eHow FAQ

If you hang out on the eHow forums for any length of time, you'll begin to see the same questions asked over and over because, as new writers join eHow, they tend to have the same newbie questions. I've also found that a lot of people land on this blog by searching for the answers to some of these same questions.

Because of that, I've decided to do a short FAQ post to address some of those questions that we all had when we were new eHow writers. I need to say, however, that I am in no way an official representative of eHow. These are simply my observations after 175+ articles and over a year writing on the site.

Q. How often does eHow post earnings?

A. Usually it's once a day, mid to late morning (I'm in the central time zone). This is true even on weekends and holidays. However, occasionally the earnings will come in late, or not at all. Very occasionally they won't post for several days at a time. (This is usually when the site is undergoing upgrades.)

In the time I've been writing at eHow it has been my experience that the earnings will eventually post and, if one or more days have gone by, they will eventually catch up. Since eHow doesn't share the earnings formula with its writers, there's no way to know for sure that they've caught up, but the numbers seem to indicate that they do.

Q. I have x number of articles with x number of views, why haven't I made any money?

A. eHow doesn't pay by the view. There is an earnings forumla, the specifics of which are unknown to the writers, but revenue from the ads on your articles seems to be a major component.

Let me take this opportunity to warn you, however, not to click on your own ads and not to ask your friends or family to do so either. This could get your banned from eHow, since it is against Google Adsense policy.

Q. How many articles does it take to earn $500/month, (or $1000/month, or fill in the blank).

A. The answer to this is going to be different for everyone. The consensus on the forums seems to be that after you have a good base of articles (100 or more) and those articles have been on the site for a while (several months or so) you can expect to average about $1/month/article. That has certainly been true for me.

There are plenty of writers, however, who make much more per article and plenty who make quite a bit less. It depends a great deal on the kinds of topics you write about, whether your articles are unique to the site, etc.

One thing is a given, however: the more you write and the longer those articles are on the site, the more you will earn.

Q. Why can't I get my article to post, or my pictures to upload. Why did I lose my article when I tried to save? Why does my profile look funny? Why are the forums taking so long to load? Etc. Etc.

A. eHow is a glitchy site. It's been glitchy the entire time I've been there and I don't expect it to get better anytime soon.

If you want to know what's going on with a particular glitch or bug, the best place to post a question or look for other posts on your question is in the eHow Feedback and Suggestions Forum under the Community tab. I can't guarantee that you'll find satisfaction there, but Rich and Julie, the community managers, do occassionally post technical updates there.

Oh, and it's always best to write your articles in a word processing program and cut and paste into the eHow template. Besides insuring that you won't lose your work, there are other benefits as well.

Q. Is eHow a scam?

A. eHow is most definitely not a scam. It is owned by a reputable company, Demand Studios, and is one of the best paying sites on the web. As long as I've been a part of eHow they have paid reliably, each and every month.