The Times They Are A Changing

I consider myself a writer, a serious writer. Yet some people almost snicker when I tell them that my living is writing on the internet. I explain that I write for several networks as well as a sort of broker that handles travel articles. The articles are in tern sold to travel web sites. And they say, “Yeah, but what magazines do you write for?” For some reason, in there eyes, I don’t seem to have a real writing job unless I’m regularly published in major magazines. Of course, they know nothing about the writing business or how difficult it is to break into major magazines. Of course, I would love to do just that. All that aside, I do believe that I am a legitimate writer. Sure, I also wish I made more money which can be made selling your writing to major magazines.

Knowing that I am something like a struggling “artist” only I’m a struggling writer, there must be other people out there like me. Or, at least those that would like to be able to make that second income from home or a part-time retirement income. I’d like to share how I make the “part-time income”, in hopes that others will share anything or anyplace else they have found that pays for writing.

I especially like those places that I have an on going writing relationship with so I’m not having to go out and bid on jobs, write articles and sometimes have them stolen with no payment received. Let’s face it there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there.

I started out writing on hubpages.com. They pay 60% adsense received. And remember ad sense doesn’t pay until you have $100 in your account. I think the last time I checked I had $12.47. So, you can see that adsense is really no way to make a writing living. However, this is why I am mentioning them, There are some really good article writers there. So, starting out, I learned a lot by reading their articles, seeing how they were structured and so on. I then wrote articles that I did my best on. Writing these articles was not only like a training ground, but also gave me samples when other employers wanted to see my work on the web.

The second place I wrote was at Helium.com. In my opinion, it’s a waste of time to just pick subjects and write articles. To get more practice, but as I second step to becoming an online writer, you should try joining some of their contests and write articles from their marketplace. As you compete in the contests, you may get lucky and actually earn some money. I won three first prizes and a second prize before I went on to other things. I have also sold 7 paying articles from their marketplace. In fact, an article about social security was the first article I ever sold (what a great feeling) and it was out of their marketplace. Whatever you write there will continue to make money every time someone views the article. It’s not adsense as it’s paid directly from Helium, but it works much the same way. However, I’ve never been able to figure out their system of payment for views.

Since I have been working two other paying jobs, I haven’t done much with Helium, only because of time constraints. And, you never know if what you do at there (in the contest and marketplace areas) will pay off or not - but I know the paying markets I work at will. When you are writing for a living the most important thing has to be money, you have to schedule your time at the jobs that will pay off best.

I know, most of the time, am working for a “broker” of sorts. I didn’t know that they existed until I applied for a job in one of the freelance writing sits online and got the job. I write travel articles for $20 each and he places them in other travel related sites. He wants 1000 word articles. Actually, this is pretty low pay. Not only word wise (.02/word), but the article template is one that takes some time to complete. The other place I write for is Design Studio. They pay from $5 to $15 an article. I have only written the $15 ones as I am used to the template and so now they go pretty fast.

I also write for Today.com. They only pay $1 per article per day plus so much for unique (one time) visits. But, I like it because it gives me a more creative outlet where I can write about what ever I want and they are quite often opinion orientated.

I have tried to give myself the goal of making an extra hundred dollars each month. This is my $700 month and it’s going to be really close - keeping my fingers crossed that I make it with only a couple of days left.

So, please be generous and write me a message about any writing locations that you have found that might offer a fair wage.

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