Daily Two Cents Review: Earn from Writing

We’re all budding writers. Or at least we think we are. But not everyone realizes that there are good avenues in which to express ourselves. Avenues that pay, that is.

Content mills are one area worth considering, and once I’ve dipped my toe into this space I’ll be happy to report back. One site I have spent a lot of time on though is Daily Two Cents. In fact, it was my first proper dabble with trying to make some money online.

DTC, as it likes to term itself, is essentially all about giving you the opportunity to give your “two cents” to the world on an array of subject matters in as little as 100 words. It’s like an online magazine with you, the man or woman on the street, being the author of the articles. I’m also grouping its sister site, Writedge, into this explanation – essentially, it’s the same kind of site only the articles are intended to be longer and the subject matters are less tabloid.

How do you make money? Essentially, the more views that your articles receive the more you can earn. As long as you have a PayPal account you’ll be able to get paid.

So how does it stack up?

Good bits:

• You can earn money from writing. Maybe you’re not a budding Shakespeare but once you’ve had a few articles accepted you can start making money. Those with a decent niche (e.g. entertainment news) and a good social media following seem to do reasonably well out of the site. You can also make money by putting affiliate links into your articles and hoping people will buy products that way.
• Passive income opportunity. One of the things that appealed most to me was the fact that once my articles were on the site they could continue to earn money long after I’d posted them. Passive income is very important as a concept to me, and having written more than 200 articles on the site I hope to continue to make money from these “assets”, simply by promoting some of the more “evergreen” articles (e.g. "How to Boil an Egg") through my social media accounts.
• The administrators are helpful. You don’t always get site administrators that are transparent and happy to engage in conversation. Some can be openly hostile. But I’ve found the administrators here to be very keen on creating a community and are generally happy to engage in conversation.

Challenges:

• Became tougher to monetize in the last six months. I must admit  that when I first tried it out a year ago I was putting in a lot of time, writing a few articles each day and making a few dollars hear and there. My very best month came to about $30. Unfortunately, those were the good old days. My passive income is currently down to a trickle (apologies, no payment proof screen available at the moment but it is quite small), though admittedly I haven’t written on there in a long while and don’t promote my articles that often. The site works on a revenue sharing model, whereby their ability to pay you is fundamentally driven by advertising fees brought in. It seems that they were paying out too much last year and had to revise their payout ratios.  You can still make money on the sites, but it’s not going to be as easy as last year. Still, there are writers on there that are doing reasonably well out of the site, making more than my $30 high watermark on a monthly basis.

Take a look at the site. If nothing else, it will add something to your portfolio of earning options. And this may well be exactly what you’re looking for to start that writing career.