Received Payment from Life123! Yippee!

I received the notification in last night's email that I had received payment from Life123 for all of the articles that I had written. I immediately went to paypal and looked at the payment as well as the account balance. It was certainly a great feeling.

Because I had just over 20 articles, the balance that I received was $400 even! I had already received payment for some of my views previously prior to the shut down of the site. I must say that Life123 was a class act. All of my interactions with the site were very professional.

I am sure the terms of service said that they could shut down the program at any time and for any reason (usually TOS are so long, I don't bother with them). But I doubt they said that Life123 would pay out the full potential amount for the number of views without regard to the actual numbers. In that respect, Life123 went well above and beyond.

I am still disappointed that the program closed and won't be available any longer. I thoroughly enjoyed writing for them. If you get a chance, stop by and read some of my articles and visit the site.

Mixed Emotions from Life123's Closing of Writer's Community

It happened this past weekend seemingly without warning. Since I checked my stats on views at Life123 daily, I noticed something was wrong when on Saturday, I received a 403 error on my Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. It persisted into Sunday. Finally on Monday, there was a notice that Life123 was shutting down its writer's compensation program. You can read the notice at DeAnna's blog.


First of all, I was perplexed. I didn't realize that the program was a beta program and never suspected that it would be shut down. I was upset that I didn't receive some sort of email notice letting me know of the change in advance. On Friday, everything was fine; then nothing. I am saddened and disappointed since I really enjoyed writing for the site and even included it in a strategy for WAHM to build up internet income quickly.


But, I am somewhat happy since Life123 is doing something that I feel is incredibly honorable and professional. They are paying out the maximum potential earnings of $20 per article written and accepted regardless of the current level of views and keeping them published. With the exception of failing to send me an email in advance of the shut-down, Life123 has been very well run and professional. They have responded promptly to my inquiries and communicated well. The site was easy for which to write.


It sounded from the response to my email sent on Monday that the shut-down was sudden and may have even taken the editorial staff by surprise. I guess that is what happens when dealing with a large company. It certainly makes me rethink the need to develop and publish my own site. This sort of thing could happen without warning with any content site.


Looking Forward to the Windfall

Initially, I didn't fully comprehend the payment for articles already published. I thought I would have to wait until hitting the appropriate level of views for the $20 payment on each article so I wondered how I could track the results. I was surprised to find out, however, that the full $20 payment would be made regardless of the number of views. Wow! That is awesome!

I have written and published 21 articles for the site. That is a total income of $420 minus the $20 I have already received in December and January. According to the email I received, the payment should show up in my Paypal account by the end of February. I am excited to be receiving that $400 payment this month and will be sure to use it to pay off some credit card debt saving myself over $80 this next year creating additional residual income in the process.

So, I guess that means that I will have to get to work writing for other sites. I will keep doing what I have been so far minus Life123 and be sure to update everyone when I get paid ending this chapter in the story that has been Life123. Did anyone else write articles for Life123? Will you be receiving a payment this month?

Blogging from South Carolina

I am currently in South Carolina on a golf trip and am just simply amazed that I can write this blog from a small town using wireless. I am also thrilled that I can make a little bit of passive income while out hitting my ball into the water hazards. That is just the greatest thing about making money online--the potential to work from anywhere.

Someday, I think it would be awesome to be able to travel the world while making passive income. Of course, it would have to be greater than the $0.57 that I made today. But over the next several years, I trust that I will be able to build up a little extra income using the internet that will add to my retirement income. It may end being just enough for golf money.

Paid by Life123

I also got the $10 deposit in my Paypal account from last month's Life123 earnings. That is always a nice little email to get. I have 2 more articles which are getting close to paying out for the first 50 views, but need 8 more for each. Here are the links to those articles:

Stock Investing Greats and the Lessons They Teach
Scabies Caused by the Human Itch Mite

It has been somewhat difficult it seems to get traffic to Life123. So far, that seems to be the most dissappointing aspect of writing for the site. But truthfully, it isn't all that much different from my other articles. I think that I must write about less popular topics. But that's OK. At least I am enjoying what I write about and am having a good time.

I would like to maybe write an article or two for Life123 while on this trip. I will have to look and see if I can come up with any good golf articles or topics since that is the mode that I am in. In the meantime, I think I will get some extra rest and get to sleep early tonight. Without the obligations that I would normally have, I can get more rest than I might otherwise.

My Online Income Goals for 2010

I have spent the past several days coming up with a list of things that I would like to accomplish during the upcoming year as well as a list of tasks to accomplish them. To start, I would like to list the tasks that I plan on completing throughout the year and then list what I would hope to see come out of that effort.

During 2010, I plan on making Life123 and Xomba my primary sites for writing online content. I also plan on working with HubPages and eHow (again, maybe) to add to the articles I have on those sites as well. Of course, I will continue to write my blog posts. By the end of 2010 I hope to have:

• 250 total articles on Life123. I plan on writing about 20 per month on average and maintaining a steady pace throughout the year.


• 150 Xombytes (articles) on Xomba. That would require about 10 per month. I also want to post links on Xomba almost every day of the year. I plan on posting links to all of my articles that I have written so far plus adding all of the new ones. I currently have a spreadsheet that tracks what links I have added to my writings on Xomba, Shetoldme, and Snipsly. I need to do a better job of linking when I don't feel like writing.


• 150 articles on HubPages. I have 115 so that means I will just sprinkle some here and there during the year. I would like to see my HubPages results improve.


• 50 articles on eHow. I have 38 right now. I would like to add some to see if that helps the earnings there. Despite not writing anything for a few months, eHow continues to earn some money. The site has great potential, and I hope that maybe the break will have allowed me to get back into it.


• I plan on continuing to write every 2 or 3 days for this blog. That would mean 10-20 posts per month. I will be linking to these posts as well and trying to bring traffic to this blog.


• I hope to get up the nerve to create a niche website. I have a few ideas but would like to make a little more writing content first. But now that I am putting it out there, I will be forced to attempt to deliver.

I also want to organize my time better and begin carrying a notebook with me to jot down ideas that I have.

Now, what do I hope to accomplish with all of this effort. I will again look at each site and how the efforts at each will add to my ultimate online income goal for 2010:

• With 250 articles on Life123, the potential for earning is $5000. I know that is not going to happen. I would hope that by the end of 2010, half of the articles I have written have achieved the $5 payout. I would expect that by the end of the year, I could expect almost 20 articles per month reaching that level for an income of $100 monthly.


• At Xomba, I would like to think that the efforts expended will add up. I would hope that by the end of the year, I could count on $50 monthly if I add articles plus a great number of links.


• I would expect HubPages to continue to maintain steady at least. I have lost traffic over the past several months but that has been internal traffic. The search engine traffic seems to be somewhat steady. Better linking may enhance this somewhat. I would hope to earn $25 monthly through HubPages.


• eHow has been a steady performer last month and this month despite my lack of effort. I think by the end of 2010, I could continue to see about $20 per month.


• My Online Income blog will not be a big money maker. I don't ever think that it will be so I will not even place any expectations on it. However, I want to be able to help people and teach them what I am learning and share my experiences. I would like to increase traffic to the blog and reach 50 total followers with a steady readership averaging about 50 per day. I think that would get me in the top 500,000 Traffic Rank by the end of the year.

I want to thank everyone who has stopped by to read this blog. I sincerely appreciate it. Please let me know if you have any ideas to make this blog better. I am always eager to learn and would appreciate your input. Also, what are your goals for 2010? How do you plan on achieving them? I would love to hear your comments.

On an unrelated note, I am pretty miffed about the pathetic display that was the Colts game yesterday. Maybe we should just forfeit and stay home.

Promoted at Life123

I woke up this morning and added up my total views for the 17 articles I had published on Life123 and found the total was 501! That means that I have moved to the next level. I then checked the messages on the site and found that it was official. I have been promoted from contributor to writer!

Now I have the ability to contribute up to 40 articles per month. That is more than one per day for all you math wizards out there. Just imagine if I were able to publish one article per day on average and all of them eventually earned the $20 limit. That would be $600 per month. Even if the average was only $10, that would still be $300 per month and would provide a nice steady internet income as I explained in this strategy for working from home. Combining steady income while growing passive, residual income can be very powerful.

I am really excited about the promotion at Life123 since I essentially have no limit to what I can publish. I really don't see myself being able to publish more than 40 articles in one month anyway so getting to the 150 article per month "expert" level is not as important to me. But this level was important since I can easily write 5 articles in a free afternoon if I get on a roll.

Now I need to start brainstorming on some topics and publish some more since it was part of my December passive income goals to end the year with 25 articles. That means I have 8 more to go with 12 more days left in December. Maybe I can get one or two done this weekend. Guess I better get going. Feel free to stop by and read my Life123 articles. I am still working on getting to the 50 view level on all but 2 of them. I have a few that are getting close, but any help is always appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my blog.

Google Loves Life123

In my last post, I said that I wanted to spend a little time reviewing some of my online income activities and what I am doing to make money online. I figure that I can take roughly one post each week for the next several and give an update on my experience with each of the sites for which I am currently writing or attempting to make money. I decided to start with Life123.

Make Money on Life123

For those of you who don't know, Life123 is a site to which you can publish articles and receive payment. It has a reasonably unique business model compared to some of the other sites for which I write. Because of this unique approach, there are several pros and cons to the site which I will point out a little later.

You start out by submitting an "apprentice" article on one of the designated topics on the site for publication. The article is reviewed and, if accepted, allows you to become a contributor. A contributor is allowed to submit up to 10 articles per month. These are still reviewed, but are usually published within 24 hours. I am currently a contributor. Once a contributor has submitted a minimum of 10 articles and has 500 total views across the articles, he/she can become a writer. Writers can submit up to 40 articles per month. Once the writer has submitted 25 articles with 2500 total views, the title of "expert" is reached. This is the highest level designated. Experts can submit 150 articles per month.

Earnings occur based upon an articles total views. The first 50 views entitles the author to a $5 payment. The next 500 views warrants another $5 payment, and the next 500 views allows the author to receive an additional $10. So, the most that can be made per article is $20, which brings me to the list of pros and cons.

Pros of Life123

1. Relatively easy to earn $5
2. No AdSense account needed
3. Payment is through Paypal
4. Payment occurs at $5 level
5. Google seems to love Life123

Cons of Life123

1. Cannot publish article elsewhere
2. No longer retain article rights
3. Must be 18 and United States citizen
4. No residual income opportunity

My Experience at Life123

I started at Life123 the last few days of October. It was relatively easy to become accepted as a contributor. I have published 14 articles so far and have earned $10. I have not reached the payout threshold, so I have not been paid yet. I will be sure to let everyone know if there is an issue.

As of this morning, I have received 424 total views to my articles so I am on the verge (within the next week) of reaching the writer level at which point I will be able to contribute up to 40 articles per month. My plan is to be able to contribute 15 for the month of December which would put me at the minimum number of articles for the Expert level while I wait for the number of views to reach 2500.

At that point, I expect to contribute between 15 and 20 articles per month to develop some steady income while developing residual income at my other sites much like I outline in this post about making money working at home. Over time, the Life123 articles will be at different levels of views, and I could easily get some extra money from reaching the next 500 or 1000 views on some of them. As the articles mature, they may easily find themselves rising in the Google rankings. As a matter of fact, my article on Transient Global Amnesia has been getting a fair number of daily views (it has 92 total). It is on the second page of Google.

Overall, I view my Life123 experience as positive and would recommend it as an easy way to get started making money online. It is not good for residual income, but should be treated more like a part-time job with the potential for some reasonably consistent monthly income after the first few months provided you continue to publish to the site. Speaking of, I need to get 2 or 3 articles written for Life123 today...off to work.

Important Note: I received an email from a representative of Life123 in order to clarify the payment policy. The policy is to pay any author who makes $5 minimum by the end of a month. The payment is sent out by the end of the second week of the month so an author could expect to have money in a Paypal account by the 15th or 16th of the month at the latest.

It is cool to see how quickly information can be disseminated on the internet.

Featured at Life123

Guess what! I am the featured writer at Life123. I am found on the writers homepage which can be seen here. I will probably be there for about a week if it is like some of the other featured writers that I have seen. I consider it quite an honor that they would choose me. I am hoping that this will allow me to move to the next level that much sooner.



I am able to publish again also. I seemed to be having trouble so I sent an email to ask what it meant by 30 days since I had been through my 30 days and the site still wouldn't let me add to my content. The people at Life123 responded quickly and resolved the issue rather quickly as well. I was very impressed by their professionalism. I would recommend the site to anyone just starting out.



As mentioned, I hope to be able to get 3 more articles up to the 50 view level. The 3 that are currently closest all have view counts in the 20's. Here are the links in case you want to go read them:



Stock Investing Greats and the Lessons They Teach

If Gold is Too Expensive, Consider Silver (This is incredibly timely. If you only have time for one article, read this one.)

What is Tetralogy of Fallot?



Currently, I only need 220 more views to get to the next level at which point I will be able to contribute 40 articles per month. I figure that will happen sometime between now and Christmas. I hope to be able to publish 15 articles for the month. Thank you to everyone who has been able to stop by and read my Life123 articles. I really appreciate it. I plan on making Life123 a source of fairly steady and predictable income for 2010 so that I can start looking at getting my own site and paying for the related expenses such as hosting, etc.

Next time, I want to update everyone on the SEO Experiment. Very interesting stuff.

Passive Income Goals for December 2009

If you have been following this blog, you will realize that I feel it is important to write down goals. It gives you a sense of accountability and forces you to identify those actions which need to be accomplished. Even if you don't get it all done, you still get more done than if you didn't have any goals written down.

So, these are my online passive income goals for December 2009 divided according to the various content sites for which I write:

Hubpages: I really don't have any goals for December. Traffic there has been decreasing for me, and I want to see if I can generate better traffic on other sites as I improve my article count elsewhere. I would like to see the current traffic hold steady and will continue to link where appropriate.

eHow: I won't do anything at eHow either since I want to focus my efforts elsewhere. I have a hard time writing an article only to have it deleted in the future. I suppose I should publish and earn as much as possible and then republish elsewhere after it is deleted. That could be a viable strategy.

InfoBarrel: It is unlikely that I will do anything on this site except check to see if my deleted eHow articles are no longer indexed and then publish on IB. That would give me a little extra content there.

Life123: I will spend some time on this site in December for sure. I hope to be able to earn $15 in December as opposed to the $10 I earned in November. I also plan on being able to move up to the next level and be able to contribute up to 40 articles per month. I hope to be able to contribute 10 rather quickly and an additional 5 articles when I have moved up. That would bring my grand total articles to 25 by the end of the year. Currently I have 268 out of 500 views needed to move to the next level.

Xomba: I plan on spending some more time here as well. I want to start to fully assess the earning power of Xomba. I plan on posting something each and every day during the month. I plan on being able to post 10 articles during the month. Currently I have 26 so that means I need to have 36 by the end of the year.

Triond: I have just recently started writing for Triond. I am mildly encouraged and hope to write five more articles during the month to add to this site.

My Online Income: I plan on posting as I have been. It is nice to be able to write and post on a regular basis. It is unfortunate that this blog doesn't make any more money than it does. But, every little bit helps. Over time it will add up.

My November AdSense impressions will be close to the amount for October. That is pretty good in my opinion considering there was 1 less day and that the last four days saw no traffic due to Thanksgiving and no publishing on my part for the same reason. I hope to see December have similar if not slightly better results such that a foundation for 2010 has been formed.

Earnings are down in November as well primarily to the decreased number of clicks. That's OK. I am hoping that a baseline exists that can be built upon going into the new year. I would suspect I will see similar results for December.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out those Life123 articles so I can move up to the next level.

Life123 Update and Earnings

For those who don't know, I started writing for Life123 the last few days of October. After the first article is submitted, it goes through an editorial process. If it is accepted, you are then allowed to submit up to 10 articles in a 30 day period and are known as a contributor. I had my article accepted and promptly filled my 10 article quota.

Now I am in the process of waiting until I can submit more articles while I get enough views for the next level. At that point, I will be able to submit 40 articles per month. You need to have 500 views across all of your articles and have written 10 articles. As of this morning, I am at 222. I am adding views at a rate of 5-10 per day and would suspect that about half way through December, I could start adding articles at an increased rate. Although, if every reader of this blog started visiting my articles, I could probably accomplish this sooner.

After an article receives 50 total views, you receive $5. I have achieved this level on 2 of the 10 articles and so have earned $10 for the month. The next highest article has 24 but I don't think it will reach the 50 article view level until sometime in December. My goal is to go after the low hanging fruit on Life123 and create a steady stream of income that can be used for additional online income opportunities while I build residual passive income.

I have posted on how one can create a decent at home income that utilizes upfront payments. I am not entirely sure what my next steps will be. I have strongly considered trying to set up a small niche site that would focus on AdSense and maybe a little affiliate income. I would probably prefer to go that route prior to building out a larger website so that I can make my mistakes on a smaller scale.

Anyway, I just wanted to share the Life123 update. I have written 3 articles just waiting for the next month or next level whichever comes first. And I am pleased about earning the $10 so far but payment won't happen until $20. As always, thanks for reading my blog. I appreciate it and hope that it is helpful.

Life123 Update

I promised I would update on Life123 and I try to be true to my word, so here goes.

I have completed 10 articles for Life123. I know that a month means a 30 day period and not a calendar month since I tried to publish an 11th article and was told I had met my limit. So now I have to wait until the 28th or 29th of November to publish again. I think that I will write a few more articles to have them ready to go.

In order to graduate to the next level, I need to have attracted 500 unique visits across all 10 articles. I could easily graduate sometime in December at my current pace. Right now, I have 134 total visits. I added about 20 visits just yesterday. Even if I only add 1 visitor per article per day average, then in 37 days I would be able to move up and contribute up to 40 articles per month. So it would be worthwhile to have some extra ready to go.

I even have 2 articles that are on the verge of paying out at the first $5 level. One has 42 views and one has 38. The next highest are at 15 and 10. I think it would be great to get 4 to payout for the month, but I would still be ecstatic with 2 paying since $10 is the limit, and I could report how well they pay next month.

John of All Trades

I noticed that John of All Trades, one of my followers here, is also writing for Life123. I have included the links to his articles below. I would hope that you would take the time to go and visit his work, since it sounds like he needs the money more than I do. Here are his articles (I found 2 on the site):

The Pros and Cons of buying a Remanufactured Alternator
Make sure your vehicle starts everytime this winter

I told my wife that if I make enough on Life123, she can go on a cruise with one of her friends next fall. So I have a year to come up with about $800. I think I will be able to do it as long as I publish one article per day to the site starting in 2010 and 20 each month earn the $5 for 50 views. So if you want to help my wife achieve a nice little get-away and break from 6 kids, here are the next two in line to potentially earn this month:

Stock Investing Greats and the Lessons They Teach
Make Your Retirement Savings Automatic

That is all I had for the update. I am excited that I will likely earn the $10 this month. It will help add to the total for the month which has seemed slow in the revenue department. This will help provide some stability I suppose. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all your comments. I do appreciate you.

Contributor At Life123

Hey, here is that interesting news! I am a contributor for the site Life123.com. After reading DeAnna's review of Life123, I decided to try it out. If you haven't guessed by now, I tend to do things and discover for myself how they work. Not only that, I think I was somewhat bummed by the fact that the residual earnings in the second half of October weren't all that great after an awesome start.



As she states in her review, it was easy to sign up. I supplied a small amount of information including my pen name, "Kidgas" and my paypal address. I submitted my first article for publication after reading their requirements (a few special things with writing format). It was accepted after editorial review which took about 16 hours. Now I am considered a contributor and can submit up to 10 articles a month. I don't know if that is a calendar month or a thirty day period.



Anyway, I have submitted 5 total articles that are currently live on the site. It has taken about 20 minutes on average for them to appear and get out of the pending stage. Three were done in October and 2 in November so far. You may wonder why I am doing this so allow me to explain my thoughts. In all honesty, I am going after some low hanging fruit. It only takes 50 views to earn $5. That's $0.10 each view. Then you are paid an additional $5 for the next 500 views and $10 for the final 500 views. After that, you can earn no more money for that article.



For me, this represents a way of diversifying my income stream while not giving up on the prospect of residual income. Plus, it is very simple to put together 300 or 400 words without a picture or any links. It has taken me about 30-40 minutes to put together each article. One of them already has 8 views. Comparing that to my experience on InfoBarrel, I have 6 articles there with differing amounts of views. The bottom line is that 4 of them have exceeded the 50 view minimum meaning that I could have earned $20 so far versus the actual $1.48 that I have earned.



On the other hand, I am 3 months into eHow and have 42 articles there. I have earned on average $1.48 per article in that time frame and could surpass the $20 mark on several of my articles in the span of one year. HubPages has 108 articles and I have earned $80.57 or almost $0.75 per article over 5 months. Of course several of those represent my earliest worst efforts at writing online with poor keyword choices. For someone just starting out, I think both approaches is perfectly acceptable. It is nice to have the prospect of seeing a paypal deposit within about 6 weeks of starting out. I plan on using my money from Life123 for domain and hosting expenses eventually.



In my next blog post, I want to lay out a plan for anyone to get started making money online which incorporates both upfront and residual income opportunities to show how it might work and what the possibilities are. In the meantime, please feel free to visit any or all of my 5 current articles on Life123. I have conveniently included the links:



Stock Investing Greats and the Lessons They Teach

Make Your Retirement Savings Automatic

Transient Global Amnesia (already has 8 views)

12 Tips to Save Gas, Save Money, Save the Planet

Taking Pain and Making Pearls



As you can see, I am getting a good start on building links for the month of November. Thus, I am able to accomplish several things with this one post, namely build links for potential income at Life123 and provide useful information to everyone reading this blog.

My plan is to publish several more articles in the 300-400 word range up to my quota on Life123 for this month and add those earnings in November and December. I am thinking that I should be able to get $15-20 for November and up to $30 in December added to my residual amounts. Whether or not I continue may simply depend upon what I am doing with the residual online income. I am still finding my way through all of this, and you are simply along for the ride. Feel free to learn from my mistakes and improve upon what I do.

As mentioned, for the next post I would like to put together a little system for anyone wanting to start out or organize their work flow better. And if anyone else is writing for Life123 or is considering it, just comment or shoot me an email at pleben.com@gmail.com.

As always, thanks so much for reading my blog.