I think of myself as an accidental writer. I never had a goal to write a book or earn an income writing. In fact, if you’d asked me about writing 20 years ago, I’d have said, “No way!”. Growing up I wasn’t an avid reader and except for a little fan fiction, only wrote when my teachers required it. And yet here I am, working at home making a living writing on the Internet.
I’m not going to say you don’t need talent to write, but writing for the digital world is a skill that can be learned. Writing for the Internet is very different than writing for the traditional print world. It’s short, concise and engaging. If you can write like that, odds are you can make money at it.
There are several ways to make money writing online including:
1) Freelance writing for online media. Some of these writing gigs are ongoing, while others you need to pitch articles just as you would for print magazines.
2) Freelance writing for businesses. This type of writing can encompass one or all forms of copywriting including creating sales pages or ads, writing articles or blogs, creating press releases or white papers, or writing website content. This is the most lucrative form of online writing.
3) Blogging. You can make money through blogs you create or you can get paid to write for other people’s blogs.
4) ePublishing. Ebooks continue to grow in popularity. One of the advantages of ebooks is that they are cheap to produce which means they can be just about any length (traditional publishers usually have a minimum and maximum page account they allow). You can write non-fiction or fiction. Further, there are online publishers that will publish for you much in the same way traditional publishers do or you can self-publish.
I do all of the above, which is another great advantage to writing online. I write about exercise, nutrition, small business, careers and parenting. I’ve been paid to write short celebrity bios and true crime reports. I blog at my own sites and have been traditionally and self-publisheded both in print and ebooks. Everyday I’m writing something new and that makes work interesting.
The digital world is changing publishing much in the same way it changed music. It’s not all good, but it has created opportunities for people like me who didn’t envision a life of writing, but wants to make a living working at home. It also allows writers to have greater control over their books. To help people understand, learn about and navigate the world of digital writing, I created a new site, Digital Writer Success. It’s free to use and offers articles on freelance writing, blogging and epublishing. The site is new, but growing. I hope you’ll check it out and sign up for the email list to get a free report with several online markets and writing job sources, plus email updates, tips, tools and resources.
