Freelance Writing Tips: Writing for Residual Income Sites

    ​You've got other writing assignments to keep you busy, no doubt, not to mention your own writing projects for which you are guaranteed payment, if done per client instructions. The thing about up-front writing though, is that typically after you are paid that ONE time, that's it. That is all you are going to make on that piece of work. And most of the time, the client buys total rights to the content. They use it as if they wrote the article (sometimes you are able to retain authorship) and you no longer maintain control of it. But, for work that is paid via residual modes: affiliates, your own products, referring new writers, Google Adsense and the like, there's more ways to earn from it and even while you sleep. It only a few cents per day, but that adds up, particularly when you multiply that several times. While your writing for other up-front paying clients, your revshare articles are still making you money. 

    When choosing a residual site to set your articles on, do so wisely. Sites do come, go and change like the wind. Choose solid companies that have been around for awhile and aren't constantly transforming their earning policy. Pay close attention to how sites split the revenues with writers, especially affiliate income. For instance, sometimes sites allow writers to keep all income made from Amazon product sells, but then later decide to keep it all for themselves. It is important to keep abreast of changes that occur as it may be beneficial for you to actually move your work elsewhere. It just depends on what works best for you.

    Test out new residual earning sites by limiting the amount of work you place there. You could test out a number of articles and monitor the results. Those sites that seem to perform better for you, concentrate your efforts there, paying close attention to what you are doing so you know what works.

It is also essential to protect your work. Know what rights you are giving the site by placing your content there. Do they expect to have full rights to your content? For how long? Writers frequently place content on a site only to abandon it. Sites go out of business all of the time and you don't want to lose all your content in the process. Check on the progress of your articles and if they don't seem to be earning, consider moving them elsewhere or re-purposing them. For helps, tips and suggestions on generating new topics and re-purposing your content, see: Freelance Writing Tips: Producing Fresh Story Ideas