As regular readers know I like to review various sites that allow writers to submit content and profit financially from it.  The demise of eHow as a self publishing platform has many writers interested in alternatives. I present this Guest Post by IPI reader and online writer Nichelle Kewish.  Nichelle checked out writing site Bukisa – and she presents her analysis below.

Guest Post By Nichelle Kewish

As a writer, I’m constantly looking for new ways to make money online that create passive income.  I always hear from other writers on the forums that you should diversify your income streams by posting content on several different websites.   I followed their advice to some extent in the past, but now diversifying my income streams has become my number one priority since my main site for writing online, eHow, closed for business as a self publishing venue.

It is still possible to publish to eHow indirectly but I decided I didn’t really want to write for Demand Studio’s flat rate of $15 or conform to their editorial review process.

I decided to step back and re-evaluate my plan for online writing to make money.  It was really a “well, now what?” kind of moment.  A lot of writing sites crossed my mind that I had written for with mixed success… hubpages, triond, infobarrel, factoidz, firehow, and suite101 to name a few.

As a web writer, I see the changing nature of the internet and I know that it is always important to have a back-up plan.  Recently I’ve come across an online content site that I’m very excited about sharing with other writers looking for passive income streams, one that could almost be comparable to eHow in some ways: Bukisa.com.  After having written there for only 15 days, I’ve made 70 cents with just under 40 articles, most of them newly published.

I plan to increase Bukisa income in the future after having a few more articles up.

Here are some of the reasons why Bukisa has passive income potential in my mind, especially for those writers looking for a different home after ehow:

Freedom to Post Different Styles of Content and Different Media

On Bukisa, you’re not just limited to posting how-to articles like on ehow and firehow.  Bukisa allows you to post in any format, as long as the content is educational and not offensive in nature.  But on top of posting articles, writers also have the opportunity to expand their talents, and try their hand at posting audio, or video.  Have a speech that you’ve recorded for speech class?  Post it on Bukisa, promote it, and make some extra money off of it.

The Bukisa Index Earning Potential

How much money can I make writing for this site?  Bukisa pays its writers through something called the Bukisa index, which is based on page views, with 1,000 page views equaling whatever the Bukisa index is at the time.

Right now, the Bukisa index is fairly low at $3.22 per 1000 page views, raised from $3.19 per 1000 page views last month.  The low index right now due to illegal traffic exchanges, but has been as high as $3.97 per 1000 page views in the past, pretty good when compared with other paid-per-view writing sites.  It is much better than Triond pays for example.  Right now I’m at 223 page views and .70 cents,  and I’m  hoping to keep increasing the veiws.

The Bukisa index changes every month.  Stay tuned as it may go up and provide writers with greater earning potential for their articles.

Great Potential for Income by Building Your Network

On Bukisa, you receive 25% of the earnings of anyone who signs up under you, 6% of anyone who signs up under your referees, and about 1.25% of the income of anyone who signs up under your referee’s referees.

This 3-tiered earning system is one of the things that stands out about Bukisa and gives it such great earning potential.  If you get 5 people under you who not only promote their own articles but then go and sign up others, it could be a gold mine for passive income potential, though it may seem a bit hard at first unless you’re a promotion guru like WriterGig.

Bukisa makes it easy to promote you referral link with links and banners on your blog, discussion forums, or even yahoo answers (though be careful to only use yahoo answers sparingly and actually contribute to the discussion.)

A Great Community

From what I’ve seen, the writing community at Bukisa is a very friendly bunch, so if you write great content, you should have no problem getting reads and views.  Just keep your writing consistent with quality however, since I’ve already gotten some writers there who won’t hesitate to critique anything that’s sub-par.

Diversify Your Streams of Passive Writing Income

They say that diversify, diversify, diversify is the key to investing.   Diversifying income from writing on different sites is key as well, right up there with knowing your SEO and having solid writing and promotion skills. The internet is constantly changing and the site you are writing for could suddenly change its rules or close down, like happened to eHow.

Because Bukisa pays based on views, it offers an alternative other sites that pay you for writing with a share of ad revenue, or directly through Google Adsense.  If you have an article that gets a lot of views but not a lot of earnings, such as recipes, quick kitchen skills, or computer fixes, why not post it on Bukisa instead?  If you repost an already popular article and then promote it, Bukisa can be wonderful as an alternative stream of writing for income.

So, is Bukisa a scam? Is it worth the effort to make money writing there?

In my opinion, it’s better than most other sites I’ve tried, and the pay is steady, though not as lucrative as eHow was.  But it’s quickly become one of my favorite sites, on par with Suite101.  I’m very excited to see what will happen with a few more articles posted.   So to answer both questions:  Bukisa is not a scam (and anyone who will tell you it is a scam was probably banned for violating their TOS) and it seems very worth it to write there so far.

I should mention that Bukisa allows duplicate content.  It’s against Bukisa’s Terms of Service to post content from a free to use content site, but you can repost other articles that you’ve written yourself on other websites for an extra source of income.

Another interesting feature is that authors can allow syndication on articles with allow a creative commons license.  If you want to allow it to create links around the web for yourself, Bukisa provides code for others to repost your article on their blog or website.  It acts like an article directory in this way.

Bukisa also provides a license to repost for your exclusive use only.

Overall, in my mind Bukisa is well worth the effort for writers at any stage on their passive income journey, but can especially be lucrative for those who know how to successfully promote their content and referral link.

The site offers these guidelines on the main page:

“All work submitted must be in English and of original quality content. Copyright violations and auto-translated articles are forbidden, and will lead to account suspension. Self-promotion and self-advertisement by an individual or a company is also forbidden. We require that the heading of the articles look professional, therefore, headings submitted in all lower case, all caps, with abbreviations, or with links, will be rejected. Lastly, please check your grammar and spelling before submitting your content, as issues with grammar and spelling will give your work, along with Bukisa, a non-professional image and reputation”

Give Bukisa a try by signing up here.

JadeDragon:  I’ve signed up and will be trying the Burkisa site out.  Thank-you for your guest post Nichelle.  Anyone have good or bad experiences with Burkisa?  Please comment below.

Update:  Bukisa Switched to Adsense API.  The Bukisa Index is no more.  Read about the changes to Bukisa here.

Tagged as: Bukisa Review, Passive Income Opportunities