While I have gained the bulk of my freelance writing jobs through bidding, there are more avenues for writing projects out there, beyond just bidding sites. In fact, the whole purpose of this site is to help you to see the potential in that underused and under publicized marketplace.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of bidding for jobs for whatever reason, then it’s useful to know about alternative freelance writing markets. In this section, we will take a look at other places where you can look for a freelance writing assignment; I break them down below to give you a brief overview of what other opportunities you can expect in the writers market.

Offline writing opportunities

The most well publicized, and therefore the most competitive, jobs in the freelance writing market are those in the print media. Trade magazines and newspapers are the places where most aspiring writers go to get their start, and this can be deadly competitive, and often the wages are not too great either! Still, there are a huge number of potential markets for your writing, and you do have the ability to apply for positions that cater to your strengths.

The person to get into contact with for these freelance writing jobs is the editor of the newspaper or magazine you want to write for. This is usually done by way of a query letter; we will go into those a bit more in a further article. The most important part of the process is patience; you will often hear nothing at all, and it might be some time before you can get your shot!

Becoming a web content writer

Wait a second; I bet you are thinking I said that we wouldn’t be talking about online writing jobs in this section, right? Well, not exactly. What we aren’t talking about is gaining a freelance job through a bidding site, but there are a lot more ways to get a job as a web content writer other than through winning a bid, and I have made some good money doing them.

The web content writer’s market is not yet so saturated that everyone who has developed a website can easily find a good writer. There are plenty of people out there who can’t write at all, and then there are those who prefer to cut and paste, who just disappear, and who can’t seem to keep a deadline.

For this reason, most web site developers are constantly watching for opportunities to hire web content writers in the freelance writing market, and in this section I will point out some ways you can get them to approach you without having to go through a bidding process.

I bet you have said this out loud (or at least thought it): “It is not about writing fees or money, for me writing is about doing what I love!” That sentiment is all well and good, but at the end of the day passion isn’t going to put food on the table for you and your family, nor is it going to help you pay the rent (and if you are charging “love money”, rent is all you will be paying, because good luck buying a house!).

You have to remember that freelance writing is a business, although it is a form of art as well. This is particularly true when it comes to writing for the Internet for a living: most clients are not looking for you to write inspiring or humorous stories, they want content to help them compete with other sites for informational purposes or for Search Engine Optimization purposes (Whoops! If you haven’t heard that term before, we have the right section for you! Understanding SEO is a great way to land clients and show them you know what you’re about!), or for both.

Nothing will put you in a more business and less artistic frame of mind than writing a couple dozen articles on the advantages of buying a condominium in Toronto, and if you haven’t established a good criterion for determining your writing fees, you will certainly wish you had!

The Writer’s Market is a web site based on surveys completed by freelance writers all over the world, though mostly in the United States (don’t fret, the US market is a pretty good measuring stick for writers from developed, English speaking countries all over the world). You will find a wealth of information on the site, including how much the average freelance writer can expect to earn (usually between $35,000 and $50,000 per year) and a great break down of what individuals are charging for specific jobs.

That’s great for the brick and mortar freelance market, but how does one go about establishing writing fees for an Internet based writing business? This site wouldn’t be very helpful to you if I didn’t offer some recommendations in this area, so here are some of the ways that I have determined writing fees over the course of my career.

Charge low to build high.

On bidding sites particularly, you will find that there are “tiers” when it comes to potential clients. Some buyers are only looking for a lot of material to be banged out quickly, at the least possible cost. Higher paying clients want to see positive feedback and some quality samples before they take you on for a job. People brand new to the bidding market should probably set their great expectations aside for a while. My first couple of jobs paid $5 per article; not a lot, but I did them well and got great feedback, and within four months I was able to triple the rate, and still get jobs.

How quickly can you write?

One of the advantages I have is that I am able to process information and write it down very quickly. Even writing at $5 per article I was able to have a per hour wage that was competitive with the entry level jobs I might find around town.

Compare hourly rates based on your fees with those you could expect in a non-writing job.

I alluded to this above, and I will spell it out here. It is of no use charging low writing fees if you are making less than you could at another job. The jobs I was getting paid $5 per article for were 400 words or less, and I could complete between 3 and 6 of them in an hour. That translated to an hourly rate of $15-$30 (US, and in Canada at the time our dollar was about 1.10 on the exchange rate). This was either on par or double what I could expect at another job, so I was pretty happy with the writing fees I was charging.

Consider what you are writing about.

Now, if I was writing a 1000 word piece which compared recreational vehicles (that came later), I would not have been too happy with the writing fees I was charging. That topic would have taken me an hour or two to research and write, resulting in a very low hourly wage.

Once you get established, raise your rates!

I knew that $5 per article was coming in pretty low, and that eventually if I wanted to make a real living I would have to raise my rates. I couldn’t write four articles an hour for the rest of my life, and even more importantly, I found that the work was not filling a forty hour work week. After I had built up a solid reputation, I was able to raise my rates, and today I charge between $15 and $25 for a 500 word piece. Now a lot of writers used to magazine and newspaper writing may (or may not, I have never been able to get a straight answer on their writing fees out of them) scoff at even the higher fees I mentioned above, but I think the key it to be happy about them within yourself. At even $15 per piece, I am making an hourly wage that is equivalent to my wife, who is a Registered Nurse. It’s a wage that I am happy with, and one that my clients are willing to pay for the work that I put in.

People starting out on their freelance writing career might think the “ freelance writers wanted “ jobs hard to find. Landing those first few jobs can be really tough, even when it comes to bidding on Internet jobs for various site developers. One of the keys to landing Internet writing jobs is to understand that the advice of freelance writers is wanted. Armed with just the right information, you can present yourself as an expert when it comes to what people are looking for, and succeeding with, when they write for the Internet.

In this article, we are going to look at some ways in which you can sell yourself and your advice to a client or a potential client. It’s about knowledge and about the right presentation, and I have had some experience with both. Here is what I have learned.

A basic understanding of SEO can really get you in the door.

We develop a better understanding of search engine optimization in another section of this site, and I really can’t stress enough how much site developers love to work with a freelance writer who understands this web strategy. A client of mine, a web site developer herself, continually stresses the importance of SEO and sound marketing practices. Letting potential clients know that you have a working knowledge of this proven strategy will mean you are in the top tier of freelance writers wanted for their services.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

Please, please understand what you are talking about before you make your SEO pitch. One of the best moves I ever made was purchasing Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. It really helped me gain an understanding of what the search engines were all about, and as a result I was not only able to land jobs, but also to point out to various clients areas in which they could improve. The quality of work combined with the extra help solidified many working relationships, and set up recurring sources of income, for me.

Don’t come off as a know it all!

If there is one thing that will send you to the bottom of the list of freelance writers wanted for their services, it’s acting like you know everything. You might know a great deal more than your client about the material or even developing a web site, but you have to remember that they have already decided on a method that they think will work for them. Never just come out and say what you think; couch your advice in questions and so on. It seems a little bit weird, but pride is a big factor when it comes to freelance writing jobs, and you have to be careful not to offend.

If a client asks for help, give it.

“What do you think?” This is my favorite question from a client, as they are deliberately soliciting my advice. I have a lot of great ideas and I tend not to offer an opinion unless I know what I am talking about (unless of course you happen to be my wife, but that’s a different story), so when this question gets asked the flood gates will open. I don’t expect all clients who ask this to use all my suggestions, but the ensuing discussion almost always helps both of us to further our knowledge of the Internet, web sites, writing, the reader, and most importantly our own working relationship.

Freelance Writers Wanted ads can be found easily. But the ask for more than just writing skills. It is the advice of freelance writers that is wanted, but you have to know how to deliver it. Moreover, you have to have the knowledge to back your statements up. If you are just blowing smoke at your client, they will eventually realize it, and then that is a client lost, possibly forever.

As a buyer I realize that the feedback system is not very useful on a qualitative level. A personality clash or miscommunication can easily to results below expectations.Instead I pay more attention to the amount of feedback someone has received for their writing jobs online.  I might read a few comments, and if there are positive among them, I am happy. and move to the next step of inviting more details to see how people react to my questions. That is what I base my decisions on when awarding writing jobs online.

Right off the bat, I want to tell you that I have little experience when it comes to blogging for money. Actually a more accurate statement would be to tell you that I have little experience in blogging, and none at all in blogging for money.

The truth is I find blogging a little bit tedious, mainly because it involves committing myself to creating at least a post today. I don’t know what it is in my brain that rebels at the thought of being locked into something, but apart from being a husband and a father I tend to run the other direction when it comes to commitments.

Still, there are a lot of people out there making money by blogging, and one thing I am good at is understanding what they are saying when they outline how to do it. In fact I have a pretty good idea of what makes blogging so appealing, and how it is that some people enjoy good success at it.

I am going to provide a summary of my thoughts – garnered from research, mind you, not from experience – in this article, but for those of you who are interested in adding a blogging option to your writing repertoire I HIGHLY recommend stevepavlina.com.

This guy is trying to do for bloggers on his site what I am attempting to do for freelance writers on this one, namely providing solid information based on realism and in your face figures to help you determine if you have what it takes to succeed at blogging and then how to go about doing so (actually he is trying to do this for everyone who is smart, but it’s kind of embarrassing for me to write that).

Here’s a link to one of his best articles on Blogging for Money (though as he points out, at 7300 words it is hardly a quick read!).

So based on what my second favourite regular contributor to his own web site has to say as well as what I have garnered from lesser sources, here is what I can tell you about blogging for money.

1. It is going to take time! Far, far too many writers think that the second they post something up on the Internet people will come flocking to see what they say.
   Really successful blogs are blogs which have been up for a while. This is my main problem with the whole idea, as I mentioned: I like to see results, particularly in my bank account. I don’t like writing pieces every day in the hopes that one day I will earn $50,000 in a year.
   My preference is obviously to make that kind of money much more quickly by writing for other people, but that does mean I have to tackle a lot of meaningless subjects.
2. It is going to take talent! One thing I love about Steve is that he really lays it all out there. If you are not a very good writer, you are not going to make money on your blog. He puts it even more bluntly when discussing what constitutes talent, and makes it clear that the clay he is providing can’t be moulded by deficient hands.
3. It is going to take tactical thinking! (I am pretty proud of finding a T term to fit for this one.) Tactical thinking is what Steve, and most other developers, call web savvy. You have to know what options are available to you on the Internet when it comes to monetizing your site, generating traffic, and keeping those numbers high.

So when it comes to blogging for money, these are the basic steps you are going to need to follow. Blogging can actually be quite a bit easier than developing a web site, because you don’t necessarily have to define and stick to one theme. You can fire off random blogs every day, of varying shapes and sizes.

The key is to engage people through your writing style or through the information you provide, and of course we can’t stress patience enough. Those who consider a two month relationship a commitment should probably cross blogging for money off the list of possible career options.

by Jenn Hollowell
(Richmond, Maine, USA)

My freelance writing career began November of 1999, with this article:
M.C. Escher: Artist or Artisan?

I found the opportunity on inscriptionsmagazine.com (which, I believe, is now defunct).

The Decision

I decided to become a writer when I learned I was pregnant with my first child. It was one month, to the day, before he was born that I got my start.

I had researched the fiction market extensively, but it didn’t take me long to realize non-fiction would be the career builder for me. I found many fiction markets that accepted new writers, mind you, but I couldn’t find the pay scale or “regular gig” type of work I craved.

Contribution to Content Sites

It wasn’t long after that when I fell into the habit of contributing to content sites:

• epinions.com
• themestream.com
• thevines.com
• sagebase.com
• webseedpublishing.com

While these sites brought in exactly the kind of income and consistency I needed and wanted, they didn’t last as companies and, one by one, vanished from the Internet pool of opportunity . . . with writer’s earnings still in the hopper.

Out of all of them, epinions.com still exists but for a painfully low stipend in comparison to “back in the day.”

Newsletter Writing

Following that little experience, I found myself writing for a lot of newsletters both in print and online. This seemed so much more credible than writing for the sites I mentioned above and the clips seemed to hold more weight.

I was able to break into better sites that were seeking content and dabble in copywriting (which, as it turns out, doesn’t hold my interest at all).

Trying on Different Hats

Between 2002 and 2004, I found myself going through a whole new set of experiences:

• I did manuscript editing, mostly for self published and print-on-demand authors.
• I was (and still am) book reviewing for a variety of authors, small pubs and large publication houses.
• I wrote a lot of content for a lot of different sites: Google searching my name will produce evidence of this fact.
• I was a magazine copy editor (Pulse Magazine, Las Vegas).
• I was a newspaper editor (The Maine Construction News).
• I wrote for The Writer Magazine and Do! Magazine.
• I was a ghostwriter for an educational company in California (course modules about the CAHSEE).

As you can see, I wore a lot of different hats. I had to “try” out all of these roles, though, in order to see what I really wanted out of my career. I wanted no “what if” questions, otherwise I’d be too distracted by wondering if I was missing out on an opportunity.

Finding My Writing Niche

Through these experiences, I was able to find my niches: providing content (article writing) for the web, newsletters and magazines. Out of all of it, that’s what the “writer” in me was driven to do and was most passionate about.

The Crash

It all came to a crashing halt, though, when I had to go through a couple of heart surgeries (one in September of 2004 and one in October of 2005).

This depleted my energy and ability to focus considerably. Followed-up by a couple of cancer cell treatments in October of 2006, I found myself wondering if I was ever going to be able to get back on track again. Several efforts were made during these years of treatments and recoveries, but it was exhausting.

Rebuilding My Writing Career

This year, 2007, was dedicated to rebuilding my career and getting my self back in the game. This challenge (Just Hit Send) got me on my way:

• October (the first month I started)
• November (the effort continues)

What if I Could Write a Book?

There was still one what if question I needed to answer, however. What if I could write a book?

This question has been on my mind for years, so I decided to take the plunge and get it out of my system. So, that’s what I’m doing now. I’m writing my first book: The Complete Guide to Building Your Own Home and Saving Thousands on Your New House, for Atlantic Publishing (will be finishing the project January 2008).

I have three other proposed books for three other publishers in the works, as well, so stay tuned!

Active Learner

This little story glosses over quite a bit of details, the number one being the fact that all of these accomplishments required A LOT of daily effort.

I’ve armed myself with lots of resources (books,websites, magazines, newsletters) and have remained an active learner.

Without dedicating myself to the task of actively seeking work on a daily basis (and ignoring my inner critic), I wouldn’t have been able to experiment with and find where my home in the writing world is.

Jenn Hollowell on MySpace.com

How did you get the first freelance writing job? When was it? Who was your first client?
Chip in and help me motivate new writers. I remember when I started out, I lapped up any success story. It motivated me to keep going.

This is for all new freelance writers, motivational success stories of how you started. Maybe you also want to share where your career took you from the first writing assignment and why you decided to go for a writing career.

I share a little bit on our home page about my jobs before I started to write for a living. While they were not always bad, I did find that I found the time away from my family, the loss of control over my life, and the necessity of listening to someone else (often in a position due more to seniority or friendship than any inherent capabilities) a real drag. I had always dreamed of a career where I could work from home doing something I loved; most of all I wanted to write for a living!

I decided to take this dream and turn it into reality a couple of years ago. I started to read a lot of books on how to make money writing for a living, but didn’t find very much useful advice. One piece of advice that I did find in every book, though, and that I found to be very true, was that if you have bills to pay and mouths to feed you need to come up with a solid plan when you decide to write for a living.

For a lot of people, this means following the old cliché “Don’t quit your day job”. Instead of the pejorative way in which this phrase is used, think of it as a positive: don’t quit your day job yet, but once you build up a solid client base and learn the ropes of your writing career, you will be able to go to part time and eventually leave the 9 to 5 scene (or whichever shift you happen to work on) for good.

Once you get your writing career started a little bit, you will quickly find out whether or not you are cut out for it. Believe it or not, once you make the decision to write for a living it is not all bliss. You have to worry about dry periods where you don’t quite make what you were hoping to, and you have to be able to work fast while still turning in quality pieces (that’s for writing on the Internet, writing for land based publications is a little bit different; I came across a good article on writing recently, and I really think it highlights the difference in the mediums very well. Almost everything that works for land based publications will prove detrimental on the web!).

Writing quickly enough to make the job worthwhile, in particular, can be what makes or breaks a career freelance writing for the Internet. I knew that I could research and write quality pieces very quickly, largely due to my university career. In fact, I knew that I worked best when I was up against a tight deadline and had no choice but to write quickly! Many writers don’t go to university (in fact some may tell you that this can be detrimental, although I haven’t found that to be the case at all), so the only way to tell if writing for a living is viable option for you is through a few assignments.

I’ve said it in another article, and I will say it again here: if you can’t make as much per hour writing as you could with a typical job, then it might not be worth it to write as a career. There is more to it than that, of course, but in the end whether or not you really can write for a living will come down to money.

I think Marshall has given some excellent advice, especially because he is living proof that it actually works. So if you are passing up writing opportunities and cannot get your career going, use his advice.

While I read this page, something jumped out at me:

“there was not a lot of opportunities out there for the niches I was interested in, or that the competition was just too crowded”

Demand and supply is a big part of success. So if the advice about going into a niche does not mention how to select a profitable niche, it is not worth the paper it is written on.

While Marshall has argued against niches, he has also described how to find a profitable niche:

• Do not limit your search for work by your specific likes and dislikes, go for everything.
• When you hit upon a profitable niche (without too much competition and a lot of demand), keep working that (as Marshall did with the weddings).
• Stay flexible for the next profitable niche, rather than getting stuck.

Another great insight I got from Marshall comes from another page where he talks about his income. He started out bidding low. Now he gets up to $25 per article. Both of these are niches with differing expectations from clients.

How a niche can increase your writing opportunities

A niche only serves one purpose: to focus your communication with potential clients. You cannot physically communicate with all potential clients, so you make decisions who to communicate with.

By consciously deciding where your communication brings in the most Dollars, you have used the concept of a niche to your advantage.

So go broad in your actions to get freelance jobs while you build your writing business and repeat the most profitable activities to increase your return.

Developing a freelance writing job mindset quickly will have you earning money more quickly.

Every freelance writer has one thing in common: at some point, he or she had to complete her first freelance writing assignment. Landing that first job is at once a very heady experience and incredibly daunting, and I have found that the more money a job is worth, the more those butterflies in my stomach are likely to flutter.

I don’t know if this is true for every freelance writer, but I do know that the ones I have talked to had a very similar experience. My first few freelance writing jobs on the Internet were fairly (you should read that VERY) low paying, so I was not too worried about writing some kind of masterpiece. Shortly after I discovered bidding sites for finding jobs for freelance writers, however, I found that the jobs increased in value, as did my anxiety.

The first freelance writing job that I landed that really gave me pause, and highlighted the importance of a freelance writing mindset to me, was a contract to write a book about weddings. I got the job mainly because I had experience writing in the area previously (I used some of my low paid articles as samples), and it was a vast sum compared to what I usually made on a contract ($650 US).

After my initial feeling of ecstasy faded, the fear set in. Would I really be able to write a booklet that was worth $650? Were my research skills up to it? Where did I begin?

Over-analyzing the job soon proved paralyzing (actually this is a nice little kitsch phrase, and it’s common in many different businesses, check out this article), and I started to put the job off. Here’s what got me back on track.

Deadline consciousness

As this was my first big writing job, I knew that at some point I had to get writing it. There’s nothing for breaking a block like an approaching deadline, although with subsequent jobs I have found that this inspiration starts to work less well.

The realization that this could lead to more business

Perhaps the most important motivating factor in the mindset of the freelance writer is the knowledge that doing a good job for a client will almost always lead to more work. You may receive more than one freelance writing job from the same client, or you may gain a valuable referral that can get you another well paid freelance writing assignment, usually more than one.

Taking it head on

After a few weeks of procrastination and dread, I finally just sat down at my computer and started to type out what I knew about weddings. Eventually the form the book would take, including chapter organization, came to me and everything came together beautifully.

That last step is what has got me through many, many mental block situations when it comes to writing. You will be surprised at how many different things your brain can conjure up when it comes to avoiding the work you need to do to complete a freelance writing job; the trick is to sit down and just get started. Use everything you can think of as motivation, and once you find yourself starting to type you will generally be home free.