The Math Behind My eHow Experiment – 40k+ a year?

I spent time last night writing an article on eHow about my big little experiment, why I was doing it and how I will be able to easily write 5 articles a day. I was a little dissapointed this morning to find that my article was removed from publication, because it contained “Unsuitable Article Content.” Boo.

Although it was true that my article was not an exact step by step process, and I did mention some of my personal goals, I had already received 9 comments within a few hours from fellow eHow users about how motivating the article was, and that it inspired them to write some more articles for eHow themselves. That was the point of writing such an article, and again – I’m a little sad it was removed.

eHow actually allowed me to rewrite the article to fit their “Suitable Content Requirements,” so thats what I did. Now its basically about how to be an efficient writer on eHow. Although it can still be motivating to people, it doesn’t have the same feeling, at least for me. Here is a link to the newly fashioned article, in case you were curious.

The Math

Anyways, while I was writing that article last night, part of what I wrote was about the math behind my experiment, so I thought I would share it with you because it’s pretty interesting stuff. There are quite a few numbers and simple equations involved here, so please bear with me…

My average time spent writing 1 article is about 15-25 minutes. I’ll use 25 minutes for this example to give you a worst case scenario.

If I write 5 articles a day, that’s just about 2 hours a day of extra work, or 14 hours per week. Now, please understand that I used to work at an architectural firm, where it was not uncommon to put in 20 to 25 hours of overtime a week when deadlines were coming up – so to me, an extra 14 hours is absolutely doable.

If I write 5 articles a day for 365 days, averaging 14 hours per week, that will total 728 hours of work to complete 1,825 articles for the entire year.

Now, I’ve read about quite a few people who have near or around 250 articles and pull in over $1000 a month of residual income as a result. Lindsay from Writingforyourwealth.com actually has a fantastic interview with a successful eHow contributor, named Maria (aka WriterGig), who was generous enough to share some tips and her earnings with the blogosphere. The interview is what actually inspired me to start this experiment.

I know I’m not going to earn as much as Maria when we compare our #of article/earnings ratio, which is why I’m going to give you the following example.

Let’s say, I’ve completed my goal of writing 1,825 on November 5th, 2009. If i were to make only half of what the $1000 per 250 articles, only half – that would mean that my 1,825 articles, at the point approximately 1 year from now, would begin to earn me $3,650 per month.

Forgetting about the money that was made before that point, and forgetting about the fact that earnings usually grow each month, if I don’t write anything else, and let my articles sit for one more year at a constant $3,650 per month, that would total $43,800 after one year (approximately 2 years from now). This is entirely residual income.

If you wanted to think about that in terms of an hourly wage (which I know we can all relate to a little better), $43,800/728 hours = $60.14 per hour. That’s a really nice looking number.

BUT! Don’t forget that I didn’t take into account the money made before the year was over (I’m already at $2.00 within the first week), and I didn’t take into account how earnings get larger each month, AND i was doing it at half the income that the other eHow writers were doing.

The Best Part

The best part is this: if I stay motivated and do this correctly – even if I don’t write any more articles after my experiment is over, I’ll have a lifetime residual income of at least $43,800 a year, again with the worst case scenario (as long as eHow is still alive).

To me, this is golden. If I were able to achieve this, I would ask my wife (now fiancee) to stay home with the kids and puppy like she wants to, I would never have to worry about finances ever again (we’re not big spenders, we’re big savers!), and I could have more time to spend with my future family, instead of in an office 8 to 10 hours a day.

All because I spent a measley 14 hours of work writing for 1 entire year. That’s what passive income is all about. Putting in the work now, so you can reap the benefits later. What will you do to set yourself up for the future?

If you really want to follow me on my experiment and get updates about my earnings and articles, I would be honored if you clicked here to subscribe to my feed if you haven’t already. Cheers!

Posted on : November 11th, 2008

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22 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply Sarah H. on November 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

Well I wish you all the best Pat! And if you are successful, then you could write another eBook.

How do you feel about the potential longevity of eHow? What I mean is, do you think eHow will stick around indefinitely, or might it just pull the plug at any time? Do they offer any insight into their future plans as a website? I’m just curious because when we approach ideas for passive income (and I think yours is great) it’s good to feel a little security. In the case of eHow, we basically have to rely on it just continuing to exist as is, which is not a sure thing unfortunately due to the extremely dynamic nature of the internet. Does this have any impact on your goals?

Sarah H.´s last blog post..Houseplant Hacks – Four questions to ask yourself before buying a houseplant

Reply Write for eHow on November 11th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Pat, your excitement is inspiring! The great thing about having lofty goals is that even if you fall short, you’ll be far ahead of where you would be if you had never set the goal at all.

Sarah, I understand your concern. I think it’s always a good idea to diversify, even when writing on the internet. As a side note, however, some of us were invited to the eHow headquarters last month and got to meet the people behind eHow. And while nothing is guaranteed, I feel a lot more secure now that I’ve heard some of there plans.

I’ve blogged a bit about it on my blog if you’re interested.

Write for eHow´s last blog post..eHow Writer Earnings Growth

Reply Pat on November 11th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

@ Sarah,

I think you have a great point. I would hate to put in all of this work just to see it go away all of a sudden. If I could get at least a few years of residual income from eHow, I’d be happy. As a business man, I cannot really see any faults in their business model that would drastically increase a shut down. I mean, they are making more money than we are on our articles, so they at least have an income stream if we do too. But, I do know there are a lot of factors involved – not only on eHow’s side, but also Google’s as well, and who knows what crazy ideas they’ll come with next that may change the market. Furthermore, I am quite a bit diversified, especially with my eBook and other projects going on.

@Write for eHow
It’s so true about aiming high like you said. I’m hoping I can reach my goal, and if I don’t it will be a disappointment to me , but I think I should also be proud of myself if I get even halfway.

That’s really cool that you got to visit the eHow headquarters. I’m going to find that article on your blog right now. It sounds fun!

I’m hoping I can establish a relationship with eHow like you did, and be able to be invited to places and such. I wouldn’t mind speaking about my efforts…hehe!

Reply Write for eHow on November 11th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

One thing that eHow has going for it is Richard Rosenblatt. He is the co-founder of Demand Media, of which eHow is a part.

He was the one responsible for the turnaround of MySpace and its sale to Rupert Murdoch. Google him for some great info.

Write for eHow´s last blog post..eHow Writer Earnings Growth

Reply Sarah H. on November 11th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

@Pat, thanks for your insight. I agree that diversifying is a good plan. Hopefully we will never have to worry about eHow going bust anytime soon.

@Write for eHow, I’m glad to hear you got to meet some of the people behind eHow. I actually have already visited your blog and I enjoyed it, so I’ll definitely be back!

Sarah H.´s last blog post..Houseplant Hacks – Four questions to ask yourself before buying a houseplant

Reply passivefamilyincome on November 12th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Thanks so much for the inspiring post! I only have 10 articles on eHow, but have seen the potential of it from reading your site and other eHow writers. I agree that diversification is the key, as it is with most things in life.

passivefamilyincome´s last blog post..Turn Frugal Behaviors into a Game

Reply April Ort on November 12th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Hello Pat,
I really enjoyed your writing. I have been writing on eHow for a year now. Although I only have just over one hundred articles, I am making a nice amount of money each month. I would suggest to look at your current articles and pick out the ones that are earning the most and try to focus on those niches. If you have a good article with a unique title and some other site links to it, you can see a huge surge in profits. I had one article go from $10 to $125 over night, after Phillyblogs.com put it on their front page. Just one of many little tricks that really help boost your passive income.

April Ort´s last blog post..A New Birth of Freedom

Reply Pat on November 13th, 2008 at 12:50 am

@ passivefamilyincome, thanks for your comment! I’m glad my post has been able to inspire you a little. I hoping I can continue to provide you and other readers inspiration, which will in turn inspire me even more. =)

@ April Ort, I really appreciate your kind words and sound advice. It’s only been a litle over a week, so I think after a month I’ll do some extensive research on the articles I’ve been writing and how well they are earning and continue to focus in those areas. It’s really cool to hear that one o your articles has made that much in such a short period of time. I’m hoping there will be some internet angels out there that pick up on a few of my articles and show them to as many people as possible. I guess we’ll see! Thanks again for the advice!

Reply Online Dividends on November 13th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

I am sorry Pat, but I believe that if you post all those 1825 articles on your OWN blog, you would make much more per year. Ehow only shares a portion of adsense earnings, while they also have other ad revenues which they don’t share with their authors..

Online Dividends´s last blog post..Passive Income as of 10/31/2008

Reply Pat on November 13th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

@ Online Dividends

I see your point, but where else am I able to write about how to be a DJ, how to find things online, how to be a good fiance, how to crack your back, how to make your own wedding invitations and how to cook a great grilled cheese sandwich all in one spot. In addition, I could use my experience as leverage for new and upcoming projects I could do, and probably have the support of thousands and thousands of eHow users behind me. Your thoughts?

Reply Online Dividends on November 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Pat,

I kept writing a post response for a while, untill i decided to actually post it on my own blog, where it will be read more easily:

Online Dividends´s last blog post..Passive Income as of 10/31/2008

Reply Erica on November 24th, 2008 at 3:25 am

Great article, I’d never even heard of eHow before but I think I might give it a shot…do the articles need to be completely new…or could you revise some older blog posts you have?

Erica´s last blog post..Christmas Presents for a 2-3 Year Old Girl

Reply Pat on November 24th, 2008 at 3:29 am

@ Erica,

Thanks for visiting and welcome! It’s nice to see new faces =)

Regarding your question, you can totally use some older blog posts you have, and even link to them in your “resources” section in eHow (you’ll see exactly what this is when you join) so you can cross promote your content. However, I wouldn’t recommend copying your blog posts over to eHow verbatim, but a small revision, like you suggested, would work quite well.

If you do end up joining, let us know when you write some articles!

Reply ALRADY on December 18th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

Pat your comments about varied interests is exactly why I have difficult time with blogs rather than ehow or twitwall.

I did want to address the concern about income and basically ALL articles shoudl be kept in a file on your harddrive and a flash card as backup so that you can recreate easily.

2 reasons for that. If everythign disappears you have backup. I have had one article dissappear into cyberspace.

The other is for repurposing for additional dollars.

Reply Carolina on December 26th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Hi Pat,

This is very insightful info. I appreciate you share this page with us.
I am new on eHow and thanks to one of your article I run into on HubPages, I learned so much and I have yet more to learn, but in the mean time I am hanging around and, as a matter of fact one of my articles was on the article of the day, this within just weeks after I started. I have lots of things to learn yet.

Thank you and have a great successful year!
Carolina

Reply Brenda on January 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm

I think the idea of putting that many up on ehow sounds great.

But how do you make ehow work for you?

In my case, I became a member about 2 weeks ago and put up five articles and they say they’re successfully published, but
1. When I google or ehow-search my article titles, they don’t show up anywhere even though they’re shown as published and even receiving a few views.
2. There’s no “article manager” or “manage my articles” anywhere on my profile page.

I really want to join you in this experiment, probably not putting up quite as many, but I spend time trying to contact ehow and figure this out instead of writing and submitting articles. Any ideas on this?

Reply Carolina D. on January 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

@Brenda,
There is a lot of reading on eHow page and you can learn a LOT. You might want to share your articles to other sites, on yahoo buzz, Facebook, Google, etc…

Also you can try another writing publisher like Bukisa: by invitation http://www.bukisa.com/join/2648

Reply ALRADY on January 18th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

I am linking to my twitwall so you all can take the poll on earnings… scroll down and buy books or look at my ehow article list.

PAT please take the poll.

BRENDA I am posting mostly because since changes ehow has gone wonky in some areas and it is hard to tell what is happening. I have articles that are now in google search but not in ehow search. If you aren’t submitting them yourself it might take a lot longer than normal to get into Google.

Ehow has had problems with getting articles into ehow search for the past almost month.
So hopefully you can get them into google yourself. Sometimes they just don’t make front few pages.. to make sure if they are in google or not I always add my name to search … so like this: “tax deductions writers alrady ehow.com”
Then I will know ranking of page and alex rank from a tool I downloaded. I can play aroudn with terms and decide what to do from there.
PAT congrats this page is coming up in rank now.. watching the growth.

ALRADY´s last blog post..Where ae you with ad revenue? adsense in particular

Reply Big truck trader on February 4th, 2009 at 6:34 am

thats a good one ur sharing here … good calculation and its worth doing it.

the only thing is that ur articles should be of very quality and very informative type which also gets searches after a time period of year too or else result into no visitors to ur articles….

Reply My eHow Experiment...Am I Going About It All Wrong? I Need Your Help! | The Smart Passive Income Blog on August 9th, 2009 at 2:26 pm

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Reply My Third Month of eHow Unwrapped | The Smart Passive Income Blog on September 27th, 2009 at 12:37 am

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