Free Writing Center

One of the best ways to start really ramping up your income from writing is to use Craigslist to find writing work.

How to Use Craigslist to Find Writing Work

While writing for many of the Royalty-Payment websites will allow you to flex your writing muscles online, and possibly earn you a small monthly income from the articles that you publish, the only way to earn a significant work from home income much more quickly is to land one or two writing gigs.

Ideally, what you’re looking for is a short term, small job where you’ll need to produce from five to ten articles for a webmaster, or some similar job. You could always search Constant Content or Scriptlance for posted jobs - but when you do so, you have to keep in mind that you’ll be competing with thousands of other writers who are searching over the same listings that you are. That doesn’t mean that you can successful land some great jobs at those sites, just just means that you’ll need to lower your price in order to stay competitive.

However, when it comes to Craigslist - you aren’t only searching on one website, you’re searching job listings for every state in the entire country. Lately, Craigslist has started taking on a life of its own, and some people are even turning to Craigslist instead of Ebay in order to buy and sell goods. The fact that Craigslist is becoming so popular so quickly means that Craigslist is a golden opportunity for you to find exciting writing work before anyone else does. Read on to learn how.

Search Through All U.S. States for Writing Jobs

The main page of Craigslist can appear a little bit intimidating.

Not only are there states and cities, there are also other countries. However, since you work from home, and all of the jobs that you’re looking for can be done remotely - the more locations there are, the better for you! Click a State, and the typical State page will offer a search feature like the one shown here.

As you can see on this screen, I’ve entered a search for the term “writer” under the “jobs” category. The results are not overwhelming, but the good news is that there are results!

Now, there are likely to be a number of listings that fall outside of your range of expertise. That’s perfectly fine. However, you’ll also find a number of excellent opportunities where you are very likely to be successful. For example, when I clicked on the “Looking for Freelance Writers…” link, I discovered a news website looking for “qualified writers to contribute to our growing publication.” The pay is a respectable $15 to $30 per article. Now, keep in mind that some of these jobs may be local, but a large number of them are posted by webmasters seeking content - and that’s your forte.

Does searching through each individual State in the entire U.S. feel overwhelming? Well it should! That’s why I’m happy to present the Free Craigslist Reader from Motion Technologies. Thanks to Motion Tech, you can use this free software to search the “Jobs” or “Gigs” categories for all locations. I have to say - this is an unbelievable advantage and a huge time saver.

Check out this single search for “Writer” on all locations:

The only drawback with the search feature of this Reader application is that there is not much indication that the application is actively searching. However, as long as the search bar reads “Cancel Search” and not “Search,” then it’s still scouring all of the listings for jobs. By the time it’s done, you’ll have a list of hundreds of potential writing jobs from all across the country (or the world, if you like!)

In an upcoming post, I’ll go over the best approach to take when contacting a potential client regarding a job posting, a sample contact letter, and how to present yourself in a way that will virtually guarantee that you’ll land the writing gig!