Myths About Writer Success and Residual Income

A few days ago, I had an interesting discussion with a fellow writer. We were discussing the many ways online writers find to build residual income with revenue share from various writing sites or using adsense on personal blogs. It was then that she revealed to me that she "never clicks on ads" on people's blogs. 

Intrigued, I prodded her a bit to find out her reasoning. It turns out that she is suffering from the illusion that other writers were her competition and she has set them up as the enemy. She doesn't click on adsense ads because she is afraid the other writer will becomes successful with their blog and end up giving her too much competition.

It's a logical thought, really, but there are some holes in that type of logic. The first being that she assumes there are not enough readers to go around and that if one writer amasses a great following of readers, there will  be fewer readers for her. Unless both writers share the same writing niche, this simply isn't true. There are millions of readers out there.

How Online Writers Make Money

If you are new to writing online you may find yourself navigating the various sites and wondering which one is the best to write for. That, of course, depends on you and your interests.

I often hear new writers ask which one makes the most money. Again that depends on you. But, we can address that later. Right now, the important thing for you to do is gain an understanding of your options for making money as an online writer.

Basically your options are: being paid for page impressions, which mean the site your write for pays you according to how many readers visit your work, by revenue from ads clicks, or outright payment. You may see terms like "unique visitors"--a fancy way to say that you won't be paid for every time aunt Betty visits if she chooses to read your article a 100 times a day, or Google Adsense and Google advertising programs--those little ads that show up beside your article.

My article The Top Five Ways Writers Make Money Online explains it all in more detail, so I won't repeat myself here. If you are serious about being a successful online writer and making money from your writing, this a good place to start.