Tips on how to earn money with your writing

Freelance writing is a challenge whether offline or on. You can earn up to $100 a day writing on the Internet. It takes work and energy but it can be done.

Content is critical to the success of an Internet business. Most website owners don't have the ability to create interesting, understandable, and well written content. That's to your advantage as a writer.

Freelancing on the Internet usually doesn't pay as well as in print freelancing but it does have its benefits. The work is easier to find if you know where to look. The topics are varied. You can write on your hobbies, interests, or subjects you'd like to learn about. Usually the writer is paid quickly, sometimes as soon as the work is completed.

The disadvantages include the lower pay scale and sometimes, the lack of a byline. Writing on the Internet, even if paid, doesn't have the same cache as hard copy publications.

There Are a Few Basics You Will Need to Have in Place.

You probably already have a Paypal account, but if you don't, set one up. You can accept payment through Paypal for the most part, unless it's a commission for an affiliate sale. If that's the case, set up accounts at Commission Junction and Clickbank.

Set up an account at craigslist and usfreeads. You will be using it for placing ads. There is no cost for the account, or for the ads.

All of this should take no more than an hour. You're ready to start earning money on the Internet by writing!

 

Ghostwriting Articles, Reports, and Ebooks

You have to have some writing talent to ghostwrite articles. You need to be organized, able to research topics quickly, summarize the main points and write the article in a clear way, with correct spelling and grammar. The article length can range from 200 words to 1000 words or more. Payment is usually by the word. For beginners, a 500 word article can be sold for about $5.00. An accomplished ghostwriter can charge up to $30 for a 500 word article. A discount is usually expected for a package of ten or more articles.

The client gives you the topic and any key words that must be included in the article. How long it takes to write the article is dependent upon how much you already know about the topic and how quickly you can find the materials you need to research the topic. It is possible, working at a steady pace, to write ten 400-500 word articles in one day.

You cannot resell anything you've ghostwritten. You don't own the copyright to anything you've ghostwritten. Sometimes as part of the contract you can't even use the client as a referral.

Short reports, up to 3000 words, are usually priced based on the subject matter and the turnaround time. The fees vary from $30 to $100.

Ebooks fees are based on a per page cost. An ebook ranges from 5000 words to 50,000 words. Most ebooks have from 250 to 300 words per page. Fees range from $2.00 per page to $20.00 per page.

Ghostwriting is creating the material and, once it's paid for, transferring all rights, including the copyright to the buyer. Rates for ghostwriting vary considerably. A recent informal survey of writers who offer ghostwriting services on the Internet showed the following:

When ghostwriting, request that the client makes at least a partial nonrefundable payment upfront as a deposit against the total project. There are unscrupulous buyers who try to get content for free by saying that the final material isn't what they expected or wanted. Some buyers will try to negotiate a lower price than originally agreed to on the same basis. A writer may not be able to tell if the buyer then uses the material without paying for it.

Dee

 

Private Label Articles, Reports, and Ebooks

Private label rights (PLR) is not a new concept. It's been used in the consumer products industry for years. You're probably most familiar with it at the grocery or drug store, where you see the store's private brand of a generic medicine, for example, right next to the branded product of the medicine. Both products were most likely manufactured by the branded product's company.

In Internet marketing, private label rights simply means that the content you write can be used by someone else as if it were their own, as long as they follow the usage rights granted with the content. Some PLR comes with no restrictions at all. Others, including our own, come with restrictions that we feel help protect the value of the content.

PLR can also refer to software, videos, website templates, and blog templates.

Below are examples of the rights that you can grant or withhold.

[YES] Private use
Learn from the materials but you can't do anything else with the content.

[YES] Can be sold
Sell the content as an ebook and keep the profit. Set up an affiliate program and your affiliates can sell the content as long as you remain in control of it. You have to provide the download link and collect the money and pay your affiliates. Or you can use a program such as Clickbank which collects the money and then pays you and the affiliate.

[YES] Can be given away as an incentive
Use the content as a freebie to motivate people to sign up for your list. Or just give it away.

[YES] Can be packaged with other paid products
If you have other materials on the same subject that you're selling, combine the content and sell it all together.

[YES] Can be offered as a bonus with paid product
Give the content as a bonus when you sell a product.

[YES] Can Be submitted to article directories (follow their Terms of Service - TOS)
If the article directory says the content has to be 100% written by you, or you have to have exclusive rights to the content, you can't submit PLR content. You can rewrite it to fit their TOS.

[YES] Can be used as web content
self explanatory

[YES] Can be used as an e-course/autoresponder sequence
Set it up as a series for your autoresponder or sell it as an e-course that's set up on an autoresponder.

[YES] Can be used as blog posts
Self explanatory

[YES] Can be broken down into smaller articles
Break the ebook or report into smaller chunks and use those as articles, web pages or blog posts.

[YES] Can be combined to create longer articles
Combine shorter articles into a longer article. Or combine a number of shorter articles into a report or ebook.

[YES] Can be edited.
You can change the content however you wish, as much or as little as you wish.

[YES] Can have your name put on them
Put your name on the material as the author.

[YES] Can sell Resale Rights
Selling the rights to resell the content. The person you sell resale rights to can then sell the content without paying you any additional money. But that person can't sell the rights to sell the content to anyone else. Resale rights don't mean you can change the content, add to it, edit it, or put your name on it, unless these other rights are granted as well.

[YES] Can sell Master Resale Rights
One step further than resale rights. The person can sell the rights to sell the content to anyone else and they can then resell the content and so forth.

[YES] Can sell Private Label Rights
Selling the private label rights to the material.

[YES] Can be added to membership sites

The material is added to a membership site. There are several different kinds of membership sites. And some writers differentiate the rights based on whether the membership is paid or free. Or whether the content is informational only (personal use) for the members or any rights can be passed on to the members.

[YES] Can be offered through auction sites
Can be sold or given away through an auction site.

Articles are written in packs ranging from three to ten articles all on the same subject. The price can range from 50 cents an article to $2.00 an article. You sell the same set of articles to several people. Most of the time the people buying the article prefer to have a cap set on the number of times you will sell the same set of articles. They feel limited distribution is an advantage. The distribution can be capped at 20 or 30 sets or 100 sets. If you price a set of 10 articles at $15 and sell 30 sets you've made $450.00. Keep in mind there is the possibility that you may only sell 2 or 3 sets.

Dee

 

How do you find topics for your article sets that will sell?

Choosing hot popular topics, or evergreen topics like weight loss, is the key to success when writing and selling PLR content. How do you find these topics? Look at what's in the news. Look at what the bestsellers are on amazon.com. See what the most active auctions are on ebay.com. Scan lifestyle and fashion magazines for popular topics. Visit the websites of the same magazines and scan their back issues to get a feel for what topics are popular at what time of year.

Take into consideration how long it will take you to write the articles. If it's a topic you know well and don't have to research, it may take you as little as four hours to write the ten articles. On the hand if you are not familiar with the topic and have to do quite a bit of research, it may take several days to write them.

Short reports and ebooks can be sold as private label rights material as well. A short report of 3000 words can sell from $5.00 to $10.00. An ebook of 5000 words or so can sell from $12.00 to $17.00. If you sell 50 copies at $17.00 per copy you've earned $850.

Take the rights you're offering seriously. Once someone has bought a set of articles you can't arbitrarily change the rights.

If you're just getting started ghostwriting or offering private label rights to articles and ebooks, it's a good idea to establish a blog where you can show examples of your work. Potential clients need to see the quality of your work and see your writing style.

Setting up a website is an even better idea. You don't need anything fancy, two or three pages should do just fine. Don't use a free web host; it won't give you a professional image. Find an inexpensive web host. Use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) website design program. There are free programs available. Or find someone who will design a 3 page site for you. There are even free website templates available.

Does ghostwriting or PLR pay more? That depends. If you ghostwrite ten 500 word articles for a fee of $20.00 each, that's a total of $200.00. However if you sold those ten articles as a PLR package at $25.00 a package you could make $1,250 if you sold 50 packages, or as little as $75.00 if you only sold three.

Dee

 

Here are sites where you might be able to find clients - besides dp of course.

Scroll down the forums and look for threads called "Marketplace" "Buy/Sell" or "Services."

SitePoint.com
www.v7n.com
www.webtalkforums.com/
www.talkfreelance.com/
www.associateprograms.com
www.wickedfire.com/
im4newbies.com/forum/
www.wahm.com/forum/
www.internetbasedmoms.com/bb/
www.businessforum.net/

Dee

 

Posting Your Way to Dollars.

Post on forums
It has been shown that people don't want to post on forums unless there are already posts. New forum owners pay people to post comments, start threads, and respond to other threads in an effort to get some forum action going. As the forum grows, the level of posting increases until paid posts aren't necessary.

Forum topics have a huge variety. There's probably a forum for just about any subject. Usually a paid poster has to have at least some knowledge of the subject to post relevant comments. There can be a minimum word count for the posts. Posts of "I agree," "Me too," and "Thanks for the info," are too short and don't add anything to the discussion, so forum owners don't want to pay for them. Posting on forums doesn't pay a lot, perhaps no more than ten posts for a dollar. Find the jobs on Internet marketing related websites listed under Where to Find Clients.

Post on blogs
You can be paid to post comments on blogs much the same way you can be paid to post on forums. Pretty much the same criteria applies, the posts can't be too short and have to be relevant to the subject matter.

You can search for offers of five posts for a dollar. If each post takes a minute you would have to work a little over eight hours to make $100.

Place ads on craigslist and usfreeads offering your service.


Writing Articles for Pay

There are sites that pay for content. Most of the sites require that you post your article first and wait for a buyer to come by to purchase your articles.

AssociatedContent buys the article from you. The pay is minimal from $3 to $5 per 500 word article. However there are occasions where Associated Content has paid up to $50 per article. The articles can be submitted on an exclusive basis, meaning they aren't and won't be posted anywhere else, or nonexclusive, which means you've used the article elsewhere.

You can't post articles you've ghostwritten for someone else because you don't own the rights to those articles any more. Most of the websites that pay for articles won't accept articles you've sold as PLR. But you can post articles you've used on your own website, blog or that you've submitted for distribution to online article directories.

It takes a day or two for Associated Content to review the article and make the offer. You are not required to accept the offer and can withdraw the article. It takes another two days for the article to be published and then two or three days for Associated Content to make the payment to you.

Websites That Pay For Articles:


associatedcontent.com
constant-content.com
helium.com
lifetips.com
howtodothings.com
www.shvoong.com
www.articlewarehouse.com
www.authorconnection.com

MyEssays (high school and college papers)

Shared Revenue Sites
There are a number of sites that pay you a percentage of the earning generated by ads on your article page. You can post articles, tips, or essays. The more popular your article, the more views, the more revenue you can earn.


www.flixya.com/
www.daytipper.com
suite101.com
triond.com
ArticleIncome.com
www.metacafe.com/
www.vume.com/
www.hubpages.com
WiseOrb.com

Dee

 

Fair warning on www.wickedfire.com - get ready for some maddness if you post there.

 

Pay Per Sale, Affiliate Programs, and Commissions

With these methods you're simply selling someone else's product through your marketing efforts, whether it's a blog or website, and you receive a sales commission when the sale is completed.

Most of these products are informational, either an ecourse, software, or ebook. Quite a few of the affiliate products pay more than a 50% commission. The smart product owners offer banners, buttons, sales copy, and even articles that you can use to promote with.

Writing skills can go a long way toward effectively marketing affiliate products. You can develop a blog, write articles that link to a blog/squidoo page/website and distribute to article directories.

Clickbank is one of the most established programs. Commission Junction is another source. Both of these make the payments to the affiliates so you don't have to worry whether the product owner will pay. PayDotCom is a program which uses PayPal as the payment method. The product owner makes the decision to pay the affiliates and has to authorize PayDotCom to do so.

Many products offer their own affiliate program independently. Look for one with a solid history of payment.

You can also become an affiliate of Amazon.com to sell books and consumer products such as jewelry, televisions, or other consumer products. The percentage commission is much lower, but sometimes the retail price is high enough to make up for it.

Go to the amazon.com home page and scroll about halfway down. On the right hand side you'll see the Selling with Amazon category. Click on Associates Program.



Setting up an account is easy. You will need to provide some personal information so they can send the commission checks to you. Access to your account provides daily sales information and clicks.



The fastest way to make money selling affiliate products is to think about the forums, lists, and discussion groups you already belong to. What are the questions being asked? Is there a problem that people need a solution for? What are the hot topics?

Set up an affiliate account at clickbank. Go to their marketplace and search for products that will solve the problems, or are the answer to the questions being discussed.

Post an informative response to the discussion lists and forums you belong to and include your affiliate product in your response. A softer sell is to post a review of the product on your blog and then post a response to the list/discussion forum stating that you've reviewed the product and they can find out more on your blog. You can also set up a Squidoo page and refer people to your Squidoo page. More on this later.

Okay that should get you going. I'll post more tips later.

Dee

 

thanks man really helpfull

 

I'll have to bookmark this thread. It's a great read, and gives a lot of insight on how to make money for your writing!

 

Good info, but IMHO there's no reason why anyone with good grammar and writing skills should have to settle for such a low rate, even when just getting started.

I usually sell through Constant Content using the best offer option, and my usage rate price starts at $35 for articles 500 words and up. Unique or full rights I usually set at around $100. Aside from a lowball offer every now and then, I haven't had any problems selling.

 

Excellent check list.

 

I'm not suggesting anyone settle for a low rate. I don't.

Dee

 

i guess you have left nothing Dee....
it is really helpful.....thanks..

 

What a content-packed post! Thanks Deep for the leads. You've compiled useful info on the industry for newbies.

I would add that it is important to choose a place like Associate Content to post about 10 good articles as a kind of portfolio. They have a clean look to their site, so it is semi-professional and you have a link to your profile, just like mine here. You can do the same and include it in your signature here at DP, as well as provide it to buyers looking for articles. Presentation is half the battle at acquiring jobs. Portfolio is part of that presentation.

Of course the quality of Business English in your posts and your PM's is equally significant. Do not cut corners as most do here. Do not post something like "Interested in offer, pm me." What buyer would do that? A better approach is something like "I am an experienced and eager writer and am interested in your offer. I will follow up with a PM and hope to hear back from you soon. ~Ron"

Notice how I introduce my qualifications, even if it is merely enthusiasm. Then I offer to contact THEM. Do not expect them to PM you. If you are eager, show it be assertiveness. State your hope, but not too strongly, to hear from them. Always sign with your real first name, since it shows authenticity and honesty, if you are serious about writing for money. If you sign with screen names or obviously fictitious names you will not be taken seriously, though you may get a few petty jobs now and then.

Good luck!
~Ron

 

Thank You, I think I'll check these programs out.

 

Impressive, You post solved all of my quires related to freelance Writing
A information Packed post
The kinks are too of great use
Thanks

 

Thanks for those tips

 

thanks a lot for these tips. I would have been wonderful had I these tips earlier. However, I had to gather them from here and there over a long time.

 

Thanks for all of your valuable information. I will spend some time and look at the links you have posted. It seems that writing is the in thing on the internet these days. Blogging started that I am sure. There are freelance sites such as odesk that one can join to get work and it seems as the majority of jobs are writing. If one wants to make money, then writing is the answer. Thanks again.