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HubGarden is a network of websites (hubs) covering various topics on which writers are paid to publish articles. Each hub is run by a team of editors headed by a chief editor.

As well as contributing articles to hubs, anyone can start their own hub on any topic, become a chief editor, and encourage other writers to submit articles.

*Please note that Hubgarden is now closed to new articles and writers. Unfortunately as ad rates declined it was no longer viable to continue running.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed over the years.

Yes you can be paid for sharing your articles. Payment is in proportion to the number of people who read your articles.

The CPM (payment for 1000 readers) varies for each hub. Check on a hub's details page for its writer CPM.

Some hubs also offer paid awards, with many guaranteed for articles with a minimum length and number of images. To see which hubs are offering guaranteed awards click on the Top Hubs link at the top of this page.

You can view your account balance on by clicking on "My Account".

Click on the share link on the hub's homepage.

You will have to login before this link is visible and some hubs require an application first (to apply click on the "Write for Us" link on the hub's home page).

Be sure to read the hub's FAQ to see what kind of articles a chief editor is looking for.

There is no guarantee that an article will be published, so if in doubt ask a question on the hub's forum.

Most hubs are started by a single writer who is also the editor and chief editor.

The very beginning is a precarious time in the life of a hub, and the majority don't make it.

It takes time and commitment to publish a large enough number of useful articles and arrange enough links for a hub to start attracting a decent number of readers - usually around 6 to 12 months.

However once a hub is attracting a large readership it will start attracting other writers, and eventually other editors until the hub becomes largely self-sustaining.

From here the hub can flourish and grow with the chief editor providing direction and oversight.

One of the main benefits of HubGarden is the large number of active writers who are looking to contribute to interesting hubs.

Anyone can start a hub and become a chief editor.

Once you've had 10 articles published on Hubgarden, you are welcome to email support@hubgarden.com with your proposed Hub idea and name.

Each hub starts on a subdomain of hubgarden.com, such as kidscraft.hubgarden.com.

Once a hub has more than 50 articles and 500 recent readers it is placed on its own dedicated domain along with some funding for the pool.

If you'd like to become a successful chief editor make sure you read the Chief Editor FAQ.

To request payment first enter your payment information on your settings page.

Payments are made using PayPal, however Australian residents can also opt to be paid by bank transfer.

On the first of each month if your balance is over $50 (or 50 GBP) an account is created and placed on your Accounts page.

To request payment of a monthly account click on the "details" link, and then "request payment".

Payment is then made on the 1st of the following month as long as the invoice is submitted on or before the 10th. This delay is to allow for the time it takes to receive payments from advertisers.

For instance your January account would be created and placed on your accounts page on the 1st of February. If you requested payment before the 10th of Feb payment would be made on the 1st working day of March. If the invoice was submitted after the 10th of Feb, payment would be made on the 1st of April.

If your balance is less than $50 on the 1st of the month, then it will be carried over to the following month.

Writers are invited to become an editor by the chief editor of a hub, usually from amongst the more established contributors.

To change any of your basic settings including email address and pen name click go to your profile on one of the hubs and click on "settings".

To include a link in the text of your article use the following format:

[LINK www.thelinkurl.com The Link Text]

"The Link Text" will become the link that points to www.thelinkurl.com.

Inactive hubs are those which have had less than 8 articles published in the last month, or 4 articles published in the last week.

Inactive hubs which are on their own domain name (rather than xxx.hubgarden.com) are eligible to be taken over by a new chief editor.

If you would like to take over an inactive hub please email support-at-hubgarden.com or leave a message on the HubGarden forum.

Writers applying for a chief editor position should have already published at least 10 articles on other hubs.

It's possible to see which hubs are active (or not) on the HubGarden homepage.

The format is

[YOUTUBE XXXXXXXXXX]

Replace XXXXXXXXXX with the video ID, usually something like 62cQ1oTELgg. You can get this ID from the URL when viewing the video on YouTube, or from the embed link.

This also works for Vimeo - ie [VIMEO XXXXXXXX]

Any line in an article that starts with a "#" will be considered a category.

For instance:

#Adventure Playgrounds

or

#Swimming Pools

If the category does not exist it will be created automatically for that hub when the article is published.

It's possible to change many of the default color settings for your hub.

The colors are specified in 6 digit hexadecimal code.

They are a combination of numbers (0-9)and digits (a-f).

It's not necessary to understand the codes to use them, just copy hex color codes from the many charts on the web. If in doubt google "hex color chart".

This is a simple one, and here is one that is a little more detailed. Here is another.

Note that some charts display a # at the start of the codes. The hash is not required - just copy the numbers and letters.

If you want to understand how hex codes work, this page has a good explanation.

The default color scheme settings are:

Color1: 0099ff
Color2: 0099ff
Color3: eeeeee
Color4: 999999
Color5: 9999ff

Type: Groups categories together by type in the category list. For instance you may want to group locations together, and then list the other categories.

Level: Categories of different levels can be combined into sub categories. The category of the highest level is listed first. For example: /sydney/walks/. However you don't want /sydney/melbourne/ so you would make all locations the same level.

Division: Advanced users only - may do your head in. In the category list above each article, if there is a category of a higher division than the others then it will be combined with the others into sub categories (if they are of a different level).

For instance if an article is in "Sydney", "Walks", and "Parks" then above it you most likely want listed:

/sydney/
/sydney/walks/
/sydney/parks/

rather that just

/sydney/
/walks/
/parks/

Making "Sydney" division 2, and leaving the others as division 1, will achieve this. Note that you also have to make sure "Sydney" is a different level to "Walks" and "Parks" for this to work.

Divisions are used as well as levels in this case as a single article my have a number of different location tags - for instance the city "Sydney" and the state "New South Wales". Having a division allows you to determine which location is given precedence in being used to produce the sub category. For instance you probably want /sydney/walks/ not /new-south-wales/walks/.

Any article published with a question mark at the end of the title is automatically a "Question Article". This applies to every hub.

Question articles are formatted differently with the comments listed in a "Top Answers" section directly under the main content of the article.

In addition payment works slightly differently as well. The author of the question receives 1/3 CPM, the top answer receives 1/3 CPM, the second answer receives 2/9 CPM, and the 3rd answer receives 1/9 CPM.

This reflects the contribution of the answer authors, and is meant to encourage writers to answer the questions of other writers.

To post a new question you need at least 10 Karma points.

You can earn Karma points by posting answers to questions (4 points for 1st answer, 3 points for 2nd, 2 points thereafter), or voting (1 point) for the best answer to a given question - 1 karma point for each. In addition a karma point is awarded each time one of your answers receives a vote.

Once you have 200 Karma points you can then use them to feature one of your articles (either a question or regular article).

Featured articles are promoted at the top right on each article page and in the email newsletter. Featured articles attract many extra readers increasing your writer payments.

New questions have their own section of the email newsletter "New Questions" which is meant to encourage readers to submit their own answers.

Once a question has 3 answers it is considered "answered" and then goes out in the newsletter as a regular article.

The actual text of a question should elaborate on the question and not contain an answer.

It's fine for writers to submit answers to their own questions - even encouraged. However they should be submitted as actual answers rather than in the body of the question article.

If the author also answers the question they'll receive both the author CPM and the appropriate answer CPM (if in the top 3).

It's not possible to vote for your own answer.

The text of question articles can be very short (one sentence even), however for the moment they should contain at least one image so that thumbnails are available.

Editors are encouraged to ask writers to use the #Question category tag.

Awards are allocated by editors to articles which reach a certain level of quality.

Each hub can have a different criteria for allocating awards so it's best to consult the different FAQs.

All hubs can allocate gold, silver, and bronze awards. Chief editors set the value of each award. When an award is given the pool of the hub must be greater than the value of the award.

Question awards are slightly different to awards given to regular articles.

1/3 of the value of the award is given to the question author straight away.

After 2 weeks the top 3 answers for the question will then also be given awards. 1/3 of the value to the 1st answer, 2/9 to the 2nd, and 1/9 to the 3rd. This is done automatically - the editor is not required to do anything.

Writer Messages are sent from hub chiefs to writers via email.

They are separate to the hub forum and are a more effective way to reach writers as many will not be subscribed to the forum.

To send a writer message click on "My Hubs" and then the appropriate "Messages" link.

Messages are sent by a script once every hour on the hour - and you can edit them / correct typos before they're sent out.

Writers are able to unsubscribe from these messages so don't send too many, however I'd encourage all chiefs to use them as a way to bring old writers back to the hub.

They can be great for posting messages about competitions, special award periods, or milestones such as reaching 10,000 readers a month.

Competitions are a great way to add a little fun to a hub, drum up some more articles, keep writers active, and encourage old ones to return.

This is the suggested way to host a competition on a hub. Chiefs are of course welcome to come up with their own methods.

1) Decide on a topic for the competition. For instance on RecipeYum we could have "Recipes which include Bananas".

2) Optionally make up a fun name for the competition such as "Going Bananas" or "Bananarama".

3) Make up a category for the competition. With the above example this could just be "Bananas" but it could also be specific to the competition such as "Banana Competition" or the competition title such as "Bananarama".

4) If making up special competition categories be sure to make them into a separate category type so they are all grouped together.

5) To enter an article into the competition the writer must include the category tag in the article. For instance #Bananarama.

6) Decide how you'll judge the winner. Will you pick it, or will it be the article with the most likes, or the most readers? Will there be one winner, or a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd?

7) What will the winner receive? A gold award or something else?

8) When will the competition start and end? Any other conditions such as article length or number of images?

9) Post the competition details in the "Writer Message 1" field so that every writer will see them when they're creating a new article.

10) Post to your hub forum.

11) Send a writer message to all your writers including all the competition details.

12) Finally - remember to make sure you award the winner and let everyone know via a post on the forum and another writer message. This will encourage more writers to take part in the next competition.

Prolific awards are given to writers who publish a certain number of articles in a given calendar month on hubs which offer them.

So for instance a writer may be given a $10 prolific award for every 10 articles they publish in any given month on the RecipeYum hub.

It's up to each hub's chief editor to set the value of the prolific awards, and how many articles are required to earn them.

Some hubs may not offer any prolific awards. To check view each hub's details page. If the prolific value or increment is set to 0, then that hub does not offer prolific awards.

The order of prolific awards are:

1) Bronze
2) Silver
3) Gold
4) Platinum
5) Emerald
6) Diamond
7) Kryptonite
8) Sapphire
9) Ruby
10) Pearl

Milestone awards are given to writers who publish a certain number of articles on a given hub.

So for instance a writer may be given a $20 milestone award for every 50 articles they publish on the RecipeYum hub.

It's up to each hub's chief editor to set the value of the milestone awards, and how many articles are required to earn them.

Some hubs may not offer any milestone awards. To check view each hub's details page. If the milestone value or increment is set to 0, then that hub does not offer milestone awards.

The order of milestone awards are:

0) Citizen
1) Respected Citizen
2) Councillor
3) Town Mayor
4) City Mayor
5) Senator
6) Vice President
7) President
8) Emperor
9) Galactic Emperor
10) Omnipresent Overlord

Referrals are when an existing writer brings a new writer to HubGarden.

By referring someone you'll be awarded a $1 CPM on all their page views as long as they are active.

For someone to be registered as being referred by you they need to enter your email address using the "referral" link on their account page.

This needs to be done before they have published any articles.

Once a writer has published an article it is not possible to register a referrer even if you really did refer them. Allowing this would make it too easy to game the system.

It's not possible to change referrers once one has been registered.

The idea of wiki articles is to allow a number of writers to contribute to the same article, and to be rewarded according to their contribution.

This is useful for factual type articles where a number of people may have useful information to contribute.

For instance an article which profiles the suburb of Paddington in Sydney may have any number of contributors who can add separate pieces of information. One writer may contribute a paragraph on the history of Paddington, while another may contribute a paragraph on the kinds of restaurants in the area. In this way different writers can draw on their expertise to put together a more comprehensive article than they could alone.

It's also useful in cases where articles need to be regularly updated, or to allow writers to correct mistakes as they find them.

To edit an existing wiki article click on the "Edit This Article" link at the top of the page.

This will copy the existing article and place it in your account. Once you've finished with your edits notify the editor and leave a comment with a short summary of the changes you've made.

The editor will then publish (or not) the article which will make your version the current one, replacing the old version. Old versions will remain listed in the accounts of the writers who published them.

The editor will also assign a percentage to your contribution. This percentage will reflect your payment for readers of the article. The percentage can be anything from 1% (for a spelling correction) up to 50% for a complete rewrite. It can never be more than 50% (unless you write the very first version) to reflect the contribution of the older writers, even if the article is completely rewritten.

When a new contribution is approved the percentages assigned to the writers of the older versions will be adjusted proportionately. In this way each writer should be awarded fairly for their contribution to the article.

Any article's wiki mode can be enabled from its editor box by an editor. Questions cannot be wikis.

It's also possible to setup a hub to default all new articles to wiki. If you would like to do this leave a message on the HG forum.

To allocate a map to your article use the !Map command followed by an address, all on one line.

For instance:

!Map 96 Gipps Street, Drummoyne, New South Wales, Australia

Update your article and the map should appear underneath the article display.

If the map is incorrect update again a couple of times (sometimes it takes a few tries for Google to figure it out).

If that fails try changing the address slightly, making sure that it includes the state and country as formatted above.

If a regular address just won't work you can use Latitude and Longitude in the format:

!Map Latitude, Longitude

Don't forget the comma.

To get the Lat and Long for a particular place on a map you can use the old Google maps. Hopefully the new version will be updated to include this feature soon.

Google maps is here:

http://maps.google.com

or (.com.au for the Oz version).

At the bottom right click on the question mark and then "Return to classic Google maps".

Navigate to the spot you want and then right-click on it. A menu will pop up. Choose "What's here". Then the Lat and Long will appear in the search box at the top of the page.

Cut and paste into your article and you're good to go.

For the moment only one map can be included in each article.

 

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