I realized that when I discussed how eHow works a little over week ago, I didn’t really go into detail about how writers earn money for the articles they write and publish on eHow.   I DID say that earnings are based on a secret algorithm, and that earnings are not flat-fee payments, yet are paid on aper-article basis.  What I didn’t say was this:

eHow writers earn income –commission, really– on the articles they write.  As I said before, the amount they earn depends on a number of things (which are known only to the powers that be at eHow).  Now… the really cool thing about eHow is that –unlike typical freelance writing gigs– the articles we write for eHow continue to earn income for us, day after day, month after month.    Pure passive, residual income.  Write your article once, and watch the money roll in to your PayPal account every single month.

Let me give you an example.  Say I wrote an article today about how to weave a basket under water.  The search engines would probably find it tomorrow or the day after, and when people searched for information about under water basket weaving, they might read my article.   Their visiting my article might earn me commission, which I’d see in my eHow earnings interface the following day.  Chances are, each reader going to my article might earn me just 22-cents or so.  Sounds paltry.  But multiply that times every day of the month, and that’s nearly $7.  Still doesn’t sound too great.  But next month, it might make the same amount (but chances are, it would make more).  Taking the $7 per month, and multiplying that out for the whole year, and I’ve made $84 for one measley little article that took me all of 10 minutes to write.

When I first started working as a freelance writer, I earned $15 per article.  It was a one time flat-fee.  $15 was all I got for my work.   eHow allows the new writer to continue to earn month-after-month for articles that they write.  And the example above was a low figure.  I know some writers on eHow who make over $2,000 per month in passive residual income.  I also know I’m on my way to being among them.