Why I write for residuals
I’ve been wanting to write for money for awhile now. My first stab was at blogging, which has paid off pretty well for me for quite a few years. Blogging is a release for me & something I will keep up because I love the community. However, I was trying to expand more into writing for other companies. I decided to give a shot at writing for residuals. This would allow me to work at my own pace & write about whatever I wanted. Basically, you get a share of whatever your articles bring in. You still own the content but you make money for the life of your article. It’s basically the equivalent of walking down the street & hoping that someone will throw pennies in your face. Most of the time you won’t.
Back when I started blogging, the advice was & still is to start your own site. Don’t be beholden to a free subdomain (which I wholeheartedly agree with.) So, I didn’t really pay any attention to the residual opportunities out there. I was sure that most of the companies were like mlm scams & they would all just pack up & leave town without paying me. Plus, there weren’t any advantages to writing for them. A few months ago I looked into it a little bit more. I’ve been writing steadily now & it hasn’t reached anywhere it’s potential. I’m not sure that it’s the right opportunity for me, but so far I’ve found that:
- I like the freedom of being able to switch between topics. I try to keep my blog in niches, which means that I basically blog about the same things over & over. With online content I can switch to any random subject without all of the work of starting a new blog. A blog with just one post on it about a passing fancy would be pointless.
- I get ranked higher in the search engines. My blogs don’t receive thousands of visitors a day, but my articles do. It’s interesting to see how this will transfer into money over time.
- Some of the formats bug me. A lot. I don’t like rules & I have to obey them if I want to write for money for these companies. However, I like the passiveness of it. It’s still a lot of work but I don’t have to worry about upgrading software or fighting spam on my own. I still need to backup my articles on a sd card. The sites rank pretty well in the search engines so I don’t have to do as much link building.
- It’s great for days when I don’t feel well enough to work because I still make money even if I can’t write. It’s great for days when I don’t feel well enough to work because I still make money even if I can’t write.
I’m still prepared for the worst. Even when I start making money I won’t depend on these writing companies because any of them can disappear at any time.