No the $300+ I made in my first month with Examiner.com was not a false statement, nor was it made with fraud of any sort. The field that I write in is popular. It is a celebrity news Niche and because this is a news site and gets indexed with Google News and many other places online, I received a lot of views.

One of the reason I gained so many readers in such a short amount of time was that I wrote a news article comparing two pop singers. The fans on both sides came to the website and their love/hate relationship turned into gold for my Celebrity page. In fact, when the celebrity news is particularly hot I can see $80 to over $100 a day from my Examiner page from all the people who have seen post on news sites.

However, I’m not saying Examiner is perfect or that everyone who joins will make tons of money right away or ever. I have online writing friends who took months to get enough money to reach the minimum $25 payout.

Either they did not write very often or they write for a small niche.

Certain pages on Examiner are very profitable. For instance, the Twilight Examiner rakes in hundreds and sometimes well over $1000, yes I said over $1000 a day.

Furthermore, I was surprised to receive another $400 when 8 fellow writers decided to try Examiner and used me/my site as a reference (Referrals are $50 each).

However, I would not want to write for Twilight/Harry Potter type pages because when the movie/actors fall out of favor, your left with a dead site.

I was very excited to see that kind of pay my first month on Examiner alone. I was not trying to brag, exaggerate or lie to anyone here. I was simply giving information for those who were thinking about signing up.

I think this is false, and if not, I would like some insight into how this person has gleaned so much money from Examiner. In this person’s FIRST MONTH, when they have absolutely no readership, they made $300? How is this possible? What market do you write for? To compare, since the beginning of this month (it’s been half a month, so extrapolate), I have made $3.31. I don’t have an incredible amount of page views, but it is still 50 over the average for my area (a major media market; Long Island, NY). I know that I need to write more articles, I have been working with Examiner for about a month myself, and have to adapt my style, as I tend toward longer, more in-depth pieces (this type of writing is not conducive to making money for Examiner). However, there is QUITE a difference between $7 and the $300 this person has claimed to make in her FIRST month. Even as a National Examiner with a HOT topic/field, I simply don’t see this happening. If somehow it did, THIS IS NOT THE NORM (unless perhaps click fraud is involved).

To those that are thinking of making money for Examiner, it can happen (to some degree), but don’t expect it to pay the bills. I started with Examiner (and also recently got accepted for Suite101) with the hopes of building up a writing resume and “getting my name out there,” not to make money. It is virtually impossible to break into print with no published experience, thus Examiner and Suite101. Also, if you want to make money with Examiner, pick a field that is much more generalized and popular. I work in an extremely niche market (Heavy Metal Music; Long Island Heavy metal music), and there simply aren’t that many people searching for the things I write about. However, it is what I love, and gives me the credentials to approach a band and actually get them to do an interview with me or a review or whatever. Examiner is also working to get press credentials for their writers so they can attend events for free (for me that would be concerts, festivals, etc.); obviously a huge perk that makes you forget that you are literally writing for pennies.

So I’d tell writers to write for Examiner (or Suite101) for the experience, to build up a resume and put out published work, not necessarily to make money. I am glad that some of you who have been writing for Examiner for a while are doing well with the residuals and such, I am looking forward to that in the future.

I don’t like that you don’t get to know what articles are preforming better than others.