I decided to take some time away to work on some other projects. Frankly, I have grown bored and impatient with working on my niche sites. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy creating niche sites, but I have been working on them for months with absolutely zero results.
I realize that it takes time to get these things to produce results, especially considering that I only use free methods in promoting them.
Back when I still worked a full time job, I had started to write articles for Associated Content (AC). I wrote 3 articles back in January 2007. I absolutely loved it. It was even cooler because they pay upfront for articles they approve and you are allowed to submit your pieces as Non-Exclusive.
This is perfect. Get paid and still be able to use your article in other places. Also, Associated Content further compensates for page views. I don’t recall if they did that back in early 2007, but they did shortly thereafter.
I was happy as a clam doing something I really enjoyed. I have always wanted to be a writer, but on my own terms. Associated Content allows writers to submit articles on what they choose.
Anyway, I got distracted with some personal issues immediately after publishing my 3 articles. I never got around to submitting another article.
I decided recently to re-visit it and was pleased to find out that my account was still very much active and in fact, my articles from 3 years ago were still generating hits and INCOME.
Granted, there was less than a buck in the account for Oct/Nov/Dec page views. The page views were only a small trickle for those 3 months, but it was amazing to see 3 year old articles still getting hits and making money. In the earlier days of the article, there would have been more hits I’m sure, but I never bothered with the account after that or wrote any more articles.
You are required to at least log-in to your account every so often…..I think 90 days……or you lose what has accrued. You don’t even have to be writing and submitting articles. You only need to log-in.
I wonder how much money I lost over the 3 years from not logging in to the account? Bummer. 
What if I had 30 articles in there that I left sitting for 3 years? I look at Associated Content as the compounding penny game. It all adds up. I’ve seen that very quickly this week after I started writing for them again.
Yes, I can write for my own sites and I still do, but this is a whole different venue. Writers get discovered on Associated Content by media outlets, publishers, etc. My sites do not have the traffic that Associated Content has and I would like to at least have my articles read by the public. My blogging is very informal and the articles I publish on Associated Content fall under a tighter expectation.
I don’t worry too much about grammar, structure, and every little mistake when I’m blogging. I do proofread, but not obsessively like I do before I submit an article to Associated Content.
It is possible that I could gain some decent exposure there and who knows where that may lead.
I’ve been writing different genres, but have started incorporating Celebrity News into my topic of choice. I will fully admit that celebrity gossip has been a guilty pleasure of mine since I was a child. That and soap operas. I do not really watch too many soap operas…..other than to catch the occasional episode of Days Of Our Lives or General Hospital on Soap Net. I’m just too busy.
I also love reading the soap magazines and I know more about the actors and actresses on the soaps than anything….
Growing up, my mom always had a Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Digest lying around the house. Also, People Magazine, etc.
One of my favorite things to do, back before I got sick and lost my job, was to grab the latest edition of a soap magazine or a USWeekly and go to my local Mexican Restaurant, sit on the patio, savor the awesome chips and guacamole, order some enchiladas and spend 2 hours reading and enjoying my food.
So, this week I decided to take my “guilty pleasure” and use it for my writing. It has been fun. I have been getting so many hits to my articles! It’s great because the News Desk at Associated Content submits the published pieces to the Google News feed.
More than one of my celebrity articles showed in the #1 spot within hours of submitting! Of course, that does not last because news is always updating, but it is so cool to wake up to loads of hits. My sites do not get that much action, so I’m not used to enjoying lots of hits…..lol
They no longer pay upfront payments for News articles, but the hits are generally higher than general articles. A lot higher.
It’s also cool to read the comments. Granted, my articles don’t get the volume of comments like TMZ, but it’s still nice to know that people actually read my pieces. I also do not write ugly pieces. I don’t plan on getting into the gutter like other celebrity writers. I put my own slant on things, but I try and remain respectful.
I enjoy it a lot and my friends and family really think I have found my calling and were questioning why I did not try this sooner. Actually, I had not thought of it.
All I can say is that I have started submitting articles again and I LOVE IT! 
With that said, I have not and I will not give up on this blog or my other niche sites. I enjoy working on those, but this has really re-energized me and awakened my motivation a lot more than it has been lately.
Yes, I have written articles in the past for EzineArticles, GoArticles, etc. to get traffic to my niche sites. I just choose to put my niche articles directly on my niche sites. I just did not see very much traffic coming from the article sites themselves. I noticed more traffic from the search engines from making the posts on my own sites and using SEO.
Besides, I can take any of my articles that I write for Associated Content and put them on my own sites, especially any articles that fall under my niches. I think it’s a win-win for me. I don’t submit my articles as Exclusive, but as Non-Exclusive instead. The only thing I would do before copying/pasting them somewhere else, is I would change the title of the article a bit and change the first paragraph a bit.
This is the advice I got from many of the successful writers over at AC.
Many of them also do this and re-post them over at Bukisa. I’m trying that out myself as well. Bukisa also has a referral program where the writers can make residual for both their own articles and from anyone they refer. So, that is pretty cool.
For anyone interested, I started a separate blog to display my Associated Content articles. I just threw up a quick Blogger blog for that. I named it: Sunny Lynn At Home – My Freelance Articles
Not very original I know, but I’m writing under the name Sunny Lynn at Associated Content. I wanted to keep it simple.
If you have made it this far……thank you for taking the time to read this 1000+ word post.
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