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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Revenue-Sharing Articles at Demand Studios

With the recent changes to eHow, many eHow writers question the profitability of the revenue-sharing model at Demand Studios (DS). Since I've been a member of eHow and a Demand Studios writer for more than two and a half years, I've had time to experience both platforms and communities.

Last spring, April-May 2009, I wrote and published 15 revenue-sharing how-to articles through my Demand Studios account. This was intended partially as an experiment to see which was more profitable, and in response to a DS incentive in which the articles received both an up-front payment as well as long-term revenue-sharing.

To date, not including the up-front bonuses, the articles have earned a combined total of $172.84, over a time period of almost 12 months. This works out to $11.52 per article so far (of course, they are still earning money). As you can see, this represents a fairly long ROI (return on investment) for eschewing the up-front payment of $15 and opting for the revenue-sharing model. Still, these articles have a higher earnings potential than the articles written for a flat, one-time fee.

My eHow articles written as WriterGig for the WCP have earned much more per article, even when accounting for the longer time period that most have been online. However, there are several factors that contribute to this discrepancy:
  • I wrote my eHow-WCP titles, but had to choose DS-generated titles for their rev-sharing articles at the time.
  • My WriterGig profile page on eHow has a higher pagerank (PR) than my DS profile on eHow; also, the DS profile does not include a page with links to all of my DS articles.
  • I've worked to backlink my eHow articles to improve their pagerank and traffic. 
I'm confident that, with enough effort and following the same method I used to maximize eHow earnings, I could build up another profitable article library through DS for long-term residual income (I'm thrilled that they've dropped the 5-year cap on revenue sharing).  We've been assured through the eHow forums that the DS revenue-sharing formula is as good as or better than the one currently in place on eHow.

I recommend that current eHow writers merge to Demand Studios, or apply if you were not automatically approved, to give yourself the ability to publish through that platform if you so choose. This will not affect any WCP articles you have already written, but will allow you the opportunity to build a library of articles on DS that earns well in its own right.

Have you tried the DS rev-sharing model? What's been your experience so far?

8 comments:

Shirley said...

I checked back hoping you'd add some rev share info for DS. Thanks Maria, I think it's worth at least giving a shot at.

Joey V. said...

I am not going to try my own titles until they like me, lol~

Maria said...

Shirley, you're welcome! Thanks for reading.

jseven -- you'll do great with DS. :)

Unknown said...

Maria-Thank you for sharing this information. I am new to writing at DS and am trying to write half of my articles rev share. It's easier than trying to locate a good title!

netlexis said...

I came to the same conclusion -- not writing DS rev share is not in my best interest. And as you said, rewriting an article isn't a big deal.

Christina ( @CashCampfire ) said...

Interesting! I've been wanting to get into the rev share program, but was afraid it might not be my time. But, seeing your success so far, I'll give it a shot.

I have a few questions though.

How do you backlink your eHow articles? I didn't know you could do that. Do you just put links under the resource section?

All of those earnings are just from the 15 articles you wrote? That sounds amazing.

Maria said...

Christina, yes, those earnings are just from those 15 rev-share articles I wrote for Demand.

Anonymous said...

I've written for both DS and eHow and find that they both perform equally well, depending on the topic. Don't write about how beans grow or you'll only see an income of $5 in 6 months. However, financial articles are now well over $150 and earn about $10 to $11 every month. It's all about the advertisers. Some advertisers pay a higher revenue, ie: insurance companies. Even though the page views are fewer, the income is greater.