Finding Freelance Writing Jobs

How do you find freelance writing jobs? This post will give you several tips to help you become a successful freelancer.

What is Freelance Writing?

Freelance writers do all sorts of writing. Online writing is a pretty lucrative business if you’re good at it. You can write web site content, blog posts, e-books, white papers, newsletters and more and you can get paid per word, paid per project or get paid per hour.

How Much Do Freelance Writers Make?

Freelance writers can make a penny to a dollar a word. Some less, some more depending on the type of work and expertise you’ve got. Many freelance writers start off dabbling and can quickly earn a full time income writing for the web. Some companies pay via PayPal and others do direct debit or send a check to you for your efforts on demand, weekly or monthly.

How Do You Get Started With Freelance Writing?

Visit freelance writer mentoring blogs, job sites and online writer communities for some more help and information. Once you’ve got some samples and built a bit of an online portfolio through a blog, through free article sites and by writing, you can find general or niche writing work.

Helpful Resources:

Home Job Group. Placement Assistance

Learn To Write Ebooks

Legit Online Work At Home Jobs

Interesting and Exciting Ways to Make Money for Work at Home Moms

Guest Post: (Submitted by Rebecca Smith)

If you are a stay-at-home mom and if you are getting bored at home, if you don’t have much work at hand, it is better for you to try and utilize your spare time to make some extra money. In today’s economic condition the need for money has increased a lot. However, the options to make money have increased too and you also have the option to make money from the comfort of your home. You can turn your hobby or what you are best at into a money making option. Other than the traditional online money making options like the pay per lead affiliate programs, blogging and so on, you can make money in your own way.

Different fun ways to make money

There are different fun ways in which you as a stay-at-home mom can make money and these are:

  1. By selling different bakes – This is quite an interesting money making options for the work-at-home moms. You can bake different kind of items in large quantities while baking some for your family. You will have to put on a board in front of your home and advertise on-line too in order to get buyers. You can first start with your neighborhood.
  2. Buying and selling antiques – Buying and selling antiques have always been quite an interesting job. If you have that love for not so common and old items, you can buy and sell these to earn some money. Here too, you can both try the on-line and the off-line methods of selling items.
  3. Give kids jumper on rent– You will have to invest some money in this in order to earn money. You will be required to buy some kids jumpers and give those on rent for kid’s parties or the kid’s birthday parties. Buy themed ones too as these are quite popular amongst the kids.
  4. Breakfast proprietor – You can also earn money as a breakfast proprietor. It’s more like an extension of your everyday work for your family. However, you would need some extra rooms for this so that you can turn it out for accommodation – for the bed and breakfast or the vacationers.
  5. Selling customized t-shirts – If you have a liking for designing dresses, you can start it out at low cost by simply designing t-shirts. The customized t-shirts are a rage for all and so you may be able to make money through this.
  6. Making and selling trinkets – If you love to make and design jewelry, you can give it a shot now. You can design and make various kinds of trinkets and sell those on-line and off-line to make money. Another thing that you need to do in order to sell items online is maintain an online website where you will have to include an article on yourself, the work you are doing, and also add passages or descriptions on the items you are selling. Description can include the price of the item, the type of item, and the things which the item is made of and so on.
  7. Making and selling various other items – You can make and sell various other items like the ones which people can use for their home decorations. You can make various kinds of flower vases or artificial flowers, wall hangings and so on.
    1. Almost all of these options are fun to work on and you can easily blend most of these into your everyday work at your home. With this, you won’t even be required to give up or compromise your family life.

Alternatives for Freelancer Writers

Guest Post by Eric Bank:

A majority of freelance writers will testify that the arrival of blogging and site-building assignments cannot be reliably predicted. Intense periods of non-stop activity are often punctuated by unwelcome spells of “enforced rest”. Unfortunately, expenses keep mounting even during the non-productive periods. There are, however, a few fee-per-article organizations that freelance writers can turn to when necessary.

With a daily viewership exceeding 70 million visitors, the biggest and most well-known of these “content farms” is Demand Media Studios (DMS), the company that owns AnswerBag, eHow and LiveStrong. As with most other content publishers, DMS requires new authors to submit a writing sample of approximately 400 words. Upon approval, you initiate a try-out phase in which you have a week to complete three blogs. It’s up to you to choose your article topics from the DMS portfolio of over 160,000 titles. You can winnow your picks by screening for topic, file format, and fee. Let’s analyze each selection factor:

Topics: DMS provides sixteen top-level topics such as weddings and automotive. Each topic can cover dozens of subtopics that guide you as you choose your articles. For instance, should you like weddings, you’ll see subtopics on brides, decorations, engagement rings, and so forth. Even though most competent freelancers can write cogently on almost any subject, it is sensible to pick topics that correspond to your interests and background. DMS favors a helpful yet professional writing voice that requires some familiarity with your topic. In other words, you are encouraged to select topics you already understand.

Formats: You can select from about two dozen formats, ranging from item lists to full “topic views”, which are well-balanced articles that explore a topic from an array of viewpoints. You needn’t be worried about the details of different formats because DMS has a style guide for each one. In fact, DMS has assembled a fairly comprehensive set of resources that aid new authors in rapidly acquiring a feel for their assignments. Articles require 400 to 500 words. (To be honest, I invariably write on business topics that, in my opinion, require at least 600 words to cover in sufficient detail. I once got slapped down for writing a 700 word article. Bottom line — you should stay close to the length limits). You initially may find it useful to work with several formats — you’ll quickly discover a few that match your inherent writing style.

Fees: Seriously, you are not going to retire on a private island working for DMS, but if you have other sources of revenue, the modest cash you earn from DMS might come in handy. Fees for write-ups range from $3 to $40, but the majority of articles earn $15 or $17.50. In addition, you can sign up for a revenue-share plan in which an author creates articles from his or her own subject list; the articles pay to the degree they assist in generating click-through revenue for advertisers. Payday is semi-weekly via PayPal.
It’s possible to reserve up to a dozen articles at once, but be advised you have only one week to complete the bunch. I usually reserve just two or three because there are always a lot of topics from which to select. Every article you post is edited by an experienced copy-editor. These folks will occasionally return your work so that you can patch up any particularly significant errors. Most editors will make the small fixes for you. You will be evaluated with respect to grammar and research; it is a one-through-five point rating system sorted by month. Just hang tight and you’ll quickly learn how to satisfy the editors.

Besides freelance writers, DMS works with movie makers, copy-editors and topic professionals. Wages vary by job. Other players within the content creation and distribution industry include iSnare, Writer’s Access, Suite 101, and About.Com (operated by the New York Times). If you want or need to earn some extra cash and can devote a little time, perhaps a gig with one of these content farms will be worth your while.

Based in Knoxville, Tenn., Eric Bank has been a freelance writer of business-related articles since 1985. He holds a Master of Business Administration from New York University and an Master of Science in Finance from DePaul University. Eric freelances through HedgeFundWriter.Com and EricBank.Com.

Demand Studios Now Hiring Canadian Writers and UK Writers

I signed up to get paid to write articles for Demand Studios in 2008. They offer an all-you-can-write buffet for writers where you can get paid to write articles ranging in fees from $3-$75 per article plus revenue sharing options. I got accepted. But then I realised they accepted my application in error because they only hired US writers. Sad face 🙁

I left my account in tact. It allowed me to get updates relevant to writing for DS and I knew that there was a chance that they’d eventually let their friends to the North in. Today I got an alert on the WAHM writers forum which led me to Deb Ng’s freelance writing jobs blog and sure enough, today was my lucky day.

I emailed Demand Studio’s Help Desk and they tweaked my existing account to reflect my Canadian status and voila! I can now get paid to write articles for sites like Ehow and others. At the moment my freelance writing and web marketing service business is smokin’ busy but it’s great to have DS as a gap-filler.

Work At Home Jobs Forum Posting

Forums can be a powerful tool for websites and so webmasters want people to populate them with interesting conversations. Why? Forums provide traffic in search engines to bring new people to websites and get people talking which can do several things including bring revenue to the company that’s posting through inserted advertising, etc.

There are many forums that hire paid forum posters to keep conversations moving. There are also jobs for forum moderators and forum administrators who not only post conversations and reply to conversations but who take care of managing the operations of the forum.

Where can you find forum posting jobs? If you look online, Google will provide you listings of paid to post companies. You can also advertise your own services as a paid forum poster. Many webmaster forums that provide helpful information to owners of other websites will list forum posting jobs as well in their community classifieds section. You can often find forum posting positions listed in Digital Point Forums or Site Point Forums.

How Much Does Forum Posting Pay?

Forum posting ranges from about a nickel to a dollar a post with an average of .10 to .15 in mid 2008. Many posting jobs will require that you start a specific number of new threads as well as reply to existing threads. You may be expected to do a bit of research about the discussed subject matter so you can contribute to the conversation and the person hiring you for the gig may request that your posts are a specified length.

Forum posting is often paid for via services like PayPal on a regular basis. Be cautious about overdoing it without getting paid. Most of these gigs are not large dollar values and you might not be able to get paid in advance. Agree to a specified post number that is reasonable for you for when you can expect payment and don’t go over that amount until you see the funds come in. This applies more when dealing with individual webmasters versus larger forum posting companies although you should be careful whenever dealing with a new company.

How To Be A Great Forum Poster

If you’re great at this, you can get lots of regular and enjoyable work doing it. Here are a few tips:

  • Figure out what everyone is talking about by researching the subject matter.
  • Ask open ended questions to get people posting and talking rather than answering yes or no only.
  • Don’t reveal you are a paid poster. The webmaster will want you to blend in nicely.
  • Introduce yourself to get conversations started so you’ll blend in as well.
  • Avoid flamewars. Flamewars are online debates that can get heated. It’s best to stay out of these types of conflicts when you’re being paid to post as it can cause problems and prevent you from getting further gigs.
  • Use full words instead of online slang and use keywords that relate to your subject matter in the posts to help your client with their search engine optimization. (SEO refers to their placements in the search engines which can help them get new members.)

3 Ways to Work at Home Writing For eHow.com

Are you making money yet with ehow? Here are three ways that writers can make cash from the ehow.com website.

All of these options have the potential for great earnings. You’ll probably have to pick one of these, though because you’ll be unable to use all three due to non-compete clauses. I have opinions on which program is best which I share below.

Good Option: Get Paid to Work With WRG

Writer’s Research Group is a writing company that will pay you to write eHow articles due to their contract with Demand Studios. I worked for them for several months in 2007 and ghostwrote about 70-80 articles for the eHow.com website. They were a professional company but it took me about 3 months to get my first pay. You can get paid to write how-to articles through them and they have other clients as well but whn you write for WRG but must sign a non-compete clause. Writers should be VERY careful about signing non-compete clauses as it can seriously hamper your earning potential in the future. If you’re not in the U.S, this can be a good option for you to earn money writing.

Better: Work With Demand Studios Directly

Demand Studios owns eHow.com and will pay writers to write directly for them. They have a self-serve system where you can claim titles and submit your own ideas and they pay weekly via PayPal. I was accepted into this program after I left WRG, but luckily realised I wasn’t really eligible due to being Canadian before I submitted my first article.

BEST: Passive Income With The eHow Writer Compensation Program

The eHow Writer’s Compensation Program (WCP) is a system that enables you to do revenue sharing by writing your own articles. You get to put your own name on them also so these are NOT ghostwritten. I’d love to make money this way but it’s for Americans only (at least for the moment.) You can still write on the program if you’re non-U.S but you won’t get paid directly.

It can be good for high profile clips or to help you promote your other websites. If you use it now and they open up beyond their borders later, you’d be set to earn some cash. Because this site is a highly ranked site, it can help you get a lot of traffic!

How much can you earn?

Demand Studios doesn’t divulge the % or formula so you’re writing similarly to writing for Google Adsense where they keep the formula secret to maintain the integrity of the system. The great thing about the eHow writer compensation program is that instead of writing and getting paid once, you can write something once and earn from it for ever and ever. You do need to write the right way in order to maximise your earning potential, though…

That means you’ll need to learn a bit about hot trends to write on subjects that have good earning potential and you’ll want to learn a bit about search engine optimisation (SEO) as well.

When I wrote for WRG, I wrote some titles that I’m sure would have earned me a lot of money had I written them for the writer’s compensation program instead. They are coming up in the search engines regularly near the top (or at the top) of Google’s results even today. I now know that the $10 per article I earned could have earned me hundreds of dollars by now.

Learn to Maximise the Writer’s Compensation Program’s Potential:

My writing friend MariaO’Brien wrote an ebook on how to make money through this program. She’s been doing it for several months and is making over $1,000 a month now from the program, mostly through residuals. The longer you do this, the less effort it takes because articles you wrote six months ago could be gaining momentum.

I just finished reading her e-book and highly recommend it! Check out the book. Maria has spent a lot of time perfecting her methods and shares those methods in this book.

The great thing about this program is that taking ten minutes to write an article now could earn you money indefinitely. I once wrote a blog post for a shared revenue blog that took me literally 2 minutes to write and since late 2006 it has been earning me $20-$30 a month in Google Adsense revenue ever since and I’m not even getting all the revenue from it! I can only daydream about how much I’d have earned by now if it were on ehow.com considering their high monetization and traffic results! That’s why this program is so awesome. You get to capitalise on e-how’s Google juice to get maximum exposure for your articles which could have some great results.

Work At Home Job Lead: Help Desk Jobs

WAH Help Desk Job lead: If you’re looking for a tech support help desk support work at home job, consider applying to a company like Telvisio. Many jobs like these pay telecommuters for the time they’re on the phone. If you’ve got experience with this company, feel free to comment below about how you enjoy working for them.

Help desk jobs operate all over the world 24/7 and are often great paying if you’ve got experience and a good broadband connection.

Help Desk Telecommuting Tip:

Why work as a telecommuter in the tech support field? This is a flexible type of job that often has many shifts available. You could conceivably have flexible hours with the ability to put in a lot of overtime hours. Saving money on commuting and dry cleaning could make this a great option.

Most people who have small children underfoot wouldn’t find this to be the right type of job since you cannot have background noise unless you have a door you can close and in-house childcare.

This job lead not verified, researched or qualified by the wah blog. Apply at your own discretion.

Happy Boss’s Day To Me! Work At Home Bliss

October 16 is boss’s day. Are you ready for it? Do you still have a boss or are YOU the boss?

If you’re a freelance work at home individual, time to treat yourself to something that shows your appreciation since you’re the boss! If you work at home and have a boss, send an e-card to show your appreciation for not having to ‘see’ your boss everyday!

As a work at home professional, here are some things I’m grateful to my boss (ME!) for:

  1. Unlike at my old jobs, I never have the problem of someone else taking the credit for work I did! Ok wait..as a ghostwriter I kind of do but it’s ok ‘cuz I get paid extra for that!
  2. If there’s a run in my pantyhose, no one stares.
  3. If I feel like wearing pantyhose and no pants, no one cares.
  4. The coffee is awesome here (it was beyond sludge at the Big Meatball [aka: where I used to work])
  5. The boss’s door is ALWAYS open and she’s very approachable! She just ‘gets’ me.
  6. When I need time off, I GET IT; no questions asked!
  7. I have unlimited earning potential here
  8. No daycare fees and I can watch the Y&R and Coronation Street every day from my job

If you want to learn how to be your own boss, check out Legit Online Jobs

or find wah job info here.

If you work at home, what do you love about being your own boss?

Should It Ever Cost Money To Work At Home?

Working at home is somethign a lot of people want to do for many reasons and whether they want to work at home full time or part time, most of them are worried about being scams.

Is there ever a time when a work at home job should cost you money to get into?

If you’re working for a company, generally NO unless you need to pay to get certified for that position first through an accredited course. This might be the case with something like medical transcription which is a popular wah job. Before you leap, LOOK at whether the school is accredited and what their placement rate is. Some schools will offer a practicum so that you can get employed easily and quickly.

Equipment may need to be purchased so you can do the job such as a computer or with a transcription job you might need special equipment to listen to the transcription recordings. For most cases, the employer will provide you with the equipment so if you’re being asked to shell out, beware.

Some companies such as call center jobs will require you to pay for their training. In this case, look deeply at whether or not a company offering paid training comes highly recommended before signing up!

When you decide to do something freelance, you could have expenses but these are expenses that you choose to pay in order to invest in your business such as knowledge, courseware or e-books that can help you get into areas like freelance writing or internet marketing.

It’s very wise to look at product reviews and look for honest testimonials before investing in a wah job. The vast majority of jobs where you telecommute and work for someone else will not require you to pay money.

Internet Marketing Jobs: WAH And Be Your Own Boss

Considering a job in internet marketing? When looking at work at home jobs, you might choose to be an entrepreneur instead of work for someone else. How can you become a successful internet marketer? The secret is to learn as much as you can.

Affiliate marketing involves selling existing products online for a commission. This works really well for many people because they don’t have to inventory anything and you don’t have to do hard selling. With affiliate marketing, the seller sells the product for you; you just have to get interested buyers to their sales landing page and let them close the deal.

There is a plethora of products avialble this way and you can sell them any number of ways through ClickBank, through an affiliate network or as a direct affiliate. Even better, you can often make money on people who sign up under you as a superaffiliate selling to your downline.

There is a plethora of resources and online product reviews designed to help you find your way as well as free e-courses as well.

Here’s a list of a few available programs:

Commission BluePrint: Learn about making money from ClickBank selling ebooks.

Affiliate PayLoad: Learn some affiliate marketing secrets.

Get Google Ads Free: Maximize your money making opportunities with Google

When looking at investing in affiliate marketing it’s very wise to choose a program with a money back guarantee. Programs sold through companies like ClickBank protect buyers with guarantees and will claw back your money if you’re not completely satisfied.

Work at home success happens with determination and a desire to learn. Take advantage of every available opportunity and you could earn a full time income at home working for yourself.