This was a unique website I came across that supposedly pays freelance writers for content. But can you really make money writing for HypergridBusiness.com?
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Hypergrid Business, at first glance, sounds like it should be some kind of business website. But as soon as you get a look at the home page, you quickly see that it must also have a lot to do with VR and other related tech-like topics.
Making Money Writing For HypergridBusiness.com
To get started, we need to talk about what HypergridBusiness.com actually is.
So I went to the ‘About Us’ tab to see what the site is actually all about. Here is the first blurb I came across on that page.
“Hypergrid Business is an online publication indexed by Google News that covers enterprise uses of immersive virtual reality environments and virtual worlds, with more than 200 contributing writers and industry experts.”
The website is ranked as one of the top ten virtual reality blogs by Feedspot, and Techtyche puts it in a list of top five virtual reality blogs.
The site was launched in 2009, but by the end of 2016, ended up scoring 350,000 monthly page views. It also boasted more than 175,000 unique monthly readers.
The blog started out mostly focused on OpenSim, though it has grown since then to include news and coverage of other topics, including: virtual reality hardware, VR software, and industry news related to both of these.
Their main menu tabs include options like VR & AR, Metaverse, How To, What is Opensim?, Free land in OpenSim, VR Headsets, and more. And from the looks of it, they publish at least a couple of posts every week, meaning that they stay pretty up-to-date.
I will admit, this website was a different one. On one hand, it wasn’t necessarily EXTREMELY technical. But at the same time, I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on.
Then again, I have never used OpenSim either. So naturally, I Googled it… and was very surprised to find that hypergridbusiness.com was the very first search engine result that I came across!
As the article describes, OpenSimulator is basically a free and open course software that allows pretty much anyone to create and run their own virtual world on their computer.
Much to my amusement, the article pointed out that there is another ‘OpenSim’ program out there that people get mixed up with the world-simulator version, but it is quite different.
It is a virtual human muscle and skeleton simulator! Obviously, the ‘OpenSim’ that HypergridBusiness.com is dedicated to is the Open Simulator that allows you to create a virtual world.
Note: I was already thoroughly entertained by this. I had heard of Second Life, but never OpenSim. I also learned, however, that Hypergrid also dealt with the question of Second Life Vs OpenSim.
Apparently, the two are very, very similar… except that OpenSim is open source, and therefore much more affordable. It also offers more control of the virtual world. So yeah! Pretty neat!
And at this point, I came to realize that this site had surprised me. I spent quite a while browsing through it, reading about OpenSim, learning things, and being entertained—and even managed to forget the original reason for my visit!
So naturally, this impressed me. Two big thumbs up to HypergridBusiness.com for being a website that I could enjoy while I researched awesome websites for freelance writers to pitch to!
But with that being said… is Hypergrid Business a good site for freelance writers to pitch to? This was the next question on my mind, so I decided to investigate further.
Writing For HypergridBusiness.com
Finding the ‘Write For Us’ page is pretty easy. You just hover over the ‘About Us’ page, and then scroll down to the ‘Write For Us’ button located under that tab. Here is what the page looked like once I arrived.
This is actually just a screenshot of the top of the page. There is quite a bit more information than you can see here located below, which is pretty awesome.
I am always a big fan of websites that give a lot of information about what they want from content writers who may pitch to them. It really makes a writer’s job a lot easier!
To get right to the point, they are looking for several different kinds of articles. They say that they are currently looking for…
- Reviews
- News and features
- Advice and opinion posts
If you want to get a look at their submission guidelines, you will have to click on the link and go there. But once there, you will find a lot more information about what they are looking for as far as the technical aspects of posts are concerned.
All in all, they pay about $0.05 per word for posts that end up getting published on their site, though of course they will have to accept the pitch before you will be able to get paid.
My Thoughts On Writing For Websites Like Hypergrid Business
HypergridBusiness.com is the type of website that really focuses and specializes on certain things. Obviously this site is dedicated to VR, OpenSim, and other similar subjects… but this is still a pretty narrow niche. That is where writers with specific experience in the niche can really shine.
Websites like this cater to a specific type of reader—the reader who is really into the kinds of things they talk about on the site.
Unlike larger magazines that try to cater to a wide group of people, this website and other websites like it cater to a very specific, but dedicated group of readers who are very interested and invested in these topics.
So as a writer, it is always a good idea to try to seek out websites that publish content about things that you are very interested in and knowledgeable about as well.
Granted, not every website is going to be the best choice for you, and you can still pitch to a wide variety of websites—but the crucial message here is that you are far more likely to find success on websites that cater to the niche you have the most interest in.
It might sound cliché, but when you write about topics that you love, you are going to find yourself getting far more jobs than you would if you were to try to write about things you don’t love.
At the same time, you do have to go where the money is if you really want to get paid, and you will likely need to compromise at times in order to get published.
But this is where truly successful writers learn to apply their interests and weave them into every single post. If you can apply what you love and make it work with what you are writing about, then you can channel your passion and your creativity and produce something that really feels alive.
And that is the kind of writing that will really touch people. And if you can really touch people, you can count that as a pretty major win as far as writing is concerned… because not every writer can do that.
My Personal Feelings About Writing For HypergridBusiness.com
I personally won’t be pitching to this website anytime soon, because I have absolutely zero experience with VR, OpenSim, Second Life, or any other topic that the site discusses.
But, with that being said, they do pay a pretty good rate for well-written content—though you will have to really be knowledgeable about the topics if you want to be able to get published here.
The content is not overly technical. Even though I don’t have experience with these topics, I still understood it enough to read and enjoy the posts that I looked at.
But it is obvious that this content is written by people who know what they are talking about. That is part of what makes this site so successful, and I highly doubt that they are going to compromise on that.
But… if you do know something about this topic and decide to pitch, here are my suggestions.
- Read through all of the writer guidelines
- Read through the site to get a feel for their content
- Figure out what your topic is going to be, and check the site to make sure that they have not already published anything like that yet
- I would personally recommend doing a Google search just to double-check. Google “Your topic HypergidBusiness” and skim through two to three pages of results
- Once you have settled on your topic, follow the guidelines to pitch it… and go from there
You won’t get rich writing for websites like this, but you can make some pretty decent money doing it. And in the end, that is what it is all about. I do this as a side hustle, so the entire point is to make a bit of extra money without squandering a lot of time or effort. And writing for websites like this is definitely helpful for that!
There are also other online writing jobs that specialize in technology, such as Techopedia and Linode.
Our Final Opinion Of HypergridBusiness.com
Should you pitch to them and try to make some extra money writing?
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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Maria Korolov
Nathaniell — I just randomly came across your article when looking up an old story on Hypergrid Business — Googling was faster than searching the archives! — and figured I’ll give people the answer from the horse’s mouth.
I’m the editor of Hypergrid Business — anyone can email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com if they want to pitch a story — but I got to tell you that no, you’re not going to make money writing for us.
We do pay our freelance writers, but you do have to know a lot about OpenSim. A lot of our content is also contributed by experts, who don’t get paid. They send us press releases and guest columns and other types of relevant content because they want to increase their own visibility in the industry.
Which means we spend a couple of hundred bucks a month, plus or minus, on paying freelance contributors. That’s not enough to keep you going.
We’re a good place to start, though. I enjoy working with new writers, helping them get caught up with OpenSim in particular and virtual reality in general, learn how to conduct interviews, and so on, so that they can then go on to write for larger publications.
Best,
Maria