His comment inspired me to back up a bit and outline my inner struggle with residual vs. up front income. You see, early on I realized the value of residual income but real-life situations made it impossible for me to jump 100% into the residual income arena. I’m sure you all understand. We all have bills to pay, mouths to feed and children to clothe.

It’s impossible to pay bills, buy clothes or food on future promises. You need cold hard cash and you needed immediately.

Squirreling Away Time

When I came to the decision that residual income was way to go, I had to give up a few things. I had to give up some immediate cash. I also gave up a higher income. I know for a fact that I could have earned a lot more money early on if I had continued to write for up front pay. Eventually I would have sought out higher earning gigs and spent my time seeking and writing.

On the flip side, I chose the residual path because I didn’t want to continue writing more and more. Writers tend to get burned out when they’re not following their passion. I’ve found I could write for money for a certain amount of time but eventually I hit the wall. When faced with the wall, it’s impossible to write another word.

Residual income is a nice blanket to have when facing a wall.

Time and Patience

Below are numbers taken from my spreadsheet, which tracks my passive/active earning percentages. This section shows how I wrestled with passive vs. active income from 2007 to November 2011. You will note 2010 was a particularly tough year for me. I spent way too much time on active income.

At the end of 2010 I made a vow to myself. In December of 2010 I wrote the following on my spreadsheet and have held true to it, sort of:

eHow is no longer an option and Suite has been Pandalized, so now I concentrate exclusively on my own sites.

I know the year is not over yet but I do want to share some numbers. The numbers below outline my income/article count from January to mid November 2011:

In case you haven’t figured it out, the active income came from Demand Studios. As you can see, it’s really foolish for me to write for up front pay unless I get a minimum of $71.29 per article. I’m also at the point in my freelance writing career where $71 to write for someone else is just not enough. Remember, when you write for somebody else you don’t get to set the rules. When I write for myself I make up the rules.

A Personal Decision

You can float around the Internet reading forums and blog posts about the dangers of writing for content sites. It’s nice to read what other people think, but until you make your own decision and choose your own path, you’re burning valuable time.

While $25,000 in residual income may not be enough for a family to live on, but as my dad would say, it’s better than a stick in the eye.

Things to take from this post:

• You have to decide what kind of freelance writing career you want.
• You have to implement your plan of action and follow it (tweak it when necessary).
• Track your progress. This helps you to know whether or not you’re moving in the right direction.
• Keep planting residual seeds.
• Be patient.  Residual income takes time.

If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up for NJFM’s Motivation for Writers Newsletter. A dose of motivation will be sent to your inbox every Monday.

I haven’t taken a leave of my senses. I’m excited because a long time ago (March 8, 2010) I mentioned that I wanted to earn minimum wage. Although I haven’t met the goal as outlined in my earlier post, I’m on my way.

While playing around with numbers the other day I realized that last year my daily residual earnings averaged $62.69 a day. In general, I work (if you really want to call what I do work), 4 to 5 hours a day 5 days a week, except in the summer when I work 4 to 5 hours a week if at all.

Let’s say I put in a 25-hour workweek. At a rate of $62.69 a day, 7 days a week, that’s $438.83 a week. Divide the weekly rate by 25 hours and you get…drum roll please…$17.55 per hour. Eeeyowzaaa!

Since minimum wage, as of this writing, is $7.25 an hour, I could conceivably put in a full 40-hour week and still earn more than minimum wage.

The Kicker!

Notice that I quote my earnings for last year. Since this year isn’t complete yet, I won’t use this year’s figures. If you take a look at my October earnings graph, you’ll see that this year’s daily residual earnings exceed last year’s.

Quitters & Naysayers and Everyone Else

For the quitters, I’m glad I didn’t follow you when you gave up. To the naysayers, I’m so glad I didn’t listen. To everyone else, don’t quit or listen to the naysayers. If I can do it, you can too!

Oh, did I mention that I’m only talking about residual earnings?

If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up for NJFM’s Motivation for Writers Newsletter. A dose of motivation will be sent to your inbox every Monday.

October was an interesting month. I’ve been a little frustrated because my earnings have been hovering a couple of hundred dollars lower than my best month.

My best residual month was March 2011, just before Panda hit the first time. In March my earnings were $2,799. Since then, I’ve had a drop and a steady increase and then a plateau followed by a bit of a decrease. October’s earnings were $2,591.

All in all that’s not bad, but I got into this online writing and residual stuff for increased earnings, not decreased. If I wanted my earnings to decrease I could have gone back to the traditional job market.

Frustration Spurs Action

You guys know that I’ve been brain storming and coming up with a host of new ideas of things to try. I could try to do more of what I have done over the past few years, but I don’t want to work harder for the same results. Besides, I’ve grown bored with what I had been doing. It’s time to switch gears.

I’ve been working online long enough to know better than to expect immediate results. I’m doing a lot of research, learning and seed planting. The best part about switching gears is that I’m excited about writing again. I had lost my Mojo for a while but I believe it’s back with a vengeance.

How was your October?

If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up for NJFM’s Motivation for Writers Newsletter. A dose of motivation will be sent to your inbox every Monday.

Making the Decision

After the Panda algorithm change I spent a lot of time rebuilding my own residual income. I didn’t write for Suite because they were hit hard and financially it didn’t make sense to place more articles there. I had to spend my time placing articles where I could get the most bang for my buck.

In the meanwhile, I kept my eye on Suite and the changes that were occurring. There were a few things that I observed that helped me to decide to return to Suite:

1. Suite’s management is doing everything in their power to restore Suite 101 to its prior standings.
2. They showed that they value their writers by changing the bonus system, the minimum article writing requirement and the minimum payout threshold. Each of these changes makes writing for Suite a bit more attractive.
3. Most importantly, the earnings drop seems to have bottomed out and earnings seem to be picking up again.

Those three observations plus my long history in writing for the site were enough to help me make the decision to return as a Feature Writer.

During My Hiatus

During my hiatus from the site my articles earned a few hundred dollars. The last time I wrote an article for Suite was May 2011. Between May and October my articles continued to earn. Overall, my lifetime per article rate with Suite 101 is a little over $56 an article (I’ve been with them for 4 ½ years). That’s not a stellar per article rate, but not bad for online writing.

Because I like calculating my earnings based on the current year (can’t pay the mortgage on last year’s earnings), my current per article rate for 2011 is a little over $155 per article. No matter which way you slice it, I have little to lose and much to gain by returning to Suite.

My Freelance Writing Arsenal

My arsenal has reduced in size when it comes to online writing sites. Adding Suite back to my arsenal makes it the only non-owned content site I write for. At $155 per article, I’m willing to make the sacrifice.

Everyone’s experience at Suite is a bit different. On occasion I get the question, “Is writing for Suite 101 worth it?” I have a history with Suite and it’s definitely worth it for me. Is it worth it for a newbie? I still think it is. As I’ve mentioned before, the editorial feedback from Suite’s editors helped improve my online writing style. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. That kind of feedback is invaluable.

UPDATE 10/18/2011:   After writing this post, Google released another iteration of its Panda algorithm.  Suite 101 came out on the bad side of this algorithm.  As a result, earnings have plummeted. Yesterday my earnings were $0.28.  You might want to wait until the dust settles before joining Suite.

My last post made me ask myself (and answer) the question of what to do with dud sites.  First, before I tell you what I do with a site that I consider a dud, I need to define a dud.  Keep in mind that this post is purely subjective and I strongly suggest that you come up with a set of dud parameters to fit your writing goals.

What is a Dud Site?

I define a dud site in three ways: Money, Joy and Time.  A high level, basic and somewhat superficial definition of a dud site is a site that does not pay for itself within the first year.  This is especially true if I created the site with the long-term goal of earning money.

I learned early on in my online writing career that it does not necessarily take money to make money online.  When I decided to make this my career, I chose the 100% profitable route.  If the site doesn’t make a profit or at least break even in the first 365 days, then it’s history.

The Joy Factor

If a site scrapes by and earns just enough to pay for itself, I then go to the second level of my dud blog definition.  Does this blog/site have a joy factor?  This is a crucial question because a blog with a high level of joy that does not have the ability to pay for itself gets a chance for a second year of life.

Online writing is a journey and one that should be enjoyed.  If I’m having a blast and I get up in the morning with blog posts swirling around in my head begging me to write them, I’d be foolish to drop a site because it wasn’t earning money.  Such sites help to fuel my writing passion, which then spills over onto some of my other ventures.

All We Truly Have is Time

The final aspect of the dud test involves a lower level more analytical approach. This involves time management.  I find I have to apply my time management approach to sites that are on the financial fence that don’t bring a lot of joy.

If they scrape by and are self sufficient with little joy factor it is imperative to measure the time vs. return.  Usually after applying the time factor to such marginal sites I come to the conclusion to put them on hold.  If they can afford to pay for their annual domain name renewal I allow them to survive a second year.  I don’t add new content but I monitor the earnings.

I’ve found that dormant blogs with good content will continue to earn money at an increasing rate.  If the second year’s earnings are more promising then I might add more content to see if I can prod it along (provided I’m still interested in the subject matter).

Some Real Life Examples

Here are some digits on a blog that I created that had a low income factor but a large joy factor.  Because it passed test #2 with flying colors I kept the blog:

As you can see, the first two years the earnings were pitiful. Actually, years 3 and 4 aren’t so great either, but I enjoy the subject matter so I’ll keep this one alive.  Also, it now pays for itself so it’s out of the danger zone of being tossed.

Here’s another blog that survived because of the joy factor.  From the numbers on this chart you can deduce that these are my NJFM numbers:

Who the heck writes 163 posts for a mere $10?  It’s gotta be love because nothing else can explain something that sounds so counter productive.

Here’s one that I enjoyed a lot at first but have since lost interest.  As you can see my writing productivity has decreased, but the money keeps coming in.  There’s something about the Internet where content keeps paying for itself.

Then, there are those blogs that I know will become money makers if I just put in the effort.  My interest wandered away from this blog for a bit, but deep down inside I want to develop this one.  This one satisfies my need for doing extensive research on not so warm and fuzzy topics so I keep it.  When I have a bit more time, I’ll add more content to this site:

And then there are the no-brainers:

Although I’ve lost interest in this blog and have only written 2 posts in the last 3 months, it continues to earn.

So, there you have it.   Oh wait…let me share with you one of my true duds that will not see the light of day when the domain name renewal comes around in March:

Not only is it a dud, but I did not enjoy writing content for the site (I followed the advice of a guru and hated every minute of it).

So you can see that most sites, given enough time and love are not duds.  However, what I have found is that if I’m in it strictly for the money (as with my Super Dud site), I quickly abandon the site. If, on the other hand, there’s some affection towards the subject matter, they remain with me forever.

My Blog Tracking Spreadsheet (where I took the information included above) has info on over 20 blogs/sites.  At a glance, I can tell which ones are duds and which aren’t.  Of course I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t end this post with a friendly reminder to track your earnings so you can make informed decisions. No sense in spending time building a dud when you might have a lucrative gem on your hands.

“What gets measured gets managed.”

~Peter Drucker