My Latest Revelation

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Mostly on blogs, sometimes other places, but all about how to make money online from freelance writing. Some interesting things have happened.

--I realized that freelance writing is what I want to do as a career. Took me long enough!

--I began to understand how foolish it is to waste time on low-paying sites. I'll still keep using Swagbucks and Constant Content, and that's about it.

--I found some great blogs. Master Dayton's Freelance Writing blog found here, for one. Bianca Raven's Freelance Writing Income From Home blog found here, for the other. The time I've spent reading through their posts has been well worth it!

--I've gotten a few private requests, and sold a few more articles.

Here's what my earnings look like now. That's right, my next payment (on August 1st) will take me to my $500 mark... my first $500 earned online! I can't wait.

I've Earned:
Money: $395.85
Amazon Gift Certificates: $45 ($15 from TNS; $30 from Swagbucks)

Pending:
Money: $114.40 USD from CC
Amazon Gift Certificates: $20 ($15 from Swagbucks; $5 from TNS)

What's next? Well, let's just say I have some ideas now!

To Do List

Here are the offers and sites I'm currently researching or pursuing (aside from what I've been putting in my regular updates). Most seem legit, so far.
Nevertheless, this is everything I have on the go:

1. Reward Ladder/LuckySearch

2. Silver Jewelry Club

3. Prize Rebel

4. 360 Elite for Free

5. Neobux

6. ClixSense

7. LinkGrand

8. Treasure Troopers

9. JUVAA

10. Hausernet

11. Yuwie

12. Mechanical Turk

13. Flixya

14. Opinion Outpost

15. Quotas

16. Bukisa

17. PayPerPost

18. Gamesville

Expect EVERYTHING on this list to have a full review and its own "in progress" (or hopefully "completed"!) post soon. Also, if you have any requests or suggestions, please comment!

07/03/09 Update

Time for some more updates already! Things are really picking up speed now. Not only that, but I realized that I'm keeping track of some of my earnings in USD... oops! All earnings are now in CAD and I'll update previous posts when I get a chance. Sorry about that!

(To my American blog followers, it shouldn't make too big a difference, but you can always go to google.com and type in the amount, then enter "CAD to USD", and hit Enter. It'll show you how much that amount is worth in USD. :) )

1. Helium Payment

These were calculated on July 1st. Turns out that last month, I earned $195.09 USD = $226-odd CAD from one week of intensive writing. Pretty darn good! I requested payment already, so this should move from Pending to Earned within the next week.

2. Swagbucks
Also going great. I have a few more referrals and I'm actively searching, getting pretty much every SwagCode that comes out. At this rate, it looks like I'm getting an Amazon.ca gift certificate approximately every four days. If I can keep this up for a year, it'll be over $450 in gift certificates. Niiice.

3. Constant Content
The opportunity I talked about in my last post might not be gone after all! I had sent a quick "thank you, keep me in mind next time" note to the requester and it turns out it was her other request that was being filled by other people; she said she'd open a private request for the one I wanted when she gets back from vacation! How. Cool. Is. That.

I have about five articles ready for her so far, and I'm hoping to get done about five tomorrow, Sunday and Monday (unless she's back by then), so I'll have at least 20 ready to give her.

Payment for each article will be about $0.08 per word, my target rate for unique rights, yahoo!

Also, my payment came in via Paypal on July 1st for that one article I sold to a requester (my first C-C sale!) last month. Another $30, cha-ching!

4. Web Perspectives
I filled out my user profile and got another couple surveys already. I'm at 900 points now, and I need 1000 to cash out. I'm looking forward to it! I haven't completely decided which option I want, but I'm thinking about the Paypal or free theater ticket (going to Harry Potter this month with a friend!), or possibly Indigo-Coles money, but less likely. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

5. SurveyLion
This one came out of left field. I registered for the panel here around May 24th (a month and a half ago or so?) and I suddenly got my first survey invitation. It was worth $2, so I did it, but it only pays via cheque so I'm not requesting payment yet ('cause really, a $2 cheque?! Not that desperate yet!). I'll wait another couple months and see if more opportunities come from this site so I can combine them into a slightly bigger ($5? Haha!) amount first.

I've Earned:
Money: $172.57
Amazon Gift Certificates: $30 ($15 from TNS; $15 from Swagbucks)

Pending:
Money: $226 from Helium
Amazon Gift Certificates: $15 ($10 from Swagbucks; $5 from TNS)