No matter what your medium is, there is a way to monetize it. Working on your article, creative writing, photos, audio, video, or photos is something that you love, and you want to be rewarded for your hard work. Well, earning from your hard work is, simply, hard work. No one knows this better than a new author online, or a director just starting out in the field of online and viral videos. This guide will show you how to make money, no matter what type of media you create. It’s set up in this format:
- General overview/Programs you need
- Text and writing
- Photos and visual art
- Videos
- Audio and music
- Promotion and how to become known
General Overview
The one thing that all new media creators need to know is that working online is often much harder than working in the real world, as people online usually fail to see depth in their work. Creativity is necessary, have no doubt, but it is a much different world online. Now, before you begin monetizing your content, you’ll need the following programs and tools:
Text
-For text content, you don’t need anything fancy.
Word
Paypal (or a mailing address, depending on the site you’re using)
Google Adsense account (depending on which site you’re writing for)
GOOD writing skills
Photos
-Photos require more material, as they usually need to be edited and captured with high tech equipment
Photoshop is a staple, but there are a bunch of free, similar programs for both Mac and Windows
A camera is (obviously) a must. Shoot in RAW, if you can. If not, take pictures in the highest quality possible.
Paypal, or a mailing address
A good eye
Videos
-One of the hardest mediums to make money from, if you become successful with videos you are likely to earn a lot
Some sort of video editing software (Imovie or Window’s Movie Maker both are fine, though Final Cut Pro is best)A webcam (vlogging) or a video camera (movies and skits)
Paypal or Google Adsense (Adsense requires a valid mailing address)
A lot of creativity, time and patience
Audio
-Is never going to be a large source of revenue online unless you get a record deal, but it can earn you a goodish amount if you put time and effort into it
Music editing software (Audacity, Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Soundbooth, etc.
Paypal or Google Adsense
Now that you know what tools you need to earn online, it’s time to learn about the different styles, sites and ways of making money from whatever it is you are creating. One general rule of thumb though; No matter how little you are earning or how frustrating it is to work and work and not get paid what you think you deserve, don’t give it up, it will eventually pay off.
Text and Written Content
Text and written content is probably the most common form of monetized media online. It is a simple to create medium, and it is only time consuming when you have to research the subject you want to write about. The many sites that you could use to make money online include:
- Triond (Pays via cheque or Paypal. Also has Adsense integration)
- Bukisa (Pays via Paypal)
- Hubpages (You make money from third party ads- Adsense, Kontera, Ebay and Amazon)
- Associated Content (Pays via Paypal)
- Snipsly (Adsense ads are placed next your content)
- Article Income (50/50 Adsense Split)
- Ehow (Pays via Paypal, only open to Americans)
- Suite101 (Requires an application to get in, and payment details are classified)
- Helium (Requires you to read and rate work before you can get paid)
- Squidoo (Create a “lens”, which is basically a webpage, and earn money from ads on it)
- Demand Studios (Like Suite101, requires an application to get in, but pays upfront for articles)
- Your own blog (Adding advertisements to your content on your own blog can make you some cash, but it takes a lot of work to become really successful at it)
Now, no matter which site you sign up for, there are a few general guidelines to use when trying to get read. Health articles or writing about money usually does fairly well, and creative writing is usually the least paying type of content that you can create. However, if you have written a novel or a lot of poems, you can go into the world of self publishing and make your own book, which you can then sell from their website and earn royalties. Examples of sites like these:
While creative writing is not the highest earner online, it is the most popular and most accessible, so I thought I would include these sites for those of you who want to earn from writing fiction. If not, read on about how to write a proper article.
When writing a pice of content online is a lot different than writing a piece in real life, whether its for school or work. Articles (typically) are short, and take around 15 minutes to write. Pick a single point, and write a three paragraph piece about it. Make sure that you don’t repeat yourself, that you say something new in each line of text that you create, in order to keep the reader interested. Longer articles do not usually do as well as shorter ones, but if you can string together something that makes sense and would be in high demand, than by all means go ahead. It will take a longer time, but sometimes you’ll get lucky and earn quite a bit from your longer article. By longer, by the way, I mean around 800+ words, as a shorter article is typically around 350-500 words, but can be as low as 200-250.
Topics that usually do well include general health, money making websites, about writing articles, “how to” guides, and recipes. Humor is also successful sometimes, but it can end up being a mess as it is VERY hard to write funny articles. However, these are only rough rules, and in order to be really successful in your writing you need to experiment for yourself and see what works best for your writing style.
Photos
The most common form of getting paid for photos online is through stock photography, where you get paid by other people for the rights to use your photos for their own use. There are tons of different sites that you can use, including:
When taking stock photography, you need to keep a few things in mind. Shots of simple household objects, like money, fruits, or food items on a white background usually do pretty well, and shots of other simple items from a certain viewpoint, like a bench or down a slide, also do well. Take photos of people playing sports or doing an activity, but be careful, as most stock photo sites require a model release form to be submitted for legal reasons. You should be pretty busy if you want to be successful in this medium, as most photographers need to upload literally thousands of photos to earn a decent amount of cash, so keep at it.
A few good tips is to find a photographer that has found a lot of success using stock photography to make money, and ask for advice. In reality, there isn’t a lot of material floating around online that can really help a new photographer that has no idea how to use photoshop or make use of his camera’s special features, so maybe a photography course would help you get to know the art of photography and how to make your photos great. Also, search up other photographer’s work and look in onlineforums to see what works and what doesn’t, and in order to get some idea of what you need to do to become successful.
Videos
While these are plentiful online, it is a lot harder to make money from your film online than most think. There are a few sites that will pay you for your content, however, but they do require a lot of time and effort to be successful on. They are:
- Youtube (You need a Google adsense account and be eligible for their partner program- very good source of revenue)
- Revver (Pays via Paypal, requires a lot of original content to make serious money from)
- Metacafe (Offers a CPM rate of $2/1000 views after you receive after 10,000 views)
- Break (Offers large money incentives for original video content and short films)
In order for you to get the big bucks in video media, you need to use Break, Youtube, or Metacafe. Revver requires a large amount of videos to make a payment ($25), and it takes a long time for a video to get accepted, as each one has to be encoded and screened before uploaded to the site, a process that could take days. However, for videos of animals and slideshows that you put together, it’s a great place to earn a bit of extra cash. Just don’t expect it to be a cash cow for you, unless you have a viral video hit like diet coke and mentos. Instead, put your effort into the larger, higher paying sites. Youtube is very hard to get into, but if you get accepted into the partner program, you’re pretty much guaranteed to make a ton of cash, as your Google Adsense account is integrated into your youtube account, so ads are shown on your video, with get a very high click through rate, meaning that you’ll be getting paid a massive amount of cash very quickly. Break’s program requires the film to be submitted for review, and if eligible you get paid a lump sum of cash, which varies in size depending on the length and how good it is. Metacafe uses a CPM advertising technique, so all you have to do is get a few original videos with over ten thousand views each in two months, and you’ll be raking in 2 bucks per thousand views you get. While this doesn’t sound like a whole lot of cash, your video got ten thousand views, which is about twenty bucks. So if you make a thousand views a day on one video for a month, that’s 30,000 views, or 60 bucks. Now, if you have more than one video, you can see how this can stack up exponentially and potentially earn you a lot of cash fast. Either way, I would highly recommend all three sites, no matter what type of videos you make.
Now, when it comes to making a video, remember that humor is always number one online. While news and music also do very well, it takes a lot of talent, luck and promotion to make money off of self made music videos, and news is something that is hard for an individual to cover. However, you can offer your opinion on news stories, and exaggerate them to make them funny/outrageous. Metacafe is a good place to put up slideshows and funny animal videos, as they tend to be more popular on this site than anywhere else, for some reason. For break, you get a larger lump sum, but you need to make an original short film or animation and get it featured, so it takes a lot more work. No matter what you choose, it takes a lot of effort and time to become successful. Just be patient and keep at it, your hard work will pay off eventually.
Audio
Audio is so hard to make money from. There are hardly any sites online that will pay you for audio, and the ones that do don’t pay that much for your songs. There are two sites that will pay you for what you create though:
- Newgrounds (Through their revenue share program, your Adsense ads on your content pages)
- Triond (Accepts media files like mp3 or m4p files)
Neither one of these sites will pay you very much, and in order to make a living from this you will have to submit your music to larger sites, and hopefully be able to sell your music there. Napster, Itunes or Amazon are examples of sites like these, but they are very hard to get into. If music is your medium, you’ll have an easier time making money if you sell your music in real life or perform at local venues.
Promotion
Promoting your work is the most time consuming part of working online. Unless your content becomes viral, it is very unlikely that you’ll get large amounts of views without spreading your link online. Sites like the following promote your work:
All for free, and some of them actually pay you too. However, you should google sites that share links, called social bookmarking sites, and experiment with different ones to see which ones give you the most traffic. Usually, in order to make the most out of sites like these, you need to use them instead of just posting links. Comment on other people’s work and explore the site, being as active as possible. Also, feature other people’s work as well, because if any of your links get traffic there will be a spillover to your other work.
Lastly, in order to optimize that amount of viewers you get, place related content ads on your media so that traffic can move from one piece of your content to another, creating a large cycle in which you are constantly generating attention.
For more reading on how to earn money online, check out these articles:
- Google Adsense: How to Maximize Your Earnings
- The Top Paid to Write Sites
- A Simple Tip That Can Double Your Article Income
- How to Make The Most Out of Writing Online
Want to earn money from your articles? Join Triond and begin earning royalties on your writing.
