Along with the plethora of new opportunities that are available throughout the Online Content industry, there is the issue of too much work and not enough time. If you’re anything like me and you hate passing up good income-generating opportunities, it can be hard to say no.

The Schedule of an Online Writer

Making an income from writing is unfortunately still scorned upon by older, traditional folks who believe that a job should be something that you “drive into” by 8am and then “drive home from” by 5pm, along with the rest of the rush hour crowd. This is the right thing to do.

Well, let me tell you something about the right thing…when you are capable of generating a high volume of quality writing, and you can get paid for that writing, you best believe that the income you can earn from your skills will be just as good as any 9-to-5 job that you’ll find with any corporation.

The issue is the stereotype of the Internet. Many people still believe that the Internet is only for playing games or wasting time. Yet, as they sit down for their morning coffee, they’ll read the news on their favorite news website, or the latest gossip on their favorite blogs and forums. I think there are a lot of people who think that the content they enjoy is free. Little do they realize that someone gets paid (and paid well, I might add) to research and write that content.

Too Many Opportunities

Most major websites out there now realize that if they want to offer better content than their competitors, then it will require investment into high quality writers. Only good writers can get the job done. So now, if you’re a writer fresh out of college, with an English degree in your back pocket (or just lots of writing skill), you are now a very rare and in-demand commodity. Online publishers need you! The race is on, and as countless websites start investing into hiring and paying high-quality writers, you will find yourself faced with making some very difficult decisions. Which opportunities do you take, and which do you turn down? And yes, you will need to turn down opportunities, or keeping up with everything will burn you out - and then you’ll be no good to anyone.

4 Signs of a Good Online Writing Opportunity

Some of the opportunities you come across will be one-time writing gigs where you produce a bulk-lot of 20 to 50 articles and get paid a moderate amount per article. Other times, you may be offered to submit single pieces to blogs or websites and, if accepted and published, you will get paid. Best of all, there will be opportunities where you are assigned a certain number of articles to write every month, and you get paid a fixed amount per article.

So how do you know which opportunities are good ones? Watch for the following signs.

• Per article payment, not royalties - Many sites try to get content that’s essentially free by offering writers “royalty payments” from the ad revenue the article generates. For the most part the revenue will be a few cents a month, if that. Your efforts would be better invested elsewhere.
• Fair rates - It may be tempting to throw together a 500 word article for someone for peanuts, just because you can do it quickly. However, how well will it reflect upon you when, down the road, someone discovers this poorly written article that you failed to revise because you were racing through it for a quick buck?
• Respect - You may be paid well per article, and even promoted into a management/editor position for a blog or a website, but if you aren’t treated respectfully and with dignity by the website owners or upper managers, you’ll find that you’re forever feeling insulted and patronized. This is a common symptom where a new writer shows up within another community - you are treated as though you have less experience simply because you are a new member there, despite the fact that you may have more experience or better ideas than the people actually running the site. Either say no to those promotions, or learn to bite your tongue and simply do your job…conflict and misunderstandings are too easy when you work with people remotely.
• Prompt Payments - If you do work for a webmaster and he or she is a week late sending your Paypal payment, the odds are good that the person will be habitually late, or may even fail to pay you. It’s difficult to collect such payments in small claims for an Internet job, especially if the client is overseas, so if you sense a problem early on, just walk away.

It may be difficult to say no to new writing opportunities, but if you choose your work wisely, you’ll end up building a very strong and solid foundation for a very lucrative and successful online writing career.