Recently I’ve received lots of questions from freelance beginners; they want to get paid to write, but how do you get started?
You have a couple of options:
- Write something like a book or an online course and sell your creation; or
- Offer your writing services—that is, sell your writing skills.
Want to get paid to write? Sell your skills
You can offer someone your writing services and get hired immediately.
A big tip: selling your time limits your income. There are only so many hours in each day. As soon as possible, write something you’ll sell, like a short story or a nonfiction book.
I mention short stories, because you can write them quickly, and they sell. When you create a product, you can make money 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
Another tip: remember that professional writing is a business.
Professional writing is a business
Your creative business sells your services as well as your creations.
When you’re selling your services, you lose all your rights in a creation after you’re paid in full. When you get paid to write, you create “works done for hire.”
On the other hand, when you sell your creations, you own the copyright. You can “sell” (actually, you’re licensing) your creations to as many people as wish to buy them.
If you’re a beginner and want to get paid to write, you need to do two things daily: create stuff and promote that stuff. The “stuff” may be service offerings. You could create a blogging service or ghostwriting services, for example.
1. Create daily: offer your writing and writing services for sale
Creation always needs to come first, otherwise we have nothing to sell. Keep this in mind, because marketing and selling, once you become comfortable with it, can take up lots of time.
Always give yourself plenty of time for creation.
Once you’ve created something, whether it’s a writing service you offer, or a product, you need to make it as EASY as possible for people to buy.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a wonderful tool for self-publishing writers. Amazon delivers your goods and takes the money. However, Amazon doesn’t market your writing on its own: you have to help.
Which brings us to promotion.
2. Promote your writing daily
Promotion is marketing. However, marketers will tell you that promotion is only one aspect of marketing. It’s true. However, it’s the one aspect of marketing that writers get stuck on, when there’s no need for it.
Get paid to write, starting today
Often, when I say to freelance beginners: “write something TODAY and sell it”, the response is “yes, but…”
Please forget the “yes, buts.” All your questions and objections are pointless, because no one’s career ever proceeds as you imagine it should.
I’m fond of saying: “your writing will answer all your questions.” It’s true.
Write and promote.
Make your daily mantra: sell something today. Before you know it, you’ll get paid to write—your new career will take shape.
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Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
