Sunday 9 February 2014

Hubpages vs. Suite101


For a writer these two sites are excellent for the simple reason you will be forced to hone your writing skills. The editors are that strict. It does not matter if your subject matter has the ability to drive hundreds of visitors to the site, you as a writer are in boot camp unless you sort out those grammatical errors and typos.

Both sites have writers' guidelines. Adhere to them and if you can stick with them you will be fine.

The good thing about both HubPages and Suite101 are that you are in control of your content. You write what you want using your byline. If you are savvy you share your content on Linkdekin, Twitter and Facebook. You can get yourself out there by joining groups that bear a resemblence to what you are a writing about whether it is freelance writing groups or gardening or social media.

You can create an impressive portfolio, all the more impresssive because of the strict editorial standards. Believe me, both sites really do attract good writers and both are free to join.

Suite101

I began writing for Suite101  in 2009 and have published several articles. Admittedly, I stopped after a few months only to resume again recently. It is a revenue sharing site but the editorial control is strict, therefor the standard of writing is very high.

You can write about pretty much what you want and the site is flexible enough to upload text, pics and links and receive feedback for your articles.

The pros are that Suite101 features highly on search engines and that it is possible to make money depending how often you want to write.

A writer on Suite101 can network with other writers at the site and I personally have won other writing work from contributing articles to Suite101, when I have shown potential clients my Suite101 portfolio.  

How Does Suite101.com Pay?

Suite101.com pays purely off ad-click revenue share. In an older revenue model Suite101 paid a certain amount of money per page view, but they no longer pay according to a page view system. Obviously the more page views you get the better as the more people visit your articles, the greater your chances are for gaining ad clicks. Obviously the more articles you write the greater your chances of attracting more visitors. I have made some revenue doing this writing for Suite101 but it does take a while. It is not an instant payout because that isn’t the way ad-click revenue sharing works.

If you have another outlet to sell your well-written and well-researched articles elsewhere then do so! For example, an article I was going to upload on to Suite101 earned me £150 on a travel website. Not bad for a few hours writing, editing and proofreading!

But if you cannot sell your articles, and you do upload them onto Suite101, they do remain there forever and can theoretically earn you money continuously. It is similar to having your own blog and using Google Adsense: it is up to you to use the tools such as social media and writing for niche subject matter forums to make it pay!

I personally recommend it as a sideline but there are writers who have managed to generate a decent living wage from revenue generated on Suite101. It is down to time and how much income you can generate to support your fledgling writing career. If, you are like me, which I suspect many of you are, options are always dictated by the need to pay the mortgage/rent, feed the kids and run the car!


EXPERTS STATE THAT IT TAKES ABOUT SIX-NINE MONTHS BEFORE YOU REAP THE FINANCIAL GAINS FROM WRITING THROUGH AD-CLICK SITES!


What Rights Does Suite101.com Keep?

Suite101.com requires that articles published on the site are fresh and not currently available elsewhere on the web. They require exclusive web rights to that content for one year. Is that fair? Some say no, some accept that dictum and work within the guidelines.




Hubpages


Hubpages is a Canadian revenue sharing site which has some pretty impressive tools for freelance writers.

HubPages gets over 8 million unique visitors each month. If you are mathmatically minded which unfortunately for such a creative pastime as writing is sometimes an anomaly but a necessity that equates to a ratio of 40 viewers per hub, which is a seductive premise for an aspiring writer who is trying to attract a following or even for an established writer who is seeking to showcase his or her work.

For me, personally, I prefer Hubpages to Suite101. Over the last couple of years it has evolved immensely and for the freelance writer it offers great freedom, great tools to promote their content and a great writing community. And speaking of the Hubpages community, I love the community of  insightful and illuminating English speaking writers from Canada, the US, the UK and Australia who write about a variety of subjects backed up with pictures and videos to enhance their work.

Like Suite101, Hubpages has very high editorial standards: content must be original with no typos, bad grammar and abundant with well-researched information. If nothing else, it will force you, as a writer  to keep up your writerly standards and that can only assist you in winning work for more well-paid gigs. That is a positive.

Which brings me to the next point. How much can you earn on Hubpages?

Writers who like me, love their craft and sharing their well-honed snippets of work cannot survive without revenue for their craft/art. What can Hubpages give you?

Hubpages love long articles. If you have a 1250 word niche article and you insert links and pics the better. Hubpages positively encourages this easy-to-use media, which, believe me, is a huge bonus in the the current world of freelance writing, which has discarded pithy bits of SEO friendly trite content. The more unique and informative you are the better and Hubpages provides a great platform.

With Hubpages you can create “Hubs” on any topic and as long your hubs are being visited by other hubbers, or visitors from the internet you have a good chance of earnig pay per ad-click revenue. You can even promote your own hubs yourself to increase traffic even further.

Another good thing about Hubpages is that here are several income streams to choose from: Google Adsense, affiliate income from Ebay or Amazon, and the HubPages exclusive ad programme. You can choose all of them, or simply choose to go with one or two etc.

This ad programme is optimized for both generous advertising space and for increasing the overall advertising revenue. Of course, you can do this with your own blogs but Hubpages is so massive you cannot count it out.

Writers'Rights?

Authors retain copyright to their work on Hubpages, so only they are in a position to grant  those who want to "use' their work permissions. 

Conclusion: How Are You Paid?

With Suite101 and Hubpages all payments are sent conveniently to your PayPal account on a monthly basis once you have reached the minimum payout requirements.

The amount you earn each month, if you haven’t reached the optimum, carries over to the next month.

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