Twelve Ways To Make More Money From Your Freelance Writing
Every freelance writer has the potential to slowly increase their earnings over time. Try this twelve step plan to move towards a higher, more consistent freelancing income.
Write more
Sounds simple doesn’t it? If you write more, you’ll earn more, but of course things are never as simple as they sound. In order to increase your productivity you have to set yourself writing goals and stick to them. A vague goal like ‘write more’ isn’t going to work for most people.
Look at what you’re doing already and aim for an achievable increase. Just 500 words extra each day could lead to a couple of decent articles each week, or a book in a few months time. One extra article a week, or an extra blog post, or a guest post once a month, can lead to big rewards.
Submit more
No matter how prolific you are, you won’t earn money if no-one buys your writing. When you finish a piece, edit, polish and submit. It’s OK to work on something else during the ‘cool off’ period between writing and editing, but don’t get distracted. Make sure everything you’ve written is out there looking for a buyer.
It’s particularly easy to let rejected articles or manuscripts gather dust while you move forward with new stuff. Don’t. Take a good look at them. Do any necessary editing and send them out again.
Mine your hard drive
What did you start writing and not finish? What did you finish and not submit? I’m not a hoarder by nature. In fact I’m a bit of a minimalist by most people’s standards, but I never throw any of my writing away. Every now and then I go through what I’ve already got, re-write or finish it (if necessary) and look for a market for it.
Repurpose your work
Do you have 100 blog posts you can adapt to turn them into an ebook? An ebook you can ‘break up’ to use as (promotional) guest posts. A blog post you can expand and turn into an article. A series of essays you can publish as a book? Or perhaps you’ve sold first rights on a piece and can now re-sell it as a reprint.
There are endless possibilities for taking work you’ve already produced and making a little (or sometimes a lot) more money from it.
Reuse your research
We rarely use all the research we do on a topic in one article (it would probably read like a research manual if we did). I keep all the research for each article I write in a folder (physical or digital, sometimes both) and go back to it for ideas. You can often write a completely new piece for a different market from the same set of research notes.
Syndicate your work
Most editors want exclusive content for their magazine, website or newspaper, but there are a few exceptions. It’s possible to sell the same newspaper column, for example, to regional newspapers in different areas. There’s no overlap of readership so no need for the work to be exclusive.
For more information on writing (and marketing) syndicated newspaper columns, check out this website. They run a paid service to help potential columnists get into print, but there’s a lot of freely available background information on the site.
Build on your successes.
Every acceptance should generate another submission or query. If an editor liked one piece you wrote he will probably like the next. Get a query off straight away. If it’s accepted it will motivate you to start work on the new piece of work.
Know what rate you’re working for
It helps to know which jobs to prioritize, and which to turn down, if you know your going rate. Work out how much you will be paid per word. What does that translate to per hour? And how much time do you need for research.
If two articles pay the same and they’re both 1000 words it may seem that they both pay the same rate, but maybe one is an opinion piece you can write off the top of your head, and the other a factual article requiring a few hours of research and a couple of interviews. The opinion piece pays a much better hourly rate. Factor in everything to make sure you don’t end up working for minimum wage or less.
Invest in yourself
I’m a huge fan of freebies, as anyone who visits this blog regularly knows. I also know that sometimes you have to spend money to make money. If you can take a course or buy an ebook that will give you a whole new (saleable) skill, it’s often worth considering.
Find higher paying markets
There are several writing databases where you can search markets according to how much they pay (high, medium or low). I recommend Writing For Dollars and Worldwide Freelance.
Monetize your blog or writer’s website.
Many people don’t want ads or affiliate links on their writing blogs or websites. Some people turn readers off with too many. My own thoughts are that if you can tread the middle line it makes sense to implement some subtle monetization strategies.
I’ve decided to include a few Google ads and some affiliate links to writing ebooks and courses my readers might like. If you’re looking for a good writers’ affiliate program to use on your blog I recommend MyHelpHub.com - they have a variety of ebooks and writing courses your readers may be interested in and offer good support and regular payments. If you’re making money from affiliate products I suggest a simple disclosure policy (here’s mine).
If you have a writer or author site that is purely to provide a biography and contact point, at least put a link to any published books so people can buy through your site.
Create passive income
Passive income can apply to anything you’ve done in the past that still generates income for you without you having to do any more work.
This could be royalties on books, ebook sales, income from a website, revenue share agreements or ‘stock’/re-use payments from sites you’ve previously written for.
Everyone loves the idea of passive income. Unfortunately most things that generate passive income require a lot of work initially, often for no pay. If you write a book or ebook, for example you may be enjoying money from sales and royallties for the rest of your life, but you do have to put the work in first. Think about splitting your writing time between projects that pay right now, and things that will bring in passive income in the future.
If you haven’t already downloaded your free copy of the ebook How To Make Even More Money From Your Writing you can do so here.
How have you increased your income since you started writing? Did any one strategy work best for you? Feel free to share tips in the comments section.
I love the tip of repurposing your writing. It’s made me think about all the writing I have stored away, somewhere. Maybe it’s time to dig them up, and possibly have several ideas for blog posts?!
Twitter: writeandchange
says:
You;ll probably be amazed by how much is there, Ahlam. I always am, when I get time to go through my old files. It’s why, in spite of my minimalist nature, I never throw old writing/research away.