Just a short post today, because I wanted to share with you what happens when you set a goal to achieve something with your writing. I set myself a goal at the beginning of January to find ONE new client via my professional website, www.allisonwhitehead.co.uk. While some clients have found me through this blog, I did create a separate site targeted purely to them.

However I never seemed to have a lot of time to develop it into the site I wanted it to become. So I set myself the challenge to start adding posts to it more regularly and to add some testimonials to it as well. And I wanted to find one new client before the end of January.

Now I must admit that by Monday this week I thought it wasn’t going to happen. My traffic has improved over on that website, so I was pleased with that. But today I had an email from someone who wanted one weekly blog for their website. A few emails back and forth and I’ve got the client I was looking for.

It just goes to show that with a little effort you CAN find the writing work you want. The clients are out there – and they might be looking for you now. But how easy are you to find?

I can say that my traffic per day for that site is still pretty low compared to this blog. But the additional effort is clearly paying off already. I wonder what February will bring?

PS – don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed, as my month long series “29 Days of Online Writing” is going to kick off next Wednesday – a week from today. I’m going to keep a notepad file open each day, adding to it as I go along. Then I’ll publish it at the end of the day so you can see what I’ve been up to. Don’t miss it – it’s going to be an eye opener! Subscribe now via the big orange RSS button at the top of this site. Thanks!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

I have had an interesting start to the New Year. I made it a goal that I would find at least one new client during January, and I’ve landed one today. But it came about in an interesting way.

Judging by the emails I get asking about how to get into online writing, it seems that most people want writing jobs to fall into their lap. Now this CAN happen, but you need to show you are capable of writing and that you are a professional first. If you don’t have a blog or a website and you don’t have any clips or any kind of presence at all online, you can forget about people approaching you for work.

It’s like me asking you if you could come and plumb my new bathroom in. I don’t know you; I have no evidence at all that you’re a plumber. So it makes no sense for me to ask you. Yet many would be writers expect writing jobs to appear out of thin air. Sorry, it doesn’t happen like that – at least not when you’re a newbie. You have to get out there and earn your stripes first.

Anyway, back to the story. I started looking around for freelance writing gigs online and applied to a few I thought might be worthwhile. But I also went one step further. I got onto Google and started using all kinds of different search terms to try and find possible outlets for work. I tried all kinds of things – ‘looking for blogger’, ‘SEO company’ (many of them use freelance writers) and all manner of other search terms too. And I found lots of sites that could potentially be looking for writers.

Some of them were indeed looking for writers. They had a page telling me so. So I applied for more information. But not all of them had this page. Some of them clearly used writers but there was no ad telling me they were looking for writers.

Now I’m guessing that some writers would look for a ‘writers’ wanted’ ad, wouldn’t see one, and move on to the next site. But I can testify that it doesn’t pay to do this. Because every site has a contact page. And every site represents a chance to get a foot through the door as a writer. If you send them a quick note, asking if they are looking for writers, you never know what response you are going to get in return. Certainly you might get nothing but silence (I’ve had that happen a few times). But you may just get some nice person saying ‘Actually yes, we ARE looking for writers!’ And in a short while you might have a new job to celebrate.

Try it and see. You just never know…

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

How often do you really search for freelance writing opportunities?

I’ve been a bit more active on LinkedIn lately and I’ve noticed some people tend to take part in a lot of conversations on there, many of them about freelance writing opportunities. That’s great because there are a lot of really nice people (writers from all walks of life and in all specialities) who use LinkedIn.

But that’s beside the point. The point is that some have bemoaned the ‘fact’ that there are no freelance writing opportunities around to be found. I have to question that. I’m kept pretty busy in my own business and whenever things have gone quiet – and this is true of every single occasion this has happened – I have always gone out to look for more work. And within about a week or so, more work has appeared.

This makes me wonder how hard some people look for freelance writing opportunities.

I’m not criticising those who are struggling to earn a living from freelance writing opportunities. But it is too much of a generalisation to say there is no freelance work out there. There IS. I have some. I know a lot of other writers who have plenty as well. But it depends on how willing you are to get out there and do everything you can to get the work you want.

Here are some of the ways I search for freelance writing opportunities whenever I need them:

• I look on Craigslist. Yes there are some scams on there and you have to be careful. But I have been ‘lucky’ enough to get two or three really good jobs from that site from time to time, so don’t leave it out. It can provide you with some good freelance writing opportunities.
• I search on Google. I actually love this method because you just never know what you’re going to find. I use all kinds of search terms like ‘looking for blogger(s)’ or ‘seeking an article writer’. I spend an hour or maybe two looking for all the terms I can think of. I sometimes work on behalf of media agencies and companies, and in this case it is sometimes worth looking for those terms plus ‘freelance’ or something similar. Sometimes you won’t find any freelance writing opportunities using this technique, and other times you’ll turn up gold over and over again. If you do strike it lucky you can always make a note of everything you find and tackle them bit by bit.
• I set up notifications with sites like Google Alerts and Simply Hired, with my job search terms specified. This means you can get emails on a daily basis focusing on the kinds of jobs you want to get. You probably won’t turn up too much on a regular basis, but every now and then a potential job lead will just plop into your inbox and lead to a new client.

The point is that if you have the time to interact with people in long conversations online talking about the dearth of freelance writing opportunities, you’re spending time in conversation when you could be looking for those jobs. I don’t think I am particularly lucky – I think I am well prepared to go looking for freelance writing opportunities when I need them. And I don’t stop looking until I have enough work to be getting on with. Try the above methods for finding freelance writing opportunities and see how you get on.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

How are you faring with paid writing jobs?

I’ve not been blogging for a while, but there is a very good reason for that as I’ve been over on Squidoo building some new lenses, including this one, “Polls about paid writing jobs and gigs“.

It’s only been live for a couple of days but so far the poll has had some visitors and they’ve been answering all kinds of questions related to paid writing jobs. I wanted to see how other people were faring – how much they earned (ballpark figure), how they found work, how much paid writing jobs work they actually undertook, and so on.

The results are coming in so we can all learn more about paid writing jobs.

Take the poll about paid writing jobs and gigs

I had two main reasons for building the lens, both of which I’ve mentioned in the introduction to it. I’m hoping that it will give us all some valuable information about paid writing jobs and the people who take them on – people like us!

There are plenty of sections on this blog that deal with how to find writing work. But I also frequently visit and post material on Squidoo, Hubpages and Triond, mostly focusing on various aspects of paid writing jobs and similar topics.

Where will you rank in the paid writing jobs poll?

It’s only going to get more interesting as more and more results and opinions come in, so visit the lens on Squidoo now and see how you relate to other writers. Paid writing jobs come in all shapes and sizes, and every contribution to the poll counts! I am thinking of writing another blog post once I have more results to go by, so come back soon and get updated on the paid writing jobs poll.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Were your online writing efforts badly affected, or did you barely notice the recession brush past you?

Are you overwhelmed with online writing tasks - or struggling to find things to do? (with thanks to julosstock for the image)

Probably most people who have an online writing career will have been affected in one way or another by the recession.  I think I have weathered it quite well all in all, but that’s not to say I haven’t had to make changes and alterations to my writing business as a consequence of the larger global picture.

Silence in the online writing world…

For example a few months back (probably around October time last year) I came back from a week’s holiday to find I didn’t have much in the way of writing work to do.  I was slightly concerned but after that initial blip I resolved to go out and find more clients.  I think this was the first time I ever had to consciously make that decision as a result of not having enough online writing work to do.

Luckily (or perhaps not, since I did put the work in to get the results) I came up with a couple of new jobs within the week.  I am still working with one client, supplying five short articles on a weekly basis as a result of that search.

Things were relatively busy from then on until the end of January, when things got quiet again.  So I repeated what I did before and once again I came up trumps.  This has taught me that no matter how dire things look and how light you are on work, you can always come up with something if you just start looking and putting yourself out there.

Online writing – and the amount of it you have (or don’t have) – is under your control

Sure, I had some non starters and plenty of applications for information or actual writing jobs that didn’t come to anything.  But since I decided to forget about every job application the minute I sent it off, I wasn’t really affected by all the ones that came to nothing.

I think that by focusing on the positives – the fact that I continued to find jobs worth applying for, people worth working with and so on – kept me positive and it gave me positive results as well.  Not everyone will agree that positive thinking works in this sense, but that’s fine.  It works for me.

So how have you been affected by the recession?  Has your online writing career suffered a dip, and if it has, what have you done to get yourself back out of it again?  Share your thoughts below!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

When you think about writing for online markets, what type of work do you think of?

The chances are you are thinking about writing articles.  That’s fair enough, and there is plenty of article writing work out there to keep you busy for months on end if you are good enough.

But there are other types of writing work available too.  Check these out for starters:

1. eBook writing. If you prefer longer works to short quick articles, this might be for you.  The higher fee also means it brings in larger amounts of cash.
2. Forum posting. This usually takes the form of short posts on various forums, perhaps 50 to 100 words, with a link back to the website owned by the person who hires you.  Quick and usually easy, and it tends to pay better per 100 words if you find good clients.
3. Blog writing. This might appeal to you if you want regular work, as a lot of people hire writers to create and update their blogs for them.  You will usually get a specific number of posts to complete each week.  Blog posts are usually shorter than articles, but not necessarily.
4. Product descriptions. Again, nice short and easy work; ideal if you like to do lots of little jobs instead of one big one like an eBook.  These are for websites of all kinds, and the work can make a refreshing change from writing articles constantly!
5. Review writing. You may be asked to write reviews of specific products to put on a website, or to use as marketing articles.  This is really a different type of article, but the format can be very specific depending on the client you work for.

So there you go – five more types of writing work you can look for and do online.  Which one appeals to you the most?

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Finding online writing work is a never ending task.  Unless you get a job as part of a writing team – which pretty much guarantees you will get ongoing work – you will have to look for your own writing gigs.

Forums can be a good place to do this.  There are two types of forums you can visit in your search for suitable work.  Firstly you could try dedicated writing forums.  These have various sections to suit different types of writing and writers.  But they also often have a section that has threads and posts relating to writing gigs that are currently available.

The second type of forum is a more general forum that is not focused solely on writers.  As such these can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.  For example there are a couple of well known internet marketing forums that have sections focusing on creating content of all kinds.  The members post their content needs in that section, and writers who visit the forum apply for anything they like the look of.

Needless to say whichever type of forum you decide to look on, half of the battle is in remembering to look every single day to see if any new opportunities have been posted there.  Speed is almost as important as reading the post thoroughly and having the right skills to complete the job as required.

Finally, make sure you constantly search for new forums to find work in.  Since not all writing gigs are advertised in writing forums, you can find some juicy work in all kinds of places if you keep looking long enough.  Use the search engines to look for forums on different subjects.  Ideally they should be ones where marketers or other business people will go to.  If they need content there should be an area where they can let everyone know.

And as soon as you find that area, you will have found yet another potential place for winning writing jobs.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Online writing doesn’t just fall into one huge category.  There is a lot more to it than that.  And the secret of making good money as an online writer is to find the niche that you are particularly good at.

So with that in mind, here are some of the ways you can make money online as a writer.

1. Blogger. Blogging is something you can do for other people as well as for yourself.  There are people making good money online who have several blogs all set up and running with very little in the way of input from them.  They hire bloggers to write the posts for them – and this is where you come in.
2. Article writer. Articles are forever wanted on all kinds of different subjects online.  People use them for article marketing, adding to email newsletters, adding to their website, and much more besides.  If you are able to write short articles you will find a never ending market here to aim for.
3. Copywriter – writing copy for websites. Articles are good for adding to websites that already exist.  But who creates the copy for those websites in the first place?  The answer is copywriters.  If you like the idea of creating the content for a website from scratch, copywriting could be what suits you the most.
4. Press release writer. Every business needs to tell its audience about new products, changes to their business and other announcements of all kinds.  If you are good at putting together an efficient press release you can approach businesses and find work from many online writing sites.  This isn’t the best avenue of writing to get into, but it could prove an interesting and lucrative sideline.

So there we have it – four types of writing you might want to try online.  And don’t forget, whichever one you start with there is no reason why you cannot expand to include the others as well.  It will all earn you even more cash in the future.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Selling articles online is what most online writers want to do.  And it is possible to make a good living from it.

But of all the emails I have received from would be writers wanting to do just that, the most common question I am asked is “where do you find the work?”

With that in mind, here are three methods for locating those article buyers.  There are plenty of them out there – you just have to know how to reach them.

1. Use search engines. This might sound too simple for words, but it is often the simple ideas that are the best!  I have found many sources of work in this way.  All you have to do is type in some keywords that are relevant to what you want to find.  Try ‘paid writing work’, ‘sell articles’ and various other possibilities.  ‘Article marketplace’ can also produce some good possibilities.  The trick is to keep trying different combinations of words to reveal some good sources of potential work and article sales.
2. Explore the freelance bidding sites. Once again, there are plenty of these around.  Some require a payment to join; others are free and still more give you a choice of both.  In this latter case you will usually get a more advanced membership if you pay for it.  Persevere with these sites – you won’t always grab your first writing job and find an article buyer to work with on the first attempt.
3. Keep reading writing sites and blogs for sources of new work and article buyers. There are lots of these sites around and many of them have regular job listings for online writers.  Add the ones you like to your bookmarks toolbar so they are always there to remind you.  Look regularly for article buyers that are after the kind of articles you can write well.

The trick to succeeding in online writing is not only to persevere – it is in knowing where to look to find work.  And the three methods above should help you to make sure your own online writing career is a resounding success.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

How many writing gigs do you apply for? Have you proved your skills to anyone today? (photo credit sibaudio - sxc.hu)

We all have our own little ways and means, don’t we?  Some of us use sites that allow us to post articles whenever we like to earn profits through Google Adsense and similar programs.  Others head for the bidding sites to bid on as many freelance writing jobs as they can find.  Still more scour the job boards and classified ad sites to see what they can find there.

For my money I don’t think any of these methods are wrong or right.  We are all different and it depends on what you want to get out of writing, both in a mental and a financial sense.  Of course if you want to earn a living from your writing then you’ll want to earn as much as possible from your writing, so you will look for the better paid jobs.  Ideally you will approach businesses directly instead of simply looking for the advertised jobs.  But we all have our own ways of finding the writing gigs we want.

The most important thing for me is not to rely on any one source of work.  Here are some of the ways I have found freelance writing jobs in the past:

• Via one of my Squidoo lenses (someone emailed me)
• Via Twitter (someone contacted me via a direct message)
• Via my website (currently undergoing an overhaul!)
• Via Craigslist (and it is actually still one of my highest paid regular jobs – which just goes to show you CAN sometimes find worthwhile writing gigs on Craigslist!)
• Via a bidding site
• Via colleagues who sub-contract some of their work out to others

As you can see there are plenty of ways you can get work as an online freelance writer.  And these barely scratch the surface as well.  The more creative you are in finding freelance writing jobs the better – it will put you in front of the competition.

If you read my previous post about my 5 writing resolutions for the New Year you will know that I fully intend to develop my writing career even further in 2010.  I feel like it is time to step up to the next stage.

Is it time for you as well?  Think about some of the methods I have used to get writing gigs and ask yourself if they could work for you too.  Are there other things you could be doing – such as setting up a writing blog for example – that will help you to get more clients?

Try them all in turn and see which ones appeal to you.  Use them, try more and watch your writing career develop as a result.  Good luck!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time