Is it true that it might take even years in order to earn some money ?

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   Margaret Panposted 4 years ago

   Hello everyone,
   Being new here, another thing I'd like to ask is whether it's true that for some people it could take years before they earn some money here. Prior to joining HubPages I did a little bit of research and read some posts written by different people, who described their experience on Hubpages. Although some were saying that they constantly earn at least a small amount of money, there were others claiming that they had been writing for months to a year and hadn't even earned the minimum of $50 in order to cash out. I'm always suspicious of random posts I read online so I'd like to know what you think. I'm not one who expects to become rich overnight (or over a week or over a month), especially by writing. However, to have been writing here, let's say for 1 or 2 years and not have earned at least $50 seems a bit too much for me. Could you maybe share your own experience? Thank you in advance!

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      It is true that for some people it can take years to earn any meaningful amounts of money.  I am not one of them  I made my first payout after 6 months, but only really started to earn good money at the 4 year mark.  Much depends on your topic and  how well your articles are written.  Not everybody succeeds, but most make at least something.  If you're not making regular payouts after a reasonable amount of time, you likely are doing something wrong.  The bar is high here.  Read some articles from writers who have succeeded to see what you need to do to earn, and definitely read the info in the learning center.

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         Margaret Panposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you!

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      OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      You want your articles moved to the niche sites.  That's where you will make money.  Articles on HubPages earn only cents.

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         Margaret Panposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you, how easy would you say is it for someone to have their articles moved to a network site?

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            OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Your articles must meet the guidelines as explained in the Learning Center (Help button, upper right).  You can submit one article every 2 weeks to be considered for a niche site.

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      Titiaposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      You've only been here for 5 weeks. You'll need a lot of patience. It's what TT2 and theraggededge say, some do excellent, some do good, some do ok and some will never reach the payout. It mostly depends on how many visitors (not HP members) your articles attract.

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         Margaret Panposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I see, fortunately I'm a very patient person, we'll see where it gets me!

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      stuff4kidsposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      The simple answer to the question in your title is, "Yes." And even then, after years of effort and thousands of words, image searches, formatting, social sharing, and the rest, the probability is that you won't even earn enough for a coffee and a muffin.

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      NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I think it took me a couple years to get the 50 dollar payout. And I didn't know what I was doing. If I knew what I was doing it would have taken less than a year. So in answer to the question, reaching the payout is definitely possible within a couple years. Best advice I think there is is to write good titles, something somebody puts into a search engine.

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      chef-de-jourposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      You have some excellent advice and information from experienced writers here on HP who know what they're saying and doing (some or most of the time!)…. so I will only say that to earn money on a consistent basis from your articles you have to be patient, eager to learn and hard working. Build up a stock of quality articles, gain readership and you can succeed.

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   theraggededgeposted 4 years ago

   The trouble is that it is different for everyone. I'd published a few articles on HubPages and then forgot about them, so when I got a payment I was quite surprised. I put in some more effort - there was a special apprentice program running (alas no more) so I joined that. We had to write a minimum number of articles each month and that was a huge boost.
   
   So it's partly a numbers game, partly skill in selecting topics, and some luck. I've earned over four figures in a month a couple of times.
   
   So the time thing is relative. It really depends how many articles you write and if you hit a nice rich seam of topics. You can churn out poetry and creative writing and not earn a dime. But if you write what people want to read then it will work for you.

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      Margaret Panposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your insight!

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      poppyrposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      You're so cool, Bev. Always been an inspiration to me.

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         theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         And those, admittedly few, people on over $10k pm are an inspiration to me. If I only had that sort of dedication.

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   DrMark1961posted 4 years ago

   The replies from Bev and TT2 are good, but I want to add that you can make payout in just a few months as long as you treat this like a part time job. (10 or 20 hours a week.) What I see a lot from people that leave and go on to those type of complaining sites is "I have been on Hubpages for 6 years and even though I have 12 articles I have never made payout."
   If 12 articles are all that the person could produce in 6 years, it is understandable.
   
   The decent traffic at this point is coming through the niche sites, not the HP main site. If you plan to write mostly health articles you probably are not going to do very well since Google has been cutting traffic to the HP health niche sites. If you are knowledgeable in other areas you might need to expand that way.
   I earn a decent salary here but I did change the focus of my articles from the time I started here. I wrote several local Brazilian recipes and about our cultural practices but the traffic was terrible. I read several of your autism articles, and they are well written but I do not think they will have much traffic because of YMYL policy. (I might be very wrong about that, so if you want to write more on that subject you need to make sure that your bio reflects your knowledge, you include some references from the NIH, and your images come from a site like Flickr or Pixabay.)
   Best of luck with this. Editing is the key, and get those autism articles moved to a niche site.

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      Margaret Panposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for taking the time to write this, and for your advice! I think you make a valid point in regards to the health niche .. I'll make some improvements to my articles such as adding a bio, some references etc but I'll definitely expand in some other areas too as you suggested!

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      stuff4kidsposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      20 hours work for $50 is $2.50 an hour. You could earn more cleaning toilets. I don't think it's fair to suggest to anyone that HubPages is a serious way of earning a good income. It's more of a lottery. And anyone who can write well could and should be earning 25 CPW for a feature in a magazine. If you study the HubPages Learning Center content, it's right up top that it's not an earnings site, so much as a place for enthusiasts to share, etc. Of the tens of thousands of folks with accounts here, it's a handful who earn anything at all. The number that might make over $50,000 per annum is zero. This is from someone (me--hi!) who makes payout once every month or so with only a few articles. But if I do the math, it makes little sense. It'll be another decade before each article has earned a professional rate.

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         DrMark1961posted 4 years agoin reply to this

         The thing is I have an article that has earned about $15,000. I do not know how many hours it took to write as it was back in 2014. Certainly a lot less than 6000.
         Yes, the article is an outlier. I wrote an article on leg wounds in horses last year and it still has less than a thousand page views, and I seriously doubt it will ever earn anything.
         But, I think the reason that there are swarm of people who have never earned is because there are swarms of people that sign up and write one or two articles, get frustrated because they do not get rich, and then go online and complain that they never earned payout.
         Where did you arrive at the information that zero persons earn less than $50,000 per year?

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            stuff4kidsposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Hi. I should have had the word "probably" in that sentence. But in any case, it's a lottery. Some people will keep playing because once in a while someone else hits the jackpot and it's in all the media. But the odds are are stacked against you. Well done with your $15,000 article! But try dividing that figure by the total number of article hours you've put in to duds and you might wonder. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, HubPages is a great community, and I've found several of your dog articles useful, but it's misleading to suggest that there's any general guarantee that professional level earnings are possibile whatever you do.

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               EricDockettposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Saying its a lottery suggests it is all about luck.  That's just not true. I agree with Dr. Mark 100%. Put in the work (which means not only writing but learning how to write for the web, do keyword research, learn SEO, choose topics, etc) and you can do well here.
               
               While it isn't fair to newbies to say that you can earn a full-time living here (though, make no mistake, some people do) it is just as misleading to say nobody does well here except the staff. The truth is most people are somewhere in the middle. Many, many people earn a significant paycheck from HP each month.
               
               And, many people aren't willing to do the work and then tell everyone you can't earn any money here. That's unfortunate, and I hate for newbies to hear advice like that.
               
               If you work any other part-time gig, sure you will get paid more up front. But if you put those same 20 hours into HubPages each month and write 20-30 decent articles, in six months you can move on to something else if you want. You can reduce your HP time to an hour or so per week for maintenance and keep getting paid for those articles for as long as the site is around.  Like Dr. Mark said, one article can add up to thousands of dollars over the years.
               
               I can't think on any other gig that keeps paying you even after you stop working. The only thing comparable is running your own website, which also comes with a steep learning curve and  low odds of success not to mention a lot more work.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      When I first came here I had no intention of earning money.  I just wanted a way to get my work seen and also wanted something to do.  However, slowly I changed my views about this and eventually got things revved up.  It's not great right now, but last year I did extremely well.  Am hoping HP will straighten out the glitch that has caused the demise so I can do the same again. Me like earnin'!

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   stuff4kidsposted 4 years ago

   Hi. There's much to recommend HubPages, but I really wouldn't come here for the money. The only people making a sensible living out of HubPages alone are the good folks (and they are good folks) running the show.
   
   If you want to be a freelance writer, you should be pitching to and writing for mainstream markets which will pay you proper, professional rates for your work without the guessing and hoping that keeps most people here.
   
   Good luck.

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      theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I disagree with this. I didn't write anything here for three years and I still made payout every month. Once I started focusing on writing hubs, my earnings steadily increased. It's not enough for my family to live on, but it's a decent part-time income. I probably only put in about four to seven hours a week on average.
      
      I had an article on Squidoo, that over the length of its life, earned me $2,500. I have others here which have just about done the same. You couldn't get that from a 'mainstream market'.
      
      I got into the swing of producing three articles a week for another site so I can get an article written from idea, through research, to publication in a few hours. Most people could if they had a routine. Although I take a more leisurely approach these days.
      
      It's a pretty cool way to earn almost $1,000 every month (apart from this current one - which, admittedly is disappointing). And I have plenty of time to pursue other income sources.
      
      So, Margaret, don't be discouraged. You could make payout after a few months and then there's no stopping you.

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      OldRosesposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I tried freelancing as a writer.  I did well, but the problem is that you only get paid once for an article.  Here on HubPages, articles earn money every month.  I have articles that I wrote in 2008 that are still earning income for me.  And I can write them on my own time.  There are no deadlines.  I don't have to constantly pitch articles.  I can choose my topics.  So much better than the precarious, harried life of a free lance writer.

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         NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Exactly what i was thinking. The articles keep making money after you've done the work.

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   Doneta Wrateposted 4 years ago

   You need to have a love for writing to stay with Hubpages

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   poppyrposted 4 years ago

   It took me about 2-3 years to earn enough, but now I make payout every month. That's from quite a lot of hard work, though, and finding my niche. It's only about 10-15 of my articles that make most of my earnings. It's not a rule of thumb that it'll take you years to earn enough, but that's how long it takes a lot of people to accumulate enough views to start making good money.

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   stuff4kidsposted 4 years ago

   You may well know better than me as I don't have access to the data. My opinions on this are based on a mixture of personal experience, deduction, and conjecture. Anyway, I don't want to get into a protracted discussion. I may well be wrong and would be happy to admit it. I wish all writers here well, newbies or otherwise. May the dollars accrue and the hours of work pay off in the long run. Good luck!

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