This interesting website supposedly publishes articles for people who build websites. And the word on the street is that they pay very decently for articles submitted by writers—as long as they meet the requirements and are accepted.

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But can you really make money with A List Apart? Does this site really pay writers for articles, or is this just the scuttlebutt online?
Making Money With A List Apart
Before we get too far into the site itself, let’s talk a little bit about the underlying idea.
I love the idea of earning extra money through side hustles—and writing is something that I’ve always been at least passably good at. In high school, writing long papers came easy for me, and I didn’t even have to work hard at English.
I now have a few different writing side-hustles going, and must say that it has proven to be quite profitable. After all, writing is something that is hard to replace with a robot or an app.
You can’t (at least not yet, anyway) trust an app to write an article or to author a story… at least not in the sense of the way that most people like to read them.
So writing is something that will probably take a while to get outsourced to our technologically-driven mechanical creations.
Which is good news for me (and you), because as the demand for quality content increases, so does the possibility of being able to write for some extra money.
But is Alistapart.com a good website to use?
Here is what you need to know.
My First Impression Of ALA
My first impression of this website was actually very positive. I loved the home screen graphic. It was very simple.
A littler person shining a flashlight upwards, illuminating words and phrases. It was mostly black and white, albeit with a few little specks of color here and there.
I was already a fan!
The heading menu was simple. It only contained four links.
- Articles
- Events
- Topics
- Write For Us
So yeah… this was quite simple and to-the-point.
I scrolled down a bit, and found two articles, written by different writers, that were both labeled as ‘new,’ though I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the dates on them. One was dated for May 22, which made sense… as I was literally writing this on May 23, 2018.
But the other was labeled for December 6, 2017.
That was several months ago. Here, check it out.
I was curious if the site published more than this, as it seems like this is not a very ‘frequent’ publication if they take several months to put out articles. So I went to the ‘Articles’ section to check it out.
As it turns out, these must just be ‘highlighted’ articles, because ALA seems to publish content almost every 3 to 4 days on average… which is pretty awesome. I would feel better about the site if they published stuff every, but still—every few days, consistently, is pretty awesome.
I also learned that they have a huge archive of articles published on this site, in a huge variety of different categories. All seemingly related to website design (actually it was the internet in-general, but I didn’t figure that out until later). Check this out.
This is also not the full list. There are even more underneath this that can’t be seen.
So ALA has certainly being doing this for quite some time!
Next, I decided to take a look at the quality of the content being published. So I clicked on the latest published article. Here is what I found.
Taking A Closer Look At The Quality Of The A List Apart Website Content
Upon taking a closer look at some of the content, I quickly realized something. Not only has ALA been publishing articles since back in the 1990s, but they have been doing a crazy-good job of it too!
Their content is not just high in quality—it is also actually educational, useful, and authoritative. I feel like I drastically underestimated how good it was going to be.
I even learned that ALA is sometimes used as a resource in college classrooms, just because it has such a valid reputation and because it has such a longstanding place in the documentation of not just internet usage, but also internet history itself.
So yeah. The content on this site is absolutely top-notch. But that got me to thinking… what does this site pay out? And does the average-joe writer really have any hope of getting published on such a website?
That is what I decided to look into next.
Writing For A List Apart
Getting your content onto ALA is not necessarily easy… but as expected, they do have very high standards. So before you can really hope for your piece to be published, you can expect to have to follow their guidelines very specifically.
You will also have to expect that you are going to have to work with their editors to get the piece all ready to go—and that is only if they even decide to give your article a chance.
Mostly, they publish 1,500 word articles on-average, but they are only looking for pieces that explore current or cutting-edge topics in the web industry.
Interestingly, I noticed that payment was not mentioned on the Write For Us part of the website, so I was actually not entirely sure if this site pays for its content, or if you are publishing more for the exposure and for the street-cred when you write for them.
I have published content in the self-help niche on websites like this, and they do pay well in terms of the attention you get from them… even if they don’t pay you in cash.
But if you are more specifically looking for cash, it is understandable that you would want to know what you are dealing with before going to the trouble of writing such an in-depth, professional piece.
So I did a bit of research online, and found out that they reportedly pay $200 per feature article, $100 per regular article, and $50 per mini article. So yeah, this is actually a really good payout for an article!
It is a lot of work, and you have to make sure that you are on top of your game, but this is an awesome payout for writers who are not only serious about their craft, but also serious about writing in-depth articles on topics related to the internet and/or web design.
My Personal Feelings About ALA
I was actually really pleased by what I found on this site, and feel that it is an excellent website that offers some pretty great opportunities for not just people who want to write articles, but also for people who are interested in learning about the internet in-general.
It is a well-put-together, well managed website with a lot of really good, high quality content posted on it—and from the looks of it, it continues to do well.
But with that being said, the entire point of all of this is to find a website that could potentially serve as a side-hustle. And the hallmark of any good side hustle is its potential for profitability. Of course, any good side hustle should also be flexible and consistent as well.
So does A List Apart offer all of these things?
My personal opinion is that it offers quite a bit of profitability and flexibility. But it is probably not quite as consistent as would be ideal.
In other words, if you do get an article submitted and accepted on this site, then yes… you will get paid for it. But you are also able to work on this article on your own time, and on your own schedule. So it is both profitable and flexible.
But can you use this site continually to generate money every month?
I do not see any real reason why you couldn’t… but I also doubt that you would be able to get that much content accepted. They don’t publish that many pieces every month, so it seems to me like it has the potential to be quite competitive.
This site does pay more than the average amount for blog posts… so it would be reasonable to assume that a lot of people are trying to make money by writing for them. And that means that writers will need to be patient, and will likely not get a LOT of content published on a super-regular basis.
But… that doesn’t mean that you can’t work on an article and submit it. Even if you only published an article or two per year, it would still be a markedly successful achievement that pays pretty well.
Of course, anything is possible… and a lot of this is up to the writer. If you write well enough, and fast enough, and often enough, then it stands to reason that you could potentially get a lot more content published on not just this site, but sites like it… but that also takes more work and requires more dedication.
So in a very real sense, it is up to you to determine if the potential is worth the effort.
You can also diversify your efforts by focusing on multiple sites. For example, Scotch.io focuses on web development from a backend perspective, while Flywheel focuses on WordPress.
Our Final Thoughts About A List Apart
Should you submit and article and try to make some money?
There are a lot of ways to make money online. Some are good, some not, but ALL of them are still just trading hours for dollars.
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Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. My name is Nathaniell and I'm the owner of One More Cup of Coffee. I started my first online business in 2010 promoting computer software and now I help newbies start their own businesses. Sign up for my #1 recommended training course and learn how to start your business for FREE!
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