How Much Should I Charge for My Articles Making Great Passive Income?

Have you asked yourself WHY they want to end the revenue share after so many years? If your articles are the ONLY thing generating income on the site, why haven't you created your own site where you would have 100% control/income?


What happens after 12 months? What good is $150/article if they don't need more articles? Not sure where you are 'reading' that $4800/month retainer is LOW for a writer but don't know what level of writing this is.


The 'partnership' is strictly the revenue share agreement? Or do you own a share of the site/business? Could it have anything to do with the emergence of A.I.? Do you have a partnership or revenue share agreement in writing? If so, is there a 'buyout' option mentioned in it?


If you accept a one year monthly payout - or a lump sum payout for the year...and give them the copyrights at the end of the year...you have no guarantee of ANY payment after that one year.

Hi, thank you so kindly for responding, it's refreshing to see another perspective.

I have honestly tried to open a website of my own, more than 1,000 super in depth articles but never was able to succeed. People who were experts in SEO copied or reworded my contact beating me in SERPS.

After this ongoing failure, I found that writing on the platform with THE 60/40 revenue model was 80 percent more successful.

I asked them why they are considering discontinuing the 60/40 share and they told me that they prefer to be in control of the content, but I honestly think they are trying to cut costs, firing other writers and sticking to only a few and surviving on this extra revenue. There are chances they may close down this platform at some point and sell the content or transfer it somewhere else.

According to them after the 12 months I will continue writing for them, but of course I don't count on it. I believe they do need more articles, but they just want to make 100 percent themselves and want to do as most other websites do (paying writers upfront) and stop doing revenue share. They expressed that no website do revenue share anymore, which is true.

There is no buyout in the initial contract, it just says I own copyright to the articles. This new contract, if we come to an agreement, will supersede it.

I must also consider that with the advent of AI the platform hasn't been doing very well lately, since April revenue share has decreased, so that adds to my thinking that maybe this may be a good time to sell them my content. It may help them as they earn more and cut costs, and it may help me get something before earnings may take a further tumble.

Nothing lasts forever.

Is this your only source of income? I hope that it is not.

What will happen with the articles you have submitted in the past?

Will you continue earning royalties from those, or will the rights be transferred?




You have many factors to consider and you need to make some serious decisions.

If I were you I would act quickly, like before the weekend.

But, if you feel that you need to get an attorney involved, hire one today.

It's not my only source of income, but for an unfortunate series of events, despite putting the eggs in different baskets, it seems that all the baskets are breaking down at the same time. I will be forced to sell some properties that aren't generating much Airbnb income in the next coming months as I won't be able to likely afford paying for them anymore. People are also not traveling much and there is too much competition in my area.

They want 100 percent revenue share on everything, all articles produced until now and the new ones moving forward which will be paid by commission. The rights for all the past articles will therefore be lost with the new contract. I just sent them my proposal and I am worried what they will answer. When I refused their 2,000 monthly offer, they told me I was welcome to send a counteroffer, so just sent it and hoping we find an agreement because truthfully, I don't think I can do less than that especially after reading that usually you should ask 2 to 3 times more than your annual revenue.

I think you need to separate your previous work from any deal going forward.

Your existing articles have a proven history of generating revenue for the site owners. If they now want to change the original deal but still keep the articles on their site, they need to compensate you for that. The fairest way would be to pay you the equivalent of one or two years' revenue, depending on how much you think the owners can afford and whether the copyright of the articles is going to be of much value to you in future.

But agree this first, and then discuss a payment structure for any new articles.

A is an indefinite article, an' demands soopreme breatha life for nowan to keep throwin' it out there -- spesshly if'n you want audiences to gaze 'pon A article an' go like Yeah.

THE is more perticulah, takes THREE TIMES AS LONG to type out as an A, an' immediately transforms anythin' indefinite into sumthin' singulah, like yanno THE skyscrapah aritcle 'bout HOW to write skyscrapah articles -- eg How To Survive Like A Mole When The Apocalypse Hits -- Evin if You Don't Personally Know Musk, Swift, Senior Cathlicks, or also Batman.

Been a while now since I pumped out caaahntent, but I can say for sure fractions of dollahs per word gonna leaveya strung out in oblivion.

So think MULTIPLES.

Anywan with any kinda subscriptschwaahn readah list is DESPRIT for shit ain't jus' fillah.

Like so many BFs said to Moi, "surely everythin' comes down to the way I sublimely fill your hole!"

Nah.

Mebbe ima bend ovah sum diffrent directschwaahn an' lift muh legs more slectively.

Ok, Lets take it paragraph by paragraph, You've been writing for them "for many years", and you "own the copyright", THIS IS A VALUABLE ASSET.DON'T GIVE IT AWAY.
The 60/40 split is 60% for you, or them, that doesn't really matter if you hold the 'copyright'. The best income you cvan getIS PASSIVE INCOME, ie; continually getting paid for work you've done a long time ago, this is just money in the bank. They want to buy them so they want to buy YOUR 'IP' (intellectual Property rights), this is an extremely valuable asset, not to be laughed at, nor given away. The cost for this should be a LOT OF $.
"and wants to keep hiring me for a paid-per article position", They can actually get ANYONE TO WRITE ARTICLES FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, how long is the term that YOU are the senior writer and YOU GET 1ST OPTION?

"During the initial meeting, they tried to offer me to give away all of my articles to them for free, in exchange for me being hired and being paid $150 per article moving forward."
ARE YOU KIDDING, THEY WANT YOU TO "GIVE" AWAY YOUR OWN WORK?? tHEY'RE TRYING TO ROB YOU. This is so laughable that they must think you are an idiot (no offence). DO NOT 'GIVE THEM ANYTHING"

My articles generate an average of 160 per day, so around 4,800 a month of passive income a month (although some months they make even 5,500 to 8,000), so I am making an average of 58,000 year, while they would make about 97,000 a year if I give up my 60 percent.
Your 'passive income' of $160.00/day is bloody good.....KEEP IT, If you do consider selling it then you want at least 4x the YEARLY INCOME (this is called 'goodwill).(Then you have to look at the TAX cost of such a lump sum)
There are people out there who work 50 to 70 Hrs per week to get that amount.

They came back and are now offering still $150 per article, an hourly rate for reviewing some articles , potential bonuses an yadayadayada and a 2,000 monthly retainer offer for 12 months.

It looks to me that they're going to sell the website with basically no outgoing's, $2000.00 per month thay could cover from the sale price. You also said that this has been going on for 10 years, THEY'RE TRYING TO ROB YOU.
"I am really not too enthusiastic about the upfront payments, etc. as it means working more and losing passive income and we all know how companies may fail, go bankrupt, change rules etc."

YES, They may "roll the company", however YOU OWN THE COPYRIGHT, SO YOUR 'IP' CAN'T BE IN THE BANKRUPTCY OR THE SALE AS YOU OWN IT, NOT THEM. (I use to be an officer in the ITSA) and your right, they can change the "rules" regarding how much they're paying you in about 2 sec's.
Check up on the 'IP' rights you have on the Govt website. Check up on the VALUE OF THE WEBSITE YOUR WRITING FOR! You can do this on the web, the sites will take into accountALL the sites revenue, Advertising, partnership income, ALL AFFILIATE MARKETING INCOME ETC.

NO LINKS in posts - moderator

Go from there, it lookls to me that YOU should start your own site, the same as theirs and take back y
YOUR PROPERTY, They're trying to rob you.
Yes "AI" is in the equation but is so far from writing a 'great' article that I don't think it's a factor in this.
It looks like they're living off your work.
STAND UP FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR INCOME.

Thank you all for the great tips and advice. We are still in the process of negotiating, and I did a counteroffer and now they are planning to pay a little over $2,000 for under 100 of articles, which leaves me with around 1000 articles I can use to eventually build a website. Of course, they want the highest earning articles.

I am thinking this hard and consulting with a legal team who told me that there needs to be some sort of protection for me in case they fail to pay the retainer.

I am also working on building my own website again thanks to your encouragement, this time using WIX (last website used was WordPress, which got always hacked), but I still think I won't succeed much as I am not that great of an SEO expert and nowadays it seems only big companies are able to succeed as they pay loads of money for marketing that most common mortals cannot afford.

I will be updating the articles in hopes of getting some trickles of traffic that way, but I fear that in these past decades many other websites have copied the content and mine will now come up as duplicate in Google's eyes. So may need to do some radical updating which will take time.

Some websites from China, Russia copied loads of them and I never was never able to have them taken down completely. Despite DMCA's they would still be online and they would monetize using different ads than Google and it was impossible to find their hosting company to get them totally removed.

I think it is a very difficult question to answer regarding price, but if you are giving incredible value, ie and offer that someone couldnt really refuse, you could charge a lot, its all about giving value