Advice on Becoming an About.com Subject Guide

I've written a few times in this blog (most recently here) about the opportunities for freelance writers and editors with the giant About.com website.

For those who don't know, About.com Guides are home-based freelances who take responsibility for a particular content area on the About.com site. Guides are expected to build up 'their' sites by sourcing (and writing) articles, adding links, hosting web-based discussions, and so on.

Payment is based on the advertising revenue generated by your site, but as long as you fulfil the company's requirements they guarantee you will earn a minimum of $725 a month. Maximum earnings are unlimited, based on a percentage of advertising turnover - according to the About.com website, they have some Guides who earn in excess of $100,000 a year. You can see a list of the current vacancies for Guides here.

Anyway, my main reason for writing about this again today is that, via the excellent TrafficJam website, I discovered this blog article on getting a job as an About.com guide, from someone who has actually been through the application process. It's quite short, but if you're thinking of applying for this opportunity (and at an earlier stage in my freelance career it's something I would have seriously considered) there's some very solid advice here.