by Amelia Schaffer

Created on: October 18, 2009   Last Updated: November 06, 2009

Your writing percentage on Helium affects how many writing stars you earn and, therefore, how much money you can make from your articles. In order to get the most out of writing at Helium, it's important to keep your writing percentage up. There are several ways to increase your writing percentage on Helium, increasing your earning potential.

1. Understand how writing percentages work.

Your writing percentage is calculated based on how well your articles rank against other articles in the same titles. An article ranked #2 of 4, for example, counts for 75%; an article ranked #1 counts for 100%. The lowest 10% of your article are not included in your writing score, and neither are articles in non-competitive titles (that is, titles with fewer than three articles). To sum up: your writing percentage on Helium is an average of the rankings of the top 90% of your articles in competitive titles.

2. Leapfrog often.

As articles get rated over time, your position in the ranks can shift, especially if new articles are written to your titles. Keep track of older articles and Leapfrog the ones which are slipping downward. Focus on the bottom 10% of your articles when you Leapfrog. Since these articles aren't included in your writing score, you will not be hurt if they continue to be rated badly, but you can gain a lot if they are rated more highly after you edit them.

3. Balance writing for upfront payments with writing to larger titles.

Since Helium started limiting upfront payments to titles with fewer than five articles, competition for these smaller titles has become more intense. In a title with 5 articles or fewer, the #1 spot is the most valuable, while the other articles do far worse than they would in the #2-5 spots of a larger title. This is because, in a title with five articles, the #1 spot is 100%, the #2 spot 80%, the #3 spot 60%, and so on. A small drop - from #2 to #3, for instance - can make a big difference in your writing percentage. Even the #2 spot can hurt you if you are looking for the bonus star for having higher than 85% and too many of your articles are at 80%.

In larger titles, on the other hand, there is much more room for variation, and shifts in ranking do not have such dramatic results. In a title with 100 articles, for example, the #1 spot is 100%, the #2 spot 99%, and so on. You may have more articles to compete against, but your article rank will be 85% even if there are fifteen articles ranked above it.

4. Write more articles.

This may take a while to accomplish, true, but having more articles on Helium means that you have more leeway in your writing percentage. A larger number of articles are included in the bottom 10%, and even a handful of bad articles won't have such a dramatic effect on your writing score.

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