Helium's new upfront policy to go into effect next month

Not to sound like a sour grape, but there are just so many changes in Helium that I dislike that I totally stop writing for the site. It is a great site, I believe for others, but personally, I have sour feelings for it.

Hi Ddhawkins, this will not work. I hope within a few months, the management of Helium will wake up. By forcing people to write to articles with 5 or fewer titles will hurt the writing score very much. In a title with 5 articles, the first article is obviously 100%, the second article is 80%, and the third article is 60%. Unless a writer can consistently make it to the top 2, the writing score will spiral downhill. The worst being the first person to write to an empty title that will become popular. Usually the first writer will drop to the last ranking. I'm not happy with the changes as well. I think I will concentrate on niche topic till they change the payment for upfront again. Actually I would prefer that they pay higher upfront, and demand exclusive rights. In this case, Helium benefits and we, writers, can earn more.

I was quite surprised to see this myself. I am probably less effected than a lot of people because I like to write to more obscure titles in the art and literature sections. I think it's discouraging to people to change the rules, however, and I can understand how many people would not be happy with the result. I'm guessing that they are doing this to help fill in on those titles that have just a single article. It's hard enough to find empty titles these days, I think...do you have trouble with that as much as I do? I've got a lot of writing invested in Helium, but I've started to do more over at Associated Content these days. And I keep meaning to try Daily Article, but never seem to have the time.

I thought forcing people to rate to get paid for their own work was enough of a cheap shot.

I won't know how the change will affect me until I see my earnings for July, but I am quite excited by the change. I shall look forward to seeing how the system actually works after the 25th. I think the new system does make Helium more competitive, but Helium has always been a competitive site for writers. Writing for Helium is challenging. This time last year there was no such thing as an upfront payment, all we got was revenue share. Starred writers and raters could get additional payments from rewardathon articles and a small monthly stimulus bonus. I hope this will generate a lot more good new titles to write to. Daily earnings could be even better from writing to smaller topics and newer titles, even if there are more than 5 articles before I submit mine.

Since last month I cannot log in anymore to Helium, I don't know why. Its policy is confusing because members are compel to comment and rate, which I hated.

Helium pretty much sucks, I never really got into them much. Seems like too much work for not enough gain. Indexing sucks at Associatedcontent but you get paid when you DO get hits. You also don't have to jump through hoops to advance in their ratings.

How I feel is this, I recently went through the empty titles and realized there were a lot of titles I could write to if I had the time (some require a little research) and be able to be the first because no one was interested in them. There are some titles I have seen sitting there for weeks and weeks like the last one I wrote to (movies for people who hate Valentines Day). When I first signed up at helium it was a little frustratring figuring it out and getting the hang of it. Once I started to earn it got a little exciting, but hte amounts haven't been significant enough to make an impact in my monthly budget. I look at helium as something I can build up to that will provide me with a little pocket change each month down the road once I get enough articles posted on topics people are actually inrerested in reading about or actively researching. The upfront payments are great, but unless there are going to be hundreds of titles for me to write to (I am still the only one in all the ones I wrote to first) and I can do at least two a day, the few little dollars upfront payments would bring in ($5 so far plus the rating bonus) are not that much for me to get emotional over one way or another. As far as your situation goes, I would say diversify. I have seen some very interesting articles from different perspectives of what to do and not do when submitting articles to helium and some of it has been helpful, but it really comes down to whether you are trying to write to titles in all channels and maximize your income or whether you are a niche writer who only focuses on certain kinds of articles. I am still learning the lay of the land at helium and I really hope to see it build to something, but I am not holding my breath.

That would probably bother me a little but it pushes you to be more creative and original you won't see as many post titled the same probably which is a good thing