Image by casasroger via FlickrI often have people ask me (or theoretically would have them ask me, if I knew anyone who cared enough about it), "Josh, how do I make a truckload of money with Associated Content? I know this farmer's housewife who makes billions of dollars per month on AC, yet I still can't figure out how she does it." Well, my scarecrow-headed friend, you're in luck. Let me explain exactly how to make the most money possible on Associated Content.
1. Article Spam, Article Spam, Article Spam: Remember, you don't get paid if people read your article, like your articles, recommend your articles to others, or even find anything useful in your articles. You get paid if they clickon your articles. So, what do you do to ensure that people click on your articles more? Well, you could just write better articles (laughs anyone?). But, that takes time and effort. Instead, what you should do (and what most people on AC do) is to just write more articles. Write articles about everything: your clothes, your dog, your kids, how to pick a lock, video games you've never played before, your mom, and lots of other things that you have no expertise about. If someone calls you out on what you've written, just remember: you don't know that bozo. Even if your advice is nothing more than to go and read a book about the subject (i.e. the article on lock picking) or long citations courtesy of Wikipedia (about 1/2 of the other articles on AC), you still get paid. Remember, to paraphrase T.S. Elliot (or whoever -- for an AC article I'm too lazy to look it up), "Good writers borrow, great writers steal, and AC writers spit stolen articles from a fire hose").
2. Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, spelling, citations: Anything that slows you down in your article writing is generally not your friend. Remember: you need cash, not kudos. If someone wants correct grammar, they ain't gonna get it. If they want punctuation,,,, tell them - to * date; a friggin' English teacher. If they want spalling, well, to bed. Citations? Really, citations? You're the world expert in this field (for all they know) -- you can claim anything you want! If all else fails, just point to rumor and vague innuendo. If it an article about Japan, just remind everyone how the people there eat to much rice and wear samurai armor to work. If they disagree or try to cite "authority" to disprove you, what do they know? Besides, you get paid anyway.
3. If all else fails, just write nonsense: You really only have to write 300 words to keep "the man" at AC off your back. Remember, it's your article and you can write about what you want -- even if it's not what "the man" wants you to write the article about. "The man" can go write his own articles if he wants them written so badly.
I hope that this helped. If it did and you do make billions, give me half.
