Since Demand Media Studios' quality of $15 titles continually seems to worsen, you may wish to try a new method in freelancing based on what other freelancers have noted to be most effective for them. You will also be able to churn out more articles per day, which will pay off in the long run.
Write a combination of articles for four different sites daily, including one or two $15 articles for Demand Media Studios, perhaps toward the end of the day when you're more in a "writing groove."
Constant ContentConstant Content lets freelance writers put up any type of article after their editors review it. You set the price for usage rights, unique rights and/or full rights. Print and online publishers can then buy the article. You can also put any rejections you may have had from Demand Studios or variations of other articles that you've written for other sites. This is also the place to put well-written and researched articles because you could sell them for full rights at about $100.
Constant Content also has a page of requested content where you can see what their clients have asked for and how much they will pay.
Associated ContentAssociated Content is affiliated with Yahoo! and is best for news articles. If your article is not a news article, the review process can take up to two weeks, but they review news in a matter of hours. The pay is by revenue share, but breaking news can have a lot of hits even if it later peters out. You can also only offer usage rights on the same article on Constant Content and Associated Content simultaneously.
There are also assignments you can claim, usually with $10 up front fees and revenue share, so you will continue to make money as long as the site is open while earning a little pocket change initially. In the beginning, the available assignments like these are extremely limited, but, as you have more articles accepted, they will show you more available assignments.
Suite 101This is another revenue share site that can be extremely profitable. After your first article goes through the review process, anything you submit is live right away, although editors may later "flag" it for revisions. Suite 101 has full rights to your articles for one year, then you can sell usage rights to those articles on Associated Content or publish on your blog as long as you note that it was originally published on Suite 101 and provide a link to the original article.
Wikio Experts
Wikio Experts is a French owned content provider that is extremely easy to write for. They offer fixed fee and revenue share assignments. To qualify as an expert, submit a short article of your creation in the category of your expertise. Then, you can claim assignments as an approved writer in that category. After you submit 10 articles in a particular sub-category, you move higher in the food chain and can claim higher paying articles. The company pays in euros via PayPal.
LogBud
LogBud is a new site for freelancers that may be worth a look. Like Suite101, you can choose whatever topic you want, but the potential profits are high. LogBud offers 70% of the revenue share earned to its writers, and this could pay off well in the long run.
General TipsWhen doing any of the revenue share articles, you need to first research keyword popularity. You can use
Google Insights to get ideas by typing in a general subject, and it will show the most popular related searches as well as rising searches. If you need something more specific, click on something interesting and it will give more narrow related searches. Then, go to the
Google Adwords Keyword Tool and input the search keywords/topic you are interested in. This will bring up related keywords, how many searches per month they get internationally and in the U.S. and also how much competition there is on the web. If it looks promising, write down the top searched keywords and phrases on a notecard or piece of paper. I highlight the most searched one in pink and use it 3 times within an article. Then, I highlight the next 3 or 4 most popular in yellow to use 2 times within the article. If I can naturally work in any other popular keywords, I use them as well. This doesn't necessarily make for the best writing, but it helps the article show up in search engines and leads to more views, thus more money. Revenue share articles will pay little up front, but will continue to pay over the years, so a good base of these can supply income when you need to take a break from DS.
Also, come up with a theme for the day of related articles for different sites. This means less research and a simpler writing process. For example, say your daily theme is the raw dog food diet. Your articles may then include "How to Prepare Raw Dog Food," "How to Start Your Dog on a Raw Food Diet," "How to Make Beefy Dog Food" and "Benefits and Risks of a Raw Food Diet for Dogs." Another tip is to create links between these articles, so, when a person views one page and travels to another article to learn more, they most likely travel to something else you have written.
How To 
