3 Lucrative Ways to Make Money Writing in 2021

It’s incredibly tough to make it as a writer in the competitive online world. But does it mean you can’t make money writing and make it a lucrative side hustle?

The answer is, yes you can, if you know where to look for opportunities.

If you enjoy writing and want to make some money on the side, writing can be a great way to supplement your income.

Here I will show you three different ways you can make money from writing.

1. Guest Post Blogging

There are tons of online publications that are always looking for fresh content. That means you can write for different magazines and journals.

Did you know that in 2021 you can make money by writing on someone else’s blog? While most blogging opportunities out there are unpaid, some blogs pay writers to contribute to their blogs.

So how do you find guest posting blogging opportunities?

You can simply use the Google search engine and social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

You can also check out this guide with a list of blogs that pay writers from Carole Tice’s Make a Living Writing.

If you want to write for online publications, the best way to start is by writing for smaller local publications first and working your way up to establish your credibility. You can also write for trade journals (or professional journals) — those usually focus on a narrow topic area. Some examples are Education Digest or Energy Weekly News. They appear both in print and online.

To find trade publications in your niche, you can enter your industry name in the search box. After you see the “results page” on the right you’ll see the “Narrow results by” box. Click on “trade journals” and you’ll find trade publications for your industry.

2. Write Content For Businesses

We live in an age where more and more businesses are emerging. This opens a door for tremendous content writing opportunities — and what’s one thing that will help those businesses attract customers and make their businesses grow?

Content marketing.

This creates vast opportunities for writers who can create valuable content. The opportunities for content marketing are abundant. As more and more businesses open up their doors to consumers, it creates more need for content writers.

These businesses don’t care about what type of content you write, they care about how the content you produce will help them grow and attract the right audience.

To be an amazing content writer, you need to master the game of content management. You need to understand the market and what type of content consumers want and target your content for a specific audience. And you can produce content in various forms — articles, white papers, or case studies.

One thing to remember though: going this route requires a writing portfolio, where you can showcase your skills in a particular niche, the knowledge of marketing and SEO. And there are two ways to show your expertise — you either establish yourself on your blogging platform or a guest blogging platform where you write similar content for other blogs. That way you establish some kind of credibility and showcase your skills to your potential clients.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Making money from a blog is painfully hard. But if you’re a blogger and enjoy writing within a specific niche, you can set up your blog with affiliate marketing.

In affiliate marketing, you advertise products from trusted companies on your blog. When you sell a product, you get a small percentage, depending on the product’s price. It’s a much more lucrative way to make money from any blog than just from writing on a blog.

And the best part? You don’t have to worry about all the technical work associated with selling a product, like sales inquiries, payments, refunds, and customer support. Someone else is in charge of all this. You merely act as a middleman to sell the company’s product. The more products you sell, the more you earn.

With affiliate marketing, you can get a commission of up to 50% and even more sometimes because there is a minimal cost that comes with the production of digital products.

Ideally, before you start a blog, you should know what products you are going to sell. That way you’ll be able to grow an audience that your products will target. And the content you produce will depend on the specific audience you sell your products to.

So before you start a blog, be well aware of how hard it is to make money on the blog from writing alone as opposed to selling affiliate products on the blog.

The Takeaway

There are many ways to make money writing in this competitive online world. But if you don’t want to hustle on marketplaces such as Upwork or pinch pennies from content mills, consider these other options:

• Paid guest blogging opportunities
• Content marketing
• Affiliate marketing