What do you love? What are your passions? Have any hobbies? Want to make some money from them? With the economy suffering, many continue to look for other income sources. Granted, many of the articles in these so-called "content farms" are generic and lack substance. But that's where your love and passion come into play. Think of all the wonderful thoughts in your mind that you want to share with others (or maybe already do with your own blog). When you go out for dinner or drinks with friends, what do you talk about? Why not turn those conversations into articles? "Some friends of mine were talking about [insert topic] the other day at dinner. [Person A] said she didn't like [insert movie title] because it went against [insert moral dilemma]. [Person B] retorted 'OMG! I loved it!' and went on to explain [insert opposite moral argument]." The key is to fill articles with useful, quality information. But you don't think you're a good writer? The more you write, the more your skills will improve. (Additionally, there are many free style manuals and writing guides on the Web to help you improve your technique, such as Strunk and White's famous book The Elements of Style.) Perhaps you won't make as much as this woman does, but think of all the fun you'll have writing about what you love.

FTA:

When Jodi Jill was laid off from her position as an assistant at a car dealership two years ago, she took a number of odd jobs to pay the bills, from hawking oranges off the Venice exit on the 405 freeway in Southern California to fixing sequins onto costume dresses. She also wrote the occasional article for Examiner, the crowdsourced content play backed by billionaire investor Philip Anschutz.

Fast forward two years and Ms. Jill, who was briefly homeless after being laid off, says she's made just under $100,000 in the past year by writing exclusively for Examiner...

Denver-based Examiner pays its writers anywhere from $1 to $7.50 for every thousand page views their posts generate, based on a black-box formula. The company has a roster of more than 60,000 contributors producing more than 3,000 articles a day.

In the case of Ms. Jill, she posts anywhere form 100 to 130 articles in a week...

The Examiner confirmed Ms. Jill's claim but cautioned that her situation is not typical of its contributors, most of whom write as a hobby and make no more than a few hundred dollars a year...

Above all, Ms. Jill said she has to write what she loves, a lesson she learned after meeting Stan Lee at ComiCon. "I say to him, 'How do you pull all this stuff out, all this stuff you write?' He says to me, 'You write what you love, and there will always be an audience.'

Hitting Pay Dirt on Content Farms Is All About the Traffic. Top Reporter on Examiner, Formerly Homeless, Earns Close to $100,000 a Year Blogging on Bieber

DISCUSS!

Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Dec 3, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=394