Maya Frances (a.k.a. vbchica14)

I'm Maya Frances an "Attorney by day. Writer by night."  I am an attorney, but in my spare time I write articles and blogs online to make some extra income.  Despite what many think, attorneys do not make a lot of money.  When you couple the "ok but not great" income with the overwhelming student loan debt, many attorneys struggle to get the bills paid--I am one of them.  So in an effort to help pay off my loans and hopefully one day be able to live comfortably, I write articles and blogs online to make money.  There are a lot of great sites online (like Wizzley) that allow people to build an article database and get paid through Google Adsense and other affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates, eBay Partner Network, Chitika, and more!  There are also plenty of other affiliate programs that pay you for referring users to their sites or products.  My Wizzography will explain some of the various ways I make money online to help pay the bills as well as bit about me, who I am, and what I like.

As I stated, one of my hobbies (and ways I help pay the bills) is to write articles online.  I write for many sites: Wizzley, Infobarrel, Squidoo, Hubpages, Triond, Examiner, Associated Content, and Bukisa.  Below is more info about the sites I write for and how much they pay, etc...

The key to making money online is keywords.  A good keyword that will bring readers to your article and will also create high paying Google Adsense ads is the key to success in writing online.  Do some research on SEO (search engine optimizatin) and high paying keywords before you start writing and you will be on the road to making money online.

One of the best things about writing articles for these sites is that it creates passive income.  Essentially you write the articles and then sit back and let them keep earning for you.  Of course the more you write, the more you earn.  So it is not entirely passive as with increase work and writing, there will be increased earnings.

Writing articles online is also great for students and stay at home moms who have some down time and can write at their own pace.  It's a great way to make extra income without having to leave home.

Since this is my Wizzography, I figured it's best to start off with Wizzley.  Wizzley is a relatively new site and as such I have not written many articles yet, but I plan to create plenty of pages on Wizzley when I have some time.  Wizzley allows you to not only write articles but essentially create a whole webpage dedicated to your topic.  You can include text modules as well as modules for links, polls, amazon products, Zazzle products, maps, YouTube videos, Wikipedia articles, and more!  Wizzley was started by a few of the top writers from Squidoo (another site I write for which is discussed further below) and is modeled somewhat after Squidoo.  Wizzley's moderators are great in making sure that Wizzley only has legitimate content that is not duplicative or spammy.  As a result, despite being a realitively new site, Wizzley has a great search rank in Google. Ways to earn from Wizzley includes Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, AllPostsers Affiliates, and Zazzle Affiliates.  You can also earn by referring new writers to Wizzley.  You can also sync your Google Analytics account to Wizzley to monitor the traffic you get.

Squidoo works a lot like Wizzley where you create your own pages  (called lenses) and fill them with modules.  Squidoo offers more modules than Wizzley, but some of the basic modules include text, links, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Twitter, RSS feeds, quizzes/polls, duels/debates, comments, and much more!  You get paid by Squidoo based upon your lens rank.  There are three tiers and users get paid a piece of Squidoo's ad pool based upon which tier their lenses are in. Tier 1 lenses are lenses with a lens rank of 2,000 or higher. Tier 2 lenses are lenses with a lensrank of 2,001-10,000. Tier 2 lenses are lenses with a lensrank of 10,001-85,000. You can also make money with Squidoo via sales you direct from the modules on your lenses such as Amazon modules, eBay modules, and iTunes modules.  You can also use Squidoo to sell and feature products for which you earn an affiliate commission such as products from Zazzle, AllPosters, or Clickbank.  Squidoo will also pay you $5 for each of your referrals. You are paid the $5 once a referral earns $15 through Squidoo.

InfoBarrel is a site where you can earn money for writing articles rather than creating pages. You earn money from InfoBarrel articles because your Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, and Chikita IDs are automatically inserted into 75% of the impressions of your articles. By writing articles and competing in contests you can earn more points so that your IDs are inserted into the ads for up to 90% of the impressions on your articles. For each new writer you refer to InfoBarrel, InfoBarrel will insert your ad IDs into 2% of your referrals' impressions.

Hubpages is another site similar to Squidoo or Wizzley where you create pages, called hubs, instead of just writing articles.  Hubpages has their own ad program that pays you directly based upon views.   You can also include your affiliate IDs for Adsense, Amazon Affiliates, and eBay Partner Network to make more money through Hubpages.  Your affiliate ID will be inserted into the ads on your hubs for 60% of the impressions.  Hubpages, you will also insert your affiliate IDs into 10% of the impressions on your referrals' hubs.

You can write both regular articles and specially formatted "How To" articles for Bukisa.  Your Google Adsense ID inserted into the ads on Bukisa your articles and that is how you make money writing for Bukisa. Your Google Adsense ID is used for the ads for 60% of your article impressions. If you don't have Adsense (or don't want to use it), you can use Chitika instead and have your Chitika ID inserted into the ads for 60% of your articles' impressions. Your Google Adsense (or Chitika) ID will also be inserted into a percentage of the articles written by writers you refer to Bukisa. 

You can make money writing for Triond but directly from Triond based upon articles views and you also have the option of having your Google Adsense ID into your Triond articles.  Unlike many other paid to write sites, Triond does not have a strict requirement on word length.  Therefore, I mainly use Triond to write short articles to create easy backlinks to my other articles (a great way to get more traffic and a good rank in search engine results) and as a place to put my old eHow articles (I used to write for eHow before they got rid of their Writers' Compensation Program) that are not good enough to re-edit for InfoBarrel.

Associated Content was bought out by Yahoo! and now is also called the Yahoo! Contributor Program.  Yahoo! Contributor Program pays writers both upfront payments for articles ($1-$20 per article) and also performance payments based upon article views ($1-$2 per 1,000 views).  At one point I was making about $20 per day (for a total of $600 in one month) in upfront payments from Yahoo! Contributor Program.  At that time, Yahoo! Contributor Program was working on their local content and offering $10 per article on local neighborhoods.  Since then Yahoo! Contributor Program has not been offering upfront payments that high as often so the income has slowed down.  In general, Yahoo! Contributor Program is best if you want to get paid upfront but not if you are looking to build a strong passive income base as the performance payments rate is not as high as the passive income you would earn writing for other sites such as InfoBarrel.

Another way to make money writing online is with blogs.  You can write a blog about almost any topic in the world.  Then you can "monetize" the blog with Adsense ads and by placing ads for your affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates.  I'm not as dilligent with my blogs as I should be, but if you are dedicated, write your blog everyday, and get a decedent following you can make significant money blogging.  Some people even make up to six-figures a year with blogs!

Like many people, I am a big fan of TV and movies for sources of entertainment.  My favorite electronic gadget is my TiVo which makes it easy to watch way too much TV, but it's a great way to relax after a long day at work.  I generally try to write articles while catching up on my favorite shows.  I don't go to the movies often, but catch up on the movies I missed in the theater by renting them from Amazon on my TiVo or uploading movies from my computer to the TiVo.  (Like I said, TiVo's great & addictive).  Below I will share my favorite movies and TV shows.

My guilty pleasure is The Real Housewives... franchise on Bravo--I'm a bit obsessed.  I follow the housewives of twitter, write a blog about my feelings about the shows, and have created several lenses on Squidoo dedicated to The Real Housewives.  Below I have shared a link to my general directory lens about The Real Housewives.  That lens itself is a bit bare, but it links to more comprehensive guides to each show and then further lenses dedicated to each season with episode guides, information on the housewives, and video clips.

As I've mentioned, I'm an attorney so I use my knowledge of the law and being a practicing attorney to my advantage when writing online.  When I first started practicing law there were some simple procedural things I didn't know, such as what goes on in a Preliminary Conference or different Judge's Part Rules (the procedure for every Judge is different), so I write a blog and articles about practicing civil litigation in New York City as a reference for new attorneys who have questions about things they think "everyone already knows" but actually don't.

Intake Part in Kings County
A guide to the Intake Part in Kings County (Brooklyn) which is where preliminary conferences are held.

Central Compliance Part (CCP) in Kings County
A guide to CCP in Kings County (Brooklyn) which is where compliance conferences are held and discovery motions are argued.

How to File an OSC in Kings County
The procedure for filing an Order to Show Cause (OSC) in Kings County (Brooklyn).

Becoming a Notary Public as a New York Attorney
Information on how an attorney in New York can become a Notary Public without taking the Notary exam.

How to Write a Health Care Proxy
How to write a proper health care proxy in New York.

I am a big fan of food and a bit of a "foodie."  Living in New York City, I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by some of the best restaurants in the world and delicious food from all over the world.  Whether it is high end restaurants, tiny dives, or food trucks I love enjoying all of the different food in New York,

Between commuting on the subway and waiting around in court, I have a lot of downtime for reading.  One of my absolute favorite gadgets is my Kindle.  Reading a Kindle on the subway is much easier--I can hold my Kindle & change pages with one hand while the other hand holds onto the subway pole.  I typically like to read chick lit--something light that I can easily put down and pick back up again when my subway ride ends or my case is called in court.