Iakul's Freelance Writing Musings

Just a minor update, regarding Bukisa's change from a multi-tier referral based model to a Google Adsense sharing revenue model. And yes, compared to my previous site description *points below* , Bukisa didn't get much of a site description this time. " Bukisa Personally, I don't like Bukisa. It seems to be a content site that's focused on quantity and not quality. There are quite a number of peole who do recommend Bukisa though. Bukisa has a 3 tier referral system, which means that you get a cut of the earnings of the referrals of the referrals of your referrals. As far as I can tell, that's the reason most of the people are recommending it. But like I mentioned, I don't like it. They even set up a Help page which has nothing on it except "Coming Soon" and a link to their FAQ. It's now Aug 31st 2009. Bukisa was started in 2008. That's a long time to set up a Help page. *Updated on Nov 10th 2009: it has come to my attention that Bukisa no

Added a couple of sites under the Blogs and Forums section. There's Writing For Dollars , which isn't exactly a blog or forum, but I guess that's the section that fits it best. This kind of made me realise that I don't have a section for informative sites that are not blogs or forums. Writing For Dollars certainly has a wealth of information, which includes tips and advice, job listings, and a whole lot more. The other one's WAHMs WHo Write . I have to admit that I have been late in adding this one, mainly because I'm not a WAHM (Work at Home Mom). Still the leads and information in this forum are relevant to all writers, even if you aren't a WAHM.

Well, as I prmosied in my previous blog post, I addded two new sites to the list. First one's Firehow , under "Sites which specialise in certain writing categories". It's a how-to article website, and it only pays US residents. The next one's Redgage . While technically it does pay non-US residents, there's a cap of on earnings that they don't mention anywhere on their site. I'll explain. Redgage pays via the Redgage card, a card that they ship to you when you have earned your first $25. THey charge $5 for the shipping. From then on, you withdraw from Redgage via your card. Here's the catch. After your first transfer, you'll have to register with a giftcards site, which you won't be able to unless you are a US resident. And no, you don't have to withdraw when you have made $25. They allow you to withdraw in increments of $25, which given the "invisible cap" they have imposed, means that you are actually better off holding your

Updated description for Associated Content, since they changed their policy regarding international payments. Took out EHow from list, since they got taken over by Demand Studios. I knew about it soon after it happened, but forgot EHow was on my list and so didn't update it. Doh. Updated description for Demand Studios, since they do accept international applicants now. Leo9 left a commnet mentioning a site called Write For Me. If it's the site that I think it is, it isn't exactly a site where you can find work, and it's more a personal site for a writer rather than a site offering information for writers. That's not to say that writers and would-be writers can't pick up anything useful from there, just that I don't think the focus of the site itself fits with my list, so I'm not going to add it. babygirl3605 mentioned Redgage That's one of the sites I have been planning to take a look at(the other one's Firehow). I do appreciate the heads up

Well, Associated Content has just made it public, as of 29th April, that they will stop paying non-US residents from 1st May onwards. Unless... well, I'll come to that later. Apparently,the decision behind this is due to the implementation of new tax laws that affect companies making payments to non-US taxpayers. Of course, no matter whether they actually had any leeway in the matter, there's still going to be irate writers who are not going to be happy about it. And in case you haven't realised what the dates actually mean. Associated Content are only telling people about it two days in advance. Make that lots of irate ex-writers. Anyway, as I was saying, they do offer a way out. First you'll have to apply as a Featured Contributor for Associated Content under one of the various categories (sports, travel etc) which involves filling out an application form with questions like "How do you stay current in this field? What blogs, websites, periodicals, etc. do you re

Two new revenue sharing sites, Factoidz and Infobarrel added to the list under "sites which let you earn passive income". Thanks to AnneM for telling me about Infobarrel.

Some time back, I wrote an article exposing Academia-reseach as a scam. Recently, it came to my attention that someone has written an article claiming that it's not a scam. *Sighes* I don't know whether to laugh or cry after looking at what he wrote. It amazes me that there are people who can be so deluded. And frankly, I think his article builds a case against Academia-research. Imagine an article, written in barely passable English , claiming that a certain writing site is not a scam, that he has worked there for 4 years and they do not just take on anybody, but first assess whether the applicant is a good writer . For those of you who are interested, you can do a search for "Academia research scam" and read the one with a title claiming that it's not a scam.

Just realised that I missed Absolute Write back when I split the "Forums and Blogs" from the rest of the "Sites Where Publishers Will Post Job Requests" section (which was months ago). Have shifted it to the "Forums and Blogs" section.

I forgot to add this in with the rest of my updates, so I'm going to mention this in a seperate post. AOL should be a name that most of us have heard of. They recently set up Seed , which to quote from their About Us page "assigns, buys and distributes work for all of AOL's properties: more than 80 of the Web's most highly trafficked and respected websites, including the world's leading sites for music, style, TV, tech and more." Most of the article requests from Seed are paying around 30 USD for a word range of 400-500 words, although I have seen some that are paying a few hundred USD. That certainly looks attractive. Two points to take note of though. 1.Quite a number of the members on the writers' forums I visit have raised concerns about Seed. OF course, it may turn out that there's nothing to be worried about, and so far, Seed has not done anything to worry me, but it's still something to keep in mind. 2. Seed only pays US residents. Which unf

A belated happy new year to my readers (I hope I still have readers :P, since it been more than a month since my last post) Looks like it's been more than a month since my last post. Anyway, here's some updates. Did some spring cleaning on my list and cleaned up a few dead links. It appears some of the sites are no longer in business. In my last update, I mentioned that I was taking Review Stream off the list. Have been doing some digging around to see what I could find out about then since then and what I have found out appears to support my decision. For those of you interested in just what it was that I found out, here's the link to the article below. http://writinghood.com/writing/review-stream-opportunity-or-scam/