The downside of Helium.com for writers

I have been indulging a bit in creative writing for years now, mostly unpublished works, and one day I was posting a new article on my blog, www.rnonline.blogspot.com, and I came upon a Google Ad for Helium. I had never heard of this company before, and although we are not supposed to click on our own Google ads, just this once, I did so. So began my learning experience on Helium. Hopefully, this article will serve to answer some questions about the downside of Helium.com for writers.

I registered that day and thought, great, maybe finally, I will be recognized for the great author/poet that I am! Maybe this will be the answer to making a little extra revenue so that I don't have to work so darn hard! Yeah, right. I posted about 7 or 8 poems on the site that day and then decided that I would reply to one of the publishers requests for writing on a topic. It only paid $20, but I thought, what the heck, it's a start and maybe that certain publisher will like me, and history would be made! Again, just a pipe dream! I have many!

What they do not tell you when you start writing for these so called requests on Helium, is that many other people have also written on the same topic and the publisher picks who they like the best. So, I proceeded to research material on this stupid article about the name Michael, for about 4 hours. I had a great story to tell about the name, came up with a clever introduction, had a well thought out and organized template for the meat and potatoes of the story and a strong conclusion. I thought great, 4 hours work, now I will get paid $20. Hey, that is a pizza and a six-pack. At least it is better than nothing, right? WRONG.....as soon as I submitted the article, about 24 other articles appeared on the exact same topic and mine ended up being #13 amongst them! I was appalled that I spent that much time, on that one article, and now was most likely not even going to get recognized by the publisher. Unbearably, I was sure that that there were many other more witty banterings about the name Michael, above and beyond mine. Which, thus far, has proven correct.

Another thing that really bothered me about Helium, was that on that particular day, as I stated previously, I submitted about 7 or 8 poems, some of my best poems, in my opinion. Although I am no Shakespeare, I am slightly interesting and deserve some sort of monitary recognition for my contribution of my material to these people....and I was lead to believe by their ad that THIS IS WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. So, I did expect something, even if it were only a couple of bucks. Much to my dismay, however, when I clicked on to the earnings page after a couple of days, I HAD ONLY EARNED 0.02.....THAT IS TWO CENTS FOLKS! At this point, I was just so frustrated and literally insulted, that I had to exit the site, stage right, just to breathe again!

So, the moral of the story, here, is.......read all the information about the site before you start to post there, especially if there is money involved. Also, keep your expectations low. Making money online is not easy. If you do not have patience and perserverance, you will not succeed. I have yet to earn the big bucks in these types of venues, heck, not even the little ones, but it is a relatively new venture for me and I know if I keep trying, I will succeed, eventually. I hope that this hub has helped in some way clear up any misconception you may have about Helium.com. I learned the hard way and hopefully I have helped you to avoid the same mistakes.