Give your writing a lift

Filed under Market Report on March 19, 2008
Keywords: freelance writing, Helium, online writing

Bob Younce of The DMs Blog recently referred me to Helium, an online writing community with some interesting features. At first glance, it looks like a new-fangled, community-created knowledge base. Members write articles that are grouped under fairly general categories. The twist is that there’s a chance you’ll get paid for what you write.

Helium promises to pay writers a percentage of their ad revenues based on the page views an article generates. Members rate submitted articles, even flagging poorly written or off-topic entries for removal. The highest rated articles move to the top, thus having greater potential for earnings. Revenue is also determined by subject. Writing a bunch of articles for topics that don’t have wide appeal means less page views. Of course, you can generate interest by linking to your own stories from the outside.

Of greater interest to me was Helium’s marketplace. The marketplace is where publishers post “want ads” for topics they need articles for. Writers submit their articles and the publisher picks which one they want. Word counts vary from 350 to over 1000 with payments from less than $10 to over $100. Most of the requests are for popular topics like autos or personal finance.

I like the idea of a central clearing house for freelance gigs. I submitted three articles about independent game development within the first 24 hours after I signed up. I don’t see myself making a career out of online writing, but I’ll write something up every now and again when I see a topic that interests me.