The Suite mantra:
– Average $3.90 per 1000 PVs
– Average $1.00 to $2.00 per article per month
– Page views go up over time

If those are averages, then someone must be below that. It appears to be me in the extreme.

I just did an analysis on my page view statistics for articles I posted in June through October of last year, 57 articles. They are all evergreen, except perhaps for one article somewhat related to the US Independence Day that I posted July 2, 2009. I checked to see if my page views were going up over time. See the attached graph.

The only month that, in March 2010, had the most page views was my June 2009 articles, and that barely so. All the others peaked in October 2009, and have declined ever since. July articles are down 33 percent from their peak in October. Aug-Sep-Oct articles are down 50 percent since their peak in October. The graph shows a slight uptrend in 2010, but a very flat uptrend. So, as of right now, I conclude that I’m somehow not able to achieve the Suite mantra concerning rising page views over time. And, despite posting 36 more articles since the end of October, I’ve not come even close to the October highs with all articles counted.

Now, if revenue were good, I might ignore falling page views. But my present rate of $/article/per month is $0.13. Yes, a mere 13 cents per article per month. That’s my average for the last 30 days. In 2010 it’s been as high as $0.20 and as low as $0.08, but for the last month it’s been pretty stable at $0.13.

So, if I don’t post any more articles, and page views and revenues stay the same (i.e. the trend of declining page views stops), I can expect to earn $12.09 a month in residual income. My articles take about 2 hours to write, between research, writing, and the nuisance of finding, documenting, uploading, and captioning images. It would be nice to earn $15 per hour for this work. That’s kind of low, but it beats what I could earn delivering pizzas. For 93 articles published, and 2 hours per article, and $15 per hour, that would be $2,790. Based on what I’ve earned so far, including the $101 I earned for a contest, it will take me 216 months to get up to $15 per hour. 18 years. That doesn’t account for the time value of money. If I figured that in, I’ve no doubt it would be 40 years. If page views were increasing, I could perhaps ignore current revenue in favor of future prospects. But page views are going down.

Am I crazy doing this, writing for Suite, writing for Internet content? A Suite writer once wrote in the Suite forums that some people can’t or won’t write in topics that are lucrative enough to be successful at this. That seems to describe me. I can’t write about something about which I know nothing. Another wrote in the Suite forums that Suite 101 is not for everyone. I’m starting to think that includes me.

So, it seems this is the time to back off Suite and think about it. I’m going to write just the minimum, ten articles per quarter, and see if something turns around. If it doesn’t, I may drop out all together and just take the $12.09 a month and fill up the pick-up three times a year.