How to Make Money Writing

Liza Platonova Liza Platonova
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Why is writing in demand on the internet? It’s very simple: people judge businesses on the quality of their websites, and content remains crucial. Regardless of the industry, high-quality information on the website speaks for the value of the company and helps build trust with customers. In this article, you’ll find some of the best ideas on how to make money writing. How to start, where to find appropriate platforms and how much it’s possible to make.

How to make money writing

Who Can Make Money Writing

Long story short, to start writing for money, one needs the necessary tools and skills. On the technical side, writing requires internet access, a proper laptop or PC (compact design, long battery life, top-quality keyboard, etc.), and a comfortable workplace. Besides, writing takes time: maybe not all day long but at least a few hours a day.

As for practical skills, the ability to create a great piece of content is crucial. Certainly, it’s not necessary to have philological education but a good linguistic knowledge would help. Some people have the experience and develop their skills when writing for pleasure, others attend special courses, training webinars and look for other similar sources of information and means of education.

Finally, it’s important to receive a decent remuneration, so proper research on the market is crucial to generate good revenue.

Best Ideas for Making Money Writing

The following is a list of the best ideas on how to get paid to write. It is based on their cost-effectiveness. In other words, these sources can bring good income without investing money or sufficient time burdens (no need to resign from the main job).

Copywriting

Copywriting

If you want to write articles for money, consider copywriting. It implies working on different kinds of materials such as articles, brochures, emails, scripts, speeches, blog posts and other pieces of content. You can start with one kind of content, develop skills gradually and then switch to another kind or learn to create different types of materials alongside.

Where to make money writing online and dig out clients? There’re plenty of platforms on the internet and the list below presents some of the marketplaces.

  • Jooble is an international job search website used daily by millions of people in 71 countries. The company has been operating in the online recruitment market since 2006. In its 14 years of existence, the company has gone from a startup founded by two students to a global employment platform. It mean that they have huge variety of vacancies collected on their site including jobs for writers. The benefit is that you can find both remote work or full time job. Applying is free and for some vacancies you can see the reward before applying. You can check open vacancies for writers here!
  • FreelanceWriter88 .info is an internet bulletin board with job offers for writers. Plenty of employers are looking for freelancers with different level of skills. The possible income is in the range of $5-$50 per article or up to $25-$500 for eBooks.
  • Upwork is one of the largest platforms for freelancers. It is a licensed and trusted service, that complies with the law. Freelancers earn $30 and more for an article. To join Upwork as a writer, you’ll be asked to take a test.
  • Freelancer presents all the tasks under three categories: contests, projects and services. Fees vary depending on the type of project: from 10% to 20% of the total price or hourly wage.
  • Guru is another great marketplace for employers and freelancers. There are hundreds of jobs available, and you can apply your writing, translating or editing skills among many others. Upon registration, you’ll be able to see a list of jobs and send a quote for the ones you like. To start working, you’ll have to choose how payment shall be made: by milestones, hours, tasks or otherwise. There are four types of agreements an employer and a freelancer may conclude: payment by milestone, task, hour or using recurrent payments.
  • ProBlogger is a huge platform aimed at helping bloggers learn blogging skills.  It has hundreds of articles, tips, tutorials, podcasts and case studies as well as jobs added on a daily basis. The majority of the advertisers offer writing in specific niches, on technical subjects. It is free to apply for a job, just fill in the form and send the application. The reward varies for each project. You can also create a job alert to not miss the desired tasks.

Salaries of copywriters are variable and depend on your location and experience. For example, the average salary in the USA is in the range of $35,000 – $65,000 per year.

Blogging

Blogging

To make money writing online, why don’t create a blog of your own? It is a great way to build awareness and garner support, share the knowledge and, at the same time, refine writing skills. It’s a chance to become an authority in the field and attract more advertisers to monetize a blog.

To succeed, it’s necessary to choose a profitable niche. Speaking of travel blogging, it’s a promising idea due to the niche popularity and the opportunity to implement affiliate marketing and sponsored content to online sales and advertising. They are the best ways of turning a blog into a money-making website.

There is no need to have extraordinary web-developing skills. Today, no computer science degree is required because the best “how to start a blog” guides introduce detailed information and practical tips.

Here are some of the most popular blogging platforms to build a website:

  • Blogger.com is a free blogging platform that is perfect for beginners. You will be able to type in content, add photos and widgets as well as edit HTML. To start blogging, sign in with your Google account. However, Blogger.com doesn’t offer many customization options, and many bloggers switch to other platforms once they are ready to an upgrade.
  • WordPress.com is one of the leading platforms for blogging. Creating a blog is easy and free if you use basic options. WordPress provides bloggers with hosting, domain names, social media integration, and other popular features. This platform is perfect for beginners, but in order to customize a blog, one needs to upgrade to WordPress.org
  • WordPress.org is an open-source blogging portal with numerous customization features. It is the right choice if you want to have full control over your blog, use analytics tools and monetize the website. WordPress.org is aimed at bloggers with an intermediate level of skills.
  • HostGator is a popular web hosting company to start a blog. It features great opportunities for customization and technically hassle-free adjustments. It’s possible to attach an online store to a blog to get an extra income.
  • Tumblr allows building a blog with the integrated social media component and share various types of content such as photos, stories, links, TV shows, videos and more.
  • Blogger.com is a free blogging platform that is perfect for beginners. You will be able to type in content, add photos and widgets as well as edit HTML. To start blogging, sign in with your Google account. However, Blogger.com doesn’t offer many customization options, and many bloggers switch to other platforms once they are ready to an upgrade.

If you want to get paid to write in your blog, it’s important to publish unique, valuable content and deliver top-notch texts. It should also be diverse to make the blog interesting and attract more traffic.

The most successful bloggers earn more than $10,000 per month. The income is dependable on the blog content and marketing strategies. For example, by using affiliate marketing, it’s possible to get from $1 up to $1,000 based on a product you promote.

Writing a Course

Writing a course

One of the greatest ways of making money writing is to create a dedicated course. Its topic will be determined by your skills and expertise. To create a course, you don’t need to be highly educated but you should feature a good experience within the niche you cover and a desire to share it with others.

You can place a course on your website/blog and promote it on other platforms as well (social media, YouTube and more). Besides, you can use such platforms as Thinkific which offers services on the turn-key basis and allows creating an online course website and promote it.

E-learning market is growing year to year which confirms the profitability of an idea of making a course. The possible income from an online course can be from $0 up to $50,000 per month as well as from $1 up to 5,000/month. A great number of samples feature $10,000–$50,000 per month.

Writing a Book

Writing a book

If you want to make a living as a writer, create your own book. You can get income when selling copies or turn it into an effective marketing tool. For example, if you are lucky to get trust from readers, you can go much higher and start a consulting business. Besides, it a good base to grow as a professional paid speaker.

Where can you publish your new masterpiece? Amazon’s program Kindle Direct Publishing will be helpful. To promote your book, get positive reviews by offering a free copy. Many users check reviews before buying a book. Speaking of the income range, the average self-published author makes around $5,000 per year.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging

Guest blogging also helps make money as a writer, since many people need smart authors that can contribute to respected blogs in their niche. Basically, guest blogging is when you create content for a blog of another author or company. Normally, people launch guest posting within their niche to drive traffic and share knowledge. Also, guest blogging allows for placing external links to your blog which is crucial for its promotion. Paid or not, it is a mutually beneficial activity: as a writer, you enhance your skills, share information, place backlinks to your blog and increase your brand awareness, while the blog you write for receives a high-quality material and can drive traffic to your website.

To find clients, get in touch with SEO or marketing companies, big brands and professional bloggers. Besides, give attention to freelancing job boards and websites that generate tons of content every day and always need authors.

The price of guest blogging is different and depends on the customer/platform. For example, TopTenz pays $50 per post and The Dollar Stretcher offers $0.10 per word or $50 per post, of 500 words.

Why It Is Easy to Make Money Writing

There are many ways to make money writing. Try out the ones you find attractive. Hopefully, they’ll become a good source of passive income. If you’re a rookie, start with writing articles or blog posts and over time, you’ll be able to create courses and books. In case you enjoy making money online, there are plenty of other ways to do so, just research the market.