guidelines for the Medium Partner Program, I can put any article I want to behind the paywall. Of course, that doesn't mean it will earn anything. 

Medium treats me like an adult. It lets me take responsibility for my own work. I can publish it independently without submitting it to a publication editor and waiting for approval and publication. That means I am also free to publish inferior work that is less likely to earn than more polished work.

Proofreading is my responsibility alone. Publications want quality, so they do have editors to make sure what they publish is worth reading and is free of errors. But they don't correct it for you. They send it back to you or reject it outright. If a publication rejects your work, you are still free to publish it yourself. 

For an article to earn, other Medium subscribers need to see it, read it, and interact with it. Curated articles are most likely to get a kick start leading to more views on Medium. Articles in publications also get help from a newsletter the publication sends to its members listing new articles. In late 2019 this payment plan changed. Now payments depend on how much time paying members spend reading one's work. This suits me even better. A writer will be read more, not just clapped for by people wanting return claps. It's harder to game this system. 

Views from promotional links on social media don't usually bring in paid views. Traffic from Twitter automatically gets past the paywall for free. Most writers usually post a friend link when they post to social media so that readers can bypass the paywall if people click through. That means a well-promoted post with lots of traffic may not earn much if the readers aren't Medium members. 

Writers for publications often have their own Facebook groups for promotion. Koinonia is one of my favorite publications for Christian writers and it has an active Facebook Group. I know of three other active Facebook groups that are open to any Medium writers for discussion and threads for sharing posts. All these promotion opportunities and the support from other members is very helpful to new Medium writers. 

Most Medium publications encourage personal articles. They like authors to share what they've learned about  relationships, family life, work, mental health, business, and a number of other topics. Unlike HubPages, they prefer articles written in the first person rather than the third person, unless they deal with science or other very objective subject matter. Articles that speak directly to readers with a personal voice seem to do best.

Medium makes it easy to build your own following. You can even start your own publication on Medium if you don't find another that suits you or you want to keep your work in one place to make it more accessible to your followers.




The Downside of the Medium Partner Program


You are making an investment of five dollars a month or fifty dollars a year. There is no guarantee you will earn it back within those time frames. I'm on my eleventh week. If my earnings hold to their current pattern I will have covered my first year's membership by the end of the twelfth week and the rest will be profit. There is no guarantee that will happen. But I've never yet earned back with ads and affiliate links what it cost me to self-host a WordPress blog, and that was a far larger investment. My membership also allows me unlimited reading behind the paywall, and that's been worth the fee by itself.

You cannot include affiliate links or a call to action in a post that goes behind the paywall. You can, however link to another Medium post you have not put behind the paywall. In that post you may have an affiliate link or a call to action. You just need to make sure it's not interpreted as writing a post behind the paywall that only exists to point to another site.

If your posts aren't curated or promoted by a publication, they may not get much traffic. I have four posts that have received no fans or applause. Three were first published somewhere else between 2014 and 2016 and their original publishing dates followed them. If I publish older posts again, I will not use the importer which retains the original date. I will unpublish from the first site and revise for Medium.

The other unloved post was a rant published just for Medium. A few people read it, but no one liked it enough to applaud. That happens. I'm wondering if I should tweak the title and republish it.

If my current results on Medium hold up until the end of the year and my earnings keep growing, I will join again next year. A full year will help me see whether this is the direction I should go. But even if it's a wonderful year and I earn even more than I expect, there is that final downside. Medium can change the terms of the MPP any time they choose. They could stop paying. They could even close the site, though I think that's unlikely.

I have written the obituaries for many sites. One was What Can We Learn from the Fall of Bubblews? It was first published when Bubblews was still alive -- to answer questions about the living site. Some of the original predictions remain intact, but the post itself has been updated many times as things changed. I updated it once again and changed the title when when Bubblews finally died. Many of us who used to rely on Squidoo for income were crushed when it died.

We can never depend on any site we don't own for future income. It's always better to own your own site if you can make a profit. Meanwhile, as we build an audience, we can introduce ourselves to new readers on sites like Medium and  HubPages.

Possibly the biggest downside to writing for Medium is that you may be tempted to to neglect your own blogs. I have. I've also neglected other sites like HubPages. It's always a good plan to back up one's work on all sites, just in case, and not to put all one's eggs in one basket.

Basket of Eggs




Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”


Saturday, July 14, 2018

Reviewing Ways to Earn Money That Aren't Your Average 9 to 5 Job

ways to earn money with a side hussle
Image by Lou16
The internet has made the world seem smaller, it has also opened up opportunities for many people to embrace the idea of a side hustle or to even take the place of a more conventional day job.

Let's review a few ways that you can earn money that aren't talked about by your careers adviser in school. The wonderful contributors on this website have embraced several different ways of earning money and if you have similar talents then you may wish to embrace some of their methods.

So what ideas shall we discuss? Writing, photography, craft, recommendations, graphic design and even singing to cats!

You have probably heard the saying that if you do something you love you'll never work a day in your life. My late (offline) boss used to love this saying and he lived it too as he was at the office every day until his final two weeks (a month shy of his 90th birthday), he was even still studying a few months earlier! A few people who's articles you may have enjoyed on this site also seem to have taken these words to heart such as Mbg Photo & Wednesday Elf ...

Photography, Graphic Designs & Art


Mbg photo loves both photography and lighthouses so how to combine two loves and earn money at the same time? You sell your photographs of lighthouses on different products that people can purchase online. This is done with the aid of a number of print on demand sites, a popular one of these sites is Zazzle and you can see some wonderful lighthouses at Mgb Photo's Zazzle store - Lighthouse Gifts and Photos.

Zazzle is a great site to upload your own photography on, but you don't have to stop there.  Other popular ways to earn with Zazzle include typographical designs, in fact I had two very popular t-shirt designs that were just word based!  If you have a graphic design background or are an artist you could do well on this site.

Crocheting and Other Crafts


Wednesday Elf enjoys crocheting and she can utilize her talents by selling some of her amazing crocheted plush animals (and other goodies) in her very own Etsy store - Coastal Crochet Crafts.  There are a number of different crafts that you can make and put for sale on Etsy.  So if you enjoy crochet, knitting, jewelry making or even creating butterfly wings for costumes then you can sell your goods on Etsy.

Writing


When it comes to writing there are several different ways to earn money - writing a blog about things you love, reviewing products or even writing a book!   Sylvestermouse loves Christmas and plans for it throughout the year which is why she runs a couple of different sites around the holidays including Christmas Time Treasures.

BarbRad (like many of us) is a self-confessed bookworm and amongst her many book related blogs she reviews books at Bookworm Buffet (an awesome name for a book review site in my opinion!).

Anyone can set up their own website these days whether it's on the blogger platform, wordpress or even a site like weebly.   If that idea is too daunting for you then you could start writing on content sites such as hubpages or wizzley - earning money on these sites takes a while, but it's a good place to ease into the world of online writing.

Writing a book has become a lot easier with the internet because you can publish ebooks yourself.  It takes a lot more discipline to write a book in my opinion though.  One of our wonderful contributors has done this, however, with not just one, but two books - Bev Owen's cozy mysteries can be brought through Amazon.

Uber, Airbnb & Airtasker


Other ways of making money include the ride sharing economy such as Uber - simply use your car (provided it meets the requirements), download the app and you can choose your own hours for making money as a driver.  I know people who do this as a full time income as well as people who do it around other jobs.

Airbnb is a very popular way to cash in on extra room at home that can also lead you to meeting a variety of people.  Friends of ours do very well with this source of income which enables one of them to stay home and look after the children full time.

Airtasker is one way to earn money that I haven't used and nor do I know anyone who has.  I have heard interesting things about it though and it certainly seems like an interesting way to offer up any skills you have to earn money.  I was watching a segment on our local news program where they interviewed the head of airtasker in Australia and he said that the most unusual way someone had made money in the past year was by singing to a pet cat for an hour a day!

Recommendations


Recommending things is a great way to earn money and this can be done in a number of different ways.   One way is to write reviews (as we mentioned under writing) and in this way we can earn advertising income on a blog or we can earn via affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing we get a commission on any sales we make when we recommend things so you could look at one of Treasures by Brenda's sites which is called Movie Treasures by Brenda.  This site reviews movies and if you click on the movie and purchase it Brenda can receive a commision.  

Recommendations are very powerful you've only got to see how many Facebook recommendations you see in a day.  People just can't seem to resist giving recommendations (usually for free).  You don't have to write an article or blog post to earn money with recommendations you could try social marketing (previously called network marketing).

I actually belong to a social marketing company called Arbonne and basically I love the products so recommend them to people and then they buy them through me and I make a commission.  If they start recommending them to other people then I let them know that they could become a consultant themselves and make the commission for themselves instead of sending me clients!

The company I work for provide us with a website so the business can be wholly conducted online, but face to face recommendations works really well and I would recommend a combination of the two to be really successful.

There are a number of social marketing companies around, but my (albeit biased) opinion is that Arbonne is the best so if you are interested in finding out more please send me a message via my Facebook business page or via instagram.

Even More Ways to Make Money


Other ideas for making money is by offering to be a social media manager for small local businesses, setting up and/or looking after websites for local businesses.

Then of course there's always going back to basics and offering handyman services, shopping services, dog walking services.

The list really is endless, whether it's a local task or a global task there really seems as though there's nothing you can't make money from if you think outside of the office cubicle!




Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”


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