Skip to main content

Why You Should Always Back Up Your Articles; There Could Be More Money To Be Had

Credit:R.D. Hayes



What would you do if you woke up one day and discovered that all your hard work was gone?
I can tell you from being an experienced writer that, putting it mild, sucks! I have had two different online accounts with two online companies that both shut down without much notice and all of my articles, my staying up until the crack of dawn articles, were gone and I wasn’t going to be getting them back.

Let’s take a look at these two online sites and how they met their demise shall we?

First there was Associated Content

Associated Content was where I actually got my big break in online freelance writing. It is also where I met some of my coolest writing buddies, where I had my first rejection, and where I earned my first dollar from online writing.

I loved Associated Content. I actually won the 2007 People’s Media Award for Best of AC content back when there wasn’t so many would-be writers. I began writing with them when they were first growing their wings. I loved their entire set up and that they actually paid their contributors, not just in pennies but in a nice little payment that you could possibly earn an income from. Associated Content was around for a while and they did what they could to make good on everything that they had promised.

Then there was Yahoo Contributor Network; Yahoo! Voices

Associated Content sold out to Yahoo! and this is where the real dread of being a freelance writer really began. Yahoo! had different rules for the way they wanted people to write, they tried to make it big but failed miserably.

In 2014, they shut the contributor program down and hundreds of people lost that part of their income, including me. Well, the story is a bit longer than this. Yahoo! was nice enough to allow their contributors to download all of their articles so that they could resell them; Yahoo! would no longer own the rights and gave all of the rights back to the original owners. My problem was that during this time I was away doing military training and wasn’t able to download any of the articles in time. All my hard work was lost just like that.

Bubblews comes into play

There weren’t very many websites that had a contributor network the way that Yahoo! or Associated Content did, that is until Bubblews came along. At first, Bubblews allowed its writers to make pocket change and cash out within a nice time frame but, then it seemed that they became greedy and the amount that you had to earn before you could “cash out”, went up. The cash out amount went from $25, which could be earned in a month to, $50 and made it almost impossible for people to earn money through them.

There were a lot of complaints surrounding Bubblews and some even called it a scheme. I personally had $48 that seemed to never grow any bigger. This amount stayed the same for almost a year and I had written a few articles with them and had been paid by them when they first opened the doors to writers like me. After they raised the cash out amount, no one seemed to get paid.

Those who argued with them or said that it was a scam, would get their accounts banned and all money earned was lost in their system along with their articles.

Today was the first day that I had went on their website in about seven months. I wanted to see if anything had changed. To my surprise, their virtual doors were closed as well, my articles were also gone.

What I learned in this process

I have written thousands of articles and you would have thought that I would have learned after my incident with Yahoo!, to always back up my articles but, I didn’t. All articles that you write online should be kept for instances like these. I could have resold those articles and made a nice chunk of change.


I’m not sure how many new websites like those listed above will be made but, I hope that someday there will be one that keeps its doors open and continues to help struggling writers like myself. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Make Money Online Using Fiverr to Sell Gigs

I have been suing Fiverr for about a week now. I have actually had an account with them for about a month but I only used it to help out with a website that I was building. Then it got me to thinking; why not use Fiverr to make money online? Fiverr is a community of people who offer jobs or gigs for $5, and these gig range from funny things like making up a silly song to sing to you, to getting more pageviews, likes, followers, to writing content for people. Well, I am a writer and therefore I like to get paid to write. I set up a few gigs and waited patiently. I started getting hits off of these gigs and people started buying my fiverr gigs. I was making money online within a week. Now, I have used them in the past and so I know that they do payout. They use Paypal to pay the individuals and people from around the world use them. You can either have the funds added to your paypal account or you can use the money you earned to purchase gigs yourself. On the gigs that you...
Post a Comment
Read more

Long Tail Keywords, Niche Sites, and So Much More

 There is nothing new about niche sites but, there are still a lot of people who don’t know how to create one, why keyword long tail phrases are important, how to search for keywords, and choosing the right keywords. I walk you through as much as I can in a short…umm, maybe long, post. I will go more into this in the near future but for now, enjoy this post on niche sites and keywords. .   What is a Niche Site   A niche site is a website or blog that focuses on one particular thing. Let’s say, for instance, you wanted to do a website on crafting. A niche site for crafting would mean that you would need to take it and narrow it down as much as possible. Instead of being on a wide range, which crafting can be, you might want to focus on a certain type of craft. A niche site for crafting might be woven headbands, building tables made from oak, or using a particular tool to create crafts.   The Right keywords   When you create a niche site, you must use the Right ke...
Post a Comment
Read more

What You Should Know About AIDS

Aids has become one of the most widely known STD's in the world. Making yourself aware of Aids will help you to better understand ways that you can take prevention measures to refrain from transmitting it or passing it onto someone else.  HIV is the virus that causes Aids. HIV can be transmitted through body fluids from a mother's breast milk, blood, and sexual fluid from a person who has been infected.  Doctors have become aware of the different ways that a person can transmit the disease to another person. A mother who is giving birth to a child can transmit the disease without proper medical care. HIV can be transmitted by using needle injections if a person has the disease and another person uses the needle. Health care workers have become more cautious when dealing with patients that are infected with the disease.  At one time people would teach about the ABC approach to Aids. The ABC approach is Abstinence, Be faithful, and Condoms. The ABC approach started loosing ...
Post a Comment
Read more