Update: Today.com is no longer a blogging website.

URL: www.today.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Blog content

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 6,057

Today.com is a blog platform. They have a simple sign-up and approval process. You have to fill out some personal info, give an email address, choose a blog sub-domain name, and tell Today what your blog will be about. Back in October I started up a very short-lived blog on Today with the intention of earning a little money from them and, more importantly, promoting my writing on other websites.

I had already seen some pretty unfriendly reviews of Today on other writing sites. Most stories talked about how Today has been dropping the amount they pay their writers. When I signed up the pay was up to $2.00 per thousand page views and you may, at a later date, be brought into their circle of pro-bloggers who receive $1.00 per post on top of page views.

I posted six blogs in October, two of which Today featured. After two months I had almost two thousand views and I made one dollar. On top of that, in those six posts I referred to other articles I had written on Bright Hub and Triond. These links were removed by a Today editor. I should have read the terms of service more closely. Today.com prohibits any links in your blog that lead to other websites which pay by page views.

At that point I decided that Today was not the place for me. I also decided, since I can’t publish these blog posts elsewhere, that I would keep my posts up on Today and maybe someday I would reach the $50 payout. Well Today ensured that can’t happen either. After 60 days without posting a blog, my account was closed but my articles remain online with all the profit going to Today.com. I also have to assume that the one dollar I did make from Today.com is forfeit. Although they did invite me to reopen my account at any time. I doubt I will ever take them up on their offer.

If you are thinking about blogging for Today.com, I would recommend taking an in depth good look at experiences other writers have had with them. Know what you are about to get into and decide for yourself if it is worth it.

Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction

URL: http://www.abyssandapex.com/index.html

Guidelines URL: http://www.abyssandapex.com/guidelines.html

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Fantasy Fiction and Poetry

Pay: $0.05/word max $75

Apogee Photo Magazine

URL: http://www.apogeephoto.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.apogeephoto.com/mag1-6/guidelines.html

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Instructional and review articles about photography

Pay: $0.10/word

Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture

URL: http://bitchmagazine.org/

Guidelines URL: http://bitchmagazine.org/contributors-guidelines

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Pop Culture Articles

Pay: $10 – $100/article

Cat Channel ( Cat Fancy, Kitten USA and Cats USA )

URL: http://www.catchannel.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.catchannel.com/magazines/catfancy/writers_guidelines.aspx

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Feature, department and Column articles

Pay: Unknown Pay

Defender of Wildlife

URL: http://www.defenders.org/

Guidelines URL: http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/submission_guidelines.php

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Articles about endangered species

Pay: Unknown Pay

Developer Tutorials

URL: http://www.developertutorials.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.developertutorials.com/writers.php

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Information Technology Tutorials

Pay: $50 – $100/article

Dungeons & Dragons Magazine

URL: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Default.aspx

Guidelines URL: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/submissions

Format: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Articles about D&D and D&D Game modules

Pay: $0.06/word starting rate

Electric Spec

URL: http://www.electricspec.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.electricspec.com/submissions/

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Fiction

Pay: $20/story

EnRoute

URL: http://enroute.aircanada.com

Guidelines URL: http://enroute.aircanada.com/en/articles/writers-guidelines/

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Travel and Lifestyle Articles

Pay: $1.00/word and up

Fantasy & Science Fiction

URL: http://www.sfsite.com/news/

Guidelines URL: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/glines.htm

Format: Print Magazine and Online content

What they are looking for: Fantasy Fiction, Science Fiction only

Pay: $0.06 – $0.09/word

Fantasy Magazine

URL: http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/about-2/about/

Format: Online only

What they are looking for: Fantasy Fiction, non-fiction and reviews within the Fantasy genre

Pay: $0.05/word

GoMediaZine

URL: http://www.gomediazine.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.gomediazine.com/contribute/

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Multi-media and Web Development Tutorials

Pay: $300 – $400/article

GoNOMAD

URL: http://www.gonomad.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.gonomad.com/corp/writerguidelines.html

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Travel Articles

Pay: $25/article

Journey Woman

URL: http://www.journeywoman.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.journeywoman.com/writers_guidelines.html

Format: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Online Only

Pay: $35 honorarium/article

Mindflights

URL: http://mindflights.com/

Guidelines URL: http://mindflights.com/guidelines.php

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Fantasy and Science Fiction and Poetry

Pay: $0.005/word, minimum $5 with a max of $25

Niteblade

URL: http://www.niteblade.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.niteblade.com/submissions.htm

Format: Online only

What they are looking for: Fantasy and Horror fiction and Poetry

Pay: $1 per submission

Online Dating Magazine

URL: http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/writersguidelines.html

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Dating, self-improvement and romance articles

Pay: $15/article

ProBlog Design

URL: http://www.problogdesign.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.problogdesign.com/write-for-us/

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Articles about Blogging

Pay: $50 – $70/article with a bonus $5 for replying to comments

Shimmer

URL: http://www.shimmerzine.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.shimmerzine.com/guidelines/fiction-guidelines/

Format: Print Magazine and Online Formats

What they are looking for: Speculative Fiction

Pay: $0.01/word minimum $10

SitePoint

URL: http://www.sitepoint.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.sitepoint.com/about/writeforus

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Software and Information Technology articles

Pay: $100/article plus awesome pageview bonuses

Snowrider

URL: http://snowridermag.com/

Guidelines URL: http://snowridermag.com/encyclopedia/contact-snowrider-online-magazine/

Format: Online Only

What they are looking for: Articles about snowmobiles plus four photos

Pay: $25/article and photos

Talebones

URL: http://www.talebones.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.talebones.com/

Format: Print Magazine and Online Formats

What they are looking for: Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy

Pay: $0.01-$0.02/word

Transition Abroad

URL: http://www.transitionsabroad.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.transitionsabroad.com/information/writers/writers.shtml

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Travel articles

Pay: $50 – $100/article dependant on length

Travel + Leisure

URL: http://www.travelandleisure.com

Guidelines URL: http://www.travelandleisure.com/contact/

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Travel Articles

Pay: Unknown Pay

Walrus Magazine

URL: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/

Guidelines URL: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/queries/

Format: Print Magazine and Online Content

What they are looking for: Non-Fiction Articles, Fiction and Poetry

Pay: Unknown Pay

Zahir

URL: http://www.zahirtales.com/index.html

Guidelines URL: http://www.zahirtales.com/guidelines.html

Format: Print Magazine

What they are looking for: Speculative Fiction

Pay: $10/story plus 2 contributor copies

Details:

URL: www.elance.com

Industry: Freelance Agency

What they are looking for: Freelancers, each contract has specific requirements

Pay: contract

Alexa rating: 806

Elance is a freelance mecca. It is a website used by freelancers and companies looking to hire freelancers for jobs. Elance is a great place for writers and photographers to find work. It is also a place where many other types of freelancers can find work as well.

To gain work through the Elance system, you have to bid on jobs. Elance works in a reverse auction fashion. Each time you want to bid on a job you need to use one or more “connects”. The amount of connects you need to use to bid on a job depend on how much the job pays. The higher the job’s pay range, the more connects are needed. The amount of connects you get each month depends on what kind of account you have. If you use up all your connects then you can buy more as needed.

Working with Elance

Each job is only posted for a limited amount of time. Bids are only accepted during this time. To apply to jobs you have to write a proposal. The person or company offering the job can read your proposal at any time. Once the time limit is done the job will hopefully be awarded to one of the freelancers. The reason I say hopefully is because so far I have written proposals for three contracts. One was awarded to another writer, the other two have yet to be awarded. Unfortunately this seems to be almost normal on Elance. It seems only 50% of contracts get awarded.

So the question remains, can a freelancer make decent money via Elance. The answer is maybe. It would take a good, if not great, writer who dedicates a lot of time to Elance. That writer would also have to have a reserve of money to live on until they start winning enough contracts to make a living. When you start out, you will have to take a lot of contracts at very low pay to build up good feedback. Even bidding at the website’s lowest allowed bid, you still may not win the contracts you bid on. Elance is a hard road but a living can be made here, it just takes the right kind of person. Personally, I am not giving up on it.

If you are just starting out with Elance I would recommend only trying the free account. You will get three connects a month and some information about jobs will be obscured to you but this will give you a good idea of how the website works and whether or not it will work for you.

]]> http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/10/12/elance/feed/ 1 http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/09/14/shvoong/ http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/09/14/shvoong/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:31:34 +0000 dgrwriting http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/?p=100

Details

URL: www.shvoong.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-fiction

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 2,815

Shvoong is a pay-per-click online publisher. This site only publishes summaries and short reviews of books, movies, articles and websites. Each summary or review can be no longer than 900 words and shorter articles seem to be the norm. Shvoong would be a great site if they paid more per click. Their present pay rate is only 10% of their ad revenue share. This is a good place to practice writing reviews. It’s pretty easy to pump out three or four reviews of this size in an hour if not more, but you will only make a few pennies in return. I doubt this would be a place to gain a decent monthly income because of the poor pay rate, but you still might find worth while if you enjoy review writing.

Submitting to Shvoong

Submitting to Shvoong is as simple as it gets. Make sure you sign up for an account before uploading. You can upload material without signing in, but it won’t make you any money. They have a simple text editor for uploading reviews and summaries. The text editor does not accept any HTML, but you can add reference links in a tool just underneath the text editor.

Details:

URL: www.suite101.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-fiction

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 1,031

Suite 101 is a non-fiction “online magazine” that pays its writers per ad click. I haven’t written for suite 101 yet, although I do plan on applying very soon. I’ve read mixed reports about how much can be made as one of their contributors. It is against their terms of service to publish how much you make as a writer, but many of the contributors hint at it in their personal blogs. For every one article I read about writers making hundreds to a thousand a month from Suite 101, there were 5 more articles saying it wasn’t worth the time and effort. Some of these writers even had 50 to 150 articles published and still were making a pittance. I think it comes down to subject matter and advertising. Those that are making decent coin are advertising themselves after writing the articles. Suite 101 also announced that in July one of their writers made just shy of five grand with only 228 articles which, of course, proves there is money to be made!

Submitting to Suite 101

To apply to be a writer for Suite 101 you must fill out their application form. You must choose three categories to write about and state what expertise you have in these areas. You must also provide two writing samples no longer than 600 words. These writing samples must not be written from a first person perspective. Once accepted, you are required to write a minimum of ten articles every three months.

Details:

URL: www.bukisa.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-fiction, Video and Audio

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 5,036

Bukisa is a pay-per-click website. One of the nice things about Bukisa, is that they tell you their going rate per thousand views right on the main page. Bukisa will publish how-to content on almost any subject. This is a good site for those just starting their online writing career. You can get your name out there while writing about things you know, things you don’t have to spend time researching. You won’t be able to pay your bills with Bukisa, but it’s a great place to start if you’ve never written online before.

Submitting to Bukisa

Although Bukisa is still in beta, there are very few glitches. The site is a little slow, but I expect that this is due to the amount of traffic that Bukisa brings in. The upload interface available to Bukisa contributors is easy to use and their approval process is quick. If this is your first experience writing online, you will find this interface to be a breeze. It’s a good way to learn the ropes in regard to writing online. Bukisa also has a tool that calculates views and earnings for each article. I have only found one bug with Bukisa. The information in regards to views per article and total views, along with corresponding earnings, rarely add up properly.

Cool Bukisa Features

Here are a couple reasons why I like Bukisa and endorse it despite its low earning potential:

• Bukisa is easy to use, this is a huge plus.

• Like Triond and Red Gage, you can republish content published on Bukisa.

]]> http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/09/04/bukisa/feed/ 0 http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/08/30/bright-hub/ http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/2009/08/30/bright-hub/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:22:29 +0000 dgrwriting http://www.theonlinepaycheck.com/?p=62

Details:

URL: www.brighthub.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-Fiction

Pay: Flat Fee and Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 4,858

Bright Hub is one of my favourite writing sites. It is also a very demanding site to work for. They pay a flat $10 fee per article. They also pay 80% of the advertising revenue, although Bright Hub holds this money for 60 days. Bright Hub only deals in the subjects of science, technology, education and business. Each subject, which Bright Hub calls a channel, has its own editor and its own rules. You must apply to write for each channel individually.

Submitting to Bright Hub

Before being allowed to submit articles to Bright Hub, you must first apply by choosing your writing channels of interest, to a maximum of three. You must also supply a writing sample. Once accepted, each channel has its own rules such as how long an article must be or how many words are needed before a page break, among other things. Once accepted to a channel, I would highly recommend, as a new contributor, that you read a number of newer articles. This will give you a decent idea of what being a part of that channel entails.

Apart from writing your article, you must also write a teaser, a description and fill out a search engine optimization page. This can take a fair amount of extra time but is well worth it.

Cool Bright Hub Features

Here are a few reasons why I like Bright Hub so much:

• Bright Hub pays a flat fee and pays a revenue share. I like that writers make money upfront and continue to earn via their revenue share program.

• Bright Hub also has a vast amount of community support. Each channel has its own community group area. Bright Hub has also just launched the Bright Hub University, a new article database about making the most out of writing for the site.

• The Bright Hub managing editors can be very helpful. It’s nice to have editors who have names and contact information, which doesn’t always happen when writing for the web.

Details:

URL: www.xomba.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-fiction, Fiction, and Poetry

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 2,418

Xomba is a pay-per-click website. Unlike sites like Triond and Bukisa, Xomba does not pay for impressions but only for ad clicks. Despite the lack of impression income, you can still make fairly good money. It is rumoured that one writer makes $80 to $120 dollars a day from Xomba alone by writing short articles about the latest celebrity gossip.

Submitting to Xomba

Xomba accepts two types of articles called Xombytes, and Xomblurbs. Xombytes are full length articles of any subject, fiction, non-fiction or poetry. They must be at least 150 words in length. Xomblurbs are articles associated with a link to another web page. These must be a minimum of 50 words. To make money with Xomba, you will need an Google Adsense account. Xomba requires your pub ID to send funds to you. If you do not give them your pub ID, you can still publish articles, but Xomba will keep all of the ad revenue and you will make nothing.

Cool Xomba Features

Xomba has a lot of great features that can help you make money:

• Xomba doesn’t have editors. With this comes great freedom and, if you really want to make money, a greater responsibility to self-edit your work.

• Xomblurbs are a great way to pound out articles, as they only require 50 words each.

• Xomba gets a lot of traffic. They also have a decent interface that shows how many views each article has received, both daily and over its lifetime. This will tell you what subjects work best for you.

Red Gage is one of my favourite online publishing sites. I don’t make a lot of money from Red Gage but they have a very sleek site with a very active community. Like Triond or Buskisa, Red Gage is a pay-per-click website. Red Gage posts their current and average pay rate per thousand views on each users account page so you will always know how much money you will make.

Submitting to Red Gage

Red Gage is one of the easiest online publishing sites to upload to that I have come across. Once you create an account you only need to hit the upload button, fill in four fields and “voila!” your content has been uploaded. The nice thing about Red Gage that you can upload all types of content and get great exposure on all of them. This is a great tool for writers and photographers. Like I said, you won’t make a lot of money, but it’s just another resource for you to explore.

Here’s a few reasons why Red Gage is worth your time and effort:

Uploading is quick and easy.
Red Gage has a daily, weekly and monthly draw giving away pre-paid Visas for $25, $50, and $200. Entries are based on your activity on Red Gage.
Red Gage also has a competition where they have daily, weekly, and monthly prices based on the amount of page views you receive, the amount of times you backlink Red Gage, or the amount of new members you refer to Red Gage.
Another great thing about Red Gage is that you retain the right to republish your work. This means you can republish work you submit to Red Gage on other sites like Triond, Bukisa, Hub Pages or many others.
Red Gage also features content on their main page, if your piece gets featured, Red Gage will give you a bonus, usually around five bucks.

Details:

URL: http://www.triond.com

Industry: Online Publishing

What they are looking for: Non-fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Photography, Video and Audio

Pay: Pay-Per-Click

Alexa rating: 15.431

Updated July 12th, 2010

Triond is a pay-per-click content site. This means that once you publish a piece of writing, every time someone reads your article or story, you make a little money. The Triond webpage states that they share 50% of ad revenue generated, but only show earning statistics for page views. Triond is a great place to start out if you want to test the waters in the “writing for the internet” pool. Triond has also recently added a new feature which integrated an authors Google Adsense account. This is huge news for anyone with an Adsense account. Triond still has all the same ads it use to but when an other integrates their adsense account they can then use a new tool to place Google ads into the body of their articles. When these ads are clicked the author will receive %50 of the ad revenue alongside the money they typically per page view. At first I thought this would make the pages with both Triond’s ads and the google ads look rather spammy, but it turned out to not look bad at all. Best of all this the increase in revenue for me has been pretty extreme. This is one new feature on Triond that I give two big thumbs up.

Submitting to Triond

Although Triond accepts all kinds of content, I will be focusing on the written word in this article, as it is the content most often offered up to Triond. Triond is perfect for the aspiring internet writer. It won’t make you rich, but it will help teach you the ropes. Despite the fact that you won’t make much money with Triond, there are other reasons to focus some of your effort here. Triond has one of the most user friendly uploading interfaces out there. If you’ve never written for an online content site before, this is great. The Triond view counter and statistics page is just awesome. I have yet to find a rival interface.

Cool Triond Features

Here are a few things about Triond that make it worth submitting too:

• Triond allows you to write about anything you wish.

• They have a great interface.

• You retain the rights to republish your work, so you can post the same article on other sites like Bukisa or HubPages.

• Triond is not very picky during the editing process. This is good place to hone your writing skills while not getting frustrated with constant rejections.

• Triond has recently added a referral program which gives a bonus to writers who refer their friends. If you would like to use my referral link please see my referrals page. Any referrals are much appreciated!