Making money online

There are several popular Google searches like "Making money online",
"Making money blogging", "Earn from blogging", "Work from home", "Get
paid to write", it seems that I am not the only one with the romantic
notion of making a living from writing.

For each such query there are 1000s of search results with information
ranging from websites that pay you to write to people who have written
about these sites on their blogs (such as this post).

So, this morning I shot off my own search and did some re-search on
these. Well, I like money too, you know. And as I said in my yesterday's
post, I am a writer. So how to make money writing?

Helium - I found it from an adsense ad on my own blog. Followed it, like
it enough to sign up. But didn't write anything. Then finally a friend
of mine, she was able to motivate me to write. So, I have written 3
articles on it now, 2 I think are good, one ok-ok. My combined earnings
from Helium till today are at a staggering $0.05. 5 cents! In a month I
can expect maybe 20 cents. Big, big money. I wonder if I'll need to take
2 hefty guys with me to the bank to carry it all away? (I am not giving
here a link to my Helium articles for you to click, because I don't
care!)

Also found a lot of people complaining about their unfair, dictatorial
administrative behavior and censorship. Also the moronic rating of
articles by other "writers". Yes, not everybody who thinks himself a
writer is one, and I myself found several poor-quality yet highly-rated
aricles on it. So, no more Helium for me.

Associated Content - This is one service that is praised by most people
and I can see the difference that they pay for your article up-front and
not based on ratings. Then as your article is viewed you get some
performance bonus per view. Fair enough. Their rates are also advertised
upfront $3-$20 per article. Not buried deep in some complicated
calculation like Helium. The only problem is they can pay only US
citizens or residents. Another reason for me to move to US. Till then I
am not going to submit any "non-paying" content to them.

Triond - Based in Israel, first time I am seeing a web-based enterprise
from there. They do accept anyone from anywhere and pay for articles by
sharing revenue with their writers. I liked this but learnt from my
Helium experience and did the research before and not after the fact.
Nobody called it names like Helium but still the earnings reported are
pretty low considering the time and effort spent. Still, I might write a
couple of articles just to test the waters.

Then there's payperpost.com which I am yet to try. Somehow I am not too
tuned into the idea of writing content on my blog for sponsors, though I
will not mind writing ad copies for money. But both separately. Wonder
if I am a puritan. Don't want to be.

BlogCharm.com is also based on the revenue sharing theory and the
policies seem quite fair but it is going to start from March 1st. And
no, I am not going to start now to "establish readership".

While I was doing all this research I could not help comparing these to
my Second Life business. One of them - my fashion line - Bollywood
Fashions. If I sell one dress it earns me 750 linden dollars. This would
mean around $3 in USD, give or take a few cents for currency exchange
rate. That's any day better than 20 cents a month, ain't it?

And for this I don't have to do anything after I put the dress on for
sale. I can actually go back to blogging for my personal pleasure. :-)