Becoming An Article Writer
Of all the many ways that you can be a freelance writer, article writing is a great way to go. In this job, you are going to be able to write articles for many different companies and they will pay you for your knowledge and for your work. If you want to work form home as an article writer, there are several things that you should know first.
First of all, this job might require you to write many different articles about the same topic. You might have to write lots of articles on one particular topic but each of the articles has to be something different. If you can handle this kind of work, keep reading. Also, you are going to be working mainly on a project by project basis.
If you are very good you might get several projects at once and if you are even better you might get projects that pay more and more. It is a job that you have to work very hard at for a long time before you can begin to make real money, so you should try your best to make sure that you are doing your best work at all times.
Also, it is going to be a hard market to break into as a first time writer. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to get a good portfolio with lots of different articles in it so that you have something to give to potential employers. You are going to find that you might need a lot of help getting started, so its a good idea to check with some people who do this as a job to see what advice they have to offer you.
Remember that this is something that you can do for a while or for a long time, depending on how good you are. The internet is something that is quite large and that handles a lot of different things at once. If you are able to do the kind of work that this work form home job entitles, you might find that you can be very successful in the end.
Of course, there are always going to be things that go wrong and there are always going to be times that you try your best but you just were not chosen for a job. When these things happen, try to keep your head up and remember that there are lots of different jobs out there for freelance article writers, you just have to keep working at them to get them done.
Obinna Heche:
Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully..
http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365/
Freelance Writing Online: Some Hard and Fast Facts
If there is one maxim that has continued to remain true about the Internet it is that “Content is King”. The fact that website owners need fresh and relevant content to keep browsers coming back to their website means that there is a secondary market for content creation.
This of course has created a wonderful opportunity for freelance writers who can spend their time creating content for others and be paid for it. But before you throw in your day jobs, register your profile with Elance or Guru and start banging away on your laptop, let’s look at some of the truisms of the market so that you can enter the opportunity with open eyes.
Firstly, let’s deal with the question of how much money you can make. Will you make a million dollars? No. Only very high profile offline authors make this sort of money. Is it possible to make $80- $100k per year. The answer is yes but like anything it will require some hard work and a dash of entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, to be truly successful you will need to spend nearly as much time marketing yourself as you will creating content. To command this type of income you will also most likely need to augment your writing efforts with some affiliate marketing. This isn’t difficult: you still create content but you will also make sure that you embed some of your own affiliate links in the content that you create.
It also depends on your agenda. If you’re looking to make a full time income then those figures are within your reach. If however, you’re a student for instance and therefore do not have as much time at your disposal, then a $20k per annum secondary income at the upper end would be the more likely scenario.
Do you have to be a good writer to succeed online? No. In fact being a good writer may actually be a hindrance: simply for the fact that your work may not be appreciated and command the price that you feel it’s worth. The nature of the market that you will be dealing with is one that is after fast and relatively cheap content. They’re not after high quality writing so don’t try and be Shakespeare. All you really need is a decent grasp of spelling and punctuation and be able to write in a conversational tone. Easy? You bet.
Do you need to have a subject specialty? Once again the answer is no and if you do specialise then you may be severely denting your income prospects. The secret here is to not put all your eggs in one basket. You want to have multiple sources of income: this means not only a multiplicity of subjects but also a multiplicity off avenues to get your writing out there. Bidding at auction sites such as Guru.com and Elance.com is certainly one way of getting the dollars in but it does not preclude creating monetised blogs or writing and submitting articles with embedded links.
It helps when writing online for a living to think outside the box. You can certainly make a steady income from just writing alone but by tweaking and monetising your approach with affiliate marketing you can put yourself in a position to really explode your income.
Scott is a successful freelance writer who makes the bulk of his income by writing online. To learn how you can create a secondary income through online freelance writing go to http://www.writingforincome.com
Freelance Writing: The Most Practical and Profitable Markets
What you don’t want to be doing as a freelance writer is spending your time flogging your wares in all the wrong places. You don’t want to be fussing around putting your resume on monster.com or other types of job boards. There are very few places that post ads for freelancers on actual job boards. Actually I’ve found that post for jobs on these writing sites usually come to less than five a month.
Because we are looking at a self sustaining system for online writing income we need to get stuck straight into the proven profitable markets, which are:
1. Bidding on the auction sites
2. Selling yourself on the live advice lines and;
3. Self publishing
Consider these 3 areas to be the most recommended and reliable sources of income: by myself and other professional writers.
Auction Sites
As mentioned previously Guru.com and Elance.com are the main players here. They are both outsourcing forums that allow writers to post their profiles and bid on projects that are posted by buyers looking for projects that they want completed. These sites don’t specialise in just writing but all kinds of services that can be outsourced such as graphic design, website design and administrative services.
Both sites have different membership levels which will affect your bidding privileges.
Guru is the bigger of the two and has the cheaper membership rates but they also tend to pay less for jobs and their customer service isn’t as good as that at Elance.
DON’T bother with the free membership option at either site. You will only get access to the lowest paying jobs and will be competing with hundreds of others for work.
Charging For Phone Consulting
Keen.com is one of the largest and oldest live advice sites on the web with the money you make being directly deposited into your bank account every fortnight (or paid by cheque every month for citizens outside of the US).
They will allow you to post four free profiles per three allowed phone numbers which acts as a great business card for your online business. You can get work directly from individuals who call you on keen; they will just assign your over the phone.
Kasamba.com is a site of aggregated service providers that allows you to charge per minute for your own online chat. You can sell advice or consulting services in nay of several categories that relate to writing, of which there are a number.
Self Publishing
Constant-Content.com allows you to upload content for sale on their site. It must be content that you have rights to and you can set whatever price and conditions you want on the sale.
Lulu.com will let you upload ebooks for free and will even convert them into PDF format for you. Your customer has the option of having your book sent to them as hardcover or emailed to them in the PDF format.
Scott is a successful freelance writer who makes the bulk of his income by writing online. To learn how you can create a secondary income through online freelance writing go to http://www.writingforincome.com
Why Your Freelance Writing Talents Are Desperately Needed
You may or may not have heard this before – On the Internet: Content is King. Or to put it another way: the websites that deliver the most up-to-date and relevant content also tend to be the most popular. And if the website(s) in question have a commercial aspect to them, which is most of them; then popularity goes onto equate with increased income for the website owner.
The explosive growth of the Internet and the attendant growth of Internet related commerce has created an unprecedented demand for written content. Now the fact of the matter is that is very rare for webmasters to go about each day creating this content themselves. They simply don’t have the time. What you will find is that they source the content from elsewhere and are happy to pay for it.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? If Webmasters are happy to pay for outsourced content then there is an obvious opportunity for freelance writes to create that content and get paid for it.
It gets better: Not only is there a demand for freelance writing skills but some specific online markets have sprung up that allow freelance writers to present their wares as it were. Webmasters know to go to these markets to secure outsourced content so it really streamlines the process of selling your writing skills.
It gets better still: The constantly evolving nature of the Internet means that new avenues are continually springing up – all of which are in need of new content. If it’s not website owners that need sales copy, then it’ll be bloggers who need fresh content for their blog readers. And if it’s not blog owners that need content, then it’ll be article directories looking for more content so that webmasters keep coming back to them. And so on and so on. If there’s one thing the Internet is not: it is static. Opportunities abound wherever you look and content creation is one of the biggest of them.
Two of the biggest and most popular online auction sites are Elance.com and Guru.com. Webmasters know that they can go to these central resources, create a job description, and then have freelance writers bid to do that work. It works like a dutch auction with the lowest bidder usually, though not always, winning the bid and securing the job. Of course once you’ve done good work for someone once, they may opt to bypass the bidding process the next time around and work with you directly.
The beauty about selling your freelance writing skills these agencies is that not only do they provide an efficient marketplace for you to sell your skills but they also act as a governing body to ensure that your invoice is paid within 30 days or sooner. People that do pay you late on these sites tend to get kicked off. In that respect it is very similar to the eBay auction system except that you are dealing with writing services instead of “shipped goods”.
If you’re a writer looking to make an income by writing online then it behoves you to make yourself visible where the buyers of content all go to shop. Elance.com and Guru.com are the best places to start.
Scott is a successful freelance writer who makes the bulk of his income by writing online. To learn how you can create a secondary income through online freelance writing go to http://www.writingforincome.com
How To Turn Your Articles into Cash
I can imagine what it’s like to be an editor for a magazine. I’m sure the more popular magazines probably get dozens of articles in the mail each day, and these go in the trash.
Ever wonder why?
Most of these articles get rejected, and they get rejected for pretty much the same reasons articles written for promotion get rejected.
First, the article may or may not be targeted to the audience of the publication the writer is submitting to. This should be your first step in getting it right: target your article to the
correct audience.
Second, you need to remember you aren’t writing a sales piece. You’re writing an article. An article is information. The purpose of an article, especially when writing one to promote your business, is to provide enough information to get visitors to want to visit your site.
If your “article” is all about how great your product is, then you’ll get rejected right off the bat. No one wants to read an article that is really nothing more than hype, or worse, just a review about your product.
Some article directories do accept reviews, and if you want to submit a review, then by all means, write one and submit it. Just make sure you read the guidelines for the website, Don’t write a review about your own product. Get someone else to do it. Review others’ products instead. Put the link in your resource box. Don’t clutter your article with links back to the program. It will get rejected.
Third, are you writing an article or an ad? I see this one all the time. I’m not sure what other people are thinking except maybe they are so desperate to promote their products they don’t think about what they are doing when they submit.
If the site asks for articles, submit an article. Don’t submit an ad. Article directory owners provide specific guidelines for what they’re looking for. If you want to submit an ad, then exchange links. Don’t post an ad in article directory.
Have you included the basics, i.e. good writing, good grammar, good spelling? Your article doesn’t have to be perfect, just well written. There are those on the internet who think they are the arbiters of what’s good writing. You’ll get attacked, and sometimes without mercy, if you don’t bother to check your spelling, as well as how your sentences read.
Of course, just remember to take this with a grain of salt. They’re reading you. Not the other way around. Often, the people who do this are lonely and looking to connect with others. I’m not sure why they think being nasty is the way to do it. Maybe it’s their way of making themselves feel superior. Just ignore it.
You can easily correct most of your writing problems simply by using a spell checker, and then reading your article out loud. Reading your article out loud can help you check your punctuation, as well as flow of your article.
Including a solid headline, or title, that makes readers want to read your article will definitely help you.
Finally, always make sure you include your resource box. Your resource box is one of the most important parts of your article. It should be the next logical step for your readers. You want
them to visit your site next. Get them to join your list, buy a product, sign up for a free membership, or something else.
The purpose is to give your readers a reason to visit your site.
Unfortunately, most of the articles I get and have to reject, don’t have a resource box added. I have no idea where the article came from or who wrote it. As a result, some very well written articles I would love to include in my directories get deleted.
Don’t let this happen to you.
Write a good article. Target your market. Include your resource box. You’ll see results, like traffic and sales, from your article in no time.
Jinger Jarrett will show you how to write and promote your articles for free. http://www.101articles.com. Get $3,780 in free writers’ resources, http://www.marketingforwriters.com. Internet Marketing Bookstore: http://www.lulu.com/jingerjarrett