What if you’re not ready to launch your own blog and you haven’t decided which “niche” you’d like to cover?

You may want to start out writing for a big site such as eHow, which pays you a percentage of the income your articles earn. There are no rules about niches–you can cover whatever interests you on any given day.

Joining eHow is what one Writing for Your Wealth reader chose to do, and a year later she’s pulling in over $1,000 a month.

Maria, who goes by WriterGig on eHow, agreed to answer a few email questions and offer her advice for other writers who may want to get started this way.

1. Would you like to share a bit about yourself and what made you start looking online for ways to make money? And what led you to eHow?

I’m been a work at home mom since my oldest son was born in 2003. I left the newspaper where I worked to be home with him, but kept up freelance writing and then started grading high school English papers for a homeschool curriculum part-time (from home).

I began to move into online content writing in the spring of 2007, which paid better than grading. I heard about eHow’s Writers Compensation Program from Rich, the community manager at eHow, when he posted about it on the WAHM forums I frequent. I decided to try eHow as an experiment and when the money was good, and I realized the awesomeness of residaul income, I stayed.

2. How does eHow work as far as writing for them and making money goes?

Writers submit original how-to articles via a simple article submission tool. Earnings are determined primarily by Adsense revenue sharing, but article popularity, ratings and views may contribute to the algorithm used.

3. What kind of money are you making and how long has it taken you to build up to that?

I earned nearly $900 in September 2008 with about 200 articles. I have 223 article on eHow today, and have already earned more than $1,500 for October. I expect to see similar earnings in November and December. I have already earned over $24 per article (on average), and the money increases each month. I have been a member on the site for exactly one year.

4. How many articles have you written? Do you have to promote them yourself, or do you get a lot of traffic naturally since eHow is a big authority site?

I have written 223 articles on eHow.com under the Writers compensation Program, and while I do link to some of my best articles through my blog, I do very little social promotion of my articles. One of the best things about eHow is that it receives a ton of traffic and ranks great with the search engines, so I imagine most of my traffic comes from Google.

5. Do you focus on one niche or area of expertise, or do you write about anything that strikes your interest?

I enjoy writing about personal finance, health, home and garden, and seasonal topics. But I will write on just about everything that I know something about.

6. Any tips for writers who may be interested in making money through eHow?

Write original titles. If the same or nearly identical title has already been written, think of something else. Google won’t index more than 1-2 articles with the same keywords on any given site. Learn basic SEO, and concentrate on quality content for each and every article you write.

Okay, that’s it from Maria!

If you want to learn more about her strategies for making money from eHow, you can check out her eHow ebook. Her Work at Home Mom Blog is another resource you can check out, and here are a couple of her eHow articles you may find useful:

How to Create Passive Income Writing eHow Articles
How to Earn eHow Payments

Update (Maria had a few comments and clarifications she wanted to add after this went live):

I wanted to mention, though, that I don’t see eHow just as an alternative to having one’s own site for those getting started –it is a powerful money-maker AND traffic generator for all online writers, even and especially those who do have the skills to write their own sites (I have four websites and four blogs as well as my eHow, HubPages, BrightHub articles).

My earnings per article on eHow far outstrip my personal website article earnings thus far and there are several reasons why:

• eHow has a page rank of 7 — very hard to get! My eHow articles are indexed in a matter of hours and many hit the first page or so of Google pretty quickly.

• eHow has monthly traffic of 25 million visitors
• The community features on eHow (and there’s more to come) are a huge boost to article promotion

Anyway I just wanted to kind of clarify that because from what I have experienced, eHow is really a cut above the other content/ revenue-sharing sites and I believe it has great potential.

Thanks so much for interviewing me!

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

Writer Making $1,000+ a Month from eHow Shares Advice

Since ebooks are entirely digital, they cost nothing but time to produce. And since you can set up payment and delivery so they are completely automated, they’re the ultimate for providing passive income. But can you really make money with ebooks if you’re not a big-name internet marketer with a huge mailing list and a gazillion RSS feed readers?

Since you read the title of the post before clicking on it, you probably already know the answer is yes. What you want are the details. Let’s get started!

What follows is an email interview with Pat Flynn, first-time ebook author, and awesome comment-leaver here in the Writing for Your Wealth community.

Pat starts with…

“Thank you Lindsay for having me for an interview today. It’s amazing to think that a website that I created has prompted someone to ask me for an interview, let alone about how I made money from it. It’s an honor and a pleasure and I hope I can provide some helpful insight and inspiration to your readers as to how a person like me, who started out with no experience or expertise, can truly become a successful author.”

Awesome! Let’s jump into the questions…

Your In the LEED site looks great and is a wonderful resource. What turned you onto making money online, and how did you come to pick your niche?

How I started making money online was actually an accident. I created Intheleed.com solely to help myself organize my notes and pass a particular exam in the field of architecture and design. It’s called the LEED AP Exam, and it’s about “green” buildings and sustainable design strategies.

All I did was use a blog to easily type, edit, and categorize my notes so I could make sense of it all. Little did I know, I was actually creating an entire website filled with outlines and summaries that was helping other people study for the exam too! Surprisingly people found me through Google, and when those people told other people, who then told even more people, all of a sudden within 3 months, I was averaging 150 unique visitors a day.

Because of this, I knew I had to make sure all of the information I wrote was actually correct and helpful not only for me but for everyone else too. I didn’t mind doing this because it helped me learn even more. I ended up creating some helpful tables, charts, tips, and tricks that are still being used today.

I was perfectly happy with just helping people for free. Making money didn’t even cross my mind. Then I learned about Google Adsense, a device Google has created to crawl the content of websites and strategically post relevant ads. Because the ads are relevant to the material written on the page, they actually become helpful to the reader, instead of annoying.

After a couple months, I passed my exam (yay!) and I had made enough money to pay for the creation of the website and also all of my study materials, just from people clicking on ads. Any money made after that was all profit. As the number of visitors grew each month, so did my profit. It was a great feeling because everybody was a winner. I could have stopped there and just let the site die, but I knew I had something great, so I kept adding material and helping people out.

To add to my success, because I had passed my exam, I earned a promotion and a raise at my 9 to 5 job.

What prompted you to go beyond running advertising on your site and to write an ebook of your own?

Originally I had no intention of writing an E-book. The idea crossed my mind, but I was reluctant because I don’t consider myself a good writer and I knew it would take a little bit of hard work. It was when I started running the numbers that I learned it would be worth my time and effort. This is what was going through my head:

I figured that in a worse case scenario I could probably sell 1 book a week, or 4 in total each month. If I sold the book at $15.00 each, that’s an extra $60.00 of income per month. I compared that to a free cell phone bill or free gas, and that was enough for me to stop being lazy and just do it.

How much time did you need to invest to create the ebook and your bonus giveaways?

In total, I worked an hour or two each day for a little over a month. It was actually a lot easier than I had originally thought because most of the content I used was already on my website! I bet a lot of your readers who have blogs could easily create a very informative, sellable E-book by using primarily the posts they have already written!

You’ve had quite a bit of success in a short time with that ebook. Did it exceed your expectations, or were you confident it would be a winner from the start?

The first day I launched my book I had zero sales. I was a little disappointed but just left it there to marinate. The next morning, I actually woke up to 4 sales! It’s really an amazing feeling to think that while I was asleep, 80 dollars just suddenly appeared to my name (I was selling my E-book for $19.99). Besides the fact that I was asleep, the best part is that because I was self-published and had no employees or overhead costs, virtually all of the money from each sale is profit. If that’s not enough reason for anyone to start writing his or her own E-book, I don’t know what is.

The success of the book was definitely a nice surprise and has far exceeded my expectations, as you can see. I knew that I could sell at least 4 each month, and I would have been happy with that. Now, only 25 days after it’s debut, I’ve sold over 250 copies.

Did developing your site first, and providing free content on there, help you when it came to attracting an audience who would buy your ebook?

I’m certain that my E-book would not have done so well if I hadn’t first started my blog. Starting a blog did a few really important things for me. First, I was able to becoming a fairly high ranking website for keywords about my niche on Google. Secondly, I was able to learn all about my readers, like who they were, what they needed, wanted, liked and disliked.

At the same time, my readers learned about me too. They learned that I was a reliable source for the information I provided and that I was always there to answer questions and respond to comments. As a result, I was seen as a trusted expert on the subject, so it was natural that when I wrote my book, they automatically knew it was well worth their money. This is the power behind kick starting yourself with a blog.

If I was just a website selling an E-book with no history, no readership, and no reputation, it would be a lot more difficult to 1) get visitors to my site, 2) earn the trust of those visitors who actually did visit my site, and 3) sell anything.

Is there any advice you’d like to offer other writers who are thinking of creating and selling an ebook?

Sure, of course! When you’re thinking about writing an E-book, the hardest part is just getting started. Just do it! Each day your book is not on a website for sale is a day of potential profit loss.

If you don’t know what to write about, brainstorm. Write down your ideas or use a mind map. Think about your typical day and the things you do. Is there something you’re particularly good at? Maybe there’s something you’re not particularly good at and you can write about how you’ve learned to be good at it. I know plenty of blogs that are specifically about how much debt the author has accumulated, and how they are learning to get rid of it. That’s frontline material and sometimes that’s the best.

If you’re having trouble getting organized, break your topics down into different sections and outline it. This way, you’ll know what topics need to be covered and you can be sure that the order of material in your book makes sense.

If you’re having trouble writing, think of your outline as a checklist of articles that need to be written. You don’t have to go in order. You can skip some here, insert some there, and after all of the articles are complete…Shazam! You have a complete book!

Lastly, after you’ve completed it, show it to some of your friends and colleagues. Get their honest opinion and work their comments into your revision. It’s better to hear them from your colleagues while it’s being drafted, rather than from customers after it has launched. If they leave you good feedback, make note of what they said. You can use it as a testimonial to help promote your book.

Conclusion

Thanks again Lindsay for having me for an interview. It’s actually nice to be reminded about how I started out with my book, because I do have a few more projects in the works as we speak.

I would recommend to anyone who wants to make money in their sleep, to put in the initial work and write an E-book. For tips, Lindsay’s Writing for Your Wealth is a great resource. If you would like some other tips, feel free to visit me and say hello at http://www.smartpassiveincome.com or my LEED website at http://www.intheleed.com.

My last final piece of advice to you is this: if you need help, don’t be shy and just ask. Once you become a success story, you’ll see how much you’ll like helping other people out too. Good luck!

-Pat Flynn
contact: pat AT smartpassiveincome.com

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

First Time Ebook Author Makes $5,000 His First Month

Squidoo is one way writers are earning money online. You can create pages (they call them “lenses”) on any subject you want, and then insert affiliate links and advertising to turn them into passive sources of income. Essentially, it works the same way building a blog does, but you get to take advantage of the fact that Squidoo is already a big, popular authority site that’s well liked by the search engines. It doesn’t take as long to start getting traffic as it does with a brand new website.

Of course, for providing this free platform for you, Squidoo is going to take its cut, but the company and its lensmasters donate thousands of dollars annually to various charities, so there’s no evil empire aspect about it.

Some money-making methods I’m content to simply learn a bit about, but others I’m excited to try first hand, and Squidoo definitely falls into that second category for me. Alas, I’m a newbie over there, so I decided to find someone with more experience to give you the real scoop.

Interview with Stay-at-Home Mom and Squidoo Pro

With less than 100 lenses (at the time of this interview anyway), “Janet21″ is already making hundreds a month from the program. She was kind enough to answer some questions and explain how exactly she makes money with Squidoo:

Janet, I’ve read your “Are You a Stay at Home Mom (or Dad)…” lens, so I know a bit about your story, but for my readers would you mind sharing what brought you to Squidoo and making money online?

I was posting on a Webmaster forum while trying to promote my image hosting website when someone brought up the topic of Squidoo. I initially set up an account on Squidoo to help drive traffic to my hosting site, but I soon realized there was so much more I could do with this free platform. Having been a stay at home mom for over 8 years, I was more than ready to begin earning an income and contributing to the household expenses. And since my image hosting site did not take off as planned, Squidoo came at just the right time.

My site is all about empowering writers to increase their wealth using their words–is Squidoo a good opportunity for those who enjoy writing?

Most definitely! Squidoo enables lensmasters to write about topics they enjoy or share information they are passionate about and they can earn money in the process.

How exactly do you earn money from Squidoo?

There are four ways to earn money on Squidoo:

1. Ad revenue (Google and Glam ads). This revenue is shared with lensmasters based on the performance of their lenses.

2. Affiliate sales from Squidoo money making modules. (Amazon, eBay, Cafepress, etc.)

3. Inserting your own affiliate links through Commission Junction, Shareasale, Linkshare, etc.

4. Squidoo helps you drive traffic to your own personal websites and this can increase your sales and earn you money as well.

Do you have to put a lot of work into promoting your lenses or does a lot of the traffic come naturally through search engines?

Honestly, I do not spend a lot of time promoting my lenses. After I create a lens, I submit it to a few Squidoo groups and directories. I occasionally digg a lens if I feel it is a hot topic. And, that is about it.

I receive traffic from many different sources including: search engines (naturally), Squidoo directories, my blog, social networking sites, word of mouth, cross traffic from my other lenses on a similar topic, traffic from within Squidoo, etc. I like the diversity of my lens traffic. For the most part, traffic for each of my lenses comes from a different mix of sources, which in my opinion is better than receiving too much of your traffic from one source.

I’m guessing that for all the people creating lenses on Squidoo, only a few are making decent money. Do you have any suggestions for those who want to be successful?

Always write about topics that interest you and create a group of lenses around each topic/niche you decide to cover. The more specific and focused your lens is, the better chance it has of becoming successful. That is very important.

Also, be sure to include some money making modules within each of your lenses to promote products that relate to the topic you are discussing.

Lastly, but most importantly, get involved in the community. Squidoo is a social networking site afterall and lensmasters that are the most active in the community tend to achieve the best results.

• Join the SquidU forums
• Visit other lenses and leave a thoughtful comment
• Submit your lenses to Squidoo groups
• Join lensmaster fan clubs and send out Squidcasts when you have something interesting to share
• Use the lensroll feature to spotlight other lenmasters work that you like
• Most of all, have fun!

See more of Janet’s work by visiting her Squidoo lensmaster home page at Janet21.

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

Make Money and Build Passive Income with Squidoo