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

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.

Get Paid To Write At Daily Article

If you’re in search of places you can get paid to write, so you can become a 6 Figure Freelancer (or five figures, or heck, even 4 figures to start!), Daily Article is another source to remember. Some writers write articles specifically for this site and others use it when they’re unable to sell an article to a magazine, to a client, or when a sample article is not purchased by a potential client.

Membership fee? No, but Daily Article takes 20% of your fee.
Payout minimum? None. Daily Article pays as soon as they get paid.
Payment Method? PayPal
How much can you get paid? You set your own price.

Sell Your Freelance Articles

You can set your own price in the system and list the word count and topic. It’s a good idea to browse the site to see what prices others are charging so you can determine what the median price is for articles selling on the site.

The DailyArticle.com marketplace allows freelance writers to list their unique articles for sale and you get paid your 80% when the buyer purchases the article. They see a sample or an article scramble from the inquiry page and choose to place an order. The website staff verifies originality and quality before approving it to their customer base which includes existing customers and random site visitors.

Tip: Getting an up front fee for your writing can be great! But, If you want to make more from an article than a few dollars by selling it just once, consider learning about some passive writing income programs.

Update:

The day I wrote this blog post on April 20, I posted my first article. I chose an article I’d been hanging onto for about 6 months that a client couldn’t use on the Daily Article site. I posted it in the marketplace for $16 and on April 24 I had a PayPal payment of $12.80 for the article. While a lot of factors will dictate how quickly you sell an article, I did want to post this update to show that I have been able to successfully use this site.

Finding Freelance Writing Jobs

How do you find freelance writing jobs? This post will give you several job lead sources:

  1. Freelance Writing Job Blogs. There are a lot of blogs that offer daily job leads
  2. Craigslist. In all major cities is a writing job category
  3. Google Alerts. Set up a Google Alert for freelance writing jobs and you can even set on up for your specific niche.
  4. Google. Search on the type of writing job you want
  5. Writing Forums. There are internet forums dedicated to writers and these often have job listings in them.

Writers: Use The Web To Your Advantage!

If you want to become a writing wahm or just a freelance writer, the internet provides a wealth of opportunities for finding writing jobs. You can research how much a freelance writer gets paid, look at other writer’s sample resumes, set up your own writing website, and more.

Beyond the resources listed here, why not consider creating your own website to show your talents? Bring writing clients to you!

I’m a freelance writer, editor, and consultant and I support my family with my online income. I won’t say it’s easy but it’s very doable if you are motivated!

Make Money Writing How-To Articles At HowHub

Interested in getting paid to write how-to articles? Like eHow, HowHub is willing to share advertising revenue with writers willing to write how-to articles. If you join HowHub, you can make 50% of Adsense earnings. Your Adsense publisher ID is used directly in your profile and you can upload as many how-to articles as you’d like. HowHub has publishing guidelines and they do check all articles before they go live.

Will this be a big moneymaker such as eHow? Hard to say but How-To’s are a HOT niche and trend as more and more people look to the Internet in order to do it themselves.

My Opinion:

Making multiple streams of passive income is a great way to make money online from home and a site like this could net you earnings months after you’ve taken the time to write the article. It doesn’t hurt to join the site and try it for a while to see if you make any money at it. If it doesn’t pan out, you can continue writing for sites like eHow, HubPages, Squidoo or do your own ad-driven content websites.

If you’d like to join HubHow, click here

Get Started In Freelance Writing

How do you get started as a freelance writer?

Freelance writers can make a great deal of money working at home. There are male and female writers and there are professional technical and copywriters that are single, are Moms, are stay at home Dads and also Grandparents.

I know single mothers that went from poverty to owning their own homes and having successful businesses. Some writers get their start and quit their day job and others get started when they are unemployed thinking it’ll get them through lean times. Many of those writers never go back to a traditional job because of how lucrative and rewarding writing for yourself can be.

Whether you want to work at it part time or full time, freelance writing is a great gig to get into. The Internet has opened up a world of writing opportunities and you can write about just about any subject you’re interested in and get paid for it. If you’re willing to write about boring or very speciality subjects as well, you can get paid even MORE.

How do you get started?

Here are tips to get you going. It’s not an easy job but there are a lot of opportunities available and while it takes time to get started, you can be earning a full time wage within a few months if you’re motivated and talented.

Get some samples together

You’ll need to get samples together to show prospective employers. There are two great ways to do this:

  1. Open a blog at blogger.com and make a blog about a subject you can write well on. Write lots of articles in that subject and promote your blog.
  2. Submit article to free directories. These can help you promote your name online so people who are thinking of hiring you can find you. Sites like this include: http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.articlealley.com, http://www.articledashboard.com, http://www.ehow.com, http://www.helium.com and http://www.Squidoo.com.
  3. >

    While many of these sites accept articles for free, sites like ehow, helium and squidoo will help you make residual income while you’re looking for work and creating samples!

    Look for Jobs

    Now that you’ve got samples and perhaps a resume together, there are a lot of online classified sites that you can find jobs at. Some are specialised for writers (http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com) and some are more general (www.craigslist.com) but having writing gig categories.

    You can also join job bidding sites like http://www.elance.com and http://www.rentacoder.com. These sites allow you to create an online portfolio and apply to jobs. The beauty of sites like these is that you can be a bit more relaxed about being paid. If you want to be a freelance writer, you’ll need some serious scam radar because there are rip off artists and scammers and plagiarisers out there.

    There’s a lot more to it and you’ll want to learn about search engine optimisation, SEO writing, self promotion and develop niches to increase your income. If you’re interested and motivated, you can learn as you go while you’re earning.

    Concluding thoughts:

    Freelance writing is a very lucrative and rewarding work at home career! Find a mentor to follow. I have a freelance writer blog that offers mentoring and tips and there’s a writer mentoring site at http://www.inspiredauthor.com that provides writer chats and plenty of tips. The more you can learn, the faster you can get some great writing gigs!

    You can also read the 6 Figure Freelancer – A valuable resource providing detailed information about getting started in writing for the web.