Two articles in just over two hours!  

Maybe I misunderstood. I thought sure the site said in order to start earning you have to get a rating star by submitting four articles.

You have to have a rating star to earn and probably write four articles. I don't know what there rules are now they have changed them so much. I have a rating star although it is getting ready to disappear. The writing star seems to be out of my grasp. I had one for a couple of days I should have printed the screen. LOL I am an AC fan so my concentration is there. I seem to be doing really well. Everyone says it's just what works best for you. I would like both of them to work for me. lol

I went back and read helium's rating and badges section and frankly I find them to be full of you know what. Rather than see all my effort wasted I went back and added three more articles that were "competitive" and now I'll wait and see what happens.

It really bugs me that this system is based on other people reading and rating your work. It's not as if the reader can rate the article, it has to be done through the random system that helium has and who knows how long it would take for your article to come up or how often other writers sit and rate. I mean who has time for that?

Supposedly your articles start in the middle and as they read your article is placed. If someone else writes an article in that category then the articles are rated again. I had one article in a really good spot until one person wrote an article three weeks later and then they reranked them. What makes me so mad is does anyone even read the articles when ranking. I know I SKIM them so it's not unfair to say other people probably just push the button under one or the other. That's why I like AC so much. Noone HAS to rate the article and people will read and comment at their leisure. Guess I'm not much for luck I just want honesty.

I was thinking about this just this morning as I was rating articles. Sometimes I have to read them very carefully just to understand them and sometimes I am able to skim and I wonder how many people actually are reading and how many are skimming and how many just randomly click a rating to insure they maintain their own rating and writing stars.

That's kinda the way I feel that maybe people are just clicking on something to keep their own stars intact. The rating star is the one that Helium makes you keep for payment and they force you to rate articles. Why can't you choose the articles you rate? If I read articles on AC it's because I am interested in them and genuinely care. On Helium it's because I have to. Do you really want me rating your article if I feel like I have been forced into it?

I would prefer to rate the articles I read an find valuable. I hate having to rate articles about gaming consoles and things that are of absolutely no interest to me.

Totally agree with rating articles you are interested in. I like to read things just because it may give me ideas for another article or I might actually learn something through this thick skull of mine. LOL

Well, I guess I am doing something right there since I finally got the rating star.

Yeah!!! I am still losing and gaining writing stars. I had a writing star for another day and it was taken away. SOOO SAD. Helium just isn't working for me. I'm still doing some on AC though. I'm certainly not going to say that's doing great though. It's just okay.

So how are you and helium getting along these days?

HEHEHE.HAHAHA. Did I mention rolling on floor laughing? That's funny.

I don't want to talk about it. I'm still at my dad's so I'm not writing, but I haven't improved any at Helium. As for AC I am getting a little more page views and such. I haven't written there for awhile either.

I hope to spend some time at AC during the period while I am off from teaching.

I'm hoping to spend some time on the computer in a couple of weeks after the kids go to school and I clean the house and have a yardsale. LOL No rest for the vacationer.

Tell me about it. I finally got a refrigerator and I have been rearranging my space and now I have to find a home for my new printer which means a semipermanent home for my computer...

I still need shelves and cabinets and...

OMG you do have a lot of arranging to do.

I meant to tell you I wrote an article for the easter basket title and submitted it to AC first. They didn't take it because it didn't differ enough from other articles (titles). Anyway, I never did put the article in Helium. I thought I had but I just went through my titles looking and couldn't find it. I'm not going to submit it now because of the timing and because it would just hurt my % again. I hate these stupid writing criterias. LOL

Actually, the timing is better than you think. I submitted an Easter basket article to an empty title and it actually earned a few pennies even though it was after Easter!

Right now though I am concentrating all holiday articles on Halloween and Xmas. If there is an empty title I will post to it no matter what season it has to do with because it will be there in the future already and it helps my writing score in the meantime if I am 1 of 1 or at the top for however many articles there are.

I did that with one of the "Best Cheap Christmas Gifts For" articles. I can't remember what the other one was ranked at but it was at least 2 or 3.

Even my article on movies for people who hate Valentines Day has had a few hits. I did that one a few weeks ago.

It sounds like you are doing something write since you have writing stars. I think your strategy is paying off. That's good to be writing about Halloween and Christmas. I guess it would certainly help writing scores and you will make the most money as it gets closer to the season. I may have to try that because I have a lot of easter and christmas stuff. Mostly on who to buy what for, lol.

You should go to the title finder and type in the word Easter and choose the hobbies and games channel and then craft subchannel and see what happens. You will get more results if you don't restrict yourself to empty titles. Once you see the results you can sort the list based on number of existing articles or title creation date.

I always sort for title date because there are some titles that have been sitting empty since '07 which lets you know you won't likely be competing with someone else to get the empty title bonus.

Also I would go under relationships and family and use the same keyword and do another title search. You'll likely find titles about dealing with relatives or holiday dinners or gifting or what have you.

Even if writing ahead of time about holidays doesn't bring you a lot of page views initially you will have the upfronts and title bonuses on the first which helps you get to payout faster.

I need all the help I can get to get to pay out on Helium. For over a year I only have $6.80. Somewhere in there. Isn't payout $20 or $25? I will never make it at this rate. Would like to get my AC articles moved to Helium as well. I don't know when I will find the time to do that. I am still trying to get some articles written for AC. Need some money for chocolate. LOL

The minimum for payout is $25. It took me two months to get there once I started earning. (It took a month to earn just one penny!) My upfronts in June and the rating bonus and empty title bonus all together must have been around $8. July was much better I think it was more like $15. I think I can at least do a payout every two months with helium. At the very least.

Wow that is incredible that you can make payout every other month. I haven't made $8 total from Helium yet. LOL I make more than that on page views a month at AC. I was hoping to get the same from Helium but I haven't put as many articles on Helium. I guess if I ever get the chance to transfer articles it will certainly be in my best interest. LOL Maybe I can double my earnings.

I know I need to rate articles or I am going to lose my rating star. Is the rule still in effect that you have to have a rating star to get payout? I have a long time to worry about that. I get so confused when they send the update emails. I'm not sure if all the old guidelines are still in effect. Then I go to their websites and I read the guidelines but I don't see any new ones.

I guess I better go to Dr. Pearl for my eyes again. I've been in the dark cave too long.

You have to start rating and here is your incentive: $3 rating bonus!

That's right, when you rate 500 articles you receive a $3 rating bonus with the following month's upfront payments! Also, you have to remember that upfronts aren't based on the ranking of your articles, although you do have to have a few writing stars to get better upfronts. And empty title bonuses are easy enough to get if you know how to search smart for titles.

I will have to look and see what channels and topics you have written to already.

Good GRIEF! 500 articles $3. Tell me your kidding. That's an incentive? I'm not sure I can rate that much in two months! No wonder no one gets any writing done if they are rating articles all the time. LOL

It is a lot easier than you think. Go to your My Helium page and look at your stats. Beneath your writing stars/score you will see your rating stats. Look at the number for rates in the last 30 days and if the number is really low make it a goal to spend a little extra time rating until you have 5 stars.

Once you have those stars you will almost always have them. It only takes a few seconds to rate articles. You could rate dozens in the time it takes you to respond to a couple of myLot discussions!

The $3 rating bonus could help put you over the finish line when trying to reach payout and when you are rating articles you will get new ideas and find titles you can easily write to and potentially improve your writing score.

I joined helium in March of this year. The first month I didn't do much so we can't even count that. I didn't really become active until May and from then til now I've posted 59 articles, most of them in June and July. My writing score is above 95% and I don't even get to work on articles every day.

You have 27 articles so you should have at the very least two writing stars to give you $1 in upfronts plus any bonuses from empty titles. I noticed you are 1 of 1 for a number of your articles and you need to get a few more of those posted so you can improve your writing score.

That's my beef too. I think I should have at least one writing star by now. LOL

I have two rating stars because of my rates in the last 90 days. For the last 30 days I haven't rated many articles. I did most of my rates before I went to my dad's because I knew I wouldn't be able to do much there.

I will have to try to find some empty titles to write to so I can get those elusive writing stars. I have a lot of articles that would be good to transfer to Helium from AC, I just don't have the time. LOL

Maybe I will be able to write a couple of articles today for ac that can be transferred. I have a few setting in que for them now.

I keep saying I need to do a few unique ones for AC. I guess after the 25th I will focus on helium less and try and do some stuff for AC. I am still bummed about the video thing :-(

I can completely understand that. I think I would be bummed too. I would have thought they would have set it up so just about any camera would work on the video side unless it is top end, professional quality. You did say you've been doing some editing....

Here's the rub...

I can use the software that came with the camera to edit multiple video clips into one longer clip but I can't edit anyone clip down shorter. I can use windows movie maker to edit but I can't save it in the proper file format. I can use My DVD plus to edit and put in all kinds of effects but I can only save it as a DVD file.

The whole thing was making me crazy so I am just going to take new video that is only 10 or 12 seconds. I amy also experiment with the image quality settings on the camera.

If you can get the image settings down that might free up enough space to put the movie on ac. I think in windows you can also lower pixels or dpi or something. I don't think I have that program. I bet that's enough to drive you crazy. I will see you in a padded cell on visitation day. LOL I'll probably be next door to you.

I purposely left the camera at home today because I wanted to leave the SD card in the reader and I didn't have time to look for a blank card this morning before heading out.

I am still waiting for my mechanic and thinking that if I had my camera... I never go anywhere without it anymore! I feel weird if I don't have it with me!

lol. So you feel naked. I wonder what the mechanic will say. LOL If you are going back to the mechanics, maybe you should do a film on how to fix something if he will let you film him. I am fairly certain there isn't any video on ac about that except maybe from the professionals - 5min and grab network.

What are you clairvoyant? We had that very discussion when we met up. I was talking to him about setting up a blog of car stuff and adding videos while he was changing the lenses. He also does home repair/maintenance stuff and we had talked about me editing some video footage of work he has done.

Oooh! The other machine just popped out the Aquarium video. Took two hours to burn a six 1/2 minute video to DVD!

Oh my GOSH! You must have a nice video camera that records high dpis or whatever they are. You know, what makes the picture so nice and clear. LOL I think the guy would help you with some video footage for ac. Tell him it might help you to pay for his services. LOL

My old camera died the week before Jazz Fest! You would have to live here to understand that for a music scene connected person that is a really big deal. My other half is still quite active and I really needed my camera!

Well we went looking and we didn't get anything in time but my mom loaned me one of hers. Right after the fest we found something nice around $200 with 12 MP and video. It takes great pix and the video is crystal clear! Looks great on the computer as well as on the tv when I burn it to DVD.

I took some 10 sec video when I was in Mississippi today I am going to see what the file sizes are like for those since I have not figured out how to change the image quality in the camera yet.

I hope it works. I haven't tried our camera yet. I hate fooling with the video part of it. There are so many buttons and I just know if I touch something it will take a week or longer to figure out what I did and how to undo it. LOL

Tell me about it! MyLot has totally helped kick my brain back into gear! I am good with the first few sentences and sometimes even the first couple paragraphs and then the challenge begins, lol. I have a list of "in progress" items in my computers articles folder.

What was the article about?

You are certainly keeping busy! I went from very few to almost a dozen on helium overnight after I realized I had to post competing articles. What a drag! Who wants to reinvent the wheel? I found a few things I realized I had something to say about and I guess now I am finally eligible for a frigging writing star. (Sigh)

Yes there is. I will send you a link.

Oddly enough I find that when I start from scratch my ideas come in fragments and when I find a helium title that already has articles to contribute to I sometimes am able to crank out one of my own fairly quickly.

I have my moments

I have been taking to heart the tips in your articles and Scheng1's and I've started posting more competitive articles and spending more time rating. I am pleased to see one of my articles rose up in rank very quickly so I guess there is a benefit to writing to titles that have articles in them already after all.

What kind of articles do you and your clients look for?

Why Rajib, what would make you think I get irritated with you when we have never even met?

I think sometimes this internet based communication is misleading since people often have an emotional reaction to what they read but can not always gauge the emotional intent behind words that are not spoken orally.

I think it is even more difficult when people from different cultures and especially when they speak different languages because there is a greater possibility of misinterpretation. Your English usage is different from mine so at times we are not always communicating as well but I think for the most part it works.

Thanks for the writing compliment!

He he canellita, I was just kidding lol. Yeah the English usage makes some difference but I feel as I am an English Language and Linguistic teacher I should not have that problem of usage since we come across different usage while teaching and reading in the college.