Munny4Hunny update

When I started this project to find out if it was possible to make money via paid to post programs on a free-hosted blog, there seemed to be an array of different schemes for paid to post revenue. As the project has progressed, it has become clear that some schemes seem to be dead-ends and others are worth sticking with.
I am really only using three schemes at the moment:

Payperpost: By far the most active source of paid postings, if you don't have PPP, you will be struggling for income.
Smorty: A slow start, but gathering pace now. They are not high payers with each post worth $6, but the real advantage here is that once your submission has been approved (usually takes a couple of days), payments are made on a weekly basis rather than monthly as with PPP.
Creamaid: This works in a different way to most of the other schemes available, but they do have a bonus referral scheme that rewards you if other bloggers participate in the same campaign via your post. Rewards with Creamaid vary in the extreme with campaigns paying anything from $1 up to $10, but you get paid ALMOST IMMEDIATELY which is a really nice feature... The bonuses get paid at 'end of the campaign' which could be anything from a week to a couple of months...
There are more schemes that are worth investigating, and some limited schemes are still worth doing just because they offer some (limited) income opportunities. Overall, these are the three that I am using, though I haven't really pursued these opportunities with any real intent for quite a while. Of course, my PR is limited and this has a bearing on which schemes are worthwhile for this blog. Hopefully in the future, the PR will build back up and the opportunities will increase accordingly -this might make other schemes viable, that I currently have no joy with.

Mid-month review (MAY)

The month of May is intended to push the limits of what a PR2 blog can earn in a month.
I am active with four schemes:

• Payperpost
• Creamaid
• Blogsvertise
• Bloggerwave

I have had no 'offers' from Blogsvertise for quite a few weeks, and even then the last offer I completed for them took a month to get approved. Despite plenty of emails reassuring me that there are a lot of new offers coming and the service is improving, my experience is that this source of income has all but dried up. To be fair, they operate a 'grab bag' service where you can try posting for jobs that have not been taken up by other bloggers, unfortunately the opportunity that was offered to me under the 'grab bag' scheme was one I had completed already....

Payperpost has offered the largest amount of posts recently, although the rewards are generally low because this blog does not qualify for the higher earning opportunuties. My experience with Payperpost up to now has been good. Posts take around 5 days to get approved and earnings should arrive in my paypal account 30 days later.

I have recently been introduced to Bloggerwave which appears to model itself closely on payperpost (the login page apart from colours and logo is VERY similar). Currently there are three opportunities available and I have posted for all three, acceptance was prompt ie. within 48 hours, and again payment should be 30 days later. I will report on whether new opportunities become available when I do a summary at the end of this month.

Creamaid works differently to the other services and the more I use it, the more I like it. I have reported before that getting emails and getting in early on opportunities is key and this continues to be true. I have recently completed another $10 opportunity and got in early enough to get referrals again. Having said that, earnings continue to vary from $1 to $10, so you need to pick and choose if you want the higher earnings. There is no negative consequences of not participating in a post, so being picky won't affect the opportunities available to you.

With my strategy of posting every day, I have managed to 'earn' around $70 in half a month, my target is $100 for the month, but there is a limited amount of opportunities available to me, so I will be forced either to do the lower-priced jobs or find another fresh source of opportunities. One draw-back is that the same opp's often appear on different schemes and you can't post the same thing twice, however you can turn this to your advantage as sometimes they pay more through one scheme that they do through another so shop around...

Webmaster Discussion Forum – a review

What a great idea! – there are plenty of blogs around full of interesting and informative posts about website do’s and don’ts. How easy it is to find the information you want, depends on how well the site is organised and frankly most are fairly random… Now the Webmaster Discussion Forum provides visitors with ready-made sections in which you can post your own experiences or read the experiences of others. The site contains invaluable information under the following headings:

• Monetizing your website
• Advertising
• Link exchange
• eCommerce
• RSS feeds
• Podcasting

To name but a few…There are sections for service providers for people selling websites. Dive in and see if there is a thread you can participate in or learn from - Head on over to the forum now for more information.

Creamaid - update

On one of my visits to the Creamaid homepage, I noticed that there was an option to have notification of new ‘conversations’ (creamaid’s name for paid to blog opportunities) emailed in. I entered my email address and nothing happened for a while – Just recently activity seems to have increased and emails have been popping in regularly.
One advert in particular was quite well-paid at $10 with $2 per referral (bloggers entering the ‘conversation’ via your post). I got in early on this one, in fact I think I was even the first accepted post. This means of course that you have a much better chance of getting referrals. This proved to be the case with three referrals coming from this one post. When you add the ‘royalty’ and the ‘referrals’ together, I made a total of $16 from just that one post – a combination of finding a well-paid opportunity and getting in early enough to maximise earnings. If you are going to go the creamaid route, getting in early is the secret to maximising revenue.
This experience also highlighted that although most of the creamaid opportunities are not paticularly well paid, it is worth taking a look at what is on offer. There has been a flurry of activity and I think there are some open ‘conversations’ going now – I can’t take them all up otherwise my blog is going to look like a tribute to creamaid, but I will certainly be checking what they have on offer in the future.
If this review seems enthusiastic, then it is to balance out my less-than-enthusiastic feelings I have had about Creamaid up to now – I don’t earn anything from referring their service to you (unless you participate in a ‘conversation’ via a paid to blog post), so the links in this post are not crafty referrals.
One last thing, the great attraction of Creamaid is instant payment – the referral fees are only paid when an advert has ended (and they can stay open for months), but the royalty is generally ready for payment within a few days – this beats every other paid to blog service I have seen fair and square..

April 2007 - earnings

The graphic is getting more difficult to read and I am going to have to come up with a simpler representation...

In short, April has generated $26.41 in opportunities, and a total of $30.55 has been cashed out (a combination of last months earnings and some of this months 'instant' payouts).

Total 'earnings' are now at $54.45, and the amount actually received (paid into paypal) is $32.55.

There has been a period during April during which opportunities dried up, otherwise I am sure earnings would have been substantially better.. I am confident of better earnings in May and have started on the right track already. My first Payperpost entry has been accepted, and I have had much better results with Creamaid recently. I have had an email from Reviewme which I will need to look into, so that will give me a couple more schemes that I can investigate and report on. watch this space for a new updated report on Creamaid, and my first experiences with Payperpost. I will attempt to update the 'earnings' graphic in the sidebar on a more regular basis - this will indicate the Total amount earned and cashed out rather than the earnings for just the current month.

Creamaid - investigation

I have been prompted to do what it says in the title and talk about my investigation of paid to blog, these are my interim thoughts which will be gathered together and updated at the end of the month... I am going to talk about different schemes in different posts
You can plainly see that there are a number of Creamaid posts on the site, and my reportings on Creamaid are as follows:
The payout for a post that is accepted into the 'conversation' is relatively low...however they DO pay more or less immediately, which I feel is a very nice touch. In addition, there is the added bonus of payments made if another blogger joins the conversation via your post. These additional payments are only paid out at the end of the promotion (and so far there is no end in sight for any of the promotions I have taken part in - they seem to last for months).
On the down-side, some of the promotions which appear to be running, have no posts and when you investigate, you get a message saying that this conversation is over-subscribed... even though there are no posts! Thus you have to conclude that maybe some advertisers are seeking some free publicity simply be being on the list?
Overall I have found this service relatively painless to use, and the instant payout (even though earnings are low) is very welcome, especially if you have earnings targets to meet...
You don't need to go through a registration and qualification process with Creamaid, which means from the time you first visit the site, to the time you see some cash dropping into your paypal account, could be just a matter of hours.

Creamaid - paid to blog service

The latest scheme I have tried out is Creamaid, this scheme differs from most other paid to blog programmes. Their ‘offers’ are called ‘conversations’, and you take part in a conversation by locating one in a blog, or visiting their homepage. It is remarkably simple to take part in this scheme with no necessity to have your blog approved. Payouts are on the low side, you get paid a small ‘royalty’ when your post is accepted, but earnings increase if another blogger participates in the conversation through your post (a bit like a referral). You can choose the conversations you want to take part in from the Creamaid home page, but I noted that some that appeared to be available turned out to be closed on further investigation.
On the plus side, this scheme is surely the fastest payer on the internet! - money was in my paypal account within hours… One last feature was that on the post that I completed , the advertiser left a personal message of thanks as a comment – Personally, I thought that was a really nice touch.