There are various ways of making money from writing articles. The two basic choices are writing articles for yourself, or writing for somebody else. You can make good money writing articles for blogs or websites you start yourself. There are however a few problems with this, namely:
- It normally costs money to start your own website or blog.
- It requires a certain amount of technical expertise to get a website up and running.
- Website earnings usually start off very modest. Passive income sources can be useful, but the money drip feeds into your bank account over many months or even years. Establishing a new website also takes a lot of time and effort. Affiliate marketing products so that you can earn an income from your websites is a skill that takes a lot of time to master. This isn't the best course of action if you need money quickly.
One shortcut is to write for an already established website. There are increasing numbers of sites that have a revenue sharing model. Popular sites include HubPages and Squidoo. Associated Content and Demand Studios also run a large number of sites with this kind of business model. Generally you write articles for the site, and you get a cut of the income that article generates. At the time of writing HubPages was splitting the revenue earnt from your articles 60/40% in your favor. While this may seem attractive, few people have made their fortune from HubPages.
If you need money quickly then it's better to look for a service that pays you for each article you write. If you want to do this then you can either find somebody who wants to hire a freelance writer directly, or you can use a content writing service. Content writing services act as an intermediary between the author and the publisher. The publisher can hire writers through the service without having to find their own freelance writers.
Two content writing services worth a look are Text Broker and The Content Authority. The good thing about using these places is that if you write good articles then you'll get paid for them. You also don't have to spend time looking for writing jobs - there are always gigs available on these sites.
Text Broker has some great services for writers who want to earn money writing online. You can write as many or as few articles as you want. You can set the price you are willing to write articles for. It's also completely free to sign up to as an author.
The Content Authority is another site worth considering. Again, you can do as much or as little writing as you like. How much you'll get paid for writing depends on what the publisher wants, as well as your own writing ability. Each publisher rates your work, so if you do a good job at writing then you'll get the opportunity to earn more from future articles you write.
One word of advice though. Never compete on price. You'll see freelancers claiming to work miracles on places like Fiverr for just $5. I've seen article writing services advertise for fees as low as $1. Unless you live in a developing country where the cost of living is low, it's hard to make a living from such a low income.
So if you can't compete on price, what can you compete on? The best approach is to aim to become a professional writer and write high quality articles. The Content Authority pays expert authors much more money than the entry level writers. In time you can become an expert in a few fields, and you will be able to command the highest fees for writing about these topics. In time you might find that your new expert author status allows you to write for magazines and other places that love to receive well researched and informative articles.