Make More Off eHow Articles

Re-Purpose and Earn More Passive Income

eHower Russ Keith asked in the eHow forums how to earn more from his drawing articles that are not pulling much traffic.   Russ has a nice library of step by step articles on drawing that need a way to reach a good audience.

Several things became clear from the forum discussion. First, his article traffic is low because people are not searching much for specific information like How to Draw A Cartoon Penguin.   Second, the articles are drawing ads related to the subject matter being drawn rather than about drawing.  How to Draw a Lamb for example is pulling weird ads and related articles on cooking lamb dishes.

Well Russ asked if eHow is the wrong venue for this?   It got me thinking – What is the solution for earning more from your work?  How can you create passive income from multiple sources  from something like an eHow article collection?

When you write articles for eHow you retain the copyright. That means you can use the articles elsewhere if you want – re-purpose them if you will.   Just posting them up elsewhere creates duplicate content that can hurt your SERPs but there are other ways to make them pay – like an eBook. If you can create a nice liberty of articles around a single theme try this plan:

Pre-step:  Bookmark this page because it has a lot of links – you need to follow the links to read and take action, then come back and go through the next step.

1. Read How to Save eHow Articles and use the steps to capture all your content in a word processor.

2. Read this blog entry about Pat Flynn and download the free “eBook on eBooks” Pat Flynn wrote.

3. Put all your best articles on your topic into a nicely designed ebook and flesh it out with a good introduction and table of contents. Watch this little video for inspiration:

4. Sign up for e-junkie. It is an inexpensive way to automate your sales and track affiliate sales.

5. Create a landing page for the ebook – look at http://www.warriorforum.com for resources and help on landing pages. If you need help with the web design or artwork, consider outsourcing on oDesk at a low cost.

6. Create an affiliate program to market your eBook. e-junkie can help manage it.

7. Use a reasonable price like $25 bucks and a 50% share of sales to the affiliates. Test different price points until you get it right. You need to make people believe the information has value but not price yourself out of the market for an impulse buy.

8. Bundle the eBook with some nice bonus information

9. Search for “my topic or related topic+blog” and start commenting on the blogs you find. Use your landing page as the URL for the comment and a handle that includes a good keyword related to your ebook. This will lift the SERPs for your landing page and get you noticed by the right blog owners. When you comment don’t promote your eBook. Just make meaningful on topic comments that build your credibility and get noticed. Think about where your best audience hangs out. In Russ Keith’s case I’d suggest blogs about drawing but also parenting blogs (teach kids to draw right?)

10. Blog owners will contact you or just join your affiliate program. To speed up the process you might also contact some of the bigger blogs that serve your target audience and offer a free review copy of the eBook. Mention the blogger can earn a share of sales by reviewing it and providing links to your landing page if they like it. You need to get the radar for say 100 blogs to start. Make a list and go through the list every few days to make more good comments. Check off blogs that join and write up your eBook.

If you actually follow each of these steps you will make a lot more off the same articles and still get to leave them on eHow to earn. You can also link to the landing page from other social bookmarking websites like Xomba and SheToldMe that also give you a chance to earn from generating content.

This strategy is very Four Hour Work Week like and once set up can earn nice passive income for years to come. It also fits into the concept of the Triple A Solution to Writing.

PS: Did you notice that no where in this article did I suggest spending any money on advertising? It’s just not needed for this plan to work. Good luck with re-purposing your content. Send me a copy of your eBook and I might promote it for you here.

PPS: If you are not using the SheToldMe tool to promote your eHow articles try it out now 100% FREE:

Tagged as: ehow, four hour work week, freelance writing, Passive Income Opportunities