Free Writing Center

After a few weeks of earning money by writing for websites like Associated Content, Helium, and Ehow, you’ll get a taste for what it’s like to actually make money online with freelance writing. If you want to work from home, it doesn’t have to involve get-rich-quick schemes or selling cosmetics and bath soaps to your friends and family. If you are a natural born writer, you really can earn a very respectable income by earning money online. Read on to learn how to work from home doing what you already love to do, through online writing jobs.

How to Make Money Online With Freelance Writing Jobs.

There are thousands of ways that you can make money online, earning a lot of income from various online writing jobs. Most blogs and work at home websites will tell you that you need to create your own website or blog and work at building enough traffic to generate ad revenue. In time, they say, ad revenues will generate steady streams of income. While this is partially true, for both your own blogs as well as for content websites like Associated Content, the truth is that those sites will produce steady income later. What you are looking for are ways to start earning good money by working from home right now.

Make More Money by Working on Writing Projects

You’ve probably scoured the Internet for freelance writing sites where you could work for buyers who list writing projects on those sites. Many of the websites are either so poorly created that it’s horrendous to navigate and even figure out how to bid on a project, or the bids on projects are so low that you feel like it’s useless to even try. I’m here to tell you that the bids are misleading. You can win writing projects at these websites, and you can earn significant income from them. The secret is to bid correctly, present yourself extremely professionally, and then perform above and beyond the call of duty. Below, I’ve reviewed the three websites where I earned the most income from online writing jobs. Each has pros and cons, but by using all three, you could be just as successful (or more!)

Constant Content - A Freelance Job Posting Site

It always amazes me, whenever I visit this website, how such an oddly designed site could produce so much income for writers. Constant Content is somewhat difficult to navigate if you don’t really understand how it works.

After you’ve signed up as an author on Constant-Content, to find what jobs are currently available for Freelance writers, you need to scroll down the left side and click on “Requested Content” under the Author Login section. On the requested content page, you’ll find a list of writing projects posted from buyers. These buyers will range from print magazine publishers to website designers. What they all have in common is that they are simply looking for quality articles written by good writers. On the requested content table, you’ll find the requested titles, the date of the request, and even what range the buyer is willing to pay for the completed article. The way the process on Constant Content works is this:

• First, write the article according to the guidelines set by the buyer in the request
• Make sure to assign a price within the range the buyer requested
• Submit your article. You’ll need to wait a few days for Constant-Content to approve it
• Once approved, go back to the buyer’s listing and suggest your article to the buyer
• The buyer will pay you through Constant-Content

In upcoming blog entries, I’ll take you through an actual real-world step-by-step process of submitting articles to buyers on Constant-Content and getting paid for them. This page is an example of what your profile will look like, and any articles you write that don’t sell remain for sale so that other visitors on the web can purchase your articles. Keep in mind that Constant-Content takes a whopping 30% commission for all of your article sales through their website. It’s highway robbery, but without them, you’re article wouldn’t be seen by quite as many potential buyers.

Scriptlance - A Freelance Job Bidding Site

Scriptlance is the one freelance website where I finally discovered that it really is possible to earn a substantial income from writing. This is the king of all freelance sites. It’s focus is website design, but for an online writer, such a website is a goldmine of opportunity to write online content for website designers. When you first sign up with an account, you’ll have a profile page like this.

This profile page is where you’ll monitor the status of all of the projects that you bid on, as well as all of your active projects that you’re working on. Your current balance is displayed, and as you complete projects successfully, your rating will eventually rise - winning you more and better paying jobs. Clicking on the “View Projects” link under Member Login on the left switches to the page listing the latest project postings.

This list is where you’ll spend much of your time, monitoring the latest posts for projects that you could potentially accomplish. Remember to keep an open mind - website designers need content covering a very wide variety of topics. If you’re willing to write about anything, the opportunities that come up are endless. When you see a project you like, post a bid amount that’s competitive but reasonable.

In an upcoming post, I’ll take you through the process of bidding on, and winning, Scriptlance bids by writing winning private message board messages that win over the buyers. The secret of success at Scriptlance is perseverance. Never give up, even when you lose bids, just keep bidding and eventually you’ll have more work than you know what to do with.

Miscellaneous Sources of Freelance Writing Jobs

Other sources for writing work can be located all over the Internet, if you know where to look. It’s best to avoid the websites that are obviously a sales pitch for membership at some freelance listing site. You don’t need to invest money to obtain good freelance jobs, you just need to be diligent about searching for opportunities and applying wherever any arise. Free classified listings are filled with job opportunities from all sorts of folks who need articles for different purposes. By searching these sites, you’ll discover a few additional sources for some excellent freelance writing opportunities.

• Craigslist - Search jobs for “articles” to find writing opportunities from buyers across the world.
• USFreeads - Search through the “employment” and “business opportunities” sections for listings.
• Yahoo! Classifieds and Google Classifieds (Base) also list great opportunities in the job categories.
• LiveSimon - Another popular online classified site listing occasional writing opportunities.
  

There are thousands of free classified listing sites across the Internet with unlimited ways to make money online with freelance writing - the only real limit for earning income from home is how much time you have available to write. Keep searching for those jobs, and make sure to bookmark this blog (or subscribe) for the latest tips and news about the newest online writing opportunities within the writer’s market.

Please use the comments section to share some of your own freelance writing stories and some of your own successes or failures!