Six Months of Residual Income with Mr. Rebates

Legitimate sources of passive income seem to be dropping all over. At least when it comes to online or internet sources of passive income.

eHow is no longer an option, unless you are accepted as a Demand Studios writer and choose to write revenue share articles there.

The Google Panda update has also negatively affected other sites like Hubpages.

One source of passive income that has stayed strong and continued to grow for me, however, is referring people to the online shopping rebates site, Mr. Rebates.

Since the first of the year I have earned over $1200 from this one stream of income. My earnings have broken down like this:

January: $234.67
February: $159.65
March: $141.68
April: $206.97
May: $291.61
June: $195.49

Why I Like This Income Stream

1. It's win/win.

You don't have to convince anyone to buy something in order to become a referral. In fact, they'll have money on the things they're already buying. That's great - especially in these economic times.

And they'll get $5 just for signing up, which is free to do.

I use this site for my own online shopping, so I feel great recommending it to others.

2. I have a long history of being paid by Mr. Rebates.

I can't speak for every cash back rebate site on the internet, but I can tell you that I have been reliably paid by Mr. Rebates, going back several years.

You don't have to take my word for it, however. Mr. Rebates is an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau, with a rating of A+.

3. It's completely passive.

Most months, all I do is request my payout. I am usually paid the next day via Paypal.

Check out Mr. Rebates for yourself. Even if you only use it as a shopper, it's a great deal. But it can be an awesome source of passive income as well.

Six Months of Residual Income Earnings

It's been a long, long time since I posted any residual income reports. Six months to be exact. So, let me make that right. Here is a report of my residual income earnings from October 2010 - March 2011.

eHow Earnings

My eHow earnings have continued to grow and grow and grow. I haven't added any new eHow articles during this time, since the changes were made to the WCP. So this represents truly passive income, which is fabulous! (It's still possible to add revenue share articles through Demand Studios, but the only articles I've written for them have been for upfront pay and aren't included here.)

October 2010 - $271.70
November 2010 - $266.19
December 2010 - $301.53
January 2011 - $367.97
February 2011 - $350.83
March 2011 - $440.84
 
Cash Back Sites

These are my referral earnings from cash back sites like Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. Again, this is truly passive income. Once the referrals are made, I earn a small percentage of their savings every time they shop through these sites. I love this income stream because my referrals are saving money too. My "commission" comes from the company and not from the referrals' savings so it is truly win/win/win.

October 2010 - $177.94
November 2010 - $133.01
December 2010 - $214.00
January 2011 - $246.63
February 2011 - $190.57
March 2011 - $160.90

I also use these sites to save money on my own online shopping, but those amounts aren't included here.

Adsense

During the period from October 2010 - March 2011, I received two Adsense checks totallying $226.90. Those are primarily from writing at Hubpages, Xomba, and at my Family CEO blog.

Amazon

Amazon affiliate earnings totalled $206.92 for the six month period. Again, those come from a variety of online sources.

Miscellaneous

I also had another $65 in residual online income that came from several other miscellaneous sources.

Final Thoughts

This report is encouraging to me, because it covers a six month period where these income sources were somewhat neglected. This is just residual income (or passive income, if you prefer) that was thrown off from work I've done earlier.

The residual income stream I am most excited about are the referrals from the savings sites Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. If you haven't checked out those sites, I highly recommend you do so. Even referring a few friends or family can create a little income stream and you'll earn cash back on your shopping as well. (The links above are referral links and will put you in my network when you sign up. Oh, and they're both free, plus Mr. Rebates will give you a $5 cash back bonus just for signing up.)

Let me know if you have any questions and I'd love to hear how your residual income businesses are going as well!

When Writing for Upfront Pay Has Residual Results

Much has been written about the wisdom of writing for upfront pay vs. writing for residual income. Up until now, I have mostly been focused on writing for residual income. I have already blogged about the fact that my online residual income goes toward paying cash for my daughter's college education, which is one of our financial goals. Another goal we have is paying off debt, and lately I have been feeling that our progress in that area has been too slow. I wanted to do something to speed it up, and I had started to consider looking for a part-time holiday job or tax season job. That's when an email from Demand Studios landed in my inbox.

Up until this point, I had written exactly three articles for Demand Studios (now called Demand Media Studios). Each was an eHow article for an upfront payment of $15. I had since decided that writing for Demand was too time intensive and not much fun, and I focused on residual income. But since I was considering taking on some part-time work, and since the email from Demand was an offer to write personal finance articles for a $20 pay rate instead of $15, I decided to take a look.

Upon logging into Demand, I updated my bio, and starting browsing available articles. I quickly claimed several and set about writing one. It took a while because I had last written for Demand over a year ago and I had to reacquaint myself with their requirements. Still, it felt good to know that when I was finished with the process, I would have $20 in my pocket (or, more correctly, my Paypal account) that could be applied to the credit card we are working to pay off.

How to Turn Up Front Payments into Residual Income

In the time I was considering looking for a part-time job, the though of writing for up front pay never occurred to me, even though I had done it successfully in the past. The Demand email caused me to rethink writing flat fee articles, as long as the money was applied to my debt. My reasoning is that every dollar that our debt is paid down results in reduced interest payments and an increase in cash flow, which becomes a kind of residual income.And while I could continue to write flat fee articles indefinitely, using the money to pay off debt gives it a finite time frame, in a way that using it to pay for ongoing expenses does not.

During the time that we're paying off debt, I plan to research other kinds of residual income that are not writing related. My thinking is that if I still want to continue writing for up front pay, I could use the money to invest in a residual income investment such as dividend paying stocks, thus using writing to create residual income in a non-direct way.

A Helpful Demand Studios Ebook

As I was about to begin working on my next batch of articles for Demand Studios, I ran across the ebook, Demand Studio Secrets, by experienced Demand Studios writer and copy editor, Kent Ninomiya. In addition to writing and copy editing for Demand, Kent has reviewed writer bios, reviewed writer applications, moderated eHow articles, managed eHow topic guides, and was the first ever Featured Creator and winner of the Quality and Quantity Award from Demand. In other words, he knows what he's talking about and this is 182 pages of quality, insider information about succeeding as a Demand Studios writer.

I read Kent's ebook before I began my next article at Demand, and I can say without a doubt that it provided me with valuable information, even though I had already been accepted at Demand Studios and had four articles approved. (If you haven't yet applied to Demand or have had your application rejected, Demand Studio Secrets can help you with that process. Remember, Kent has worked as an application reviewer at Demand and has approved and rejected many writer applications.)

Demand Studio Secrets is offered at a cost of $19.99, which is simply amazing to me. I made it back with the first article I wrote after reading it. The sections on writing strategies and improving my scores have been especially helpful to me. I plan to write a more detailed review of the book in the future, but for now I'll give you my three word review: worth every penny. It's one of the least expensive ebooks I have read and it's been one of the most valuable.

Click here to read more about Demand Studio Secrets

Conclusion

Since I received my Demand Studios email and read Kent Ninomiya's ebook, I have earned $120 in the span of a view days to apply to my debt. Writing for upfront pay is definitely going to speed up our debt reduction efforts and Demand's twice weekly paydays (they pay via Paypal on Tuesdays and Fridays) is helping to keep me motivated. And the good news is that my residual income will continue to grow in the meantime.

What's your split between writing for up front pay and writing for residuals? I'd love to hear other thoughts on the topic.

Redgage Earnings

I use the Redgage site for two things: to create backlinks to my other online content and to upload photos. As I wrote about earlier, Redgage is a great site to use to earn some money for your photos, particularly if those photos don't meet the criteria for photo stock sites.

I'm guessing that I log onto Redgage about once a month or so to see what's happening with my content and to upload a few more links or photos. Recently I logged on and discovered that my account stood at $48.20 in earnings. You are eligible to withdraw money in $25 increments, so I put in my first withdrawal request (Redgage pays by sending you a Visa check card, which they refill for future withdrawals).

A quick check of my account shows that it took me a little over a year to earn that money. My first earnings were in August, 2009. My earnings break down as follows:

Content earnings: $5.35 (I currently make 88 cents per each 1000 page views of my content.)
Feature bonuses: $17.85 (Anytime your content is featured on the Redgage homepage, you earn a bonus. Usually it's in the neighborhood of a few dollars.)
Contest Earnings: $25.00 (Redgage holds a daily $25 contest, and I won during September. You earn entries by uploading content, writing original content, and referring others to the site.)

I've requested a $25 withdrawal to my Redgage Visa check card, and hopefully I'll soon be able to do that again.

Probably the biggest benefit of Redgage, however, is that it allows me to create do-follow backlinks to my other online content. The way the site is set up, I can do that with anchored text for exactly the keywords I want to target. Redgage can be glitchy, but this morning I found it working fine and very quickly created about 20 backlinks.

If you'd like to create backlinks to your other content, or simply earn some extra money through page views and bonuses, I encourage you to sign up for Redgage today (referral link). It's free and easy to do. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Sign Up for Redgage (referral link)

September Earnings Report

September was a great month in my efforts to earn residual income online.

eHow Earnings

I wasn't sure what to expect out of eHow, as August was my best month ever. My earnings did decline, but not by much, and September ended up being my second highest month ever at eHow, with earnings of $244.95. This brings my total eHow earnings to date to $4457.97. 


It's so exciting to see eHow earnings remain strong this long after the change in the Writers Compensation Program. I currently have one article with earnings of about $345, two additional articles with earnings between $200 and $300, and four articles with earnings of between $100 and $200. With 204 articles published at eHow, my average earnings per article is currently $21.85 and that will only continue to grow each month.

Cash Back Sites

My payouts from these sites was $128.62 from Mr. Rebates and $62.88 from Big Crumbs. I post more detail on these passive income streams at my blog Make Money with Cash Back Sites.

Adsense

My Adsense earnings were down a bit from last month. The total for September was $27.14. Hubpages contributed 44% ($11.94) and Xomba was responsible for 43% ($11.74).

Amazon

Amazon earnings held steady at $32.31. Xomba was responsible for over half of my Amazon earnings at $16.73. The rest was fairly equally split between Hubpages and eHow.

So, all told, I almost reached the $500 mark last month. Reaching that regularly would be a major milestone for me. So, onto October. How are your passive earnings doing?

Residual Income Earnings Update for August

August was an exciting month for my growth in residual income. Here are the details:

eHow

I had a record month at eHow and, if the forums are any indication, a lot of other people did too. My eHow earnings for August were $270.73. That is 27% higher than last month and 17% higher than my previous high. Since writers can no longer add articles to eHow (unless they do it through the Demand Studios platform, which I am not doing) this represents completely passive income. I continue to be grateful for this revenue stream for as long as it lasts.

Cash Back Sites

August was another great month for earnings at Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs. I've posted a report of those residual income numbers at my blog, Make Money with Cash Back Sites. The short story is that I added 33 new referrals at those sites and had payouts totaling $75. This does not include the rebates I earned for my own shopping at those sites. I continue to be quite excited about these streams of residual income.

Adsense

My Adsense earnings were $33.71. $19.71 of that came from Hubpages and another $9.07 came from Xomba. Other sites contributed the rest. As quickly as possible I'd like to get to the point where I'm making the $100 payout from Adsense each month.

Fun story: The last time I deposited an Adsense check, the teller at my bank asked me, "How did you get a check from Google? That's cool."

Amazon

In August I made $29.18 from Amazon. The breakdown was $22.52 from links on eHow articles, $6.06 from Hubpages, and $.60 from Xomba. Again, I'd like to get this amount to $100/month as quickly as possible.

The most valuable Amazon resource I've run across is Paula and Wanda's Amazonian Profit Plan. I've followed these ladies for quite some time and was so pleased they decided to put their plan down on paper and make it available to all of us. I'll use their technique with Hubpages, since I've had some success with them so far, and Paula and Wanda even mention Hubpages in their blueprint (although their real recommendation is to own your own sites). But I'd also like to use their method to write more Amazon reviews at Xomba, as they have one of the most attractive Amazon policies of all the revenue share sites.

Conclusion

So all told, I'm at $400+ for the month in residual income. Although $400 is not a huge number, I can reasonably expect to make that or more next month and the month after with no additional work. But I plan to do additional work to push that number to $500, then $1000 and beyond. I firmly believe if I can make $400/month online, then I can make $4000/month. It's simply a matter of scale.

I'd love to hear about your residual income or online earnings for August. Please leave a comment or a question and let me know how you're doing.

eHow Earnings for June and July 2010 and a New Residual Income Goal

My eHow earnings remained at $200+ for both June and July. The final total was $216.22 for June and $211.80 for July, bringing my total earned from eHow to date to $3942.29. What's left to say about eHow? I'm not doing any backlinking or other form of promotion. It's completely passive income at this point and I'm grateful for whatever earnings it continues to generate.

The real growth in my passive income streams is happening with referring others to cash back sites like Mr. Rebates and Big Crumbs (two sites that I use myself and can recommend). I've posted a report of those residual income numbers at my blog, Make Money with Cash Back Sites. Pop over if you're interested!


I've had an idea floating around my head all summer that I've decided to officially make a goal. That goal is for each of my residual income streams to reach $100/month on a consistent basis. Of course I don't plan to stop there. After I reach that short-term goal I can either bump the amount or add additional income streams or both. Here's where I'm at so far:

• eHow: eHow is a consistent $200+/month performer
• Mr. Rebates: My income from referring others to Mr. Rebates is fast approaching $100/month and many months it has exceeded that. I expect it to be there consistently soon.
• Big Crumbs: I made over $40 at Big Crumbs last month (again from referring others to the site) but this residual income stream is far from consistent. I think it has great potential, however, so I plan to try and get it there soon.
• Adsense: I'm currently making around $25/month from Adsense, mostly from Hubpages, Info Barrel and a couple of blogs. Adding content to these sites will help boost this amount.
• Amazon: Last month I made $26 on Amazon, from affiliate links in my eHow, Info Barrel and Hubpages articles. Again, adding content here will help boost this.

Getting all of these revenue streams to $100 as quickly as possible (and keeping eHow at $200) would effectively double my monthly residual income. And it's all very do-able. It's just a matter of doing more of what I've already done.

I'd love to hear how your residual income efforts are going and what goals you may have as we head into fall and beyond. Please consider leaving a comment and letting me know.

Xomba Earnings Update

I'm exactly two months into my experience at Xomba so I thought I would give a quick update. I've added 241 bookmarks at Xoma (mostly to my eHow articles and some other online content). I've also written 34 articles, although some are fairly short with Xomba's 150 word minimum. In two months' time I've earned $23.68. I certainly hope that keeps up as I am 100% okay with a $10+ per month residual income stream, mostly for posting links to my other online articles.

I'm not aggressively adding content to Xomba, but I've become so familiar with the interface there that I do go there to post bookmarks (backlinks) and occasionally write a quick article that I think will be a good fit for the site. I'm still the Business and Entrepreneurs Feature Writer and if you're considering adding content on Xomba, I encourage you to apply for one of the several Feature Writer positions they have available there. It can only help your exposure on the site.

If you're interested in joining Xomba, I would be honored if you'd consider signing up using my referral link. Please send me a friend request once you're there!

Make Money Fast with Redgage

I've earned $8.75 in two days on Redgage. While I've been a member of Redgage for a while, I recently re-visited the site to buiild some backlinks to my eHow articles and other online content and was pleasantly surprised by my earnings.

How to Make Money with Redgage

Redgage is a site where you can write original content, create links to your other online content (like eHow articles) and upload photos and video. You earn a small amount for views on your Redgage content (pennies really) but Redgage also pays out bonuses for content that they feature.

I've earned $16.25 on Redgage and $13.80 of that has been feature bonuses. I don't think my experience is unusual. The bonuses (and daily contests) are the way to make money on Redgage and that is why it's possible to make money quickly there.

Redgage and Photos

My most recent feature bonus of $3.80 came from a picture I uploaded. It's a picture I took at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and it accompanies this blog posting. I'm kind of excited about the potential to earn feature bonuses for photos at Redgage because I've been interested in Michael-John Wolfe's information on making residual income with stock photography. I even tried uploading a few photos to a stock photography site and had them rejected because of low resolution, non-commercial subject matter, etc. Because of that experience I had tabled the idea of pursuing stock photography as a source of residual income. But with Redgage I can upload some of (what I consider to be) my more interesting photos and earn some residual income from them. That's encouraging to me!

Redgage for Backlinks

One of the best reasons to use Redgage is for backlinks to your other online content. Creating a backlink at Redgage is similar to creating one on Xomba or She Told Me. You copy the link, give it a title, write a short description, and then add a few tags. It takes very little time to do and the links at Redgage are 'do-follow' so they're especially valuable. Redgage is a great addition to the collection of sites where you can actually make money with your backlinks.

Signing up for Redgage

If you'd like to give Redgage a try, you can find it at Redgage.com. If you'd like to sign up as one of my referrals (I'll earn extra "raffle tickets" for the daily $25 contest) you can sign up using this link: Sign up for Redgage. Either way, be sure to send me a friend request once you're there. My user name is TheFamilyCEO.

Changes at eHow: the WCP and Demand Studios

By now you are probably aware of the changes taking place at eHow as it relates to the Writers Compensation Program and Demand Studios. If not, you can get up to date by reading this blog entry. As I expressed in my thoughts on the future of the WCP program, I'm not surprised at these developments. And as I speculated in that post, they are grandfathering in the articles that already exist on eHow as part of the WCP. We will continue to receive revenue share payments on them as we always have; we just can't add any more except through Demand Studios.

Since I am already approved as a Demand Studios (DS) writer, I can continue to add eHow articles with a revenue share payment through DS. Other eHow writers will have to apply for the ability to do that. I don't know at this time if that is something I will do with any regularity.For me it will depend on the following:

1. What is the publishing experience like at DS, especially as it relates to copy editors and having articles approved?
2. Is the DS revenue share payment algorithm as lucrative as the WCP has been? (On the forums, Julie the Community Manager, assured me that the DS algorithm was based on the WCP one, but I'm not sure exactly what that means.)

As Oprah would say, here is what I know for sure:

• I won't be removing my current articles that are up at eHow, as others have suggested they are doing. In fact, I'll continue to drive traffic to them in an effort to keep their earnings rising.
• I'm especially glad that I undertook the Xomba experiment as it helped me with the point listed above and also gave me some experience writing extensively for a new platform. (Here's a quick update: my Xomba earnings now stand at $16+ plus, primarily from creating bookmarks to my eHow articles.)
• I will continue to explore other methods of building residual income, like the Mr. Rebates passive income stream I posted about earlier today.

What are your thoughts on what is going down at eHow? What are you plans for moving forward?

Another Great Source of Passive Income: Mr. Rebates Referrals

Last week I received a deposit of $110 in my Paypal account but it wasn't from eHow. It was from another great source of passive income for me: Mr. Rebates. In fact, so far this year I've been paid  almost $500 from Mr. Rebates. My deposits have looked like this:

• January: $240.14
• February: $83.85
• March: $62.47
• April: $110.41

Most people know Mr. Rebates as a site where you can earn cash back rebates on your online shopping. They're great for that; I use them for a lot of my online shopping. But the fact is that of the $497 I've earned with them this year, only $2.50 was a rebate for shopping I did. The rest were referral commissions. You see, when you refer someone to Mr. Rebates you get 20% of the rebate amounts that they earn. Forever. And it doesn't cost the person you referred anything. Their rebates are the same either way.

There are other sites where you can earn money for referring people: Cashbaq, Ebates, and Big Crumbs just to name a few. But I've had the most success by far with Mr. Rebates. If you're interested in creating a passive income stream with Mr. Rebates here are some things you need to know to get started:

1. Signing up with Mr. Rebates is free. In fact, it's better than free. You get a $5 signup bonus credited to your account.
2. Mr. Rebates has over 2000 stores and many are places where you probably already shop: Dell, Overstock, JCPenney, and Best Buy to name a few.
3. Mr. Rebates pays once a month You can request a payout via either check or Paypal once your account reaches $10 (including your signup bonus and any referral commissions). I used to request payouts sporadically but now that my referral commissions are more significant I request a payout monthly. 
4. Mr. Rebates is rated 'A' by the Better Business Bureau. I have had numerous payouts from them for both shopping rebates and referral commissions and have never had an issue.

You can refer people to Mr. Rebates via a number of both online and offline methods. That includes flyers, business cards, article writing, emails, etc.If you're interested in using Mr. Rebates to create a passive income stream for yourself, I would suggest signing up for free (affiliate link), exploring the website and making a purchase or two through Mr. Rebates to see how it works, and then choosing one or more referral methods to begin referring others.

If you have any questions about Mr. Rebates or creating passive income in this way, don't hesitate to let me know. I'll be happy to answer anything I can. For more information about this type of residual income stream, see Make Money with Cash Back Sites. Or if you're just interested in saving some money on your online shopping, visit my blog Shopping With Mr. Rebates.

eHow Earnings are Back on the Rise!

March turned out to be my best month ever on eHow. My earnings were $225.98, nearly 10% higher than my previous high. This brings my total earnings at eHow to over $3000! That's an exciting milestone for me.

I did very little writing in March so I think this has to do with eHow fixing the UK issues as well as some backlinking I've been doing to my eHow articles from Xomba. Residual income is wonderful!

Speaking of residual income, I plan to soon share some details about another great source of residual income for me. If you're interested in passive/residual income I hope you'll subscribe and stay tuned for more information.

How was your March at eHow or otherwise? Hope it was happy and prosperous!

Related info: Want to see your eHow earnings rise? Read my new, longer review of Writergig's eHow ebook.

A Change at Xomba

If you're confused by Xombytes and Xomblurbs when writing at Xomba, you don't need to be confused any longer. Xomba is now simply referring to them as Articles and Bookmarks, which is a lot less confusing. To summarize:

Bookmarks (the old Xomblurbs) allow you to link to any other site or article on the web - including your eHow articles - by just copying the URL and writing a 50 word description. Articles (the old Xombytes) are full-blown articles, but are still very easy to write with only 150 words required. I can usually create a Bookmark of one of my eHow articles in under a minute.

I am still in the process of bookmarking all of my eHow articles on Xomba. I like the idea of backlinking all of my eHow articles and creating an additional residual income stream for me at the same time. To date I have written eight articles and entered 161 bookmarks at Xomba and have earned $10.92 in the process.

Read an Ebook Week: My eHow Ebook Recommendations

I love ebooks. I first took a chance on one before I really even knew what they were - back in 2001 - when I bought a 'how to sell your home by owner' ebook. I bought it, read it, and sold our house in six days for almost full asking price. That ebook gave me the information I needed to do that and I've been an ebook believer ever since.

So I was excited to learn that this week is Read an Ebook Week. I'm a little late to the party since today is the last day, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to share my favorite eHow ebook: Writergig's How to Earn Passive Income at Ehow.com. As I've mentioned before, Writergig was the first person who showed me what was possible with eHow. Here's how she puts it into perspective:

"You'd need $240,000 in the bank at 5% interest to earn $1000 a month in residuals...but I earn more than that each month from my "bank" of eHow articles." - Writergig

Powerful, isn't it? If you'd like to know more about Writergig, you can read my interview with her here.

Here are some other interviews by eHow ebook authors:

• Cyn Vela
• Anthony Delgado
• Annalise Kaylor
• Janet Ford

And, finally, my compare and contrast review of four top eHow ebooks.

Happy reading and happy Read an Ebook Week!

November eHow Earnings: Still $200+

My November earnings at eHow were just a tiny bit lower than October but still over the $200 threshold that I first reached last month so I am happy. My actual earnings for November were $203.33, bringing my eHow earnings to date to $2302.60.

I wrote five eHow articles in November and all but one were in the last two days of the month. That means that all but 34 cents of my November earnings were completely passive income, which is the most exciting part to me.

Hope your November was good. I would love to hear about it!

Bukisa Payout

This was a fun email to find in my inbox:

You are scheduled to receive a payment from Bukisa.Unfortunately you have no PayPal account set in your account. Please login and go to your account settings to add the information. Please let us know once this has been done so we may send you your earnings.

I haven't done much with Bukisa. In addition to eHow, I feel like HubPages and Info Barrel are better opportunities at the moment, but all of these sources of residual income do tend to add up!

Passive Family Income and the Power of eHow Income

Passive Family Income illustrates how to use eHow to make over $400/hour. This is powerful!

eHow Earnings Update

Recently I attended an eHow User Group gathering in California. The gathering was organized by eHow and part of the purpose was to get feedback from those who write on eHow.

There were seventeen writers in attendance and time and again I heard this story: "I wrote a few articles for eHow and then forgot about them. Later I checked back and found they had made money and I got excited."

That is my story as well. I wrote two articles for eHow, How to Make Homemade Pancake Mix and How to Figure Your Car's Gas Mileage, and promptly forgot about them. I checked back a month or so later and saw that together they had earned $1.49. I have never been so excited about $1.49 in my life!

Obviously I wasn't excited about the amount of money, but about the potential I saw in eHow. It took me just a few minutes to write those articles because it was knowledge I already possessed. I just needed to put it in the form of a few steps.

And if those two bits of knowledge could earn me $1.49 in a month...what would they earn me over their lifetime at eHow? And what if I could add other bits of knowledge to them?

That was five months ago and, to date, those two articles have earned $10.11. Since then I've added 125 other articles to eHow. Some have earned great, some just so/so, and some not at all. Many are new enough that the jury is still out.

Here's a screenshot of my earnings to date (click for a bigger view):

Meanwhile I'm learning about what makes a good eHow article and how I can promote articles to boost their earning power. And...it's all fun!

Residual Income and eHow

I've never liked the term 'passive income'.

To me, passive income implies something for nothing and very few (if any) income streams, in my opinion, are truly passive. All require a certain amount of work and effort to set up and usually to maintain as well.

However, I love the term 'residual income'.

Residual income is the idea that you perform the work once and it continues to pay you long after the fact. Think of the sitcom actor who earns income each time his or her show is shown in syndication. Or the insurance agent who continues to earn commissions each time a policy is renewed.

Residual income is the beauty of eHow.

The internet is full of places that will pay you a few bucks for some writing. But at eHow you can continue to earn income on an article long after it is written and published. As long as your article continues to draw traffic and ad revenue, you'll be paid.

I know of one writer on eHow who has developed a healthy income stream and was relieved that she had that to rely on after a recent surgery. That's the power of residual income.