Becoming a paid freelance writer is an easily achievable goal but that does not mean that the process will not have its hurdles or that the profession is easy.
What makes being a freelance writer easy is the right knowledge. To make money writing, let’s explore the best ways.
Start blogging
If you are confused about how to start freelance writing, starting a blog is the first thing you should do as it will help you develop your writing skills. It will also help you to identify who your target audience is and help you to create/fulfill a niche in the market for yourself.
When bigger publications notice that you are good at writing about a certain subject and that you have readers, you could offer to write for them. You can also make money by allowing companies to show ads on your blog or by accepting donations.
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Write for a content mill
While many top writers may advise you against looking for writing gigs on content mills, these websites are perfect for people without any writing experience. You can better your writing skills on these platforms as real clients will send you feedback privately and your reputation as a writer won’t get jeopardized.
Content mills do not pay a lot but they will help you land better-paying clients or writing jobs as you will now have a portfolio of past projects. Also, some content mills will pay you better if they realize that your writing is improving and that clients are not complaining about your work.
Write a book
People usually think that being an author means you will either become rich and famous or struggle to sell even one copy of your book. While that is true, many authors are not rich but make a decent living through their books.
Many profitable authors sell their books on Amazon and this means that they have to learn marketing strategies if they are self-publishing their books. Using a book to form relationships with readers also allows authors to make extra money by selling products or services related to their books.
Be a copywriter
Copywriting is a form of marketing as you will have to create ads, video scripts, and webpages that will promote a product, service or brand. As a copywriter, you are expected to create a copy that’ll drive a person to take immediate action and copy that will incite action in the future.
To become a copywriter, you need to understand the basics of writing persuasively, there are many books, videos, and other resources available that will teach you this skill. After learning the basics, get prepared to work for an unsavory pay or for free to build a portfolio that you can pitch to high-paying companies.
Technical writing
If explaining complex ideas and detailed instructions to regular people is what you are good at, being a technical writer could be perfect for you. Technical writers are not just needed by IT companies, but medical practitioners, manufacturers, and finance companies also need people who will write/rewrite their manuals or other documents.
Having a qualification in the field that you would like to write for is great. However, most companies will offer work to people with excellent sample documents. So, if you do not have any qualifications, you will have to learn more about one industry, the types of documents they need done and improve your writing.
Once you have the qualification and great writing skills to demonstrate, you can also work in the academic writing field. An essay maker website provides high-quality writing assignments to students from colleges and universities and they have an ongoing demand for great writers, editors and proofreaders. You can join them to work on essays, thesis, dissertations, term papers and much more.
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SEO writing
SEO writing helps websites rank higher on Google search results and many companies who need this service post requirement on freelance job boards. On these job boards, companies usually want short pieces with certain keywords spread throughout each one.
Other SEO writing projects will require you to write longer content pieces and you need to use keywords in these articles/blogs and follow a particular style of structuring and formatting. Clients who offer longer SEO writing gigs often pay better and are available on many freelance job boards.
Ghostwriting
Being a ghostwriter can be very lucrative if you’ll be working on longer projects like books or scripts depending on your experience and expertise. Experienced ghostwriters usually make more for each project and can think of a regular income if they write for a famous entity. Beginners also make decent income for every project that they take up.
Ghostwriting projects are ava are also found on freelancer job boards but most of the projects advertised there are for brochures, college papers, and trade journals. These projects pay for every page or word you write, the average rate for a page is $12 and the per-word rate ranges between $0.30 and $5.
Conclusion
There are a lot of freelancing jobs that you can find online these days but sometimes cold pitching your services to local businesses can also get you projects. Looking for projects online is better, though, because you’ll find various projects there and be able to choose one that’s most suitable for you.
