My name is Sydney Hazelton and I am 32 years old. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful, active toddler (18 months), Felicity.

I have working since I graduated from college, mostly in the education industry, the last one being in government schools. With the long hours put in and tonnes of marking to complete, it wasn't long before I started to look out for another source of income, in the hope of replacing this one. But like I said, with the long hours and extensive marking, I had little time and energy left to find a suitable alternative source of income.

I had two choices then - make money online or start a business (brick-and-mortar or online). Starting a business seems a little tricky since I don't have my own product. So, I decided to browse through the internet to find ways to make money online. There were many websites which claim to be able to help you make hundreds, thousands or even millions. I did not know which one to delve into. Some of these require upfront payment and others none at all.

Amidst all these, I fell pregnant. I knew in my heart that I want to stay home to look after my child. I contemplated over the idea for an entire year, after Felicity was born. I took extended maternity leave for a year, to see if being a stay-at-home mom suits me. I thoroughly enjoyed being with my daughter, watching her grow, every step of the way. I wanted to be there for her very badly. So I took the giant step - I quit teaching.

I was left with no other choice but to seriously find an alternative source of income. I know that it's tough for my husband to hold the financial fort alone, I wanted to help him. After some false starts and money burned, I came across Triond, a website which claims to pay for articles that you publish with them. You can also publish photos, video and even audio, and get paid. After reading through about how Triond works, I seem to like the concept. So I published an article.

In the subsequent days, I was surprised that the number of pageviews of my article increased and so did my earnings. Since I joined in late January, I did not have much time and pageviews for my earnings to reach 50 cents, the minimum payout, at the end of that month. So I started writing more articles in February to reach the minimum payout. By the end of February, I have earned $1.51 with 11 articles written then. In mid-March, I received my very first payment from Triond. I did not even have to request for payout, it's done automatically.

I was convined that Triond works and pays. Since then, I have been hooked and have written many articles. The best thing is that once you publish an article, you will continue to earn revenue from it, month after month, year after year. So, what's there to stop you from earning a residual income?

Please be forewarned that Triond does not promise you millions. It takes a lot of effort and hardwork, to write and subsequently promote your articles. But if you love writing, Triond will be the best place for you to start earning a residual income for yourself.

If you think that you can earn hundreds of dollars by submitting just one article, you have got it all wrong. That will not happen. You need to constantly and consistently publish new material regularly, in order to earn some money. It's not a get-rich-quick scheme either! So you need to be realistic about your expectations.

Before you sign up for Triond, read and understand about how it works below.

Triond is simply a publishing site. It allows you to publish articles, photos, videos and audio materials. All the materials must be your own original work. Once you sign up for Triond, you can start publishing. On their submission page, you just need to upload the file, create a title, a description, select a category for your material, key in some tags and submit. It's that simple!

Your material will not be published immediately though. It will be reviewed by the Triond team who will check the authenticity of your work. Within 1-2 days, your material will be reviewed and they will decide whether to accept or reject your article. Normally, the Triond team is very efficient. There are times when my articles have been reviewed and published in less than an hour!

If they are accepted, they will inform you where it is published via e-mail. Triond owns many information sites where all the articles are published. So your material may be published in different sites, depending on the topic of your material.

If they are rejected, Triond will inform you the reason via e-mail. At times, they will still accept your work if you agree to make certain changes to your material. In this case, you just need to resubmit after making the amendments suggested.

There are two ways to make money from Triond. Firstly, you will be compensated for the number of pageviews you generate from your materials. However, there is no way to find out how Triond calculates this. It all depends on the material you submit. Secondly, you will be compensated when your readers click on ads featured on the webpage where your material is published, on a revenue-sharing basis.

Write, write and write! I can't emphasize enough. If you want to make money from Triond, you just have to write as many articles as possible. Set a realistic target for yourself. Think about how much time you can set aside to do research and write your articles in a day or week. For example, I give myself a target of writing at least 15 articles per month. I'm hoping to increase the number in the subsequent months to 20 or more articles.

In the initial stages of writing for Triond, you should try writing on various topics. You will soon discover that there are some topics which generate a lot of interest from your readers, while others capture the attention of only a small group of people. Once you can find a certain topic which you like and at the same time, create a lot of buzz, stick to it and develop more articles in that area.

For more ideas on what are the hot topics to write for Triond, you can refer to this article Hot Topics to Write for Triond.

I can't say that my earnings has been phenomenal. It has not even hit the 3-digit yet. But I can say one thing - my earnings have been increasing every single month. Here's the breakdown of the number of new articles I wrote and how much I earned each month since I began in late January 2008.

January - 2 articles
February - 9 articles - 1.51
March - 3 articles - 4.34
April - 15 articles - 6.16
May - 10 articles - 6.93
June - 14 articles - 10.75

After seeing these figures, you would either be challenged to do better than this or not convinced at the potentials of Triond at all. I'm still very positive about Triond. One thing I liked about them is that they have paid me punctually on the fifteenth of every month. It's like getting a paycheck at the end of the month's hardwork. But it's slightly different. If you look closely, there were times when I did not publish much new materials but my earnings still increased. For instance, in March I wrote merely 3 articles, but I still surpassed the previous month's earnings by 187%. I must confess that I have not promoted my articles in full force, but the earnings still show an increase. So, I still have faith in Triond and will continue to publish my articles there.

It is important for you to promote your Triond articles after they have been published. If your article helps to solve a particular problem applicable to many people, I recommend that you promote your article at Yahoo! Answers. Search for unresolved questions pertaining to your topic. When you find a relevant question, answer them sufficiently and direct them to your article if they want to find out more.

Here's what I normally do. For example, I have written an article on 10 Fun Websites to Create your Own Avatar. When someone at Yahoo! Answers ask for avatar websites, I give them one or two examples from my article. Then, I tell them that if they want a whole list of such websites, they can refer to this article. Insert the link in your answer. It's a great way to get more pageviews for your article.

I don't see many people promoting articles at Yahoo! Answers (Hint: it might be a good thing!) Many promote their websites or referral links. When I give them links to my articles, two things happen there. Firstly, my Triond articles get more exposure. Secondly, my answers at Yahoo! Answers are often voted as the Best Answer for the question. Quite impressive! This only happens if your article is a useful and informative one for your audience.

Anyway, for more ways on how to promote your Triond articles, please refer to this article How to Promote Your Triond Articles.

In the beginning, I did not make any friends within the Triond Community. After writing several articles, I decided to make some friends over there. I would suggest that you write several articles first before making any friends there because they would want to see what genre and topics you write about. Some of them add you as a friend if they find your writing to their liking. These are the best kind of people to add as friends because they will read your article regularly.

When you add someone as a friend, you become their fan. You will be notified when they publish new material with Triond through the News Feed available on your Dashboard. The Triond Community often read each other's article. You should read their articles too and leave a comment if you liked it, to show your support for that writer. In this way, you will be noticed and they will reciprocate your gesture.

Another reason why I like to read the other writers' works is because I want to learn how to be one of the hottest writers in Triond and hopefully get my articles featured in the Hot Content section. These are some of the question you should ask yourself when reading other articles.

What do they write about?
How do they write their articles?
What comments did they receive?
What is it that these commenters liked about the article?

Be open to new ideas and you will find that there is a lot to learn from these established Triond writers.