Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Make Money Writing (By Joining InfoBarrel.com)

When I was in middle school and adults asked me what I wanted to do for a living I told them I wanted to write books. They laughed and told me with an imagination like mine I should have no problem, but that I should have a normal job as well. All writers, or so they assured me, had to be teachers or garbage men or something until they became famous enough to live purely off their books.

This ladies and gentlemen is what we refer to as Grade-A Bullshit.

If there's one thing I know, it's bullshit.
If you want to follow in the footsteps of such luminary authors as Stephen King by becoming an English teacher and writing in the copious amounts of free time you'll have (if you aren't laughing you've clearly never seen how time-consuming teaching actually is) then by all means do so. If you think you've got the drive and sheer balls to hold down a day job and then spend hours a night banging away on a keyboard then I salute you.

This post isn't for you.

This post is for people who want to make money writing interesting articles. It's for people who want to take a chance that the fickle finger of the Internet gods will fall on them and fill their bank accounts to bursting (or failing that at least give them enough money to pay bills with a little cash left over). It's for people whose eyes light up when they hear the word royalties and who see no reason to start earning them years from now instead of right now!

Let Me Tell You About InfoBarrel


Some of you have likely looked into websites that will pay you to write before coming across my blog. HubPages is perhaps the most popular website out there, but its competitors like Triond, Xomba, and even Helium.com are all ready and willing to take your content and publish it for you. The problem with these sites is that if you don't have a Google Adsense account then there's no way you can get paid.

That's what makes InfoBarrel different from other sites.

That, and the fact that they pay you in cash instead of promises.
At a glance InfoBarrel is just like any popular site out there driven by user-created content. You set up an account, and start writing articles. InfoBarrel puts ads on your articles, and based on how well they perform you get paid. Some of the ads need to be clicked by readers, and some of the ads just need to be viewed a certain number of times, but whenever you meet the threshold you have money in the bank.

The site has two ad tiers; Tier 1 which is Google Adsense ads, and Tier 2 which is miscellaneous ads.

I Thought You Said I Didn't Need Google Adsense?


Keep your stockings straight, I'm getting to it.

In case you're not a regular reader I'll give you some background. Up until late 2014 I had a Google AdSense account of my own, and it was tied right to this blog. Then I was kicked out of Google's super-secret clubhouse, and told that I can never have an AdSense account ever again. You can get the full story on that right here. I also had over 400 articles on Yahoo! Voices when that site shuttered its doors in August 2014 (which cut another few hundred bucks out of my monthly earnings), and I needed a place to put them.

I had an InfoBarrel account from several years ago, so I fired it back up and started posting.

For the first two months I received Tier 2 earnings only, which amounted to a little over $5 or so. I went to my user account, agreed to the latest terms and conditions, and then clicked the Advertising Profile tab and enabled First Tier Ad Management.

And then money?
The way Google AdSense works is that Google tracks everything with your account number on it, tabulates your cut of the advertising money, and then kicks it to you on a monthly basis. If you don't have a Google AdSense account then you can't use any website that works with Google to pay its writers. How First Tier Ad Management works is that you are joining a collective AdSense account for all the authors on InfoBarrel that have also clicked that little box. Infobarrel manages the AdSense for all the views on all your pages, and at the end of the month you get your portion deposited into your account.

In this way you can make AdSense money without needing to have your own personal AdSense account.

What Can I Write About?


Anything you damn well please, within reason. When creating your content you need to write about something interesting, which is going to be just as relevant in five years as it is tomorrow, and which has pretty pictures in it (seriously check out the image I used for The Succubus. It's no wonder it pulled over a thousand hits). Whether you're a fan of history or celebrity trivia, cars or life hacks, you can put up articles about anything as long as it doesn't advocate violence, show people how to do something illegal, and wouldn't be considered pornography.

If you're looking for examples check out my InfoBarrel author page and read some of my posts.

How Much Can I Make?


Depends, how many page views can you get?

InfoBarrel is just like any of the aforementioned sites in that you are there to get your ads seen. That means you need to have thousands of hits per month (or per day if you can swing that bat) in order to hit the $60 minimum payout (don't complain, Google AdSense's minimum payout is $100).

It also depends on how creative you get.
There are a lot of ways to start stacking greenbacks in your account. One way is to create a lot of content so that you'll get a huge amount of page views just be sheer weight of numbers (this is kind of how Dean Koontz got rich). Another method is to create very targeted content that will have a lot of appeal to a certain demographic; flower arranging, green energy home solutions, tabletop roleplaying guides, all of these are meant to pull in people who share a narrow interest. Some people just hope they become a viral sensation, bringing in a few hundred thousand hits with nothing more than luck and the power of zeitgeist.

Will you make enough to quit your job? Not for a long while, barring some stunning luck. Will you be able to create an income stream that will help support you and which can win you a bigger audience?

Yeah, you should be able to manage that.

If you'd like to join Infobarrel today just click my referral link!


If you'd like to support the Literary Mercenary then stop by my Patreon page and become a patron today! Seriously, as little as .50 per entry or $1 a month can make a big difference when everyone works together. If you want to make sure you don't miss any of my updates then make sure to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr!

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