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.

Be careful of click fraud

This site is equipped with Google AdSense ads. Of course, I want my readers to click on them. Every time they do, I get a tiny bit of money.

However, I won't ever consider click fraud as a way to get more money from my blogs. Click fraud, apparently, is a pretty big problem these days for AdSense and other pay-per-click services.

The fraud happens in a few ways. Most common is that blog owners somehow try to click their own ads for extra dollars, perhaps from an outside computer, such as one at their place of employment or at their local public library. Other times, site owners tell their friends or family members to click on their ads to help them make a few extra pennies.

Both are considered fraud because the folks clicking on the ads have no interest in the company's placing them.

The New York Times ran an interesting story recently about click fraud.

The Times details the steps online advertisers are taking to make sure that the clicks they do receive are from Web visitors truly interested in their products or services.

If you run AdSense, don't be tempted to engage in click fraud. The folks at Google monitor these things carefully, and if they determine that you're trying to game the system, they won't hesitate to give you the boot.

Research involves more than Google -- Doesn't it?

This morning I banged out a quick assignment for someone looking for content-mill type stories. The topic wasn't thrilling -- it was on electronic readers, things like the Kindle 2 or Sony Reader -- but the assignment was simple.

I noticed something, though. I wrote the entire story using only Google as a research tool.

That got me thinking. If I'm not writing for a magazine, I generally rely solely on Google to research my stories. No wonder you see the same stories over and over again when you scan sites like eHow, Suite 101, Associated Content and Examiner.com.

It's a bit depressing, isn't it? I mean, when I write for magazines, I interview people -- either in person or over the phone. I read research reports or business prospectuses. I sometimes scan through police reports or court documents. It's really work. It's really time-consuming.

But it's so much more satisfying.

It's not that I couldn't do extra research for my online stories. But with what online sites pay writers, and for what they expect from them, doing that extra research would be foolish. It's better to turn in the junk online sites want and take the peanut money they throw at us.

I still remember the days before Google and the Internet. The first newspaper I worked at still cut and pasted stories onto its pages.

I'm glad Google is around. It's an indispensable tool. I just wish I was writing more stories that required something more than a quick Google search.