Freelance writers as we’ve discussed before have some incredible opportunities for earning residual income without increasing their costs to any degree. However, residual income does come with a price tag of time. It’s great to see earnings grow from being paid up front payments on articles that you submit to various article sites, but also through the longer lasting page views that are involved. Let us take a look at what some of these residual opportunities require:
Helium & other writing sites
Page views create residual income, but they do still have a price tag associated with them. Sites like Helium require your participation in order to continue your residual page earnings. Understand, this is not a complaint from me at all, this is simply stating a fact. If you stop participating your earnings stop. End of story. Helium requires you to maintain at least one rating star to qualify for residual income from page views. Honestly, this is not hard to maintain. Sites like Factzoid, HubPages, Squidoo and other similar writing sites have different requirements. You should read the terms of service to find out what they are.
AdSense & other advertising programs
If you stop writing new content to your blog tomorrow, chances are that your AdSense and Kontera earnings could easily drop to $0.00 on a daily basis. You can work your tail off for years on end and if you stop posting, your blog will drop out of search engine rankings and soon it will be a mere blip on people’s radar. Maintaining your blog (and of course promoting it) is required for you to earn residual income.
Affiliate programs
Programs like Amazon, EBay and other similar affiliate programs require you to sell a product. In order for you to do this, you have to write something that at a minimum requires that you write something that includes a module to link to that product through your writing. No sales, no earnings. Pretty simple concept.
And so……
Do not be tricked into thinking that your residual income is going to fund your old age. It’s not going to happen. Residual income will always require you to be involved in one manner or another. The only variance may be the level of involvement that is going to be required to maintain that income.
Summary
Residual income is a wonderful option for all freelance writers simply because there are so many options available. But, make no mistake about it, you will have to work to one degree or another to continue earning it. Residual income IS NOT passive.
About Doreen Martel
Well-rounded freelance writer who contributes to various blogs, paid to write sites and revenue sharing sites. Doreen is legally blind and has worked at home for more than 10 years. She uses the lessons learned from this experience to enhance her writing and share information with others.
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