Entries Tagged 'How to Make Money from Your Writing Online' ↓

Last time, I talked about the importance of becoming educated if you want to start a freelance writing business. I talked about becoming educated about business, about the nature of freelancing and about writing itself. I want to use that last concept as a jumping-off point for today’s post.

You see, in my mind, there is no more important task for the freelance writer than really understanding her own writing, seeing where it fits in the larger context of things, and improving her craft.

I’ve said it before: one of the great challenges that the Internet presents is preserving quality writing. You see, great writing matters online. There are plenty of websites out there with poorly-written content that serve only to attract search engine visitors and send them on their way. While this may be a successful business model for some, to make your living as a freelance writer you need to move beyond this kind of writing.

Honing your writing craft is a part of that process. It takes a dedication to quality, and a commitment to continual self-improvement.

Let me give a real-life example. One of the newer areas of freelance writing I’ve been exploring lately has been writing sales letters. Six months ago, when I sold my first sales letter, I can honestly say that my first attempt was pretty sad. I had a lot to learn about how sales pages work, about the progressions involved, and about the kinds of voice that a sales letter needs in order to convert.

So, what did I do? I worked at it. I researched it (we’re back to education here, of course). I discovered that there are a number of approaches to sales letters. I found one that fit my personal writing philosophy and my style, and I practiced. Today, I’m writing sales letters on a regular basis, and they’re vastly improved over those first efforts. Not only that, I’m getting positive feedback that they’re working.

So, how do you do it? How do you go about honing your craft, in preparation for starting your freelance writing business?

There are plenty of ways to improve your writing, but here are some general principles you should keep in mind:

• You write. Plain and simple. Write every day. Write many kinds of things, test out different ideas, and see what you’re capable of and interested in.
• Beyond that, you need to be willing to critique your own writing. Set your writing aside for a day or two, and come back at it. Slash it up with a highlighter and pen, and then rewrite it. Keep doing this until you feel like the finished product is something worth selling.
• You also need to be willing to put your work out there for others to critique. Join a writer’s forum, post to a ratings-based article directory like Helium, or find yourself a mentor. Find people who are willing to give you some honest feedback about your writing, and be willing to accept that feedback.

Like most things in life, becoming a great writer is less about being inspired, and more about being dedicated to the task.

Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work

photo credit: liveandrock

If I were to start my freelance writing business over, I’d do things differently. There are plenty of hurdles and unnecessary difficulties I’ve had to overcome, based on the way I came about it.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it for anything; however I got here, I can confidently say I’m more happy with my career today than I have ever been at any point in my life.

So, this series really is an effort to identify some of the steps I missed in my business, some of the steps that I did get right, and some of the steps that I maybe did out of order.

The first thing I’d do, if I were going to start a freelance business, is to get some education.

Now, I started my freelance business around the time I was working on my Master’s degree. I had plenty of academic education. I didn’t need lessons in grammar or style. As a humanities major studying history, I had to become an expert at very direct and precise writing.

Still, there were some important things that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t really learn in a classroom.

Business education

I dabbled, around the turn of the millennium, with my own computer business. It failed miserably, within a year of opening. There were a variety of factors that went into that failure. Some of them I could have prevented. For example, I had very little understanding of marketing, and even less understanding of how to do some basic business tasks such as keeping an inventory of commonly-sold items. And don’t even get me started on the accounting nightmare.

Some of these things, in retrospect, I could have learned in school. A course on marketing, one on business management, and one on accounting would probably have really helped shore up my business skills at the time.

When it came time to start my writing business, however, I had learned from many of those mistakes from my first business flop. I was able to avoid most of them. I set out to learn everything I could about those weak areas, to shore them up. Over time, I’ve studied all sorts of business subjects via books, blogs, ebooks and even just talking with other people in business.

Do I consider myself an expert in business today? Nope. I have what I need to run my business, and even see it grow by leaps and bounds, though.

Freelance education

If I were to start over today, I would try to spend some more time learning about freelance work and the freelance marketplace before jumping in. I’d spend time on blogs like this one and others. I’d ask questions about how the freelance marketplace works.

One of the ways that this hurt me, in the early days of my freelance business, was that I really didn’t understand the marketplace. I had a wonderful client who paid me a decent price for my work, and her work was nearly enough to meet my budget. However, when I went out and tried to find other work, all I could seem to find was offers to write $3 articles.

I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t realize that, just like in other types of situations, you get what you pay for. Those $3 articles are, typically, very poorly written, often inaccurate, and just plain bad writing. I felt sheepish, though, bidding so much more than these low bids that I just left some opportunities behind.

So, how do you become educated about freelancing? There are plenty of ways. I mentioned reading blogs – that’s one way. There are also some decent books on the subject. In terms of eBooks, I’d highly recommend How to be a Rock Star Freelancer (read my review here). You can, just like with business, talk with other freelancers. Find out what they’re doing, what the business is like, and what you can expect.

Writing education

Writing online isn’t like writing for print. It certainly isn’t like academic writing, either. It’s a very different world. There are many aspects that, when you first start out, you aren’t going to understand.

For example, understanding the difference between web copy and website copy is important if you’re going to freelance online. Knowing when to use a personal tone and when to use a professional one is important, too. It doesn’t hurt to have some understanding of the basics of copywriting, either.

For my part, I came about this all backwards. I learned, first, how to write SEO articles. Granted, SEO is an integral part of web writing, and it’s an important skill to have. But there were other skills, such as copywriting, that I had to learn slowly, over time. I learned new ways of writing in response to business opportunities that I was missing because I didn’t possess the required skills.

If you start your freelance writing business with several types of writing skills at your disposal, you’re going to have a leg up on the competition.

How do you learn to write? Again, you’ve got lots of options. The one difference with learning to write is, in my estimation, that all of the study you do won’t do you much good unless you practice the techniques. Writers become better, in many cases, simply by writing and editing their own work.

So, what about you? If you have a freelance business, are there areas you wish you’d been more educated in when you started? If you’re not freelancing yet, do you think it’s realistic and important do learn some of these things?

Follow The Journey: Other Posts In This Series

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Introduction

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Education

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Planning

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Building Your Portfolio

How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Finding Work

photo credit: Menlo School

(I’ll be continuing with my series on how to start your freelance writing business on Monday, but I wanted to hold it off just through the weekend. I received an email yesterday from Yaro Starak regarding his Blog Mastermind program, and thought my readers might find this information valuable. Enjoy this message on behalf of Yaro.

DISCLAIMER: the links below are affiliate links. I do earn some money if you enroll in Blog Mastermind by clicking on them. However, I encourage you to enroll whether or not you do it via my links, as I think Yaro’s advice will prove extremely valuable if you have any interest whatsoever in making money from your blog.)

Unless you are an Australian you probably don’t know this.

The Australian dollar has dropped dramatically, from 95 cents US a few months ago, to about 68 cents US as I type this.

Why this matters to you is that Yaro Starak’s blog coaching program, Blog Mastermind, charges admission in Australian dollars.

I’ve already raved about this program before and if you don’t believe me, just do a search on Google for “Blog Mastermind Reviews” to see what other people are saying.

It’s the only program of it’s kind that teaches you how to make a full time living from blogging only part time, and is led by one of the best blog teachers I know of.

Already over a 1,000 people have taken part in the program, with many satisfied graduates earning good money from their blogs.

YOU CAN SAVE IF YOU ACT BEFORE MONDAY

If you paid for entry into the program right now with a credit card that is in US dollars, you would save roughly 32% off the entry fee, because the course fees are in Australian dollars.

If you ordered the $97 month for six months plan, your credit card statement would show about $66 as
long as the Aussie dollar remained where it is now.

For the $497 AUD prepaid package, where you get the entire program up front, the cost on your US card would show roughly $338.

Note of course these prices are subject to change based on the current exchange rates, but it doesn’t look like the Australian dollar will climb back up any time soon (but who knows!).

It really doesn’t matter though, because Yaro is changing his pricing from Monday and will be charging in American dollars then. So you only have until Monday to save.

You can join here.

When you go to the payment page you will see prices of $97 or $497 depending on what you choose.

Those prices are in Australian dollars, so the discount will show up if you pay with a US dollar credit card, assuming the Aussie dollar was still weaker when you ordered.

THE $97 MONTH PAYMENT PLAN IS GOING TOO

On Monday Yaro is also eliminating the $97 a month pricing plan. He said he does have plans to bring it back, but because of his bank and online shopping cart system, he can’t charge in USD for recurring subscriptions.

Until he changes his system or they upgrade the features, there won’t be a $97 a month option, only a $497 prepaid course option.

To put it in simple terms – If you want to join Blog Mastermind, the cheaper price deadline is Monday, so you better decide soon.

Here’s the order page.

Good luck with your blog and make sure you tell me what you think of Yaro’s course if you join.

I don’t make a bunch of money from my blog. In fact, if I have $50 a month from affiliate sales in a month, I throw a party.

A very tiny party. Hey, it’s only $50.

Still, my blog is one of the most profitable pieces in my business model. How is that possible?

In short, I get a ton of freelance writing work from my blog. Here’s how:

I get clients through blog-based social networking

One of my biggest clients is one of my blog readers. She followed the blog for a long time, and we eventually struck up some conversations on Twitter. After a while, she trusted me well enough to offer me some writing assignments. For the past several months, I’ve brought in anywhere from one third to one half of my income from this single client.

I use my blog to showcase my best material

When I using a bidding site to compete for freelance writing gigs, the competition can be pretty fierce. After an initially strong run on one particular site, we saw our bid acceptance rates drop dramatically. We couldn’t figure out why it happened that way. Eventually, though, we discovered that bids we put in that included a link to The Writing Journey sold better – by a factor of about 5 – than bids that didn’t link to The Writing Journey. This was the case across the board, whether it was for an ebook, blogging, website copy, or even technical writing gigs.

I earn credibility and prestige through my blog

Without The Writing Journey, I probably wouldn’t have a post at Freelance Switch, and almost certainly wouldn’t be a regular at Freelance Folder. I’m not a superstar, by any means. But my blog is strong enough so as to support a reputable presence around the blogosphere. This, in turn, leads to credibility in my writing business.

So, what about you? How do you use your blog to support your freelance writing business?

***UPDATE FOR AUGUST 2, 2008: I HAVE JUST TWO COACHING SPOTS LEFT FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST. SIGN UP NOW TO START OR REJUVINATE YOUR FREELANCE WRITING CAREER!***

photo credit: skippy13

It’s no secret that I plan to open a writer mentoring program in the future. I spend at least a little bit of time, each day, working on the program. I’m exploring many options, too. I’m looking into what kinds of resources I can bring to the table. I’m exploring potential partnerships, looking at software packages and designing curriculum. Some of the possibilities are pretty exciting, and I think those of you who’ve been waiting won’t be disappointed.

I don’t know how soon the program will be ready to launch. There are a lot of T’s to be crossed, and a lot of… lower-case j’s to be dotted. Rest assured, it’s coming. I’m hoping to have a real timetable in the coming weeks, and you’ll be the first to know when it does launch.

Not a week goes by, however, that I don’t get someone asking me when we’re going to start. That’s an awesome encouragement, and part of what keeps me motivated to keep working on the project.

In the meantime, I hate to see new writers struggling. On top of that, I know how hard it is to get a writing career started, or to try to restart one that’s stalled.

I do what I can here, on my blog, to help writers achieve their dreams. And, I’ll be doing more once the mentoring program begins. At that point, I’ll be able to help literally hundreds of folks.

For now, I want to do something a little extra. For a limited time, I’ve decided to open up coaching opportunities for a limited number of my readers. Specifically, I want to help some of you:

• Propel your writing business ahead
• Learn to write with impact, conviction and, authority
• Make money writing online
• Understand the complex inner-workings of the Internet Writing business
• Map out your own pathway to freelance success

How will I do that? Well, as a stop-gap measure designed to help at least a few of you out until the mentoring program is in full swing, I’ve structured a personal writing coach program that begins today. In this program, I give you:

• Four hours of personal attention to help you with your writing career
• A customized coaching program that most suits your needs
• My perspective as a seasoned freelance veteran
• A hands-on analysis of your writing
• Communication via E-mail, chat, or any combination of the two

Now, my time isn’t limitless. I wish I could help every one of my readers in this way, but I can’t. That will come, down the road, when the mentoring program opens up. For now, I can only accept a total of 5 clients into this coaching program. I’m not promoting the coaching program anywhere else, and this blog post is the only time you’ll hear about it, at least for this month.

The normal rate for this coaching program will be $250 per month. For August only, I’m going to set the price at $150 per month. This lets you get a chance to see if you benefit from the program, and it gives me a little leeway to experiment on you. Mwah ha ha ha!

The program will run at least through the end of the year, and folks who are currently enrolled will have first pick of the slots for each following months.

The first five of you who enroll will get the spots in this exclusive program. Go to the sign up page and get started now!