I’ve been a member at Helium for quite some time now. It took me almost two years until I finally made the payout of $25 dollars. It was painfully slow. I realized that for all the work you put in, you get very little in terms of financial rewards. I would not endorse signing up for the site to make money. It takes A LOT of work to make it happen and by then, you could have made even more money by focusing on something else, like writing queries or finding new clients.
But for the longest time, I didn’t participate in the site for the money. I would submit an article every once in a while. What I really like there is the profile feature because they let you put your website links. Since my website benefits writers, promoting it there is an asset.
Every now and then, they have a “reward-a-thon” – they are currently running one for summer. The pay isn’t a lot (it’s almost laughable). But if you’re like me and you use the site every now and then because of the profile, it’s nice to make a few extra dollars. However, not everyone is eligible. You need to have the appropriate amount of stars for writing and rating (1 for writing, 3 for rating). I don’t meet any of those requirements. And you do make residual income on the articles so that helps a little bit.
The one thing I do like on the site is the marketplace. I’ve only submitted one article. My plan is to see what’s being asked for. If it is in a topic that will fit any of my blogs or an article I could easily turn around and sell, I wouldn’t mind doing it. The client may not choose my article, but at least I’ll have a place to put it if they don’t so my time wasn’t wasted.
Do I think you can make money with Helium.com? Yes – but from what I’ve seen the rewards aren’t nearly enough to justify spending hours a day on it. However, when I do participate I notice that my website gets a few more hits and I do make a few extra bucks. And in helium’s defense, there are some writers who seem to make considerably more than me. They take the time to promote their articles and they participate in the community.
Still think you want to try it out? Just click the button at the top of the post to sign up.
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Good Day Katherine,
Why do these sites pay such laughable amounts for articles. $1.00 per article? Give me a break. Your time is worth more than that. They are getting good content for basically free.
Do they get away with it because people are flocking to their site? I guess I don’t understand the economics from either side.
If you write an article for them, do you retain your rights to it? or do they? I am thinking that at least you keep your rights so that you can repost the article in another arena at a later date. (Copyright and ownership of writing sure sounds like a good blog posting topic to me – I need to learn more)
-Loren
http://theteachingbox.today.com
http://www.theteachingbox.com
At Helium I believe you retain your rights.
Yes, copyright ownership can be tricky. I am still sort of learning as I go – six years later. When in doubt, I email a site’s customer service department and ask on the details. Sometimes you really need to dig.
Helium has a revenue sharing model so they draw people in with the idea that they’re earnings will go up. However, I have articles on other revenue sharing sites that make a lot more!
It is possible that I’m missing something. But you’re right. For the amount of work you need to put in to make money at a site like Helium, is it worth it in the end?