Helium Upfront Payments
By Canellita
@Canellita (12029)
United States
June 1, 2009 12:28pm CST
What a nice surprise! Today is June 1 so I wanted to check to see if I had been successful in gaining the monthly rating bonus and lo and behold my account balance had increased by $8!!!!!
I did not realize I would also get a monthly upfront payment. I have no idea what this is for though and I don't have time to research it today so I am hoping some of my myLot writing friends will be able to enlighten me as to what the upfront payments are and how they work.
This is actually kind of exciting after getting off to a frustrating start with helium!
1 person likes this
3 responses
@scheng1 (24649)
• Singapore
2 Jun 09
Hi Canellita, that's great. I check your profile in Helium just now, congratulations on getting your 2 writing stars and 5 rating stars. In this case you will earn $1 upfront payment per article submitted in certain categories.
Are you able to reach $25 in Helium? That is the minimum payout.
Did you earn the $3 rating bonus as well?
You are doing better than me in Helium, I lost the bonus writing star. Now the writing score is only 84%. Fortunately I did not submit too many articles in April, so the earning was not badly affected.
1 person likes this
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
2 Jun 09
Well, you encouraged me to stick with it so I did. 
I did indeed get the rating bonus and last night I wrote to two more empy titles. With any luck I just might reach the minimum for payout by the end of the month.
My most recent article was on movies for people who hate Valentines Day, ha ha! I guess now I will have to go back and submit four to competititive titles. The last time I checked the writing score it was in the 80's but most of the articles I have submitted are still ranked well so I guess that is something.
I did indeed get the rating bonus and last night I wrote to two more empy titles. With any luck I just might reach the minimum for payout by the end of the month.
My most recent article was on movies for people who hate Valentines Day, ha ha! I guess now I will have to go back and submit four to competititive titles. The last time I checked the writing score it was in the 80's but most of the articles I have submitted are still ranked well so I guess that is something.@scheng1 (24649)
• Singapore
2 Jun 09
Hi Canellita, once again, congratulations!
You are doing even better than me! I think your articles are in niche area that are hard to dethrone, that's why you can keep bonus writing star.
Anyway I paid for my laziness, can't reach payout with just 4 articles.
1 person likes this
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
3 Jun 09
Well, I think I am up to 19 articles now and I have another one in progress. Sometimes I can complete two in a day and sometimes it takes days to get two paragraphs.
I feel I am starting to see the potential for it to pay off, I just need to figure out what titles I can write to that are relevant to what information people are actually performing searches online for.
@Jemina (5770)
•
4 Jun 09
BrAva! Keep up the good work.
Meanwhile, I have been with Helium for like two years but never really wrote anything until last month. At first I was overwhelmed with the ratings. I was chickened. I felt that I was not good enough as a writer. But then I had tried ezine articles and they accepted my write-ups. So when I saw someone talk about Helium here on myLot I felt encouraged again.
1 person likes this
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
5 Jun 09
Thank you.
The rating was a bit much for me in the beginning because I truly didn't feel I had the time. I can see why it is important for everyone to participate though, and the fact they give out a bonus is helpful.
I also felt writing to "competitive" titles was a waste of time until I saw some of what already existed and realized I could do better. Having the articles online is also helpful in promoting your writing since you can give links to writing samples.
@sierras236 (2739)
• United States
1 Jun 09
Sorry, I didn't see this earlier. The upfront payments are based on your star ratings and your contribution of articles. Empty titles are a $1 upfront pay. Marketplace contributions depend on star ratings. It is a once a month thing so especially before the end of the month it pays to get the stars up. I am not sure of the exact amount in relationship to the stars. I would have to look that up.
1 person likes this
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
2 Jun 09
Thanks for shedding some light on this! I had my suspicions but it is nice to find out for sure.
