eHow

[MamaRBH]

Is anyone writing over at eHow?

My member name is MamasBlock if anyone would like to check out my articles/join me.

I have just three articles up so far, but have drafts for 9 more.

I'm wondering what those of you who write for AC or Suite101 would say about eHow....comparisons and such. I do believe eHow is much newer, so perhaps not up to par... but I am interested in hearing from others on that, as I am looking to write with who will pay the most and bring me the most readers. (not in that order)

Thanks in advance!

[evies_mom]

I had looked at eHow a month or so ago, but didn't want to take a way the focus of my Suite writing. I couldn't find a lot of info about ehow (how to earn, editing process, support resources, etc). I would love to hear your experience.

I've written for both AC and Suite. Here's the differences that I have noted:

AC
must be a resident of the US
absolutely anyone can write, no application process
depending on article may receive upfront payment plus $1.50 per 1000 page views
Unknown "Content Manager" gives offers, but generally does not give feedback.
No required length or format. No "House Style"
No room for promotion or to increase earnings
Inner networking encouraged to increase page views (passing links among other writers/friends family)
Very active writer forums. More guidance from fellow writers than from Content Managers.
Recognition through making "front page" or from annual awards.
"Calls for Content" - requests for specific pieces
No deadlines
Not able to edit pieces after publication

Suite 101
accepts writers from all over the world
limits who writes - must go through application process, submit 2 articles (currently seems to becoming more picky in whom they accept. Pushing for writers who have writing experience)
Earn by receiving a portion of the ad-revenue of your articles. Can vary depending upon topic you write for, seasonal pieces, etc. (I am typically in the $5-$8 per 1000 range, but have recently hit as high as $10 per 1000 pvs)
will work directly with an editor, knowing exactly who the person is
get specific feedback on ways to improve articles from section editor
reviews given at periodic points by associate editor
opportunity to earn bonuses as number of articles published increases
opportunity for promotion to Feature Writer (also will increase the % of ad revenue you receive)
Particularly well-written pieces acknowledged permanently on site with "Editor's Choice Awards"
Specific "house style" of writing. More journalistic in approach. Pushes for professional references to back your writing, must be written in 3rd person. Style of writing that enhances PVs a must.
Inner networking and self-promoting of work discouraged. Prefers writers to focus on SEO and keywording skills.
Writer's forums are helpful, but not nearly as social or dramatic as AC forums. Suite forums are very to the point and direct.
Deadlines for articles
Ability to edit articles after publication

My personal experience is that Suite pays a great deal more, but you first need to establish a body of 20 or so articles. In the beginning, it seems like you are working for peanuts. But if you are patient and keep writing, the profits start rolling in. With AC if you are able to write pieces that receive decent upfront payments, then you get money more immediately. But I think the same piece written for Suite would earn more money in the long run. So AC great for short-term money making, Suite seems better for long-term money making.

AC seems to have the goal of establishing a huge mass of articles, more emphasis on quanitity (not saying that AC doesn't put out quality pieces, some great writers there). But basically, AC will publish absolutely anything. Suite's focus seems to be on quality and writing articles with the short-attention span web-surfer in mind.

I will say that in recent months Suite has been working hard to separate itself from other writing sites like AC and Helium. They seem to becoming more choosy with whom they accept as writers and are pushing current writer's to note their qualifications and outside writing endeavors in their profile.

AC is the better place for people who want to write about what they want to write about. No hard guidelines offer greater freedom and creativity. Suite wants journalistic writers who understand how best to write for the web. Writing for web and writing for print, two different beasts.

AC is also the better place for writer's who have difficulty taking constructive criticism and who do not want the stress of having deadlines. Suite's editors will tell you what you need to improve and are rather to the point. The deadlines are not hard core, but if you fall behind in writing, editors will nudge you.

JMO, I have to add that I have questioned a few things about how AC runs their site as well. There are a few things that bug me about ethical business practice and sensational writing. These issues were the big reasons why I left AC. I did like the freedom that AC offers, but I personally had issues with how they run their business at times. (No offense intended to other AC writers - this isn't about the writers, it was about the management aspect).

Does that help? lol I wrote a book. Very interested in hearing how eHow compares.

[spmamma]

I write for eHow, but don't get paid through the normal means. I think if you sign up to get paid through their site it's a certain amount paid per X number of views. I write for them through Demand Studios and get paid $15 per article. You might want to check them out.

[MyTwoAs]

Originally Posted by spmamma

I write for eHow, but don't get paid through the normal means. I think if you sign up to get paid through their site it's a certain amount paid per X number of views. I write for them through Demand Studios and get paid $15 per article. You might want to check them out.

Question for you spmamma - I was looking at the Demand Studios link and couldn't find information on copyright status. If you write for them, do you retain the copyright or does the site that publishes the article?

Thanks!

[evies_mom]

2as - I was preparing my application and when I got to the "Contributors Agreement" this was point 5. (bolding so you don't have to read through the hole thing if you don't wanna).

Contributor's Grant of Rights. Each of your Contributions will be original and solely created by you as a "work-made-for-hire" specially ordered or commissioned by us, with Demand Media being deemed the sole author of the Contribution and the owner of all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to the Contribution, with the right to make all uses of the Contribution throughout the world and all changes in each Contribution. Without further obligation to you, we may use, reproduce, edit, change, add to, take from, translate, reformat, or reprocess the Contribution in any manner. If for any reason a Contribution is not deemed to be a work-made-for-hire under applicable law, you hereby irrevocably assign to us all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to each Contribution throughout the world, including any and all of your rights to authorize or control the exploitation of each Contribution by any media and means now known or hereafter devised. You waive all "moral rights of authors" that may exist or any similar rights. We may, but are not obligated to, provide attribution to you in connection with any Contribution or to display, use or otherwise exploit any Contribution. You hereby give us a royalty-free, perpetual, nonexclusive, worldwide license to use and display any biographical information or photographs that you provide to us in connection with this Agreement in any and all media. Upon request by us, you will promptly provide us with such documents and agreements as we may require to further evidence and confirm your representations, warranties, and covenants under this Agreement, including material and location releases and assignments.

[spmamma]

Originally Posted by evies_mom

2as - I was preparing my application and when I got to the "Contributors Agreement" this was point 5. (bolding so you don't have to read through the hole thing if you don't wanna).

Contributor's Grant of Rights. Each of your Contributions will be original and solely created by you as a "work-made-for-hire" specially ordered or commissioned by us, with Demand Media being deemed the sole author of the Contribution and the owner of all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to the Contribution, with the right to make all uses of the Contribution throughout the world and all changes in each Contribution. Without further obligation to you, we may use, reproduce, edit, change, add to, take from, translate, reformat, or reprocess the Contribution in any manner. If for any reason a Contribution is not deemed to be a work-made-for-hire under applicable law, you hereby irrevocably assign to us all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to each Contribution throughout the world, including any and all of your rights to authorize or control the exploitation of each Contribution by any media and means now known or hereafter devised. You waive all "moral rights of authors" that may exist or any similar rights. We may, but are not obligated to, provide attribution to you in connection with any Contribution or to display, use or otherwise exploit any Contribution. You hereby give us a royalty-free, perpetual, nonexclusive, worldwide license to use and display any biographical information or photographs that you provide to us in connection with this Agreement in any and all media. Upon request by us, you will promptly provide us with such documents and agreements as we may require to further evidence and confirm your representations, warranties, and covenants under this Agreement, including material and location releases and assignments.

: To answer your questions MyTwoAs: In a nutshell, yes, they own the rights to whatever you write.

[MyTwoAs]

Thanks to both of you - saved me some time.

[MamaRBH]

Thank you so much for the responses... evies mom - you laid that out for me wonderfully! Thank you!!!

As for eHow...it sounds like it's a lot like AC... in comparison to what you said about AC, eHow has the following:

eHow
- Must be a resident of the US to earn $$ on your articles
- Absolutely anyone can write, no application process
- Required format is that each article must be a "How To" so all articles are in the form of "steps" (ie - step 1, step 2, etc.) With a little creativity, any article can be put in this format, but I would like to step outside of it from time to time.
- Earnings are made by bringing more visitors to your articles... they can be found via all major search engines, you can invite friends/families, you can share you links at places like Facebook, etc, etc, etc. From what I have gathered, the more visitors come to you article, rate it, leave comments, and click on the ads w/in the article - the more you get paid. I'm avergaing abour $5 an article a month.
- Forums available for support, etc.
- eHow article requests for specific pieces
- No deadlines
- You can edit your articles as much as you want....tweaking to add popular search phrases and keywords is a great idea and noticably increases income.
- Videos and pictures can be added to the articles.

[lisarussell]

I'm surprised that ehow pays so much, I hate reading ehow articles. Everything can't be done in 3 steps. And some topics aren't meant for step-by-stepping. Just my pet peeve. My husband is a filmmaker for demand studios, they're great.

[MamaRBH]

They do allow you to add as many steps as you want... there is no limit on those.

But I agree - the format can get old. I wish they'd allow for open formats, too.

[evies_mom]

I checked out your articles, you are doing a really nice job there. If you ever want to expand to other sites, we'd love to have you join us at the S101 thread!

I have to say too, I was lurking around at ehow - and stumbled on a "how to choose diapers" article that was slanted against cloth. I joined so I could comment. Just couldn't keep my mouth shut. lol

[MamaRBH]

Thanks so much!

I'd really like to come aboard at Suite 101 - I'll be sure to get on that this week.

Good for you commenting on the diaper article... I'll have to do a search for it and add my .02 too.

[Annikate]

I have done some for them through Demand Studios. Who pays more? Does writing for eHow directly pay more? Anyone know?

[evies_mom]

From what it would seem, Demand will initially pay more. You sell the article to them and waive all rights as author. They can do whatever they want to the article, sell it to others, edit it, and they may or may not give you credit for it. The other thing you have to be watchful for is that you don't plagairize your ownself then. You know longer own rights to it, so if you would write a similar article, you have to be careful not to use the same/similar phrasing.

Ehow you retain your rights and get paid a portion of the ad-revenue when someone clicks on an ad on your article. So while you don't get the chunk of change upfront, you will keep earning on that article indefinitely. My guess is that over time ehow would pay more.

In a way it's like comparing apples to oranges. For me, what it would boil down to was if I needed cash quickly and if I was ok with completely waiving my moral writers rights. If I didn't need money quickly, I'd go with ehow.

[Annikate]

Thanks evies mom. I wrote a couple of things for AC but couldn't really swallow the $8 offers yk? Do they pay like that? Like no set offer, just what they feel like and then you accept or not?

Writing this way through Demand is so easy! I can do that for $15 a pop.

[evies_mom]

I think most people would say that $8 upfront is a very good offer from AC. Then you have to consider that you continue earning $1.50 for every 1000 page views. If you are good at keywording and SEO, and the article is getting decent hits, then at the end of a year you'll earn maybe $20 on just the page views alone. So that would be $28 for that article in a year, and that article will continue to earn you money after that year for as long as you log in to AC. Long run, you'll earn more on a well-written web article of interest at AC than at Demand.

eHow doesn't offer that upfront payment. It's all done according to a portion of the ad revenue. The OP said she is making about $5 a month on her articles, so that would be $60 a year.

If you aren't interested in retaining your rights, then you need to ask yourself whether you want a lump sum of money immediately, or if you are ok with seeing it as an investment and earning your money over time.

There are so many different sites out there and they all have different pros and cons. It's just a matter of deciding which site meets your needs.

[Annikate]

Originally Posted by evies_mom

I think most people would say that $8 upfront is a very good offer from AC.

Perhaps most people who are just starting out. I've been doing this since "paste ups" at a newspaper meant literally cut and paste the paper together.

Things have changed so drastically, I'm feeling my way around this type of writing via stock houses and $8 (even if I continue to earn pennies for hits) seems like a slap in the face to me.

Though I can totally see how useful it is for some people who love to write despite that, and how wonderful that venue is for those just starting.

Now I can handle $15 a pop if it takes a short time to write. I don't care about the rights. I doubt any of what I'm putting out there now I'll want to publish later on. They're not really cutting-edge ingenious ideas if ykwim.

[evies_mom]

Originally Posted by Annikate

Perhaps most people who are just starting out. I've been doing this since "paste ups" at a newspaper meant literally cut and paste the paper together.

Things have changed so drastically, I'm feeling my way around this type of writing via stock houses and $8 (even if I continue to earn pennies for hits) seems like a slap in the face to me.

Though I can totally see how useful it is for some people who love to write despite that, and how wonderful that venue is for those just starting.

Now I can handle $15 a pop if it takes a short time to write. I don't care about the rights. I doubt any of what I'm putting out there now I'll want to publish later on. They're not really cutting-edge ingenious ideas if ykwim.

Oh, I totally KWYM. Many of these web-content sites are causing a revolution in the who/what/how of writing. I know that many professional writers are understandably disgruntled with it.

I started out at AC and left for other reasons, not so much the financial ones Money wasn't why I started writing, it was more of a personal thing in the beginning. Tired of just thinking about how to get out a stain or what was for dinner.

But now that I see the difference in being paid by page views vs. being paid by ad-revenue, I won't go back to AC. Based on my profits for the past 4 months, I'll be earning about $16-$20 per article every year (not counting seasonal/time sensitive pieces). I realize it isn't what the print world can offer upfront, but for now I am not interested in pitching to magazines. I also like how easy it is to pop off an article in a short amount of time and immediately start making money on it.

Like I said, early all these sites offer different advantages/disadvantages and writers can pick and choose what features match what they are looking for (publish whatever they want vs. publish in house format, cash upfront vs. money each month) etc.

Oh and when I said most people would say that $8 is a good offer from AC, I didn't mean that most people would think that $8 was a good offer in general. What I meant is, that an $8 offer from AC is pretty darn good. I think most people are more in the $5 range. Occasionally I have heard of $10 offers, but that seems to be quite rare.

[lisarussell]

I had my first few from demand saying "published" but then when I go to ehow to search for them, i can't find it and then I go to "published work" and it says "processing."

I guess I don't want to do more until I know they're "good" and that I won't have to change how I'm working it.

They're hideous, though. I wish Suite paid like that. I really like the Suite articles better, they seem so much more professional, but I like getting $15 for 20 minutes of work on semi-interesting topics that I know almost nothing about, learning the surface level information.

Ahhh, once I'm sure it's figured out I can stop writing these hotel reviews, they're driving me absolutely nuts. Plus in order to meet my daily earning goal, I'd be doing instead of 6-7 assignments a day instead of 20 assignments a day.

[spmamma]

Originally Posted by Annikate

Perhaps most people who are just starting out. I've been doing this since "paste ups" at a newspaper meant literally cut and paste the paper together.

Things have changed so drastically, I'm feeling my way around this type of writing via stock houses and $8 (even if I continue to earn pennies for hits) seems like a slap in the face to me.

Though I can totally see how useful it is for some people who love to write despite that, and how wonderful that venue is for those just starting.

Now I can handle $15 a pop if it takes a short time to write. I don't care about the rights. I doubt any of what I'm putting out there now I'll want to publish later on. They're not really cutting-edge ingenious ideas if ykwim.

ITA. I do some freelance reporting and $15 per article is still not great in comparison to what a newspaper will pay, but I do it because it's pretty easy money. I also don't care about the rights to what I've written for eHow/Demand Studios because I have no plans to use them again.