I am Writing for a Living and You can Too

Sounds like a pipe dream right? Making enough money to support yourself just by writing and from the comfort of your own home. Well it’s possible. There’re countless ways you can go about it but it's important to not put all your eggs in one basket when first starting out.

There’re lots of benefits from writing too. Writing on multiple platforms gives you more than one way to make money. If one platform isn’t doing well the other can still provide you some income, and who doesn’t like being their own boss?

Here is how you can plan on making a living as a writer.

Writing Platforms

If you want to become a good writer, you need to practice whenever you can. The best way to practice is by writing on different platforms, publishing your own pieces. Medium is a great place for this but you may also want to try Vocal.Media. This platform allows you to write to your hearts content as well.

One of the benefits to writing on this Vocal are the challenges. They are good at supplying challenges every week with others added throughout the month. There’re cash prizes for these challenges and if you are ever looking for something to write about, these may give you some ideas.

Part of every article is the imagery. People like looking at something that is a part of the story so having a strong image is important. Pexels.com is a free tool that allows you to use their photos. This is where I go when I need an image for one of my stories.

I also make sure to use spell and grammar check with Microsoft Word. Some of us are not the best with spelling and grammar so this comes in handy. If you don’t want to use Word, Google Docs has the same tools that you can use for free. If you use some sort of word processor to check for errors you will be fine.

Freelancing

People get scared when they hear the term freelancing but there's nothing to fear. Some only do it part-time and still manage to make a livable wage depending on where they live. I am currently on Fiverr trying my luck at this.

If you are not sure of how to start, I recommend taking tips from Alex Fasulo. Her Instagram is all about entrepreneurship, and she even has a Facebook group dedicated to freelancers with questions about how to run their businesses on Fiverr and other freelancing platforms.

Fiverr takes a cut of your earnings from the jobs you do, but they help you get clients and will step in if a client refuses to pay, so they cut is worth it in my eyes. If you don’t like that they take a cut of your profits, Contra is another freelancing platform, but they don’t take a percentage of your earnings. Upwork has gotten good reviews as a freelance site as well.

Newsletter

This is a clever way to make money writing. If done right, you can write once a month and watch the money come in. it needs to be filled with something of value for your readers and worth the readers’ time.

When I get my newsletter started, you will begin to see a link for it at the bottom of all my articles. What ever you decide to write about, you charge a monthly subscription for. There’re services you can use to help you get started. Substack is a popular one right now and the one I am going to use.

Final Thoughts

Realistically, you will be fortunate to make a couple of dollars in your first month of using writing platforms but as your online presence continues to grow, so will you your income. This makes consistency and patience keys to success as a writer. Combing newsletters with writing platforms is a great way to increase your income as well.

Freelancing is where you can make a lot of money and do it quicker than using writing platforms. You can set your own rates for your services and decide who you want to work with. Getting started can be difficult as finding clients is not easy and you might have to deal with clients that rub you the wrong way but you can grow faster than on writing platforms or newsletters.

My goal is going to be difficult to attain but I’m going for it anyway. From each form of my writing, I plan on making 1,000 dollars every month. That’s 4,000 dollars each month and it only takes me about an hour to complete each task. If I were to work on each side project every day, I would be working for four hours every day.

While these are my goals, there’re others who are making more than 4,000 dollars using only one of these strategies. I hope you choose to start one of these ways to make money and that you start to see success as soon as possible!