The Helium Experiment
No, this isn’t a post about the colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert monatomic chemical element that heads the noble gas series in the periodic table and whose atomic number is 2 (thank you, Wikipedia!)
This is about helium.com, one of the newer article repository web sites, and about how I intend to make a bunch of money writing there in the next 45 days.
I hope that doesn’t put you off. Making money by writing on the Internet is how I buy Pop Tarts for my daughters, pay my electric bill, and buy dog food. I’m not particularly greedy or materialistic, but I’m also not ashamed to say, “My writing has value. You can use it, but you should pay me for it.” If you are skittish about wanting to make money from your writing, you should choose another profession.
Don’t skip this paragraph. It might cost you.
Before I provide you with links or more information, let me mention that Helium.com does have a referral program. If you do think you’d like to write for Helium, please send me an e-mail with the words ”Helium referral” in the subject line. I will send you a sign-up email as soon as possible. Helium.com only allows referrals via their own e-mail referral system, and they limit each writer to 50 referrals. If you’re interested, let me know as soon as possible before my referral emails are all gone. See below for more reasons to sign up via a referral from me.
The Helium.com Reward-athon
Helium.com is currently running a promotion designed to increase the size of their article repository. This promotion runs until April 15, 2008. At the end of the day on April 15, Helium.com will tally up the number of articles that you submit between January 7 and April 14. You will receive, in your PayPal account on April 15, up to $3 per article submitted.
This bonus payment is in addition to any revenues you accumulate due to page views, which is normally how Helium.com pays its writers. It is also in addition to any revenues generated by placing in the top of a Helium.com contest.
There are specific guidelines that determine how much you will receive per article, and those are available at the Reward-athon page on Helium.
How I am going to make a bunch of cold hard cash.
So, how am going to earn a bunch of money? I’m going to do the following:
- Write a minimum of 12 articles each day for submission between now and April 14. I’ve already got 30 articles at helium.com, so that will put me well above the 500 articles that I need to qualify for a “5-star rating.”
- Rate at least 5 times each day.
- Participate in at least 1 contest every week.
- Spend 20 minutes each day browsing the site or reading the forums trying to identify what sorts of things provide higher ratings at Helium.com.
Why you should try to make some cash, too.
Also, as I love a good competition, I have my own reward for anyone who:
- Signs up for Helium.com via my referral,
- Signs up for The Writing Journey updates via email and is still signed up on April 15, and
- Submits a minimum of 400 articles to Helium.com between March 1 (today) and April 14.
If you meet all three of these criteria, I will send you a copy of Jane Strauss‘ Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation (see below). This book is indispensable for any writer. I am pen pals with Jane, and I can tell you that she has put a lot of work and devotion into this book. I can also tell you that this book has made me money by helping me keep my writing at the top of its game.
Anyone who does the three things above AND tops my total number of articles submitted between March 1 and April 14 will also receive ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett which is scheduled for release on May 12, 2008. No Internet writer, regardless of whether or not you blog, should be without this great book. Like I said, I love a good competition, so be aware that I will do my best to top you if I can!
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4 Responses to “The Helium Experiment”
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I tried Helium once and wrote about 15 articles but haven’t really made anything out of it. I know the key is volume but I admit that I’m just too lazy to write quality articles every day. Still, perhaps I could try it again…
Anyway, best of luck to you on those articles. I would honestly just die writing 12 articles a day, but you seem to have the perseverance. Nice!
I have started writing at Helium. Your articles are a great motivator. I try to write at tleast an article a day and have earned 4 rating stars. My read a-thon earnings are not bad. i’mglad you mentioned volume. It is really discouraging at times to look at your pennies. Thanks for the encouraging article. Visit my about me page.
I joined Helium a while back. I posted two articles. I’ve rated articles as well. To be honest, the stuff I was reading seemed sub-par. Where are all the good articles? People who know me have stated that one of my articles, which ranks 3rd, seems to them, to be in error. (In other words, they felt it added more value than the two above.)
Hey! I’m curious about how much the Rewardathon ended up costing Helium. I’ve heard some writers made more than $1000! That’s pretty amazing.
Do you know anything?