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My First Week With The $50K Challenge

On February 21, 2010, I set out to earn $50,000 using the Demand Studios system.

My goal for week one was a modest $750. I'm pleased to say I've passed it. Rev share hasn't fully updated yet, however from current records my rev-share articles earned $80 last week with an additional $727.50 coming in from my standard flat-fee articles. The combined total from rev-share and flat-fee published articles comes out to $807.50... before taxes (sigh). During week two, I'll increase my goal to $1,000 per week, which will bring my total at the end of 12 months to just over $50,000.

So why exactly did I set my first week's goal below what I hope will be my average? I'm a big believer that goals should be determined through trial and error. By picking a modest number, I was able to test the amount of time it would take for me to write a large number of articles using the Demand Studios system, and therefore determine how much time I would have to write. I find, on a personal level, that gradually building goals allows me to set my own pace. I also needed to figure out how to balance my Demand Studios time with my own business and blogging duties, which was easier than I had originally thought.

What I noticed most this past week was the number of writers who seemed to be looking for motivation. I've been able to meet a lot of great writers, spend time managing a Facebook fan page, and received over 100 new Twitter followers @Techobsessed. The main response I received from writers was quick thanks for giving them motivation and inquiring what it is that keeps me motivated to achieve my desired goal.

I soon realized that many writers were losing motivation because of the amount of time they spent blindly researching each article. Research time is necessary, but cuts into the article creation process to one article per hour, in some cases even one article every two hours. For all those people, I have four words for you: Google Custom Search Engine. If you aren't using the power of customized searches, you're simple wasting time as you siphon through blacklisted site links and other useless information. The system is rather simple to use and can be found at www.google.com/cse.

I'll attempt a screencast of Google CSE in the coming weeks to show exactly how simple it really is to setup various custom search options. Once you start using Google CSE you'll never look at article researching in the same way again.

I'm going to keep this second post short, partially because I still have a lot of emails to return to my fellow writers and I want to open up the floor to questions from everyone reading this post. What do you want to know about my challenge and freelance writing in general? I'd be happy to offer tips, tricks I've learned as an online content writer, managing editor and content website developer over the years and other information you may want to know the answers to.

Send me your questions via Twitter or directly at James@indyposted.com and I'll incorporate them into my weekly blog posts.

Finally, if you want some extra motivation, join my "jogging team," which is basically a group of fellow writers who have come together to keep each other motivated. Simply tweet your daily article totals to my @techobsessed Twitter account, and send along any daily motivation tips and tricks you've been implementing. Just like exercise, working with a group of people helps all of us keep pace and is a great motivational tool, which I personally use every single day.

So come join the jogging team and let’s have a great 2010 with a team effort.

22 Comments

Hey James!! I am curious as to what your grammar and research scores are, and whether or not you have tips as to how to bring those up or keep them good and still do so much work. Any tips?

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Hi James,

Congrats on this wonderful goal! I'd love to see samples of your articles. Can you provide a link to where we can see at least some of your things (besides this blog of course!)

Thanks and best wishes!
Denise

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As much as I like to think I am good at it, I am a horrible record keeper. I haven't set my goals as a dollar amount before like you are doing, James. This week I am going to try it that way. I have always set my weekly and daily writing goals as an article count and averaging the dollar amount.

I have created a simple tally sheet to use this week to keep track of my total dollar amount earned, I think I like this better.

Eric
Twitter: @leduncan_

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I like what you said about, "...gradually building goals allows me to set my own pace." This is what I've learned too. I actually found that by avoiding the extremes and going for the middle ground earns me more money.

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Thanks for sharing about the Google custom search. Sometimes I wondered if it might be helpful to do all the research for the articles I plan to write in a day, then go back and write, as to not disrupt "the flow" of writing. Have you tried to work this way or are you going one article at a time, researching, then writing? Generally on a good, focused "work day" I can get 5-6 articles written (doing a $15/article calculation it seems you'd have to write an average of 12 articles a day not counting revenue share to make $50k in a year); I feel like I tend to be a perfectionist and take more time than is probably necessary, but agree that research eats up A LOT of time. Can't wait to play with the custom search and see how it improves productivity. Looking forward to learning more about your time saving and productivity tips.

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I would love to see that screencast! Are you picking a variety of titles or do you tend to specialize in one area?

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This is a wonderful goal. I'm going to try it soon.

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Kristy,

I tend to stick to what I know. I have worked in the tech sector for 14 years with a specialty in everything cellular. I think 50% of my articles were about cell phones this week. I even built a Google CSE based just around cellular sites. I also write a lot of basic travel articles such as Hotels In some random small town in Virginia. I have a CSE engine I'm still building that searches all the tourism sites, review tourism sites, etc. I basically stick to what I know or what I know will be very easy to research. I also do a lot of "Side Effects" articles, like "Side Effects of Prozac" since they are very easy to find info on.

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VCDrake, I couldn't agree with you more, I tend to earn more when I try for the middle ground. I think it's because I work more relaxed when not stressed about crazy goals.

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James, thanks for the inspiration! As someone who struggles a bit with research, I am VERY interested to hear your suggestions on how exactly to set up Google Custom Search to efficiently research your articles. Can't wait!

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My First Week With The $50K Challenge

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