Trying Project Wonderful

The key to succeeding as a freelance writer today is to have a large variety of revenue streams going on at once.

Here's what I have: I edit a real estate trade magazine in Chicago. That provides an annual, steady salary. I freelance write for print and newspapers. That used to make up the majority of my yearly income. In today's economy, though, that's changing. I also write for six different blogs, some of which are pay-per-post and some of which I operate on my own. Finally, I've entered the world of content writing, which, despite its generally low pay for each assignment, has boosted my monthly revenue quite nicely.

Now I'm hoping to add more ad revenue to this mix. I do have AdSense on the blogs that I run myself. The money from that comes very, very slowly. It's hard to get people to click those ads. But I have made some money. I'm not at the $100 that Google requires for payout yet, but I should get there in two months or so.

I'm also trying Project Wonderful. This ad-revenue option is popular among Web comic artists, but can be used for most any Web Site that isn't pornographic.

Basically, you sign up and wait. Project Wonderful staffers look over your site and then either approve you or tell you "no thanks." Once you're approved, you add code to your Web site -- this is very simple to do -- and wait for companies to bid on advertising on your site.

When you start, you'll get very little bidding action. And if your site isn't that popular, that probably won't change. My first Project Wonderful ad paid out exactly $0. But one day later, I had a company paying 1 penny a day to advertise on my site.

Whoopee! That's $3.65 a year! However, as I build up visitors, I hope to see that per-day figure rise.

And if it doesn't? It costs me no work to have Project Wonderful ads running on my Web sites.