Writing
Charlotte Rains Dixon  

Make Money Writing Online, Four–Types of Internet Writing

I know, I know, you’ve been up night wondering when I was going to write the next installment of Make Money Writing Online.  Pining and longing for the next chapter.  Well, yearn no more, because here it is.

So far in this series about making money writing online, we’ve discussed the dream and the reality of freelance writing, and we’ve also looked at the benefits of freelancing online.

Today’s lesson is a primer on the various types of internet writing opportunities.  A smorgasbord of gigs, so to speak.    I’m going to give you a list with a brief description of each one, and then we’ll delve into each of these much deeper in the next segment, which is the how-to you’ve all been waiting for. 

Here goes:

Blogs.  Pretty self-explanatory.  You can write a blog of your own to establish credibility or authority.  You can monetize your blog through affiliate programs and ads.  And you can use a blog much as you would a website, when it becomes your calling card to attract clients. I touched on this briefly in the chapter on the benefits of freelancing online.  However, you can also get paid to write blog posts for someone else.  Many businesses, large and small, are starting blogs because they are an excellent way to connect with customers.  Yet these businesses don’t have a clue how to write in the friendly, accessible style a blog demands.  So they hire writers.  You might also want to write for a blog network, such as 451 Press.  These are groupings of blogs of a variety of topics have the advantage of providing you with a built-in audience.  There are also job opportunities at blogs that cover a specific topic with many different contributors, such as Treehugger. The job boards are full of these opportunities.  We’ll look into finding these jobs in an upcoming section.

Copywriting.  Okay, folks, what is our mantra?  Repeat after me: The internet is a hungry beast, and what it is hungry for is words.  Every website and blog on the internet, and there are billions of them, contains words.  Not only that, the best way to get high Google rankings is to figure out what specific words (or keywords) people will be searching for and fill your website with them.  Don’t you love an entity powered by words?  I digress.  You can write for websites,utilizing SEO (Search Engine Optimized) techniques or not, or you can write sales letters, or you can write other types of marketing writing.  You can write for companies that will find the jobs for you or you can find them yourselves.  Trust me, there is tons of copywriting work available out there.

Article Sites.  Because the internet is a beast hungry for words, article sites such as Helium and Associated Content have sprung up.  You write articles and post them and when they get purchased, you get a chunk of the income.  A very tiny, wee, small chunk, more like a tidbit, but a chunk all the same.  I shy away from these because I’d rather spend my time in what I feel are more productive ways but some writers have good luck with them.  One warning: do not post assignments you’ve done for others, whether through a company or a private arrangement, on these sites.  That is considered plagiarism.

Writing Books.  Writing ebooks and ghost-writing fall into this area.  When you sign on with a copywriting company, you’ll have a chance to hone your ebook writing skills.  You might be surprised how many opportunities there are for writing ebooks.  Most of them will be ghostwritten, meaning your name will not appear on it.  However, not all of them will be.  I’m currently writing a book about fundraising that will have my name on it.

Editing.  Into this category I lump copyediting, proofreading, and book editing.  You can edit for companies that publish ebooks, or private clients, or find any number of other opportunities.  I currently edit for a successful publisher of sensual romance ebooks and I’m throughly enjoying it.

Squidoo.  On this site, you can create pages, or "lenses" about a subject you know something about.    Its a whole network of interconnected lenses and it is pretty fun to spend time on.   You do get paid a portions of the revenues on Squidoo.  5% goes directly to charity, and then you get 50%.  I was greatly enamored with the site when I first started blogging, but got a little disenchanted when it took me forever to build my lenses.  However, I is a lot smarter about the internet now so I may have to go check it out again. 

Odd Bits.  You can also pick up odd jobs on the internet, and if you put your mind to it, you could easily set up a blog to market your services along these lines.  Odd jobs include writing wikipedia entries, (yes, people really get paid for this), writing dating profiles for people to post on Match and other sites, and no doubt others I’m not aware of.  Please note: you will be writing for private clients to post on these websites, not for the websites themselves.   

As you can see, there is a vast array of opportunity awaiting you in all different kinds of writing jobs.  Next up we’ll start looking at the specifics of how to actually do the writing.

0 thoughts on “Make Money Writing Online, Four–Types of Internet Writing

  1. don Williams

    Oh, this sound like fun. I can’t wait. I have a very thick skull, but you know, I might even learn something?

    I hope so?

    Best of luck with this project.

  2. Karoly Domonyi

    Just a note to let you know I have not seen anything as comprehensive and helpful as this site.

    Best Regards,

    K. Domonyi
    info@aries.hu
    Hungary
    http://www.Aries.hu

  3. Charlotte

    Hey, Thank you so much! I’m only barely getting warmed up, so keep coming back, I’ve got tons more info for you.

  4. Derek

    Thanks for posting. I look forward to reading your blog.. 🙂

  5. Kim

    Keep up the great work!! I’ll be back to read more!

  6. Charlotte

    Thanks Derek and Kim, I’ll be posting more as often as I possibly can.

  7. Pablothehat

    Hi, just came across your site and I like your aims and your writing style. I have put a link to your site on my blog. Looking forward to reading your articles and learning from them.
    Pablo

  8. Charlotte

    Thanks, Pablo, you did an awesome write-up of Wordstrumpet. I’m adding you to my blogroll.

  9. Pedro Abreu

    Nicely resumed information on the subject!

    However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to post a list of such writing opportunities; or is there a directory somewhere dedicated to it?

    Pedro

    🙂

  10. kellypea

    Excellent way to put quite a bit into a nice and tidy post. Well done! I supposed I should actually try and get paid for a few of my words. I have looked into editing and proofreading. Just haven’t followed through. Currently, I’m involved in grant writing. I guess that counts.

  11. kellypea

    Erm…and I should have proofread my own comment. Feh.

  12. Mark Dykeman

    Very interesting.

    I have some experience with Helium and I’ve actually made some money writing there (less than $100, but getting close), but I’m not interesting in putting much more effort into it. I see it as a stepping stone to bigger things.

    I’d like to write for Associated Content, but the last time I checked they’d only pay US citizens, so that isn’t much incentive for me.

    I notice that you didn’t mention Triond and its family of sites.

    Squidoo: I have four active lenses there. They’ve not done a whole lot for me financially, but it is an interesting concept and I’ll continue to tinker around with them.

    I have a subject that I hope you’ll be covering in your e-book: promotion. Some of the sites that you mention will provide negligible income unless the author promotes their articles in order to attract readers.

    Enjoying the series!

  13. Derek

    You are writing a very informative blog here. I just need to motivate myself to get writing more that I am. Amazing how there always seem to be “stuff” coming up that grabs my attention.. 🙂

  14. Zhu

    Pretty interesting. I think I’m still in the “trying to establish my credibility” stage (well, minus my last post which probably ruins my credibility :lol:) but some options are definitely worth being checked out.

  15. Charlotte

    Thanks you guys for all the comments. Pedro, stay tuned, I’ll be getting into more specifics as we go forward. I was just reading something about Helium that mentioned one could simply copy their blog posts over there and I thought maybe it deserves another look. I have found Associated Content a bit more confusing to navigate and since time is limited, I’ve not investigated it furhter. I am not familiar with the Triond sites but will check them out ASAP. And yes, promotion. The Holy Grail. In a world with billions of blogs and lord knows how many Ebooks, promotion is the question, isn’t it? I’ll do my best to share what I know when we get to that part AND I hope everyone else will chime in.

  16. Charlotte

    Addendum to Derek: I do SO understand how all that stuff crops up to demand attention. After making a solemn vow to concentrate as much attention as possible on my books and my blogs, I suddenly realized today I’ve spent the bulk of the last few days working on copywriting assignments. Sigh. I think we have to look at balancing things over the long run. When my kids were little, I obsessed about getting them balanced nutrition on a daily basis, until I read that what you should strive for is balance over the course of a week. So that’s what I look for with my writing, too.

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  18. Catherine Moore

    There are several ways whereby you can earn online. You can choose from a wide array of freelance job opportunities that include content writing, web design, SEO marketing, programming, graphic design, and many more. Some of these freelance jobs are at par with regular jobs in terms of compensation plus you will have the freedom to set your own work schedule. On the hand, you can also earn by putting up websites to sell products and services. If you are entrepreneurial enough, you may also find profit potentials in buying and selling domains. With the wide range of earning opportunities that can be found online, it is hard to find the best opportunity that pays well, commensurate to your skills and work ethics. If you want to know more about the different earning opportunities online, you can visit our site: http://www.ultimate-internet-marketing.com/

  19. make money online

    There are people who makes a lot of money online with article marketing. Here is how they do it. They go to ezine article and go to sitemap and they look at the most viewed article directory for the most popular article.

    They find out how the author is monetizing the article if they are. Then what one can do is just write an article with the same synonyms and keywords.

    Remember do not over use your primary keyword or google will penalize you for it. Then submit your article after you write it.

  20. Charlotte Dixon

    Great updated info, make money online, thank you!

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