If you have a knack for stringing words together in a way that’s coherent, adds value, and strongly appeals to your target audience, you can make money online. It won’t be easy initially, but as you build up your reputation, proof of your work, and the results you deliver, your writing will pay off more than you’d ever imagine.
Freelance writing has strong appeal in the side hustle and freelance world because it is so easy and inexpensive to start. Getting paid to write online is so ridiculously simple to set up that this appears frequently in write-ups about side hustle ideas and ways to make money online. All you need is your laptop and a stable internet connection, which means you don’t need any investment or capital to begin making profits.
Because there are low barriers to entry for you to making money online with writing, you can literally begin writing online today and start earning within a week, depending on your current audience or following, how well you market yourself, and a range of other factors.
How To Make Money Online As A Writer
Here are a few ways you can get paid to write online this week:
1. Launch A Paid Newsletter On Substack
Start writing for free on Substack, including notes as well as posts, to build up a loyal audience. Once you hit a couple hundred engaged readers and begin receiving engagement, you can introduce a $5/month paid tier to begin with, to deliver exclusive content for premium readers. You can also start including value-adds such as article voice-overs and subscriber-only chats.
These monthly subscriptions will help you generate recurring revenue that is more predictable and financially sustainable.
2. Monetize Your Free Substack Articles
Not everyone wants to offer premium subscriptions on Substack; monetizing your Substack newsletter directly isn’t for everybody, so here’s an alternative:
Why not monetize your free articles? To do this, connect the theme or topic of your articles to a digital product that you can sell at the end. For example, if you’re walking your readers through how to create an engaging marketing copy, you can sell a digital template pack or 30-day content calendar at the end, or even hyperlink to a live masterclass, which of course is a priced product.
3. Create A Medium Newsletter
Platforms like Medium pay according to engagement and views, and you can hide your best content behind a paywall to encourage readers to pay to read more. To do this, you must ensure that the lede or opening of your article is attention-grabbing and promises to answer your audience’s deepest questions. This motivates them to go beyond the paywall.
4. Offer Ghostwriting Services For LinkedIn Creators
Many professionals on LinkedIn are seeking to build a strong, active presence so that they can be recognized as thought leaders in their industries. Some are already recognized thought leaders and, due to their hectic schedules, are struggling to keep up with the pace of content writing and engaging on their LinkedIn profile to drive traction to their work and generate new business.
This is where you’d come in and solve their problem. You could offer ghostwriting services and create content for solopreneurs or executives who need to write frequently on their profiles.
5. Apply For Freelance Copywriting Gigs
There are plenty of places you can go to find copywriting jobs that are required with a quick turnaround, as well as copywriting for bigger projects and longer contracts. These include:
- ProBlogger
- LinkedIn Services (turn your copywriting services on)
- Fiverr
- Upwork
- FlexJobs
- Cold-pitching directly to companies in your niche, for example health and wellness brands, magazines, or B2B SaaS startups
What are you waiting for? Stop reading this article, and start writing now. Pick one idea that you’re passionate about–something that you could talk about all day nonstop. Figure out if this field already has a strong online audience or if you have significant competition online. This is going to be your starting point and the area you’ll specialize in from now on. Pick your platform, define your unique voice and writing style, and start writing today.