The Payout Chronicles: jenblacksheep gets her first AdSense check

Just last week, jenblacksheep made an exciting announcement in the forums- that after 18 months of diligent Hubbing on HubPages, she had finally earned her first AdSense payout!  As jenblacksheep can tell you, it takes patience to keep on Hubbing while waiting for traffic to build and AdSense earnings to trickle in, but even the occasional check-in with HubPages was enough to bring her to the first payout.  Check out our interview below to learn more about Jen and her experience on HubPages.

Congrats on your first payout! Do you have any particular plans for the money?

Well it’ll be a big help towards buying Christmas presents this year. Anything that is left over I think I’ll put towards getting a new hair style. I used to have purple streaks dyed in my hair, and this time I’m thinking about going red!

You share on your profile that you enjoy reading, writing, photography, digital design, guitar playing, writing songs, and travel – how much do you write about these things on HubPages? And are there any other major subjects you frequently address in your Hubs?

I started writing book reviews for every book I read and I’ve done about ten or so of those so far. I hope to have a massive collection of them one day. I’ve written a bit about travel; I went to Venezuela to do some volunteering last year and wrote a series of Hubs about that. But I haven’t really done any other travelling in the eighteen months I’ve been on Hubpages, when I do I’ll write about it. Although it’s not a massive interest of mine, I randomly decided one day to write some Hubs about Impressionist Painters and they seem quite popular so I’m thinking about writing more of those.

You also mention on your profile that you’re a postgraduate student studying Healthcare Ethics. Have you ever published notes, study guides, or any of your student papers on HubPages? What advice might you give to other student Hubbers?

I did my graduate degree in Philosophy and I’ve published some notes and papers from that. I have loads on my laptop that I’ve been meaning to publish on Hubpages, but they all need editing and cutting down etc. I’ll get around to it eventually!

Advice for student Hubbers? When you have some spare time just write whatever is interesting you, whether it is something on TV or in the news or something completely random. It’s difficult to motivate yourself to write when you spend your whole time writing and researching, so just write when you can and don’t worry about the quality; you can always go back and edit.

Waiting for the first payout can take a lot of patience. What kept you going over the months?

To be honest I kind of dipped in and out of Hubpages. I’d go for a few months without doing much at all, and then I’d get motivated again, read something more about backlinking and keywords etc and try it out. I actually didn’t think that I’d ever reach my first pay-out I really didn’t, but the run up to Christmas has been good for me. Now that I know it is possible, hopefully it’ll give me more motivation to write more and payouts will become a more regular thing.

What, if any, future HubPages plans do you have? Do you plan on continuing to write on HubPages after you get your Healthcare Ethics degree?

I really couldn’t say but I hope so, I’ve still got another 18 months on my course before I have to worry about it. I always plan lots of things I could write but more often than not I never get around to them. I’d like to keep up the book reviews, and as I mentioned before, I’m going to write some more Hubs about artists. I did them in the style of ‘5 interesting facts about …’ and so I’m thinking about expanding that to include famous people, like world leaders etc. Obviously, until I start earning enough money to pay the rent through Hubpages I’ll have to get a job, but I’ll do my best to write as much as I can.

[Thanks, jenblacksheep – and congrats!]