WeekendNotes is a community of writers who contribute ideas, events, and reviews to a library of weekend activities for everyone to enjoy.
Did you do anything fun or interesting on the weekend? Enjoy a good cafe or restaurant? Discovered a fantastic picnic spot? Stumbled upon a great walk? Why not share it with our readers?
In return for sharing your weekend activities on WeekendNotes, writers receive a number of benefits:
1) Work your way up the writer rankings, and get free invites to film and theatre openings, restaurants and other fun activities such as paintball, bungee jumping, or interesting tours.
2) Writers are paid. Make money reviewing the fun things you do on the Weekend. How good is that?
3) Get exposure. Many writers are offered more work as a result of having their articles seen on WeekendNotes. It also looks great on your resume.
4) Promote your business. Writers are able to forgo payment in return for advertising space next to their articles which they can use to promote their local business. It's a great way to get free advertising if you have a tight budget.
5) Looking for residual income through AdSense? Forgo regular payment in return for having your AdSense ads displayed next to your articles.
Well written ideas with good formatting, spelling, and grammar will be given more prominence.
Try to describe your idea without using over-the-top promotional language.
Do not use exclamation marks!! or ALL-CAPS.
Including an image with your idea will help attract more attention.
Ideas should be leisure related. Promoting an event, restaurant, or fashion sale is fine. Promoting a car dealership or cleaning service is not.
Just about any activity that can be enjoyed on the weekend qualifies, as long as most people can enjoy it.
Many ideas take the form of reviews. For example a review of your favourite restaurant or cafe, a museum, a movie, a paintball company, a nice walk, a secluded beach etc.
They can also take the form of instructions, such as how to make the best chocolate cookies, or how to make a kite, or a homemade frisbee.
The main point is that other people should be able to use the information in your article to enjoy the same activity.
There are various payment options which can be selected on an article's "advanced options" form, and it can be a little complicated at first. If in doubt select "Upfront" payment and once you're familiar with the system try experimenting with some of the other options.
Some cities are limited to CPM and Super Rank only.
The default payment type is CPM for new articles (depending on the city). To change an article's payment type click on the Advanced Options link on its preview page.
Once an article has been published the payment type cannot be changed.
Payment options include Upfront, CPM (payment per 1000 views), Monthly x2 (higher payment, not upfront), or Super Rank (increase your Writer Rank to get free tickets, vouchers etc). Details below:
How to apply for a paid writer account.
Upfront
Upfront article payments reflect the quality and the popularity of your writing with a minimum amount guaranteed when an article is accepted for publication.
In addition there is a 30% bounty for certain priority subjects (listed here).
Typical payment amounts per article:
USA: $3.00 to $20 USD
UK: £2.00 to £14 GBP
Australia: $3.00 to $20 AUD
So the maximum typical payment for an article would be $26 (including a 30% bounty) or $52 on Monthly x2. The average upfront payment is currently around $10.
Very popular writers may now earn more than this as the cap on upfront payment articles has been lifted to around $90.
Find out how upfront payments are calculated here.
Monthly x2
Monthly payments are calculated in the same way as Upfront payments, however the total amount is multiplied by 2 and spread out monthly over 24 months. This is currently the most popular payment choice.
Receive double the pay for each article in return for spreading payment over a longer period. This is more in line with how an article generates advertising revenue, helping us with cash flow, which is why we can offer the higher rate.
The first monthly payment for an article will appear on your account straight away, with the remainder being added monthly thereafter.
CPM - payment per 1000 page views
Recurring commissions (called CPM) continue to be paid as long as the article remains on the website and are paid in proportion to the number of people who have read the article (called page views).
Build up a collection of articles to increase your page views and recurring commission.
Maximum commissions are specified per 1000 page views:
USA: $10 USD
UK: £6 GBP
Australia: $10 AUD
The actual CPM rate is determined by multiplying the maximum rate by each article's quality score (given by the editor) out of 10.
The length of an article is also taken into account, as well as a CPM bonus (similar to the upfront bonus) of $2 for topics on the bounty list.
So if an article received a score of 7/10, had a length of 2100, and attracted a bonus then the CPM rate would be:
($5 x 7/10) + ($5 x 2100/2500) + $2 = $9.7 CPM
Super Rank
Forgo payment in return for a higher ranking on WeekendNotes which can be used to obtain free tickets, meals, tours, and vouchers in exchange for a review.
Any general offers are sent to the top 20 writers in the relevant city and are awarded to the writer with the highest rank to register an interest.
Many businesses also send invites to specific writers, usually those with a higher rank.
Page views for Super Rank articles count ten times as much towards writer rank than regular articles. Click here to find out how rank is calculated.
Highlight the text you want to turn into a link, and click on the link icon (small globe) above the content box.
Click on the image icon above the content box and follow the instructions to upload an image.
You can position the image with the text by cut-and-pasting the resulting image code.
If the image has been uploaded directly from a camera consider shrinking it before uploading (and/or convert to jpeg format), especially if you have a slow internet connection.
Your advertising share is based on the number of people who've read your articles. Currently $5 per thousand unique page views.
Popular events can attract many thousands of page views, and popular activities which can be enjoyed all year (e.g. a beach, restaurant, or picnic spot) can accrue thousands of views over a number of months or years.
Try building up a library of popular activity ideas which will continue to attract a large number of views over time.
You can see how much you've earned so far on your writer page (link at the bottom of the page).
Request payment once your share goes over $50 (or GBP) by clicking on the "Request Payment" link on your writer page.
Payment is by PayPal, or EFT (bank transfer) for Australian residents.
Informative and entertaining writers may be invited to join the WeekendNotes writing team.
You'll then have the option of submitting ideas for upfront payment as well as advertising share.
Upfront payments are set so that productive writer's will be able to earn around $20 per hour (or equivalent GBP).
If you would like advice from the editor on how to get an article up to standard leave a comment to this effect underneath the article on your writer's page (click on "view" and use the comment box at the bottom of the page).
Before doing that however, please have a good look at other articles which have been published on the weekendnotes.com domain to get an idea of format and style.
You bet.
Try to write a review rather than an advert. Avoid ad-copy words like amazing, fantastic, and stupendous. Don't praise anything too much as readers will just think you're giving it a plug.
Don't use exclamation marks! They are a curse on the written word.
Check your spelling and grammar.
Include useful links in your idea text.
Include images with your idea, but don't break copyright. Wikipedia is a good source of copyright free images, or take them yourself.
Do not breach copyright. Always use italics and quotation marks when appropriate and attribute. For instance:
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From the Festival Website:
"The interesting and informative quote"
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Using Google it is very easy to check for copyright breaches. If in doubt ask first.
WeekendNotes assumes copyright of material submitted for publication, mainly to help us stop other people from copying your work, but also to assist in our plans for world domination.
We encourage readers to promote events or businesses which they are involved in, as long as they are leisure related.
The biggest mistake made in this regard is using over-the-top promotional language.
Describing your event or business in a factual way will more likely result in your article being approved.
Be sure to check your spelling and grammar, format the text properly, and include an attractive image.
Please do not use exclamation marks!!! or ALL-CAPS.