There are two possibilities here.  You can write for yourself, or you can write for other people.  Lots of online writers do both.  They act as ghostwriters, writing articles on all kinds of subjects for clients who then put their own names to the work afterwards.  But these same writers can also write for themselves, writing articles and selling them direct to websites or website owners with their own name on the work.

Now despite what some people might say, it doesn’t matter which way you want to do it.  You can do one or the other, or both.  It depends what your preferences are.  What you need to do is what feels right for you.

When you sit down to write an article, who are you writing it for?

Some internet writers start out by writing for other people to make a regular living.  Then as time goes on and they start learning more about the internet and how to make money on it in other ways, they start writing articles to promote their own products.  Some writers create websites on various subjects and start adding Google Adsense and products to them so they can make money on an ongoing basis.

So you might start by writing for other people and not thinking about doing it for yourself at all.  But then as time goes on you can start thinking along the lines of building up some residual, ongoing income from your writing skills by putting those websites and products together.

It often takes longer to start earning money from your writing in the second way, i.e. doing it for yourself.  But this is the way that will eventually pay off in the long term.  Writing for other people is perfectly fine – I do it a lot myself – but focus on your own needs too if you really want to make it big.

Article source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Allison_Whitehead

If you have been reading a lot about online writing lately, you will probably have come across the term ‘ghostwriting’.  But what is it?  How is it different from any other kind of writing?

Could you be an unseen ghostwriter?

In truth, if you have got your first writing job you might even have done some ghost writing already without even realising it!  You see, ghostwriting is basically writing something for someone else that they put their own name on and publish.  So for example, you might be asked to write an article on cheese making (sorry, that was the first thing that came into my head!) for a client.  So you write it and you turn it in, and they pay you.

But then they stick their own name on it and publish it or do whatever they like with it, because they have paid you for full ownership of it.  They won’t tell other people they had someone else write the piece on cheese making – they will say they wrote it themselves.  You have ‘ghostwritten’ the piece and you will remain a mystery in the background, as people don’t even know you exist.

I actually fell into ghost writing without even realising it.  I was poodling along doing my writing and developing my client base, and I read an article on ghostwriting.  And I suddenly realised that’s what I was doing!  Talk about being the last one to know…

Some people have an issue with giving ownership of their writing to other people.  That’s fair enough though – I can perfectly understand that.  I think I have been there and got the published magazine clips, so I was happy to write for other people.  Although with that said I still like to do the odd magazine piece with my name on it (or online piece, like this blog for example!) from time to time.

It’s really a case of horses for courses.  If you like the idea of keeping your own name on everything then go for it and write for markets that make this a possibility.  If you like to write for all kinds of different people and markets, then go for a mix of everything.  Remember that this is YOUR writing career so you get to choose who you want to write for and when you want to write.

This is an important question because it can have a big influence on your future writing career.  One of the best ways to work for lots of different people is to join a ghostwriting team, because you will naturally receive plenty of work from all kinds of people.

But you should still make the effort to find other clients of your own, because this will help to protect your income and grow your writing skills still further.  You can search for higher paying writing jobs too; I found my highest paying one by far after a couple of hours spent surfing around Craigslist, for example.  You just never know where you will find your next job.

As a freelance writer, you could be working for anyone

The thing is that writing jobs are just like any other kind of work.  There will always be the danger that a particular job will cease to be, and if you have relied on that as being your main source of income it could leave you in a sticky spot.

In many ways being a freelancer protects you from the ups and downs of the job market, because you are likely to receive work from several different directions.  This means that if one falls through for any reason you still have plenty of streams of income coming in from other sources.

So take a look at where you get your freelance writing jobs from.  If you only rely on one or two sources then perhaps it’s time to up your income by adding a couple more.

I’ve just finished writing an article about renewable energy – admittedly not something I knew a lot about, but something that was interesting to research and a definite change of pace from my usual subjects.

It made me think about how we choose writing jobs, and whether we sometimes deny ourselves a plum job because it’s not something we have written about before.

I used to panic slightly if I was offered something totally new (I am a member of a ghostwriting team and so I regularly get emails asking if I can do all kinds of weird and wonderful jobs!) but I have now learned to read the job brief once, panic, and then go back and read it again more slowly.  Sometimes you can be so eager to find out what you have been asked to do that you miss half the details.

Always pay close attention to the job brief

I then give it time to settle into my brain before replying with a ‘yes, can do’ or a ‘no, can’t do’ answer.  Most often it is the former; there has only been one occasion I can think of in recent months where I have turned something down because I didn’t feel confident on writing about that particular subject.  On that occasion it was a very technical piece, and that is something I know I am not good at.

Try it out with future writing jobs and opportunities you come across.  You don’t want to delay unnecessarily in applying for something good, but don’t count yourself out too soon either.

Keep on writing!