Where would you blog, aside from HubPages?

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   erinshelbyposted 8 years ago

   What sites exist that are free to use, that allow writers to create any content (like HP), where you can make money?

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      ocfirefliesposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      great question-will be following responses
      ocfireflies aka Kim

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         criminology101posted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Google' blogger is the best free blog where you can make money.

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      NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

      The only other site, besides HP and my own sites, that I like is Wizzley. It's user-friendly, I like the interface and I also like the community and admin. You can make money there, not that I know how, but there are various opportunities for making money there in terms of affiliate ads and Adsense and Chitika. I'm going to be honest and tell you that I haven't made a great deal of money there, but people there do make money. I don't have a lot of content there though.

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      peachpurpleposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I write for other sites, wikinut, persona paper, blogjob, writedge but not bubblews, hate them

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         So, how would you compare the earnings potential on each of those sites?

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   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   I regularly perpetrate missives on Blogger. One can even assign a domain name to it. And it pretty much accepts any ad program you care to throw at it.

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   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   Let's be very clear - HubPages is not a blog, nor are you blogging when you write for HubPages.
   
   Blogger and Wordpress.com are both free to use and allow you to host proper blogs on their sites.
   
   Before you can make any money you first need to learn how to create a successful blog which generates followers and traffic.
   
   One indicator before you start. 95% of all blogs don't make it beyond three months old
   
   In 2008 Technorati did a survey of the blogs it covered and found that only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracked had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned.
   www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html
   
   My recommendation would be to only start blogging once you've got a clear and focused concept, lots of interesting content and the persistence to turn up a regular basis to generate content on the same topic area for months and years to come. 
   
   Blogging every day for 90 days is a good place to start - if you get past that you might make a go of it.
   
   I've been doing it for 10 years and know what I'm talking about.
   
   This is a useful article on Lifehacker which provides some perspective
   http://lifehacker.com/can-i-really-make … 1537783554

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You are correct, makingamark,  in everything you say, including that HP is not a blogging site.
      
      I have several blogs on blogger, and they are all pretty much "abandoned."  My intentions were great, but the energy and freshness of topic were not there.  I'm not a certified expert in anything; I'm a "Jill of all trades; master of none," as the saying goes.  I know a little about a lot of things.  I expect this describes most of the population.
      
      My most "successful" blog, in terms of interaction with other bloggers, is definitely a "niche" blog, but of no particular interest to anyone but like-minded bloggers who also write as members of  "The Cat Blogosphere."  It is merely a link site, where you can post your latest blog post for other members to read, and the niche is, as the name says, that all the blogs must be about cats.
      
      Some write informational articles dealing with cats, but most of them are personal tales about the antics of peoples' own cats, and some, like mine, are written in deliberately mangled English, as if the cats themselves are writing, given that they would probably have trouble with English spelling, had they the ability to speak and type.  The spelling is more phonetic, "has" becoming "haz" for example.  It has a name, called "LOL-speak" or sometimes "cat-speak."
      
      There is obviously no demand or search going on for these blogs, for their sole purpose is fun for the cat-owner community.  And at this point, as I have been putting more energy and focus here, even my  "Talk With the Paws" blog has been neglected for over a year.   
      
      I just don't have the energy to spread myself out over several writing sites.
      
      That aside, I'm not particularly enamored of Blogger, because the photo placement is difficult.  I jumps to certain areas, you cannot drag/drop to where you'd rather have it, and getting text to properly flow around pictures is not easy.
      If there is a way to do this, it requires much more html knowledge and skill than I have.  The extent of my "skill" in that area is limited to how to do bold, italic, underline and color.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         MsLizzy, the whole point of blogging is that you do NOT "spread yourself thin" across several writing sites - because for a blog to succeed, you need to focus a LOT of effort on it.  Unless blogging is a full-time job, that may mean you have time for only one or two blogs/websites. 
         
         When I first started, I created several blogs - and I've been slowly letting them go ever since!  I now have only two main blogs and that's as much as I can maintain, doing it as a hobby.

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            DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Hi, Marisa--
            
            Yes, well, I regard HP as my serious writing, and my blogs as my "toys" or hobbies, as you put it.  I'm not that serious about them, and I lack enough AdSense and "gadget placement know-how" to make all of that work for me as a blog.  I'm happier concentrating on just writing, and letting the site handle the background techie stuff.
            
            I do have several blogs--started at different times for different reasons; that's where I was starting to feel spread too thin.  I cannot keep up with them all, and even the poor "cat's blog" is neglected at the moment.
            
            The most recent one was going to be a serious niche blog, about the process of a patient going through a heart transplant...as my husband was on the list.  However, after I wrote two, and then stopped because he had some bad bouts and I had no inclination to write, as I feared I might lose him...  they tried a new technology, and it's working, and they've taken him off the transplant list...so there went that blog. 
            
            And, like I said, I'm not happy with how Blogger doesn't let you easily put photos where you want them to be...even though I'm not always pleased that on here, we cannot left-align some things..at least it's consistent because of the capsules, we can get a more accurate placement.
            
            And, as we've seen, I'm not a 'niche' person; I'm a generalist.  So..none of it really works for me anywhere I write, so I'm giving up at doing it for any reason other than I enjoy writing.
            And I should probably be spending less time here, and more time working on the e-book.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   First, as Makingamark says, you need to ask the right question. 
   
   Nobody "blogs" on HubPages or any other similar site - they write articles. 
   
   What's the difference? 
   
   Article writing sites like HubPages give you a profile where your Hubs are all displayed together, but the vast majority of your readers won't ever visit it, or read more than one of your articles.  In fact, most readers won't even notice who you are.  Instead, they will browse around the whole site, reading articles on their favourite topic by lots of different writers. 
   
   The advantage of an article-writing site is that you are in a community of other writers, and they will read and comment on your work too, which is motivating.  It's also generally easier than blogging, which requires you to run your own site and have a bit more technical knowhow.
   
   Other article writing sites are Wizzley, Infobarrel, PersonaPaper, DailyTwoCents.  There are plenty more.  None of them make much money.   Of them all, HubPages is probably the best for income but that is not necessarily saying much.

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   Azure11posted 8 years ago

   I agree, HubPages isn't a blogging site, it's a place for individual articles. I have to say I question whether the free blogging sites are worthwhile - I know some people do really well on them but I have never earned that much in ad revenue compared to my own blogs on my own domains, the cost of the domain and hosting essentially pay for themselves in ad revenue. Maybe I need to revisit the couple I have on blogger!

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   Chriswillman90posted 8 years ago

   Being a writer is all about persistence whether it be Hubpages, your own sites, or blogs. A lot of people don't see the viewership and income even after a few months of writing so they give up and abandon it. Of course whatever you're doing has to have interesting content, but it's much more than that. There's a reason why writing is so challenging and few realize that when they begin. I'm sure they think oh I'll write a few articles and make income right away only to discover the harsh reality that it doesn't work like that.

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      passionatelearnrposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      i agree,thats the reality for many people.

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   DasEngelposted 8 years ago

   You will not find another website like HubPages. Wizzley? More power to them!

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   passionatelearnrposted 8 years ago

   Write for listvers,toptens or iwriter.they pay around 50$ or 100$ per article.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I would advise caution with those sites - read their small print. 
      
      It's true Listverse pays $100 per article IF they decide to publish it.  HOWEVER, even if they decide not to publish it, they keep the article - you're not allowed to publish it anywhere else. 
      
      So there's a good chance you will write a 1,500 word article and get paid nothing for it.

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   Mark Ewbieposted 8 years ago

   A year ago many people, including myself, would be saying "Bubblews".  A good indication of how the next big thing becomes last weeks news.
   
   Your answers on here will fall into several categories.
   
   1. People hoping to sell you their services as web experts.
   2. People looking to sign you up to some referral scheme.
   3. People who claim big things and successes yet strangely are still on this little backwater.
   4. People who admit that they make a few dollars a month - if that.
   5. People who didn't understand the question and want to talk about their cat.
   6. People looking for more followers.
   7. People hoping you will visit their site so they can make another 0.001 cents.
   
   Good luck with that.
   
   Oh yeah - my number is 8.
   
   8. Pissed off with the internet but passing by during a lunch break and felt like writing something.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I would add ...
      
      9.  People who are using HubPages as an excuse not to do more important but boring online stuff.

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         Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Ah that is very true.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Guess which category I'm in

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               Mark Ewbieposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Let's leave it there for now

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         DzyMsLizzyposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         @ Marisa-- OR -- more important but boring OFF-line stuff.....

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      abdussalaamposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Brilliant :-)

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    makingamarkposted 8 years ago

    In terms of why people use article sites? (re. Mark's comment) I'd add in tthree more categories
    9. It gives you a profile on the Internet
    10. It hosts your content for FREE
    11. Some people just like to share their knowledge with others interested in the same topic - which is certainly the reason I started - and I'm pretty certain I'm not alone!
    
    In terms of other article sites.....
    A major consideration with other article sites is how much traffic they get. You can check this out using Quantcast.
    
    In terms of Blogger.......
    *  The major advantage of using something like Blogger is you have no recurrent hosting costs.
    *  There's absolutely nothing to stop you using your own domain - you just have to register it and then do the necessary adjustments in settings. So don't think free blog software means you can't have your own domain.
    * you can use AdSense (and there's a module to make it really easy)
    
    In terms of your own sites........
    If you're going to pay for your hosting:
    * you need to make very sure that you've got enough content on one topic that is going to justify the costs involved re domain name and hosting.
    * You need to be aware that you certainly won't make much re AdSense unless you get a lot of traffic and.....
    * you won't get a lot of traffic unless you've got a niche topic and you're a leader in your chosen field.

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    Linda Robinson60posted 8 years ago

    Textbroker is another excellent company to blog for always tons of jobs, the pay is not the greatest but it is always continuous and depending on how many blogs you can do it adds up rather quickly.  I have been with them for nearly a year now, love the people, the customer service is great, friendly and helpful.  One place that you should definitely give a shot to.  If you need more information please ask. Good luck. Linda

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       UnnamedHaraldposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       One big difference between HubPages and TextBroker is that you do not own your content. You are indeed writing for others. This also means there is no recurring revenue. In the tradition of the tortoise and the hare, if you write good quality hubs, you might still be making some money on something you wrote four years ago. Plus you can always pull the hubs and put them somewhere else, publish an ebook, etc because you own them. Having said that, my experience with TextBroker (albeit over four years ago) was that they paid what and when they said. Also, like HubPages, TextBroker is not a blog site. You are writing for clients. I searched for content I wrote and was amazed at the places my words (well, they weren't "my" words anymore) ended up. For example, I wrote an article on West Des Moines and it ended up at http://www.localpages.com/ia/west-des-moines word for word-- except that the "author" is listed as Lyndsey Morgan.

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    passionatelearnrposted 8 years ago

    How much can i expect to earn from textbroker?

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       Linda Robinson60posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Actually once you take and submit a sample of your work and you are accepted it is endless what you earn. All the jobs are different, the word count is basically you can earn a very decent amount depending on how many jobs a day or week you take, honestly they are very reputable and pay every week on a Thursday.  The blogs range from a few dollars to 15 or 20 dollars not as much as some sites, but they have an excellent customer service department as well.  Plus you can improve to other levels and get direct orders from clients.  I really think you would be extremely happy with this company.  It is constant money coming in week to week and it is all legit and you can talk to the clients.  But one I definitely highly recommend.  On every topic you can imagine, please do check them out, any thing more you would like to know, I am here.  Linda

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          Linda Robinson60posted 8 years agoin reply to this

          One last thing sorry, my mind is working overtime but to mention if you want many reliable opportunities for work and continually another excellent idea is to sign up for the monthly newsletter in your e-mail inbox for called Freedom with Writing, they are amazing and will tell you all the is hire and what they pay for short stories, blogging and hubbing.  Happy writing and the very best of luck to you.  Hopefully I was a big help to you and others who are looking and who are interested. Linda

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             theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Really interesting information, Linda. I might take a look.
             
             I'm in the middle of 56 commissioned 600-800-word articles at the moment so time for other writing is limited. It's funny - if I told myself to write 56 pieces for my own blog or 56 hubs, I'd give in before I started, but when someone else requests it, I'm on it! Oh, and this online magazine tracked me down via my Hubs, which was very gratifying.

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       Linda Robinson60posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I forgot to mention that once you take a job and submit it the client has three days to accept or reject it but you being an excellent writer that rarely happens and in most cases they will let you know if something is not what they are looking for and then you have an entire day to make those changes and then resubmit it for payment and payment is nearly instant once accepted and you can keep track on your payment page to know exactly what you have in your account to be released into your pay pal account once you request in on every Thursday as long as it is before midnight. Very easy, fun and it is extremely dependable.  I do love it. It has been nearly a year since I have been with them.  Linda

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    passionatelearnrposted 8 years ago

    I'm glad to know that you had a nice experience.Linda but they accept only u.s citizens as authors.

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       Linda Robinson60posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Oh I am so sorry.  I didn't realize where you are so sorry again.  But please then at least sign up for Freedom with Writing.  I am sure that most of those will accept and doesn't matter if you are in the states or not.  Please check it out. And good luck.  I will be checking around more for you as well to pass it along.  Enjoy your weekend. Linda

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       SheilaMilneposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I don't know where you are either, but there is a UK text broker site too.

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       theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       No, they are looking for writers from the UK, New Zealand and Australia among other countries.

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          theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Oops... when I looked at the the TextBroker pay rates it looks like a 3* writer earns (Euros) .95 cents per word. Now I realise it's actually .095 cents. That's not how it's written on the site. It says E0.95.
          
          Ha ha... that works out at about £6/$8 for a 1000 word article. They know where they can stick it!

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             WriteAngledposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             Umm, EUR 0.095 works out as EUR 95 per 1000 words, which currently is £69.81. That is a bit less than the per word rates I charge for translation. I've no idea how writing from scratch compares to translation volume-wise. As a translator, my output varies quite a lot depending on the context, but might range from 1000 to more than 3000 words per day. All I know is that this lets me live a fulfilled life doing the things I want to do with no worries about money, although naturally fulfillment will depend on what you feel you need to have/do in life. Thus for me, "working online" has only brought in the income I want via my translation services. My web sites earn me a couple of bottles of good champagne per year in Adsense fees; HP income would not even buy me a small coffee a month!

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                theraggededgeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                Not according to their calculator. If it were E95/1000, I'd be snatching their hand off. Have a look. Maybe I am wrong. I'd love to be wrong!
                
                Scroll down for the calculator. It does look like E0.95 but it's Cents 0.95.
                
                https://www.textbroker.co.uk/authors-pa … conditions

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                   WriteAngledposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                   If they mean 0.95 eurocents per word, i.e. 9.5 euros per 1000 words, then I agree that is totally ridiculous.
                   
                   However, I suppose there are always people willing to work for peanuts because they do not have the skills to get properly paid work, just as there are always clients happy to pay for the resulting rubbish!

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                      Glenn Stokposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                      I took a look at Textbroker to see what the problem is. I trade Euros on the futures market so I understand it well.
                      
                      Textbroker's earnings is poorly explained. For example, for a three star quality rating they say that they pay "€ 0.95 cents/word."
                      
                      That's redundant and misleading, which is why I see everyone getting confused.
                      
                      Their way of being redundant leaves one wondering if they mean "€ 0.95/word" which is the same as saying "95 Eurocents/word." This is because a Euro dollar is divided into a hundred Euro cents. That's almost a Eurodollar per word and I doubt they meant that!
                      
                      I'm thinking they meant "0.95 cents/word."  Note that I left off the € icon to avoid the erroneous redundancy. And it's important to notice the decimal location.  "0.95 cents/word" is slightly less than a penny per word.

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    FatFreddysCatposted 8 years ago

    I have a silly little Tumblr page where I post random nonsense about the movies I just watched or the CDs I've just bought, but obviously there's no earning potential there, it's for my own amusement and for that of my measly # of followers.

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       Linda Robinson60posted 8 years agoin reply to this

       Hey FatFreddyscat some times it is not always about the money, sounds like fun and if you enjoy what you are doing that means a lot.  Take care. Enjoy your weekend. Linda

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    darksideposted 8 years ago

    Despite not having published anything, anywhere, for a few years now, HubPages remains the one place that still has my articles up and online for the world to see, and they're still earning me revenue.
    
    Which ain't bad for someone who has done zero writing on the site for however long it has been. I'm thankful that HubPages Inc are a legitimate company and allow the revenue to continue to flow and haven't done the dodgy like some of the other publishing platforms I've used in the past.
    
    My advice years ago was for people to not have all their eggs in one basket. Which was mainly aimed at Lensmasters, and encouraging them to give Hubbing a go. As far as I can tell the baskets are now far fewer.
    
    My advice years ago was to publish quality articles, and plenty of them. Ones that would stand the test of time.
    
    My advice now is, consider something other than publishing articles on blogs or sites. Not unless it is part of a bigger plan.
    
    Ask yourself why you are doing it. What is the purpose of publishing articles? Is it to make money, or to get your name out there? Is it a creative pursuit, a hobby?
    
    Use HubPages as a part of a bigger picture. Consider how Youtube Videos and Kindle Publishing might fit into what you want to do. How can you use Facebook and Instagram to promote yourself.

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       WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       As always, straight to the point and great advice. The only part I'd disagree on is that you can't JUST earn off online writing. I've found I can do just that - but it's far easier when doing it off your own website where you have complete control. I'm far too lazy to put work into Kindle/Youtube etc.

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    passionatelearnrposted 8 years ago

    Thank you unnamedhertter for the insight.I think i had better choose to be a tortoise then.

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    WryLiltposted 8 years ago

    I only "blog" (write personal thoughts and feelings) on my Susannah Birch website. All my other websites and online content is purely based around informing people on various topics and getting traffic and/or money.
    
    Your own domain websites DO make more money, but only IF you know how to apply the rules of SEO that you can learn for free on sites like Hubpages. I'd been on Hubpages six months when I decided to go buy a dozen domains, build half a dozen websites and "make money" with all these new fancy SEO ideas I'd learned. I fell flat, because most of them were CRAP! I had a lot more to learn before I became successful.
    
    Nowadays, I have sites that make serious money, but I still write on Hubpages now and then, because it's a great place to test content, throw content I don't have any other sites related to or just put up quick viral topics for some nice PPV earnings.
    
    I don't really use any other third party sites now - sure, I have content on a few of them, but most only make a pittance compared to Hubpages, just as Darkside said. Hubpages has stood the test of time for me.

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    NateB11posted 8 years ago

    I notice some people are recommending sites like text broker where you sell articles. Not my favorite thing to do because so far the time put in doesn't match what I've been paid. However, I'd recommend BlogMutt, I've written some articles for them; pays $8 an article, some other sites pay much less. The articles are around 300 words if I remember correctly, been awhile since I've done anything there. For me, it was easier to find topics I could write about; I couldn't find that on text broker. I had a couple of people who ran blogs that regularly bought my articles. I could have kept going like that for quite awhile, but, like I said, the amount of work for the payout wasn't worth it to me. However, you might be able to find some work there where you can do some quick write ups and make a good amount of money. I think it depends on what you write about.

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       WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       I hate up front paying content mills - I've found with private clients you can get $45-50/500 words, which is a far more respectable figure.

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          DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          One can make a lot of money on the internet depending on their skills.

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          NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

          I agree, Susanna. That's why I quit writing for them. I haven't ventured into writing for private clients, I've heard before that it's better.

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             WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

             If you can find either large content sites or SEO content firms (who write blogs for their clients) you can set up a good income stream.

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                NateB11posted 8 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks, Susanna.

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    passionatelearnrposted 8 years ago

    Thank you wrylilt for valuable info.

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    TessSchlesingerposted 8 years ago

    I think hubpages is probably the only one where one can make a bit of money. For the rest, one has to have private clients. Difficult to find, but if you have a solid portfolio, eventually you will.

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    Kalmiyaposted 8 years ago

    Check out WeekendNotes. I started writing for them three months ago and have now hit my first $50.00 payout (via Paypal). They look for writers all over the world to write about activities, events, cafes, restaurants, etc. in your own neighbourhood. They have an amazing awards program that helps you hit payouts while you're building a stock of articles that will bring you CPM money. Please check out my article under Kalmiya that talks about the details. If you sign up, please consider mentioning me as your referrer (they also reward writers if they bring in 'cadets').  Thanks!

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       Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       WeekendNotes also has an associated suite of sites called Hubgarden. Some of them offer,upfront payments and prizes, so although I haven't found the passive income good, I did get a couple of $50 payouts.

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    paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

    Got a 500-word insight that QAP will piddle on? Toss it on your own website. My website will hit 100K views this year easy. Revenue is terrible, but it's fun.

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    paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

    Speaking of which... Anybody got any recommendations besides AdSense?

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       WryLiltposted 8 years agoin reply to this

       For my main website, I'm with a group called TheBloggerNetwork.com - and I'm with about 10 affiliate programs.

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          paradigm searchposted 8 years agoin reply to this

          Thank you, WryLilt.

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