February 2010 Earnings:
Earnings for the ninth month of The Residual Income Challenge were once again at fairly low levels. I put in a fair amount of extra work this month, but all of my residual income opportunities were on the below average side. I needed to average $12.30 per day in residual income to stay on pace, but I was well under this amount at an average of $1.39 per day. The good news is I managed to earn more per day than the month of January which was awful for earnings.

February Vs. January:
For the month of February, I earned $38.89. This is not quite as low as my worst residual income month, but still a little disappointing. I have put a lot of focus into finishing my 10 article Infobarrel project, none of which have earned a penny at this point. Examiner earnings were much stronger this month, but my eHow earnings have plateaued lately and were actually pretty lousy for the month of February.

Current Residual Income Opportunities:
I have finally added a new residual income opportunity for the month of February. I decided to add Associated Content due to the consistent residual income it produces. I still haven't signed up and written any articles, but based on the word of other bloggers the residual income is low but reliable.

Residual Income Breakdown:
eHow earnings were off, but not by a whole lot. I averaged about $.25 per article for the month of February which is one of the lowest averages I have had. My Examiner earnings were the big surprise for the month. On the day I wrote my 100th article, I earned $13.43 in just one day at The Examiner. I still haven't figured out if Examiner gave me a bonus for hitting this milestone, or maybe I was featured on the homepage for awhile and got a lot of hits. The most likely scenario is the article I wrote on Berkshire Hathaway that day was a hot item and received a lot of hits through Google News. Either way, I really needed that boost!

Here is a breakdown of my February 2010 earnings:

The Examiner: $25.25 (101 Articles)
eHow: $12.47 (49 Articles)
Residual Income Challenge Blog: $0.87
FireHow: $0.27 (7 Articles)
Kontera: $0.03

Total: $38.89

March Goals:
My goal this month is to finish my last two articles at Infobarrel, and add some more content at eHow. I also have a new idea for earning residual income, but I'm not sure if I want to go that route. I'll have to think about it some more, and maybe blog about it sometime this month. I spent about 13.5 hours writing last month which is below my 2010 monthly goal amount but definitely higher than the month of January. March earnings are already looking strong; I have a really good feeling about this month's potential.

Biggest Earnings Day at The Examiner:
The day after I posted my 100th article at The Examiner, I had my biggest earnings day that I have ever had there. At first, I thought I just wrote about a hot topic that ranked high in the Google News section for the day. It's very likely, but I'm starting to wonder if The Examiner offers any sort of cash bonus for milestones.

Cash Bonus for 100 Articles?
Lately, I have had little success at The Examiner and my earnings are almost always less than $1 per day. The day after my 100th article, I earned $13.43 on the day. I had written an article about Berkshire Hathaway being added to the S&P 500 index so it is possible this was widely searched for that day. Last year, I would have assumed that I earned about a $0.01 per page view, and that 1,300 visitors had ready my article that day. Examiner has recently changed their pay out structure so now I'm not so sure.

New Examiner Pay Structure:
I recently noticed on my reporting page that the pay structure has changed. It's no longer $0.01 per page view. Instead, Examiner pay is based on a rating that considers a number of factors, including revenue, quality of the audience, which includes things like subscriptions, page view traffic and session length, in addition to others. I wonder if one of the "other" categories is based on a cash bonus for certain milestones such as reaching 100 total articles.

Cash Bonus, or Just a Coincidence?:
It's very interesting that my highest earning day happened to occur the day after I wrote my 100th article. Cash bonuses would certainly be nice, and a greater incentive to continue producing content. Unfortunately, my earnings plunged immediately back down to $.30/day immediately after this milestone of a day. Perhaps the spike was just coincidence, I'm not sure. Has anyone else seen a spike in earnings after writing 100 articles, or some other milestone?

100 Article Milestone at Examiner:

I have finally written 100 articles at The Examiner. It took a lot of patience and nearly 8 months of writing, but I have finally reached the 100 article milestone. I have mixed feelings about the residual income potential, but it has been an excellent source of income over the past 8 months.

Total Earnings with 100 Articles:
Examiner has proved to be a great source of extra income. When other residual income sites were slow to produce, I could always count on an immediate boost from Examiner any time I wrote a new article. After writing 100 articles, I have earned exactly $322.63 over the past 8 months. Simple math tells you that on the average I earned $3.22 for every article I wrote at The Examiner. I'm okay with that considering the wage will only increase since these articles do produce residual income. Here is a chart of my total earnings leading up my 100 articles. Notice how the upward rise has leveled off over the past couple of months.



Residual Income Is Extremely Low:
For the first 5 months or so, I wrote about 15 new articles each month. At The Examiner, the more frequently you write, the better your daily earnings will be. After a while I hit a plateau. I would continue to write, but my daily earnings rarely exceeded the $2 level. It quickly became clear that in order to make $2 per day, I had to write nearly 20 new articles a month. That's hardly worth the effort when you can't expect much residual income per article.

The past couple of months I have been writing about 2-10 new articles per month. My daily earnings slowly trailed off to $1 per day, and now they're rarely higher than $.50 per day. For example, in January I earned $13.91 on 97 articles. Heck, that's just a little more than my huge earnings day at The Examiner. $13.91 averages out to about $.45 per day or about $.14 per article per month. That's pretty low compared to other writing sites.

At eHow, even the average writers earn double and even triple per article per month. I personally average about $.30-$.40 per article per month at eHow. I recently did a poll that showed that the more articles you write for eHow, the higher you daily earnings will be too.

One thing to consider is that most of my Examiner articles are news worthy events that fade over the ensuing weeks and months unlike articles at eHow. Here is a chart of my daily earnings at The Examiner after 100 articles:



The Future of The Examiner and The Residual Income Challenge:

Although, the residual income is low, I plan to continue to produce content at The Examiner for several reasons. I really enjoy using technical analysis to analyze the movements of the stock market and this examiner position has given me a great outlet to share my ideas with other investors. Maybe one day I will get lucky and The Motley Fool or Reuters will stumble upon my Examiner articles and hire me on as a stock market writer.

Aside from the dreams, I enjoy writing on the subject, and the residual income is consistent. I can log on to their site everyday find that I earned something for the day. That isn't always the case with other writing sites as I'm sure you can relate. Lastly, Examiner allows me to create a bunch of back links for my eHow and Infobarrel articles as most of those relate to the stock market as well. Overall, The Examiner has been a lot of fun to write for, and has been the cornerstone of The Residual Income Challenge. Now let's see what the next 100 articles can do for my earnings!

Associated Content:
Associated Content is a well respected site for writers to publish content on virtually any topic they choose. I have been searching for a new site to submit content to that I can share knowledge on just about any subject. I'm always looking to diversify my residual income, and this will give me a chance to write about other subjects I'm interested in. I am able to write on any topic on Infobarrel and Xomba, but the earnings are based on Google ad clicks which come and go.

Upfront Payments and Residual Income:
I need a site such as Associated Content where I know my efforts will be rewarded no matter how small the earnings may be. They offer upfront payments for approved articles, and then $1.50 per 1,000 page views as an ongoing royalty. Upfront payments can range anywhere from $2 to $15 per approved article.

The residual income seems low but it will be consistent and I will be guaranteed to receive an upfront payment. I have a feeling the upfront payment will give me the motivation I need to create new content outside of my usual residual income sites. The Examiner used to be good for an initial boost in income, but now when I create a new article I'm lucky if my earnings spike by $1.

Most Writers Seem Pleased With Their Earnings at Associated Content:
I checked out some other bloggers who write for Associated Content, and most of them are pretty pleased with their results. They seem to agree that the residual income is low, yet reliable. For instance, Melanie at Howtonotworkathome is consistently earnings about $.15 per article per month on about 150 articles. Your earnings potential also increases with the amount of articles you write and their success level. Depending on your success, your clout level will rise and Associated Content will offer you higher upfront payments for new content.

Share Your Success Story:
It seems like a winner, and I am excited to add it to my residual income opportunities. I'll be sure to update as soon as I see some results. For you current Associated Content writers, on average how many views does each of your articles get per month? Feel free to share your success stories and tips for increasing page views.

January 2010 Earnings:
Earnings for the eighth month of The Residual Income Challenge were down to extremely low levels. I really lost focus the second half of the month as I worked over time at work nearly every day. Because of this, the amount of total hours spent writing for the month was the lowest ever. None of this is a good enough excuse since my motto is "doing a little bit of something is better than nothing". I needed to average $9.79 per day in residual income to stay on pace, but I only managed to earn exactly $1.03 per day. That's a big difference of $8.79 per day, or $272.49 for the entire month.

January Vs. December:
For the month of January, I earned $31.93. This now takes the place of November as my worst month of residual income. eHow earnings failed to keep pace with my increase in articles. I increased my article base by about 30% over the past two months, but my earnings have stayed at the same level. Examiner earnings also took a huge dive, but I only wrote 2 new articles in January.

Current Residual Income Opportunities:
I haven't added any new opportunities lately. I definitely need to get on this. For my next opportunity, I want to find a place that I can write about anything without it being stock market related or how to related. I might check out Bukisa or Associated Content next. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on these sites please let me know.

Residual Income Breakdown:
Like I said, my residual income was extremely low for the month. eHow is the only site that seemed to maintain, but it was low considering I have increased my article base significantly. I have written 5 of the 10 articles I planned to write on Infobarrel. My blog was the biggest surprise this month as it earned $1.87 even with my recent neglect.

Here is a breakdown of my January 2010 earnings:

The Examiner: $13.91 (97 Articles)
eHow: $14.51 (47 Articles)
Xomba: $1.52 (83 Xomblurbs, 1 Xombyte)
Residual Income Challenge Blog: $1.87
FireHow: $0.12 (3 Articles)

Total: $31.93

February Goals:
To get back on track! I only spent about 8.5 hours writing last month which is far below my average; and 1/3 the amount of time I should be spending. I need to start writing a couple of articles at The Examiner each week. I don't think the residual income is great there, but I do think it gives great back links to my other articles on other sites. This month I will finish my 10 articles at Infobarrel, write consistently at The Examiner, add a few eHow articles, and find a new writing site to write about other things.

December 2009 Earnings:
Earnings for the seventh month for The Residual Income Challenge picked up from last month. Especially considering the amount of time I put into writing this month. I was so busy with holiday shopping and visiting with family members that I found it very hard to fit in writing time. Anyway, I needed to average $7.46 per day in residual income to stay on pace, but I only earned $1.87 per day. That's a difference of a $5.59 per day, or $173.29 for the month.

December Vs. November:
For the month of December, I earned $58.06. It falls somewhere in between the other months. Not my worst month, and definitely not my best month. eHow earnings fell off a cliff the last two weeks of the month. Not sure if it is a seasonal thing, or the fact that most of my articles deal with the stock market, or maybe eHow is behind on updating earnings.

Current Residual Income Opportunities:
Once again I was unable to add any additional residual income opportunities this month, but I will definitely be on that so I can meet one of my 2010 goals of 20 consistent residual income sources. I still have 16 ways of making residual income online.

Residual Income Breakdown:
My residual income was average for just about every source for the month, but one source sticks out like a sore thumb. I have 1 article on Infobarrel, and that 1 article earned $6.36 for the month of December. To put that in perspective, this 1 article accounted for 11% of my total December residual income. That is pretty exciting, and you can bet I will be shifting my focus to Infobarrel. I have had a writing idea that will allow me to create 10 articles on Infobarrel, but I have been putting it off. Enough of the procrastination, I plan to finish these 10 articles by the end of January.

Here is a breakdown of my December earnings:

The Examiner: $33.77 (95 Articles)
eHow: $15.22 (45 Articles)
Infobarrel: $6.36 (1 Article)
Xomba: $1.52 (82 Xomblurbs, 1 Xombyte)
Residual Income Challenge Blog: $1.00
FireHow: $0.17 (3 Articles)
RedGage: $0.02 (25 Uploads)

Total: $58.06

Daily Earnings Chart:
Here is a chart of my daily earnings for the month of December. This chart is much different than all of the other months. The earnings spike at the start of the month was huge, and then earnings slowly trailed off for the rest of the month. The $7 day can be attributed to one of my eHow articles that earned over $5 in 1 day. The earnings swings were huge this month, and they dipped quite frequently below the $1 level. My goal all along has been to continue to build a higher earnings base.



2009 Monthly Residual Income Chart:
The next chart is a chart of my 2009 monthly residual income plotted against the monthly hours I spent writing. It's clear there was a correlation to the amount of time I spent writing each month to the amount of residual income I earned. The good news is I cut my writing time in half in November and December but my earnings didn't drop by an equal amount. Either way, I'm trying to get rid of the correlation which is the whole idea of residual income.



January Goals:
My goal to start the 2010 year is to increase the amount of time I spend writing. I need to get back up to writing for 25-30 hours per month. My main focus this month will be to add new eHow articles and finish the 10 Infobarrel articles that I have been brushing to the side. In addition, I will focus on making my 2010 New Years' resolutions and goals a reality.