Is Writing eHow Articles Still Worth It?

There's been some grumbling lately among eHow users who wonder if it's still worth it to write on eHow; their concerns running the gauntlet from low views and earnings to questioning eHow's commitment to the Writers Compensation Program to anger about member articles being posted on the eHow UK site.

eHow community forum posts, members' blog posts, and comment sections on related blogs have all been witness to the complaints and dissatisfaction expressed by a number of eHow member-contributors.

I've been asked my opinion on these topics a number of times, and the most ironic is when the person complaining about low earnings either has very few eHow articles or no concept of keywords and basic search engine optimization (SEO). If you aren't writing, or if you aren't writing about topics people are searching for information on, don't expect to make money. It doesn't make sense to me to not give a site a chance and still complain about low earnings, or to not invest the time to find out how internet writing works in regards keywords and web searches, and think you'll make real money online.

Some eHow complainers have an agenda: one in particular has come to the forums to bash eHow while promoting another revenue-sharing content site, one which I have reviewed on this site and find vastly inferior to eHow in regards current earnings potential (although worthwhile in its own place). Sure, if another site is better, by all means, use it and share the information with others. But in this case, the highest earners trail eHow top earners by a mile.

Whether truly confused about their lack of earnings or intending to stir up discontent, the grumblers have asked me what I think.

So here's my answer:

Absolutely, writing eHow articles is still very much worth the time invested. My recent articles are all earning excellently and while you're wasting time complaining, I'm researching profitable niche topics for my next eHow article.

eHow has been very profitable for me, just excellent for building residual income, and it can be for you, too. Make the time to write articles, do the research to learn how to write for the web if your earnings aren't what you want them to be, and don't waste time griping.

What's preventing you from earning $1,000+ a month on eHow?

Residual Income & New Baby

How do residual income and a new baby fit in the same post?

First, the baby news: my son, "Nicholas," was born December 6 and is a happy, healthy, sweet-tempered little man. He is adored by his older siblings and doted on by mom and dad: we're all in love.Secondly, about the residual income: my November earnings, all from now-passive sources such as eHow, my eHow ebook, niche sites and affiliate marketing, were just shy of $3,000, even though I wrote little new content and spent much of my time resting and "nesting" before the baby's arrival. December will hopefully be in the same ballpark, even though I'm taking the month off.

As I sit in front of the fire snuggling my newborn, I am grateful for the residual income business model that's allowing me to take a month off from from writing (I had to sneak in this post, though) and just enjoy my family and the holidays.

It's been exactly two years since the December I realized the potential of residual income, through eHow and Site Build It!, and made goals that, when reached, would allow me to quit writing for hire and simply write and market as much or as little as I liked, for myself.

At the end of this year, as we prepare to embark on a new year, 2010, I challenge you to make goals for the coming 12 months that reflect where you are now and where you want to be at the end of the coming year. Contemplate spiritual and personal goals first, as they are most important, but don't neglect your plans for work and income. Building residual and passive income sources is a worthy endeavor, and I encourage you to include them in your plan.

Happy holidays and a blessed New Year to you and yours!

eHow Articles New Approval Process

Articles submitted on eHow.com by member-writers now go through a process in which they are evaluated and subsequently approved and published, or rejected, by the system. It's unclear whether the process is currently moderated by actual content editors, however.

I have published four new eHow articles since the new system was activated on my account, and it works very smoothly at this point. After clicking the "publish" button, you'll see a "thank you" screen indicating that your article has been accepted into the system and will be evaluate shortly, usually within ten minutes. In the meantime, the article status under "My Articles" will appear as Pending.

All of my articles were live on the site within 10-20 minutes of clicking publish. This is excellent, because as content writers know, some niches are hot for a limited time and getting your content online quickly is important. If the approval lag time was days or even hours, it would potentially discourage writers used to instant publication.

New to eHow? Learn how to get eHow earnings from your content!

My opinion of the new process is that, if it eliminates post-publishing article deletion, it is a huge improvement and will make a positive difference on eHow both by preventing inferior content and spammy articles as well as ensuring that articles published on the site stay published and are not deleted months or even years after they were submitted.

So who or what decides whether an article passes muster? At this point, it's not clear and there's been no official or unofficial word from eHow. If live humans are behind it, the article moderators are not necessarily eHow employees sitting in their offices in CA; most likely, they are freelancers who have been chosen for the job much like those who determined which articles would be deleted in the eHow Article Sweeps.

Perhaps there is a computer algorithm that checks the content for plagiarism, advertising/spam, and flags potential violators for a real review.

To increase your odds of success, be sure your submitted work meets eHow submission guidelines and is quality, relevant, well-written information in true how-to format. Provide original material that will help the reader. Don't just produce fluff content with keywords chosen to earn money -- eHow is not going to accept it.

UPDATE: This is from Julie, one of the eHow community managers:

Hi,

The New Article Review does not exempt an article for review during future Article Sweeps. Currently when your article is submitted for publication and "pending" the following is evaluated:

1. Is the article a duplicate title? Does the title already exist in the system?

2. Plagiarism check

In the future we hope to do a more robust review of the article but currently we only do a basic processing of the article when it is first submitted. Therefore, the article will then be checked for compliance with Publishing Guidelines and other site rules by our editors during the Article Sweeps.

Hope this clears up any questions or confusion.

Thanks!

Julie

Have you noticed the new approval system for your eHow articles? What's you opinion?

(Photo from eHow.com's thank you page.)