Week 4 & 5 - Catching Up, and $$ Growing!

I wasn't able to post last week because I was out of town (went to Las Vegas for a bachelor party).  OK, it was for MY bachelor party.  :)  Great times with twenty of my closest buds from when I was five years old through my best friends from graduate school.  Awesome group of dudes.  

Had a pretty hectic week at my full-time gig, somehow just being away from the office for only two days leads to a huge and seemingly endless pile of work (always works out that way).  Anyway I have to confess that I have fallen behind on my eHow writing schedule and am still at just about 20 articles published.  I'm not too worried though because I know I can catch up later on - I can't force myself to write when I am not ready because then it wouldn't be any fun, and I don't need any self-imposed stress!

On to my latest earnings statistics!

Through five weeks I have now earned $6.68 with 22 written articles.

New articles since my last blog post:

How to avoid getting scammed on Craigslist (true story!)

How to choose a good pillow

How to pound an Irish Car Bomb

So I'm definitely encouraged at my earnings growth - my most mature articles are steadily earning and I had a single article rise above $1 in earnings for the first time.  I am definitely looking forward to the satisfaction of getting my first payout of $10(!) from eHow sometime next month.  I know, BIG MONEY, but hey, it's an infinite return on my investment!  Hard to beat that because if I weren't writing for eHow when I do I would probably be on my couch watching cartoons.

How are you guys doing out there?  Please leave me a comment!  I would love to hear how your own eHow experiment is going.  Until next time - frankie d.

Week 3: Total views, where I stand, and my Ped-Egg obsession

Got up to 20 articles this week and felt good about the increasing number of total views.  I am at just about 1,900 unique views to my work but found it interesting how quickly they add up.  It took me about two weeks to get to 1,000 views, but nearly doubled the count in half the time!  The number of views does not translate to earnings but it does increase the probability of someone out there clicking on some ads.  I have to think that a winning strategy on eHow has to be a simple numbers game - the more eyes you have looking at your articles should yield more and more readers  clicking on ads, and that depends on how long your articles are out online and how many articles you have.

My total earnings through week 3: $2.67 (though today the earnings figures did not update, so maybe this is understated).  Disappointingly, the pace of my earnings actually decreased compared to where I was after Week 2.  Going to $2.67 from $1.69 at the end of last week only reflected a 58% increase, whereas from Week 1 to Week 2 my earnings increased 70%.  Still, I am encouraged that I am earning, but I would prefer to see an increasing rate of increase (though I admit that it still so early in the game that I should chill the f*** out).  

I found it tough once again to keep up the pace of one article per day but did find inspiration this week to write what I thought is a really funny article.   I play basketball at my gym here in NYC and for a corporate league about three times a week and my feet get pretty beat up.  So, on Thursday night, I took my Ped-Egg out and rubbed down my feet.  I then thought, this would make a great article for eHow - how to use the Ped-Egg - if you are a dude!  (It is not masculine at all to use a Ped-Egg, but screw it, I love it!)  What is a Ped-Egg?  It is basically a foot scrubber inspired by a cheese grater.  These little tiny blades on this egg-shaped piece of plastic gently file down calloused and dry skin to reveal new and healthy skin.  Simply, if you have never tried it, it is awesome.  I promise.

See, last summer, after walking through nearly all of western Europe and Asia in my flip flops, I bought a Ped-Egg.    I had some pretty nasty feet after my vacation, saw the infomercial late one night when I got home to my parents' house in Los Angeles, and checked out their website (www.pedegg.com)  and decided to buy one.  And of course, my mom, dad, and sisters HAD A FIELD DAY making fun of me for my purchase.  But I didn't care - what a freakin' God-send this thing was!  The Ped-Egg totally worked as advertised and I had baby-like skin after just a few minutes of using it.  I really thought my situation was hopeless and I needed medical attention from a podiatrist, but the Ped-Egg brought me the relief I needed.  

Here is the article on eHow: How to use a Ped-Egg (if you are a dude)

I sent it out to my family and had them falling over laughing.  I also got pretty immediate feedback from a number of wives out there who read my article dying to get their husbands to clean up their feet!  Hilarious.  I am seriously considering creating a new website dedicated to men who love using the Ped-Egg (just like me!)  hahaha.  Definitely on my to-do list now, too much comedic value out there not to.

Anyway, that's all I've got this week, trying to get to 50 articles next (could take a while, I know)

Until next time, -frankie d.

Week 2: Progress is slow

Only two weeks on eHow but it definitely feels much longer than that! It must be because I check my earnings once every ten seconds or so hoping to see any uptick whatsoever (I have OCD). Admittedly, seeing my articles earn even a little bit of money is exhilarating, affirming, and just what I need to keep me motivated. Before I go on, I would like to say hello to two people who have subscribed to my blog, fellow eHow'ers MaryAnne and Nightowl Mama - thanks so much for reading!

Week-to-date, I earned $0.70 on 15 articles written, making my cumulative earnings $1.69 (eHow carries over any amount under $10 from the previous month to your current month). Obviously still a very small amount, but I did notice my increases increasing, which is likely to be the result of having more people give me positive feedback, recommendations, 5-star ratings, and comments. After reading what I could find about eHow's payment algorithm, how popular you and your articles are factor into how much you earn.

My top 3 earning articles are:
How to Write a Letter of Resignation - $0.43
How to Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt -$0.30
How to Reduce your Credit Card Interest Rate -$0.30

My bottom 3 articles, which have earned $0.00 are:
How to Stuff Money Under Your Mattress
How to score 700 on the GMAT
How to Prevent a Hangover

There does appear to be a pattern, with my articles about personal finance, specifically debt, attracting more "clicky" readers, whereas articles I wrote about whatever was on my mind at the time (I did in fact have a hangover when I wrote about how to prevent them) attracting readers who like to stop by but that's about it. I definitely have a lot more advice to share about personal finance, so I think I will focus on that in the coming weeks.

As far as the writing process during the week, it is very challenging. I work full-time in a relatively demanding job here in New York, and when I get home, my mind is fried. When I started on eHow I think the adrenaline I felt from building a little side business online with limitless potential really pushed me to get articles out. Writing 5 articles a day even with a full-time job seemed totally doable. Now, I have to be more realistic. I realize that it takes a lot of energy to write and I can't just write anything and expect it to earn money. I have to focus on producing quality articles, otherwise who is going to read and recommend what I have to say? How great would it be to have a 1,000 articles on eHow up as soon as possible (my true goal), but that just won't happen overnight. If I can maintain my current pace of 1 article a day, I will be more than satisfied. If any other fellow writers from eHow are out there reading this, I would love to hear about your own experience!

Finally, this week I started to notice a few of my articles showing up pretty high on Google's search results. My latest article on how to do the long jump is listed third! (Try it!) It's definitely a niche article that so far hasn't proven too popular yet (someone gave me 1-star on it), but I am banking on the thousands of future long jump track and field athletes down the line who might check it out.

I'm not really sure how my article got ranked so high and so quickly on Google (I literally just wrote it on Thursday night, and today is Saturday) - I just followed the advice on how to properly use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and uploaded my article to Digg.com, Google's URL entry site, and Microsoft Livesearch. The advice I've read from others encourage doing whatever you can to publicize and register your articles to as many places you can, but I've only focused on these three spots and they seem to be working pretty well.

Anyway, I'm hoping to report a greater increase in my earnings next week and will of course continue to share my story with you and what I learn. Until next time! - frankie d.