I recently have gotten into eHow. For those that don’t know, eHow is a site in which you write up an article about how to do something, and post it. But it doesn’t end there, you get a cut of all the advertising that eHow gets from your article so it becomes a potential money maker. Though this wasn’t what got me really, I mean I do want money and right now I am struggling financially, but ultimately, I am a writer and the format they have created somehow makes it akin to an internet magazine.
So I have begun writing. I figure that at the very least I will get myself better in the habit of writing so that I can just do it easier when I get to a point in eHow where I can let it go. Right now I’ve been striving for 1 new article a day, with 2-3 new articles on weekend days. This gets me to about 10 new articles a week. At just 9 days on the site, I have 13 articles already written and published and about 30 total since I enter ideas for articles right away so that I don’t forget. I figure I could easily get 50-100 articles before I start running short of ideas.
o far, I’ve been concentrating most of my article writing on Travian, Waymarking, and what I know about how to bill Wisconsinsin Medicaid since I work there. I figure I should at least try to stay within the limits of the intent of the site is.
However, that sentiment isn’t true with others and I think this proves to be the real problem with eHow as a whole. While I think it is great to get people the ability to make money off their work, and I do think it is a good incentive to encourage people to do it, I think it fails because what ultimately happens is you have people who have no idea what they are writing about just to make money. I mean it could be a great way of getting quality posts but instead it seems to do the reverse.
As an example, on my first day on the site, I went and looked up Hemophilia. I figured that if there is one thing I KNOW better than most, it is Hemophilia. What I got was a silly how to on putting padding on a child with hemophilia and putting padding on hard corners and other rediculous suggestions. I felt like the person had never even met a Hemophiliac, and here I have a severe case and I have never even SEEN those extremes. (And yes I do know other Hemophiliacs.)
What I feel happens on eHow is that people run out of articles that they know to write about and so they continue on and start writing about things they don’t know in an effort to make money about. I grant that these people generally go out and do some research, but given that they don’t have experience with it, they couple that research with random ideas on the subject and don’t even know how to pick out good research from bad research.
I do think it is cool that they go out and do research that maybe I wouldn’t, and it isn’t completely awful, but it just isn’t the quality that maybe a site like this should be. The real problem is a lack of editorial overview. People can just post what they want, and it is instantly published. I realize that it would take some manpower but they really should have created 5 or 6 editors who could review and pick out quality, and then after awhile allow others who have proven themselves in a field to review as well.
Still, despite the bads of eHow, I think it is worth my time at least a little. A good example of why this is is to just look at stats…. I have just 13 articles at the time of this writing. Over a week I have made $0.58. No, it isn’t a ton, but say i have an average of $0.50 per 10 articles per week. And say I make my goal to be 50 articles. That is $2.50 per week which is $10 a month, that isn’t too shabby. And considering that I don’t have to ever write those articles again, if I maintain that for even a year that means that is an extra $100 a year. And that isn’t even counting possible advertisements I get for this blog if I decide to link here from one of my articles. It seems like it is worth at least investing a little bit of time in it.
6 replies on “eWhy eHow has ePromise”
I knew this site but didn’t know they pay for your articles. Thx for the info.
Keep at it my friend. The longer your articles are published, the better they will perform. I too, only write about things that I know well. You can definitely tell the authors that are writing simply for the money. They will burn themselves out eventually. Either you love it, or you don’t!
With regard to the quality of the articles on the site, eHow has a process in place where we are weeding out anything that is sub par to what we’ve indicated in our submission guidelines. So, as time goes on you’ll see less of these type of articles, where the content is not providing useful information or have been written poorly. Also, we’ve recently secured a plagiarism checker that is doing a great job at flagging any plagiarized articles that exist on the site. With the huge effort provided by the eHow content staff and through the utilization of advanced editorial tools, we are definitely cracking down on quality as well as plagiarism.
It is good to know Rich that there is someone looking at quality and such.
I would add that I’ve decided I don’t like people who comment=P They comment just to get people to comment, there must be some use to that, is annoying to get a ton of “Thanks” just so that they get a return “thanks” comment, it isn’t helpful to anyone reading the article at all, not sure what the point of it is.
That is great that you are “cleaning up”. Are you going through editor articles as well Rich? Some of those are worse then your regular writers and far less informative. Hoping to see more informative articles on there soon and less editor fluff.
Great write up Razakius! Keep up the great work.
The fact that ehow allows writers to go straight from writing to “live” has been the biggest problem ehow has. Bypassing any kind of review has allowed tons of poorly written, and inappropriate articles on the site, downgrading the site’s quality and marketability. However, ehow’s current method of deletion without explanation, disabling of accounts without notice, lack of communication with it’s writers and promotion of “editor” articles over member’s articles is changing the entire character of the site. (even tho writers agree to this when they sign on)
What was drawing at home writers is now repelling them. In the end it will make ehow a better site, for readers and “editors”.
The forums are a mess with no moderation to speak of, name calling and drama in nearly every thread. Panic and anger pervade the atmosphere there.
Ehow could have done much better with a wonderful idea and format. Alas, business is business.