I just got my first payment today $9 for 3 articles. lol it isnt much but it was on topics that are oversaturated. Im going to be writing on more specific niches now.
I've made anywhere from $.99 to $25 for one article. It just depends on what there is on the topic already. My page views are going up as well, which is $1.50 per 1000.
Haven't heard of associated content but it's not the way to make money online. Market a website of your own through article marketing. In a short time you'll be picking up much higher rewards. Don't forget to do your keyword research, as it does matter a lot.
Owning your own content is the best way to make money long term. I have articles from 5 years ago that are still bringing me traffic.
I've sold five articles on AC in the past month, and I'd say it really depends on the subject matter you're covering.
I've been writing for AC off and on for three years. Back before they added the page view bonus (which sucks, btw), they were paying upwards of $25 per call. Now? All they want you to write for are $1-1.50 calls. Ick. I don't waste much time there anymore, although I'm a clout 8 in page views. When I submit a piece on my own, the average pay is $5.25 for about 500 words.
I submitted a quick piece to AC to see what'd it bring. This article is similar to one I have on eHow that has earned me $28 in the last 3 months. AC only offered me $3.25 for exclusive rights. And I doubt I'd ever earn anything big in PPVs for it (hardly any of my other articles do). Yuck. Though it would still be better pay than working at Mickey D's - that is, if AC accepted all my fluff work at that rate.
I'm making 30 to 40 cents (yes, CENTS) a month. But that's from doing less than half a dozen articles (like a year ago) and absolutely no pushing or promoting or trying to get back links. That tells me if I put in a bigger effort, I will get greater rewards. Right now I'm putting in the time and effort elsewhere, but once I've got those foundations set I'll probably focus more on AC.
Even at $.40 per month for a year, that's less than $1.00 for each of those half dozen articles. That's just sad. And you've done enough already to justify more pay than that just by writing those articles. It isn't your responsibility to not only write, but then invest more time into marketing for someone who essentially amounts to a client - it's their site; they earn the bulk of any revenues; it's their job to market the site and work to get the highest return from the articles they're publishing. The pay for performance crap is designed to take their job away from them and put it on the shoulders of people who have already done their job. If you want to invest your time into earning more, forget about AC and similar sites. Run your own. You would have earned well over that $.40 per month long before a year had passed.
If you're only doing this 'writing thing' as a bit of a hobby, then AC is perfect for you. I personally prefer to keep my freelance writing efforts as a part of a lucrative, profitable business - so I avoid slave-labor, penny-paying places like AC like the plague.
Do you suggest running one site or a few? If I was writing articles on a wide range of subjects, should I publish them all on the one site?
I've found it far more beneficial to keep sites focused on specific niches and specific audiences. So if you want to write on multiple niches, setup a few blogs and sites. See which work the best for you (it's very likely you'll cut back when you find some niches that monetize very well and others that don't).
I've done AC but as others have said my payments have declined over time. I think its grown too popular. Occasionally I'd get a nice pay on an uncovered topic but since its hard to know what AC values I moved onto other things
I ever make money with AC before but now their rate is really low sometimes just pay me $1-$2 for 400 - 500 words article. That really bad..
I publish at a various sites (Squidoo, HubPages, Gather... and to a less degree Associated Content, Google Knol, EzineArticles) and I must say, you have inspired me to get off my butt and start doing my own thing. I'll still do those other things, but I have already started working on a few sites. A couple of general ones, but a niche one as well. I'll see how it goes. Thanks for you well written words of advice.
U can get a few dollars out of 'em.. but don't expect for them to save ya b**tt.. at the end of the month. "Or so, they say".
AC for me is good practice and a few dollars a month... I guess if you wrote a lot of articles you could be making some passive income which would be nice. But you would need a ton of articles.