Like I’ve written earlier on this blog and as comments on Tiffany Dow’s blog, I use iWriter as a filler. If I have a few minutes (at least 15), and I don’t have anything else to do, I go there and check, if there are any interesting jobs.

Obviously, I check the following:

• How high is the requester’s approval rate?
• What does the Special Instructions say?
• How many words is the article supposed to contain?
• Any specific keyword demands?

If I feel that this is an article I’m able to write and do well, I take the job.

Yesterday, I discovered that there was a flaw in my method.

Poorly Defined Request - This Should Have Been a Heads-Up Already

The job, I found and thought looked interesting, just told me to write a 500 words-article around the keywords “Internet Marketing”.

The special instructions told me not to use the keywords more than 3.6% of the time, because the article should be used on Ezine Articles.

No problem. I tend to write too few keywords, unless I force myself to repeat them more often.

So I clicked on the Write Article button, did some brainstorming, wrote an outline based, included the four learning methods, and wrote the article.

After I finished (at 529 words), I ran the article through WhiteSmoke to check for spelling and grammar errors.

After that I submitted the article.

Then I got this strange feeling…

Slow Approval - Give Low Stars in the Ratings to the iWriter Requester

Poor writers in the elite group? Or a difficult to please requester?

iWriter wants us to express with our star ranking how we were treated by the requester. Does he approve fast? (Meaning faster money to you.) Does he comment and tell you his reasons for his review and the rank he gives you?

I should have checked this requester, before writing for him… This is what happened.

After I’ve hit Publish, I got this strange feeling, so I repeatedly went back to iWriter to see, if my article was approved.

It wasn’t.

Not until this morning, I could see that it was approved, and that I’d scored my first 4 star rating. No explanation at all. What didn’t he like? What was wrong? I had no idea.

I Should Have Known - and This is Why You Should Check the Requester Thoroughly

Although it seemed that this requester got a high rank, 5 Stars, if I’d moused over his rating, I would have noticed 4.9 stars. And that’s for a requester who’d asked for hundreds of articles.

Digging down in the reviews, I saw several complains about missing explanations for why he had only given 4 stars, or why he’d rejected an article.

That’s certainly not the kind of requester, I would like to write for. So I should have checked this before accepting the job.

I mean… Although I hate getting a 4 star rating, I would accept it if I’d known WHY he didn’t totally love my article. Was it because he’d had other ideas, but just didn’t give away any clues about those ideas? Did some grammar og spelling pass unnoticed through WhiteSmoke?

WHAT?

Anyway, I learnt my lesson, and I’ll certainly include a mouse-over star ranking check the next time, and if I see less than 5 stars in total, I’ll go through the reviews.

Do you write for iWriter? What do you do to protect yourself from bad rankings or rejections?

If you are going to make some extra money writing for iWriter, you can just as well do it in a way that will bring in the most money. This blog post will teach you some iWriter strategy you hopefully can use.

First, I want you to know that I only recommend ghost writing for others as long as you don’t have other projects that can bring in passive income. When you are writing for iWriter or other places, you sell your time. If you write PLR articles, or eBooks and reports, you sell yourself, you can get passive income even years later.

Read more about my opinion of iWriter in this blog post: Earn Money by Writing articles – Is iWriter an Option? Or Should You Stay Far Away?

If iWriter promote their service as a way to “get dirt cheap articles” (see Tiffany Dow’s comment here), you can just as well fire back with some strategy to make you more money.

Reach Elite Status

You can earn more per article, when you reach Premium or Elite status. You will still get 81% of the price for the normal articles, but you get access to write higher priced articles from people who wants Premium or Elite writers to write their articles.

The price of these articles can get really high. A few moments ago, I saw an offer of a 300 word article for $8.10 in profit to the writer. Not bad!

So if your strategy is to make money writing on iWriter, I highly recommend that you get there as fast as possible.

To become an Elite writer, you need at least 30 articles approved, and at least a rating of 4.6 stars.

What is the fastest way to get there?

By writing 30 x 150 word articles for requesters with a high rating.

Why Should You Chose 150 Word Articles at iWriter?

Why 150 word articles? Because they are faster to write. You’re even given some of the 150 words, since the requester will ask you to write specific keywords in the article. So a 150 word article will quickly end at 130-140 words.

Here’s a guy who wants a review done for an Amazon article - 150 words. THAT’s a guy who knows nothing about affiliate marketing, but what do you care?

He has the following keywords: “Booster Pac ES2500 900 Peak Amp 12 Volt Jump Starter” - 10 words. If you have to mention them twice in your article, that leaves you 130 words to write. How fast can you type down 150 words?

Oh, by the way, that special job might not be for you. Guy wants “Usa writer only.”

Later in this blog post, I’ll give you another reason for writing the 150 word articles.

Why Should You Care About the Requester’s Ranking?

When you write an article, and get it either approved or rejected, you can give star rankings to the requester.

If a requester approves very fast, and if you were happy with the job, give him 5 stars. Please, also write in your comment WHY you gave him 5 stars. This will help other writers decide whom to write for.

A requester with a high ranking is a good requester to work for. If he approves articles faster, you get your money faster.

And you can also see how many percentages of the articles he’s approved and how many he’s rejected.

To begin with, you should only write for requesters who approve 100% of the articles. Obviously, if you do a lousy job, he might reject yours, but you’ll avoid serial rejecters, and you stand a much higher change of having your article approved.

Size DOES Matter at iWriter

If we don’t take special requests and Premium and Elite article requests, and only look at the amount you’ll earn from writing an article, size does matter.

Yes, you make more dollars from a 1000 word article than from a 150 word, of course, but let’s look at the price per 100 words instead.

These calculations tell a totally different story.

So if you want to gain as much as you can per word, you must write 150 word articles. Given that you’re even offered a lot of those words as keywords, your gain gets much higher.

Write Well and Get Tipped

If an article requester is satisfied with your work, he can give you a tip. See it as an opportunity to get paid to become a better writer.

My guess is, though, that you will not get many tips from people who want 150 word articles, or even 300 word articles, because they are after the “dirt cheap” articles, Brad Callen promoted.

(Ironic, though, that people who are really cheap skates and orders 150 word articles, pay more per 100 words than the others, hehe.)

Do your best, but don’t spend hours writing these articles. If you feel that an article will take you long time to research and write, then don’t take that job. Remember: You are selling your hours for money. Use them well. Pick the articles you can crank out fast, and still deliver high quality.

Wrap It Up: iWriter Strategy

Get to Premium or Elite level as fast as possible.

Stay there by delivering high quality articles.

By doing a good job, you also get a change to receive tips.

If you’re after the highest pay per word, write 150 articles - and second best: 1000 word articles.

And remember, always: Use this as an extra income stream. Not as your main income. You don’t build your business this way. You only sell your time.

There are two ways to earn money by writing articles:

• The good way (as passive income)
• The bad way (one time payment)
• The not so good or not so bad way (oops, that was THREE ways…)

Let me be more clear: The best way to earn money by writing articles is to write once and get paid many times.

But that is not always an option.

So let's look at when it's better to get a one time payment for an article, and if it's worth your time to try your luck at iWriter.

Sara Young Recommends iWriter - Why?

Nobody had told me anything about iWriter, before I received an email from Sara Young that said:

“Can I Hire You to Write for Me?”

Normally, I don’t want to write articles for others, because they might choose topics that I find it boring to write about, and I don’t want to waste my time doing boring stuff. (If I wanted that, I would have kept my day job.)

But the headline sounded intriguing, so I opened up the email and read:

"I’m looking to hire people that can write simple 150–500 word articles for me…

with a dream service you can use anytime you want to earn extra cash.

And there are about 2,400 additional clients who are looking for articles as well.

We’ll pay you for every single article you write. There’s no limit to how much we’ll pay you. Write as much as you can, and make as much as you can.

I figured I’d rather give the work to you than to people I don’t know."

A few days later, Sara also sent out an email where she invited marketers to use iWriter to get their articles written.

I joined iWriter the same day, but I didn’t write any articles before later. Actually, I wasn’t very impressed by the prices, I saw. “As low as $2 for an article” is written with large, friendly letters on the front page.

Well, I’m not spending my precious time writing for as low as $2, that’s for sure.

Tiffany Dow Doesn’t Recommend iWriter - Why Not?

Tiffany Dow is an internet marketer that I follow and trust. She never hides her opinion about anything, and one day, I noticed a blog post she’d written about iWriter. The title was:

“iWriter – Why Marketers and Freelancers Alike Should Avoid It”

Oh? The place I joined? (At that moment, I’d already written more than 30 articles for them and made a nice amount of money from it. I’ll tell you shortly, why I changed my mind.)

Tiffany Dow doesn't like that iWriter promotes the site by saying that people can buy "dirt cheap" articles there.

Tiffany was approached by Brad Callen (the owner of iWriter), who wanted her to write a review of the site. Tiffany refused because of the low prices. Then she continues:

"But apparently yesterday they send out an email to the WRITERS on the site (an error perhaps?) and boy did it piss off the people who had signed up to freelance there! (reading on the WAHM forum looks like a lot of people had the same reaction).

The title of the email said, “Where I buy all of my articles and content. Dirt cheap.” Well that’s the way to motivate more freelancers to get onboard, don’tcha think?"

Yes, and no, because as somebody pointed out in the comments to the above mentioned blog post, the prices could go a lot higher.

What This Young Man Said About iWriter - At First - And After He Became an Author There

A young man, who had read some of my posts at the Warrior Forum, approached me on Skype. He asked politely, if I wanted to buy articles from him, because he wanted to make money writing to support his family.

I said, no, I preferred to write my own articles, but I would help him get into contact with marketers.

Shortly after, I heard about iWriter and told him that he could write articles there and make money.

At first, he said no, because he didn’t want to sell his articles for less than $1 per 100 words (which is a fair price).

When I started to write there myself one day, I didn’t really have other plans, I quickly found out that the prices could get a lot more interesting.

• If you became a Premium or Elite writer, you would get access to higher paid requests.
• If somebody requested articles from you directly, you would earn more.
• If you became a Premium or Elite writer, the percentage you earn is higher.

My first articles were about Rift, and they were short 300 word articles. They took me less than 10 minutes each to write, so even though the price wasn’t that high ($2-something), my hourly pay was okay.

Then I wrote an article about internet marketing, and I noticed an interesting request: Somebody wanted an outline for a report.

If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s outlines. I’ve been writing them since … well, since high school, but in a professional context since 1998. So I wrote it, and he loved it, and he made a personal request for more than 20 outlines.

I began to see new and higher paid requests appear, when I logged in, so I took a screen dump and showed it to my young Skype friend.

He joined.

Shortly after, he thanked me and told me that he’d become an Elite Writer. He was very happy to sell his articles at iWriter.

If you want to read more about how to obtain the best price for your articles at iWriter, read this blog post: iWriter Strategy - Work Smarter, Not Harder.

My Thoughts About iWriter

At first, I found the prices way too low. Some of them still are.

But the thing about iWriter that I like is that if you don’t have other ways right now to make money, you can always go there and see, if there are some interesting requests. If there are, and if you have the time, why not write an article and make some money?

Years ago, I joined services as Elance and all the others, and I often get direct bid requests (notice: BID requests) from people who want 100 500 word articles written by tomorrow at noon, in perfect English, without spelling or grammar errors, and for less than $1 per article, of course.

No, thank you.

I can say no, yes, but one in a while there happens to be an interesting BID request. I go there, waste my time bidding, and then somebody (who wanted less for their time) wins the bid war.

No, thank you.

At iWriter, if I see an interesting request, I can click: Write Aricle, and nobody else but me can write it.

If I do my job well, I sell my article. No haggling over the price. On the contrary - the requester can even offer you a tip, if he really likes your article.

Would I make this my main income source? Absolutely no! It is still to exchange my time with money, and I much prefer to make passive income.

But at the moment, I spend 5 hours in school every day, do my home work afterwards (1–2 hours), go to evening school twice a week (2 x 3 hours), so there is not much time left for creating products.

On the other hand, if I have a free 15 - 45 minutes, I can write one or several articles, depending on their length.

Your Thoughts About iWriter

Now it’s your turn. What do you think about iWriter? Would you use it? Why? Or why not?

Tell me in the comments.

You've probably heard all the success stories about people creating small apps, they sell at iTunes Store for $0.99, and which makes them thousands of dollars weekly.

What's more, just like me you might have dreamed about making your own successfull iPhone app, but have given up the thought, because you're not a programmer.

I've got good news for you. Now it's possible for people like you and me to make our own iPhone apps in minutes.

How? Read on, to find out.

One of the most successfull iPhone apps ever is called iFart, and the man behind it is Joel Comm. He's created many really great products over time, but here he has outdone himself.

He's created a web application that ordinary people without programming experience can use to create their own iPhone or iPod Touch apps, and it will even make it possible to give them away or sell them at the iTunes App Store.

The name of this wonderful money making product is My App Creator.

Oh, it works with the iPad, too, by the way, so you can create apps to three best-selling products: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad at the same time.

Who could profit from this application?

Writers.

Ho, you don't even have to be a writer. Recently, I bought an ebook application for my iPhone with the book "Think and Grow Rich". Everybody can use these old books and wrap them in a new cover. Can you imagine the number of books you could sell each month, if you re-package and old best-seller?

Video creators.

You can pack your videos in an application, and sell it.

But that's not all...

From the home page I took this:

My App Creator allows individuals and businesses to quickly and inexpensively create their own iPhone application. It is the perfect mobile content delivery solution for celebrities, athletes, speakers, authors, politicians, educators and corporations.

In other words: This app is for everybody who wants to create their own iPhone application, and gain fame or fortune. Or both

First, I'll give you a short review of the product, which can also be found under the name "Seven Secrets to Ezine Domination".

After that, I'll give you a short, but very important warning about the product. I have it. It's great, but there's two of the advice you should know something about.

Review of "Seven Secrets to Ezine Domination" by Rob Howard - Newbie Made $100 on the First Day

By Sarah Aston

Would you like to copy this newbie who made $100 online on his first day? I know that I wouldn't mind an extra $100, just from one day's work. So how can you easily obtain the same result? Here's how!

The newbie in question had purchased "Seven Secrets to Ezine Domination" by Rob Howard, and immediately began following his advice. He quickly made some affiliate sales and put money in the bank.

The product consists of five videos, which you can either watch online, or download in a zipped format.

Each video explains, in detail, how to do your research for an article; how to write it; how to prepare your author bio box, and how to get traffic to view your article.

According to Rob Howard, the most important thing about article writing is to write it short and hot. No long and boring newspaper-like articles, please!

One of his secrets is the 3 P's. That means your articles should be:

* Punchy

* Provocative

* and to the Point

He also gives away his own formula on how to quickly write an article; how to craft the headline; how to start the article, and what to put in the body etc. And he also tells us how to format the article to gain the most views.

In addition, you also get a very smart tip about how to use your 'author' picture in the bio box. I had never thought about that, but it seems rather obvious. In fact, this little trick alone should lead to a lot more URL clicks.

I would have loved a transcript of the videos, which is not available at the moment, but there are a lot of other cool bonuses that come with the course.

So while you are learning about making money online, don't forget about healthy eating...

Make chopping vegetables and meat easy for yourself by choosing the right Kitchen Cutting Board.

What products would you cut on a Wood Cutting Board? Head over for some free information.

Article Source: Review of "Seven Secrets to Ezine Domination" by Rob Howard - Newbie Made $100 on the First Day

Now for Some Important Warning

Those videos make great information! No doubt about it!

But one video talks about how to format the text by bolding words here and there, and Ezine Articles does not allow that.

Another video tells about how to buy traffic to your Ezine Articles to get them among the 15 most viewed. This is not permitted by Ezine Articles. Don't do it!

Let your articles speak their own language, and they will show up on that top 15. And that would be honest. Buying your position would not be.

Now go get those videos for the incredible low price through my fantastic affiliate link, will you?

Get instant access to "Article Marketing Secrets" here

Last night, a very good friend told me that he would give up fighting with making homepages, if only there existed a membership script for WordPress.

"But there does!", I told him, so he got super motivated and rushed away to do the one click installation of WordPress on his site.

And there certainly is a very cool membership script for WordPress. I use it myself, even on this blog. Ha! I bet, you didn't know that! Super secret, if you want it that way.

In short: You can try it for free, even get it installed for free - check out this Membership Script for WordPress Blogs and Regular Web Sites.

Now, I'm a bit of a geek, or a nerd, or both, so I put up the script myself in very few minutes.

It's not more difficult than setting up the blog and writing blog posts.

But if you prefer to spend your time on other things, you can get the script installed for free - even before purchasing it! I know - sounds crazy! But I have been following the programmer for quite a few years, and believe me, there is nothing crazy about Ravi. He's a cool guy, ehm, okay, perhaps a bit crazy Well, anyway, I really like him.

And I surely also like the products, he make! I have been a great fan ever since he made it possible to deliver ebooks and other electronic material years before the $7 script and other things made it easy.

This membership script can be used on your existing blog. You write the blog posts, and you point out which posts should be contained in the membership. You can write all the blog posts at once, and drip feed them one by one later on, and you can write the messages to be send out at a later time to your members. The script even takes care of unsubscribing members and everything.

Absolutely the best invention and investment, when it comes to creating membership sites.

But - don't take my word for it! You can try it out yourself, for free, and like I said, even get it installed for free.

Go to this Membership Script for WordPress Blogs and Regular Web Sites and join right away.

Tell Ravi, I send you

Some prefer the book, others wait for the movie.

You can reach all of your targeted audience by creating both the article, and the video.

Now, some of you are writers, like I am. I prefer to write an article above making a video. If you are like me, this is an easy way to turn your article into a video with just a few clicks.

Look at the result I got - and I even got comments on YouTube:

Well, obviously robot speach isn't perfect. Later, maybe, but it's pretty good, as it is, and you could in fact improve this point. But this movie only took me a few minutes to create. See here, how I did:

First I logged in at http://www.articlevideorobot.com.

There I chose to make a new video from scratch. You can use a one-click-guide, if your article is already online.

I copied the headline and put it in one field, and I copied the rest of the article and put that into another field. Then I clicked Next.

Automatically the article was divided into sections.

Next I had to choose the voice (you can speak yourself, if you want), the background picture (you can upload your own), and the music (again, you can upload your own).

I wrote the website, I wanted to point the video to, and the text that will show up in YouTube.

Finally, I uploaded directly to YouTube.

You can test this service for free. If you want to become a member, you can use this link http://www.articlevideorobot.com/buy.html and if you put in the coupon code malka30, guess what? You get 30% discount.

  It is estimated that only 15% of Internet Marketers actually make any money online. The remainder fail to show a profit for all the time, energy and costs

Sin # 1: Faking deadlines

In this video, I'll show you 7 ways in which you can make money with your blog…

Now, I'm sure you’re eager to get started making money from your blog, so I'll invite you to go to my site and get my free mini-report showing you how to write blog posts in five minutes or less. You will find it at http://FreeContentSystem.com/5minblogs

Free Music by DanoSongs.com

Thank you for taking your time reading this. I am Britt Malka, and I've been making a living online since the year 2000, and loving every day of it - even the early struggles to make ends meet.

Twitter is one of the most popular social sites at the moment, and if you don't already use it, you should consider doing so, because it's a great tool for making new relationships, and even for making money.

The main purpose of Twitter is very simple. You have 140 characters to tell the world the answer of this simple question: What are you doing right now. This message is called a tweet.

But instead of letting people in on boring details of your life (drinking a glass of water, watching a ball game on TV, etc.) you can use Twitter for teaser headlines, communicate with people and get traffic.

Twitter is free and very easy to use. You can do it directly from your browser, or use desktop programs to make it easier to write a tweet or to read what other people write.

Since Twitter is so popular and easy to use, it is also widely used for Internet Marketing, and here comes the big question: How do you use it for IM? Is there a right way and a wrong way? Or is one way just better than the other?

Automatic Tweets, many followers, many messages

Some seem to think that plenty is better. They get a lot of followers and send these followers a lot of messages.

These messages can contain links to their own sites and blogs, or links to affiliate products they want to sell.

Some people react to these messages by buying things or just by visiting the blogs/sites, or by ignoring the message or by unfollowing.

Manual Tweets, few followers, few messages

On the other site, there are twitterers who believe in personal messages. They only follow people with interesting tweets, so they don't have that many followers themselves, since there seems to be a strong relationship between the two parties (when somebody follow, many people choose to follow back).

They don't send out that many messages, and even though they send link to their own blog posts, they also send links to other interesting articles, and they only occasionally send out affiliate links.

They answer the messages from their followers, and they read most of the messages from the people they follow.

This group of twitters seem to think that few, but close followers are better than many indifferent followers.

Which way is the better?

As you might have guessed, I belong to the latter group myself. I know that John from the Rhodes Brothers does too, since I have been following him for a long time, and since he just released a great infoproduct about how to use Twitter: the 1 to 1 Twitter. (Which is a great product, by the way!)

But I guess the question is just as academic as how to write to a maling list: To send lots of sales messages? Or lots of content? Or a combination?

If you use Twitter in one of these ways or the other, please write a comment to this blog post and tell me, what works for you.