write4money

A recent blog post I have read has sparked my interest in starting an online business. It was talking about how most people out there just want to write and not manage a business, which is afterall, more lucrative.

I have wanted to start an online business, but I have not been successful with two websites I created. Okay, I created one website which was a flop and the other one did not even make it to the net as of this writing.

But my interest in doing an online business is not dampened. Recently I got another idea to start an online business with the skills that I have to generate money for the past one year - writing!

There are three things I need to do. Firstly, I need to generate 100 articles, at least for a start. Secondly, I would need to find a web designer for my website. And last of all, I need to write a sales page for my website. That’s all. It does seem prety easy, but there is a lot of hardwork and money involved in all this. I have to start somewhere.

I have been harbouring a strong desire to be a published author. After all these years, my dream of getting published has not materialised. I think many of you also feel that way too. Some of us do not feel that anyone would want to read our book. But now that I’m not working, I have to let my little insecurities go and proceed to conquer the world. I have been given several opportunities to do things I thought I would never have done, such as embarking on a freelance writing career. It’s not come true.

But another one of my dreams is to be a published writer. Why the strong desire?

1) I Can Do It!

For one, I want to prove to myself that I can do it. Yup!There are so many things I have been afraid of doing or starting, that nothing has been done. I want to tell my friends and family that I’m not shaking my legs at home. I’m actually doing something.

2) Earn Some Income

I would like to generate a couple of revenue streams. Hopefully, this one would be able to sustain me for awhile. It will definitely help ease the stress my husband is experiencing from having to hold the financial fort alone.

3) Learning Experience

I feel that once I accomplish something new, I learn many things along the way. And publishing a book will help me understand how the publishing companies work. At the same time, I will also get new contacts, if I want to publish something else.

Well, I must say that the opportunity has arrived. My friend who wanted to write a book together with me and another writer has come up with the content page for the proposed book. Each of us need to write 4 chapters in the book. We are hoping to get it published by the end of the year.

A few days ago, I wrote about my hesitation to apply for a freelance writing job with a government organisation. In the project description, I was asked to suggest some titles for a 600-700 word article. I came up with five titles pretty easily. I also asked them to suggest titles if they have any, so I could write about them.

The coordinator has replied to my email asking me to write samples based on 3 out of the 5 articles I suggested. I have done some research on them and trying very hard to get inspiration to write them. My daughter is taking a nap this afternoon and I’m here blogging away, instead of writing my articles.

I’m giving myself until tomorrow afternoon to complete all three articles. I have a small concern though. There does not seem to be any contract written for this assignment. Any agreement seems to be based on email correspondences. I wonder how safe it would be to write for them. The government organisation is definitely legitimate and the email address has been verified. I’m aware of scams out there and I hope I don’t fall for any.

One of the scheming techniques scammers use is to post a job online on sites such as Craigslist and request for 10 articles to be written, in order to apply for a freelance writing job. Once the articles have been sent in, they don’t pay the writers. What’s more, they get 10 articles for free. They then use those softwares to regenerate the articles to look original. Make sure you don’t fall for these types of scams, alright? Any other scam stories you have heard of? Come and share them with everyone here.

Do you monetize your blog with Adsense ads? I’m sure many writers do so. But there is also another way for you to earn from Adsense. You can write for Hubpages. It is a site where you write an article on a topic of your choice. You are given the leeway to organise your writing, add pictures or some other details to your your page or hub.

On the page itself, there are Adsense ads. Hubpages do not pay you for publishing your articles. But they share ad revenue with you with the Adsense ads. I have a couple of hubs there. Some of them are original while others are taken from my articles that I have published at Triond. In a way, I’m getting more value for my writing. From the same piece of writing, I’m earning through Adsense and also Triond itself.

I know some people who has written very good content with good keywords at Hubpages. They are earning a few hundred dollars a month from the hubs alone. I’m not an expert in writing keyword articles, or at least not yet. So, my earnings is rather minimal. But Hubpages is helping me to build up my earnings with Adsense, apart from my blog. So, I must say that Hubpages is another site that has a lot of potential to help you earn residual income from writing. Try it!

Recently, I came across someone at the myLot forum. She is a freelance writer and earning quite a lot of money working from home. When I checked out her blog, I was very impressed at her knowledge and passion for the freelance writing world. She has been a freelance writer for six years and I do value her experience in this matter. As such I have decided to follow closely the developments on her site to gain more insight into freelance writing I have recently embarked in.

There was one thing she was adamant about, not to write for low pay. She actually does not encourage writers to submit their articles to writing sites such as Triond, Helium or Associated Content, where you get a few cents here and there for pageviews. She’d rather they sell their articles at a fixed price set by you or to submit them to higher paying sites.

I partly agree with her. After about a year of writing for Triond, I’m only earning about $15 per month from my 100 articles there. I have not added anything new since December 2008 and still earning about that amount every month. It does seem like a small amount. It may seem like I’m earning only 15 cents per article per month. Yes, pretty low.

On the other hand, I still like these sites primarily because they help me earn passive income every month. Even though I may not have written anything new, I’m still earning. So, when I was completing my freelance writing assignment in the last few months, I continue to earn money from Triond. Looking for ways to earn passive income is important. That is why I’m also embarking on a book writing project. I will discuss more about this later on.

Another reason I write for these sites is that it hosts my portfolio of writing. In case you are looking for a freelance writing job, your potential employer can view your writing portfolio online. You do not have to send or email files of your writing to them; you just need to give them the link. There are some benefits from writing for these sites, even though my new friend at myLot may not like them.

I started this writing assignment some time in November. The deadline was mid-January this year. In the beginning, I was quite excited about it all and submitted one section every week or so. Then I went on a short trip, and all my schedule was haywire.

I began to procrastinate writing it. When the new year began, it made me realise that I only have two weeks left before the deadline. I tried very hard to find time to write. In November and December, my husband was around and helped looked after my daughter. In January, he went back to work and left me typing away only when my daughter is napping or sleeping at night. I was also exhausted from her change of sleeping pattern. She was sleeping later and later, and I had to work on adjusting her routine. Subsequently, I cut her nap time during the day and she slept all night from 9pm to 7am. Although I had a shorter work time during the day, I still had some energy to work till about 11pm at night.

One week after the deadline, I have finally completed the assignment. My friend who got me the contract said not to worry about the deadline, and gave me till the end of the month to complete everything. But I have finished it all now. It felt great sending off the final piece.

Now I have more time for other things I like to do - mylotting, writing reviews, writing articles and searching for ways to make more money online.

I have not blogged for a couple of days now. It’s primarily because I was trying very hard to complete the assignment. The deadline has come and gone, I have not completed it. I’m very angry with myself for procrastinating and it’s probably going to affect my freelance writing career.

I have made quite good progress today though. There were six sections of the assignment that I need to complete, and as of today, I only have one section left. I did not write them in sequence though. I was stuck on the fourth one for a long time, and decided that I should proceed to finish off sections 5 and 6 first, before coming back to it.

I was stuck at section 4 because I was trying to complete what someone left off. In an attempt not to offend the first writer, I had to make sure that most of his writings are not cut out. It would have been better if I had been given the free reign to write whatever I wanted. But since he has already done some research on it, I did not want them to go to waste. It’s difficult trying to fit everything in.

Anyway, I’m glad that this is the final section I need to complete, as I’ve got so many other things I need to do that I have put aside, because of this project. One of the things that I want to do would be to resume blogging again on a regular basis. The second thing would be to start writing on the book I had wanted to publish together with a group of writers. Last of all, I want to resume writing articles, something I really enjoyed doing last year. Soon, very soon…

In December, I concentrated on just two wriitng sites, Triond and myLot. I thought that my earnings would touch $15 at Triond, but it fell short by a few cents. My earnings at Triond is only $14.94. In December, I did not write many articles, but I focused on promoting the articles in various social bookmarking and networking sites. My earnings rose a little from $12.98 in November.

At myLot, I did not achieve minimum payout for November, thus my earnings were carried forward to December. On average, I was earning $5 per month and finally reached payout plus a little more. My earnings at myLot amounted to $11.58. There seems to be very little interesting discussions towards the end of the year. There were a lot of Christmas and new year resolution discussions which I was not interested to respond to. I hope the new year brings in better quality discussions at myLot.

Thus, my earnings for December came up to $26.52. I must qualify some things. I have a couple of things which has not achieved payout just yet, like my earnings in Review Stream, Comparedby.Us and Today.com. I look forward to getting bigger paychecks from writing in January.

I started making money online since the beginning of 2008. I discovered legitimate sites that pay gradually. I first discovered Triond, and maybe that is why I have stuck to it for a long time. Then I discovered some other sites in teh middle of the year. I tried a couple of writing sites, but did not like many, not because they were not paying, but because some had rather complicated systems that discouraged me quickly.

Anyway, I have tallied my earnings from various writing sites and it looked rather minuscule. It came up to $260 for the entire year. It did not sound quite good. I want to at least double or triple that amount this year. For a start, I’m going to be paid a small sum of money from writing a lesson plan for General Paper course for a company. It is not an online oppportunity, but it also deals with writing. This will definitely boost this year’s earning from writing. More details about this later.

On average my earnings came up to about $20 per month. It managed to pay for my cell phone bills. Well, that’s a start. I am hoping that this year, my earnings will be able to cover my other bills at least. Thi smay be a big jump but I’m staying positive. I’m sure that there is a way to achieve it.

If you are looking for legitimate writing jobs on a freelance basis, you may want to check out Elance. It is a marketplace where freelance providers meet with buyers (job suppliers). These buyers put up their job proposal on the website and have the freelance service providers bid for the job. If you have any kind of service that can be done online such as writing, illustrating, programming, accounting and such, you can try to find a job here. Some buyers require a freelancer to complete the job on a regular basis, while others require a one-off assignment.

I have not tried bidding for a job, but I have personally tried to get someone to perform a writing task for me. There were many writers who came forth to offer their services. Some are individuals while other work in a team. There are advantages and disadvantages of both groups of service providers. Anyway, what I liked about Elance is that they have a secure payment system, which makes it impossible for buyers to run away with the completed assignment without paying the freelancers. It is also impossible for freelancers to run away with the money without completing the agreed assignment. Here’s how they ensure there is no fraud cases.

Once the buyer has agreed to accept a freelancer for a job, they have to remit money to the Escrow account in Elance where it is safe and secure. Once the money has been remitted, the freelancer will then begin with the job and complete them within the designated time agreed. Once the freelancer has completed the job and the buyer is satisfied with it, the money will be transferred from the Escrow account to the freelancer’s account. If there is any dispute, Elance may step in to mediate the situation.

I think that if you have the time to spare to follow through a writing job, this is a great way to venture into freelance writing. It would definitely expand your online earning opportunities. As for me, I don’t think I will have that much time at this moment to concentrate on writing on demand like this, but it is a consideration in the future, especially when I’m in desperate need for more income.