Maybe the expert copywriters can take some of the blame for the internet marketing sales letters which promise the earth for hardly any work, or perhaps the latest so called ‘loop hole’ which claims that Google have over looked a simple trick which will mean that you can start from scratch and earn a few thousand dollars before breakfast, again without doing any work!
You and I both know that this is not the case, whilst it is perfectly possible to earn a few thousand before breakfast if you have your own product, or your own list for example, guess what? You have to put the work in to get to that stage in the first place!
If you are prepared to work, and work hard, it is worth considering offering your services as a freelance writer. You may just be looking to earn some money online for the first time or you might be looking to build up a business which you can profit from over the months and years ahead, but one thing is for sure, there is plenty of money to be made and whilst you will have to work, it is straightforward and easy work, and you may be surprised by how quickly you can get started, in fact would it surprise you to learn that you could be earning a couple of hundred dollars a day within a couple of weeks!
Before I go any further let’s get one thing straight, many people are under the impression that writing for a living is nothing more than slave labour, with non English speaking writers charging no more than $1 per 100 words, how an earth is it possible to make money? Well, with no disrespect to these writers, for many of them it is extremely difficult to write English in a flowing and informative way which means that there is even more demand for English speaking writers so, if English is your first language and you are able to write to a basic standard, you will find that there is more work out there than you could possibly handle which will enable you to basically earn as much as you want.
As an example, let’s say that you charge $15 for a basic 500 word article. Many businesses will be happy to pay this amount and let’s say that you decide to write 10 articles per day. Get up nice and early, start at 6am and you will be finished by lunchtime. There won’t be any time for procrastination, no checking your emails every 5 minutes or logging into facebook, just good old fashioned work but at the end of it you will have made $150, not bad for a mornings work. In the afternoon you could simply relax or perhaps spend a couple of hours on a project that will make you even more money, a few pages of your latest ebook for instance, the choice really is yours.
At this stage you may be saying to yourself, ‘that all sounds well and good but where do I find all of this work?’ There are many options open to you but I swear by using the biggest outsourcing website of them all, Elance.com. If you are not familiar with Elance.com, the way it works is that businesses and individuals post a description of the work that they require, and you, as a provider, give a price that you will carry out the work for. The client pays the money into the Elance escrow account and when you have completed the work, the money is released to you.
To start with, you should be looking at winning around 10% of the jobs that you bid on. Place 100 bids and you should be looking at 10 writing jobs, at $200 per job you will earn around $2000. If you are desperate for money you could complete that amount in a week, hard work comes into it again as you will have to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in, but then again, working in a hot, fume filled factory for 12 hour shifts is also hard work, that is what I used to do and I know which method of making money I prefer, do you?
This is a guest post written by Gary Tomlinson, creator of Writing For a Living
If you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.
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Really good post, John. I enjoy guest posting, I guess it’s a bit like giving away a freebie, but I signed up for one of the ‘writers for sale’ type sites and got rejected! I was astounded as I have gone so far as to write a PhD – I couldn’t believe they turned me away. Maybe their standard is so much higher than I anticipated and my writing just didn’t cut it! I also signed up for Elance, but have never won a job – there seem to be a huge number of people on there who put in very low quotes for jobs. I think you really need to build a reputation somehow, but how when you can’t win the gigs is beyond me. Great post though.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
Hi Gary
This is great advice to anyone looking to make money online.
In my experience the hardest dollar to make online is the first one.
And this is a great way for people to make some ‘actual’ money online without having to learn some push button system, or trying to out fox Google in someway.
Like you say hard work and dedication is the key and the great thing about becoming an article writer is that it can soon turn into bigger things.
Once you have been recognised as a quality writer and over delivered for your customers you’ll quickly find that the sky is the limit…this could even open up opportunities to become a Ghost Writer being paid for writing eBooks for others…(a lot of well known marketers do this all the time)
Or you could even end up running a team of writers who work for you.
Now that’s autopilot income.
Happy Marketing
Steve
Great post, I don’t do as much writing as I should but my first dollars were made doing freelance web stuff mainly with providing help with WordPress and other website advice.
Elance is a great place to start here are a couple of tips I used to get started on freelance sites.
Write a good personalised bid description for each project you bid on and, if you can, start working on the project before you bid. I used to start designing the site beforehand and then send them a first draft with the bid.
You could do something similar for writing projects by sending a list of the article titles you’re going to research for the project and send them along with the project bid. Doesn’t take long to come up with good titles for articles and will hopefully impress enough to choose you.
Cheers, Harry
Hello Gary and John,
Gary you have given yet another option on earning money, good post. There are many ways to earn money in this business.
No matter what you choose to do there is serious work to be done. I remember something that John said some time ago. It went something like this.
There is no easy money. If there was a way for easy money everyone would be doing it.
I’d like to add you have to earn your way to up to easy money through hard work.
As your title says Gary, Work Hard And The Rewards Will Follow.
Terry Conti
Good post- Thought provoking.
I’m sure it will become easy once the hard work has been
put in.
Set up your different revenue streams and be consistent
and you will reap the rewards.
James