These Stories Do Best In The Side Hustle Club
Real examples included
Our Side Hustle Club community has grown a ton over the past year. I’m extremely happy for our writers and readers. I truly enjoy reading new stories about side hustles every day.
The publication has grown so much that I’ve had a ton of data available to analyze and report back on. I have access to several different kinds of statistics about how well our stories perform.
From this data, I compiled a list of which stories do well and which do not. On top of that, I dug a little deeper to figure out why I think certain stories outperform others.
I did this for a few reasons.
The first reason is transparency. As the editor, I want to be completely open about exactly which stories get a lot of views/reads and which don’t. I get to see the stats for how every story in the publication performs and feel it’s only fair I pass that information along.
The second reason is that sharing this information will help our writers craft better stories that get more views and our readers will get more stories they want to see. This is a win-win.
The third reason is that coming up with ideas can be tough sometimes. I often struggle with ideas and wish I knew which stories were doing well in a publication so I could see what topics are popular.
I tried to put it all together in one place and include specific examples. I really hope this information helps!
How to start searching for good ideas to write about
If I’m really stuck for content and I don’t have an immediate side hustle idea I want to write about, I typically turn to Google Trends or AnswerThePublic.
Both of those tools will help you find trending, relatable keywords and topics to write about. I search side hustles that I’m already doing or have knowledge about and see what pops up.
You can also try just searching side hustles you’re doing or want to learn more about into the regular search bar on Google. You’ll see a ton of related gigs that could spark some creativity for a good idea.
These methods of brainstorming good story ideas work for more than just The Side Hustle Club’s publication.
Stories that perform well
I love praising writers for a job well done. The average number of views for the example stories listed below is 8,000 views.
However, on the high end, some of these stories have reached nearly 30,000 views.
1) Experiences from side hustles you’ve tried
Did you make a thousand dollars from a side hustle? Did you lose a thousand? Let us know! We want to know!
Think of every new side hustle you try as a chance to report your findings back to the group. If a side hustle doesn’t go as well as you wanted it to, at least you’ll have a great story to write about if nothing else!
2) Unique/different side hustles
People want to learn about side hustles they’ve never heard of before. I don’t blame them, so do I!
3) Online side hustles
Everyone loves working from home. I love it so much I wrote an entire book on side hustles from home (shameless plug).
4) Stories about writing
I’m not sure why with this one. Maybe it’s because writing is a popular side hustle?
Stories that DO NOT do well in The Side Hustle Club
These stories do not do well in the publication.
I don’t want to put any writer on the spot for an underperforming story so I’m just going to list out the topics that don’t perform well.
1) Stories about investing
Unless you’re day trading or something of that nature, typically stories about investing or financial advice do really bad in the publication.
We get a lot of them and I think it’s because making money from side hustles is relatable to finance.
We recently started rejecting stories that are too focused on investing because they just have never really performed and aren’t technically always about the side hustle niche.
2) Motivational stories
I love a good motivational story, but readers of the publication do not. I guess it makes sense, we all came here to learn about making money. It shows most of us probably already have enough motivation just by finding the publication.
Typically, motivational stories get some of the lowest numbers of views.
3) Stories with errors
People don’t like to read stories with grammar errors. While Rachel and I do go through and edit/make adjustments when we can, we don’t always catch everything.
It’s up to you to make sure your stories are free of errors if you want to do better in the publication.
Stories that will NOT be accepted
I just wanted to include a quick section about stories that will not be accepted in the publication. This will be included in our guideline update at the end of 2021, but I thought I’d briefly touch on it here.
1) OnlyFans
No. Just, no.
While OnlyFans is technically a side hustle, we will not be publishing any stories about it. Writing about it is not creative or unique. We get a ton of submissions on this topic.
There are better gigs out there to write about.
2) Gender-based side hustles
We’ve received submissions that say “Great side hustles for women include doing laundry and cooking…”
Yeah, no. There will be none of that here.
And to be honest, my co-editor and I have no tolerance for it. Anyone who submits side hustle stories based on someone’s gender or other characteristics will be removed as writers from the group and blacklisted.
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