by Pamela White
One common theme among writers is how to make more money. Unless we
have a spouse whose job includes health insurance, 401K's, and have
a fortunate ability to pick winning lottery numbers, we all plot and
plan to earn more each week, each month, each year.
Just like a varied diet keeps our health on track, a varied approach
to writing keeps our income healthy.
A common dilemma is that once we get in tight with an editor at a
well-paying magazine, the editor moves, the magazine closes, or
both. Newspapers cut back on weekly columnists; magazines are
narrowing down their stable of regular writers so it's hard to break
in somewhere new.
While we are living with the changes in our writing opportunities,
why not focus on opening new doors instead of fretting about
familiar doors shutting in our faces.
Learn to write press releases. Every business needs someone who can
write a kick-butt press release to get them free publicity. You can
grab some books or search for articles online but writing a press
release varies little from writing an article. It's just that you
and the editors you're sending it to understand that you are
pitching a story that they can run without paying for it. Add press
releases to your resume and you can bid on freelance auction sites
and earn over $120 per press release as a novice. Seek clients
locally, build on your successes and you could end up living off
your publicity earnings.
Love to write how-to articles? Why not expand on your favorite
topics and turn them into ebooks? My first venture into ebooks was
to take an old writing class that I was no longer teaching and
simply turn it into one document, each lesson equaled a chapter. I
turned it into a PDF, opened an account on payloadz.com, and sent
out an email to my list saying I had a new ebook. I made dozens of
sales the first week, and the sales continue today. Total time? I
spent one day creating the ebook from lessons I had already written.
You could do the same from information articles you've penned, or
from information you have stashed in your head. You can sell ebooks
from your website, booklocker.com, or on ebay.com .
Learn SEO. Imagine my surprise when someone asked me to write a
series of articles based on instructions from his SEO advisor. I had
to look it up. Search Engine Optimization is hot and will continue
to be a skill that puts you in front of the parade of writers.
Simply put, SEO is using keywords (or words that people use in
search engines when looking for what you have to offer) throughout
your website and meta tags that are picked up by search engines. You
want your website to have the words that your potential readers and
clients will use to find someone who will provide the services that
you long to sell. Yes, it's getting more complex but for more
website owners looking for a content provider, you can learn to use
online programs that will help you determine which string of search
words will bring the most visitors to any site.
Teach what you know. Write up a workshop, pitch it to a local
college, church, association, group, or community center. With a
little publicity, anyone can fill a class on the subject of her
choice. Do you want to teach cooking classes? Would it surprise you
to know that Food Network star, and now talk show host, Rachael Ray
started teaching 30-minute cooking classes near her home to pay
bills, and that led a local tv station to offer her a special, then
weekly show. Then came a cookbook, Food Network, special
appearances, and on and on. You may not make it as far, as fast as
she did, but you can make money to pay bills by teaching workshops.
People are willing to pay between $35 to $135 for a half day
workshop. And as a writer, you know how to organize and write a
class.
Try to get a column (or two). At one point I was writing four
regular columns. I had to do little more than those to meet my
financial goals. Start off by choosing a theme for your column,
write down a list of 12 to 36 ideas and find local, regional and
national markets. The guarantee of regular income each week or each
month from a column is a wonderful feeling for freelance writers.
Prepare yourself for the ups and downs of the writing life by
learning new ways to make more money!
posted by KMHogarth @ 6:37 AM
6 Comments:
Good article. A few years ago, a friend of mine got started in copywriting. At the time, I thought he was wasting his efforts but now he's got more business than I do (as a 10 year web designer). Maybe it's time to switch to writing!
Explore Vermont!
Thank you for sharing these great tips! Have you tried software, like ArtemisPro? I understand it will help you SEO your copy and automatically submit it to tons of publishers at once.
Everybody expects high quaity work for peanuts nowadays. It is very hard work writing articles.
Yes it can be fun and I really do enjoy it. But few people will pay above $5 per article anymore!
I use Glyphius to help suggest keywords and is pretty useful, but it still doesnt save any time. To make ends meet I have to write around 25 articles a day, which means i'm at about capacity.
Great blog!
Hi,
Funny you mentioned Artemis Pro. That's what I've been using to help submit all of my products - websites, articles, blogs, headlines, etc. It's made the submission process a whole lot easier!
Great article. I do find it difficult to make a living from writing. It is possible, I use Glyphius to make my articles more valuable.
As a freelance writer, I'm always looking for more tips and suggestions. Thanks for writing this article! There were many useful tips in it that I may use in the future.
From my own experience, writing can be helpful in other situations as well, for example, if you want to sell a product yourself, you can use your writing skills for marketing efforts. I, for one, am going to start selling books through WealthyWiseBooks.com, and plan to put my writing skills to work!
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