Being a freelance writer presents a whole lot of opportunities to make more money than a regular employee. You have countless outlets to check out, and your specialization is in demand in this content-hungry era. You will always find clients who are searching for ‘write my essay for me’. Many platforms are brimming with creative writers who make their websites even more interesting and compelling through the artistic use of words and imagery to create digestible content. So if you are a writer seeking to expand your income outlet, here’s a guide on how you can get paid for creative writing.
Why go freelance?
Freelancing offers irresistible benefits any writer can never say no to. First of all, it allows writers to control their own time, which is crucial in letting the creative imagination flow. Secondly, it is so convenient that they could work from anywhere—the couch included. And lastly, freelancing yields substantial pay that you could earn from multiple jobs simultaneously.
Many creative writers have chosen this path to maximize their time while doing their passion. And there are other freelance writers who treat this as a side job while fulfilling a full-time job in the day time. Feeling intimidated by the idea of working remotely? Utilize our online courses in freelance training and land your next job with confidence! Either way, you are in for a serious treat as there are multiple ways you can make money as a freelance creative writer.
How to make serious money in creative writing
Here are the best ways to get paid for creative writing.
1. Start your own blog, build a niche, and get paid to promote products.
Probably, the most high-yielding and long-term way to make money by freelancing is by starting up your own blog. It will be a painstakingly long process, but once your blog gets promising traction, you’ll start earning the fruits of your labor.
But before building your own blog, there are lots of things to consider to ensure success, and you’ll reap what you’ve sown. Here are some tips to successfully make money in a blog.
- Pick a niche that works best for you. Think of the kind of content you produce. Whether you specialize in poetry, novels, short stories, you can work around this in finding the niche you can build for your blog.
- Claim your website and start producing compelling content that will grab the attention of the public.
- Implement various marketing strategies to grow your traffic and popularity.
- Start monetizing by getting ad placements and deals with brands around your niche.
Writing your own blog is a sustainable way to make money as a freelance creative writer. It is the perfect outlet to bust out your creativity while guaranteeing the flow of earnings.
2. Write for content-hungry websites.
If you want a variation of content production, you can try freelance writing for content-hungry websites that capitalize on creative content. The boom of the internet paved the way for the demand for powerful content to lure in the audience. And this is your strength as a creative writer; various platforms are after your talent in helping them gain readers and customers.
So, where do you find these content-hungry platforms? You can check out content-rich sites that are constantly on the lookout for contributors. Some of these may include online publications, magazines, news platforms, entertainment sites, and more. One of the most popular ways to get paid with your contribution is by writing for Medium, a blogging platform where you can read other people’s posts.
When you become a Medium member, you can publish member-exclusive articles that can earn you $50-$500 a month. This is an easy way to build your creative portfolio while making a substantial amount of money for every content produced.
3. Publish your own book or e-book.
Want to take freelancing a notch higher? Why don’t you pursue getting your collection of creative content published? The whole idea sounds overwhelming, but it actually requires minimal effort to get your novel or collection of poems published.
For instance, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing offers a breezy self-publication service for aspiring authors. It only takes as low as five minutes to publish your content on Kindle. Your book will appear on the Kindle store within 24-48 hours. In this venture, you can earn up to 70% royalty on sales in selected countries.
4. Do ghostwriting for people of authority.
One of the prevalent ways of producing content or publishing books consistently for authority pages and prominent personalities is hiring a writer to ghostwrite for them. It’s not openly discussed, but it’s a common practice for famous personalities like celebrities, professionals, speakers, and even best-selling authors. And this practice is now pretty standard for digital creators like bloggers and site owners who want credits over the content they can’t personally write.
Professional ghostwriting services is an easy way to make money as there is a demand for it. You can even earn lucrative pay as you need to live up to the reputation of your client. The content you can write varies from autobiographies, novels, short stories, how-to guides, blog articles, and more.
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The creative writing jobs that make money
Here is a list of the most popular gigs to get paid for creative writing:
Novelist
Novelists write fiction stories for a living. The whole writing process is tedious, which makes it a very challenging job. You have to think through the story plot, develop the characters, and find a publishing company to take your project.
Short story writer
While novels hold bigger recognition, short stories are more sustainable and more likely to cash in continuously. There are several fiction websites and literary magazines that hire writers for short stories in various genres. The great thing about writing short stories is that you can produce more in a shorter time, enabling you to earn more.
Screenwriter
A screenwriter writes scripts and dialogues for concepts meant for a screenplay. Screenwriters mainly write for TV and movies, and now more recently for original series of streaming services like Netflix. They primarily develop a script from a given story or skit. They provide the dialogues, setting instructions, required actions, and more.
Playwright
Playwrights are similar to screenwriters in the way that they both write scripts for an adaptation. However, playwrights write for the theater, not the screen. They wrote about the stage versions of literary works. Most of the time, they are allowed to write librettos–the written text used for doing operas or musicals.
Poet
If you have a penchant for writing poetry, you can absolutely make money doing what you love. Some publishing companies, websites, and freelancing platforms look for this kind of creative writing.
Children’s book author
Writing children’s books provides you a variety of genres to take on. You can write fables, short stories, picture books, fairy tales, and storybooks for the children. If you enjoy writing these and can handle your children’s books’ self-publication, you may give this a try.
Video game writer
With thousands of video games available in the digital market right now, there is definitely a huge demand for video game writers. Video game writers are responsible for scriptwriting, storyboarding, plot development, world-building, character creation, and more. This job requires a creative mind in depicting all possible scenarios in a video game.
Ghostwriter
Ghostwriting implies that you are writing on behalf of someone. This someone could be anyone of authority like celebrities, executives, politicians, and even authors. Usually, they hire ghostwriters to represent them when they are too busy to write for themselves. The anonymity is a good reason to drive up the cost of the project deal. You can find lots of ghostwriting opportunities on freelancing platforms.
Speechwriter
Similar to ghostwriters, speechwriters have their anonymity when writing for a particular person. They mostly wrote for prominent people like executives, politicians, and high-profile people who don’t write their speeches themselves. This job requires you to be quick and updated with politics, recent events, and the familiarity on the playing field of what the client represents.
Content writer
There is a wide variety of niches to write about in content writing for websites. You can write for travel, food, science, technology, business, lifestyle, fashion, and many more. This is one of the most in-demand writing jobs in the freelancing market right now. With the surge of demand for digital content to amp up SEO of websites, content writing is one of the fastest ways to make money by writing.
Creative writing websites to make money
Here are some of the creative writing websites you should check out:
This platform serves as a literary magazine which also enables writers to connect and share their writings. It offers a considerable number of writing opportunities which include writing, proofreading, and publishing.
BunnyStudio features a wide variety of jobs in creative writing. It enables writers to choose the topics they want to work on and the subjects that match their skill set.
This job platform is a book packaging and publishing company that hires freelance writers who will write books and stories. If you have experience publishing your book, you have an edge when you apply here.
If you want to give freelance writing a try, this job platform is one of your safest options. You only need to filter down the jobs on your feed to find the writing gigs that match your skills. Thousands of writing positions are waiting for you on the platform. You may also know more about freelance writing in this course.
Upwork is one of the most prominent freelancing websites where creative writers flock. It features a secure payment process that protects you from getting fraud clients. Upwork allows you to have multiple specialized profiles, which amplify your chance of getting hired. Check out this guide to learn how to make money on Upwork.
iWriter works differently from all other mentioned writing platforms. It works by signing up for an account, picking the topics you want, writing for the accepted projects, and waiting to get paid, depending on the client’s satisfaction. There is a wide variety of topics to write on, so you get to choose what suits your writing skills.
Constant Content is a writing marketplace where clients can find the right writers for their needs. Like iWriter, writers may choose the topics they are interested in to encourage flexibility and freedom in writing.
The wonderful thing about finding jobs on these online platforms is that you can easily compare the available gigs, helping you pick which ones fit you best. There is a wide variety of writing jobs, which may vary from ghostwriting, content writing, copywriting, and more.
Need some tips on how you can brush up your skill in creative writing and find the best freelance job for you? Here are some Skill Success courses we recommend to take with you:
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