How to Make your first $1 Online as a Writer

I made my first $1 freelancing on Fiverr. Over the years, I explored other ways to make money online with my words and found a couple of amazing ones. Here’s a list of the most trending ones: freelancing, selling Ebooks, running paid Newsletters.

I know most of you are probably busy with your life. But spending even 1–2 hours Writing online can change your life. For Real.

When you make your $1 online, you’ll find a way to make the next $10 online. Soon, you’ll be hitting your $1000 in no time.

Let’s dive deep into each of the topics I’ve listed above.

Freelancing:

This income stream hit its peak when the Pandemic struck us. Here’s a checklist to get your first freelance client.

1. Check out the Freelance Writing Hub to upskill your Writing.

2. Create a Free Portfolio on Carrd or Super.

3. Create Writing Samples on topics that interest you (to showcase your writing tone and skills) [Attach them to your Portfolio site].

4. Create a free LinkedIn or Twitter account to get inbound leads. Show up daily with content tailored around Solutions to Problems that annoy your future clients.

5. Hop on Fiverr and ProBlogger to get outbound leads.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Freelance platforms are a great place to start for beginners. Alongside, you can always have your Personal Branding account on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Selling Ebooks:

Writing blogs is one thing, but writing Ebooks gives you a whole different vibe altogether. You get the “Author” tag, but the best part comes in the form of money. Here’s a checklist to get you your first $1 selling ebooks.

1. Create a free account on Gumroad or Payhip.

2. Create a free account on Twitter. Start creating content around a niche.

3. Find Problems associated with the niche and validate them by asking around in FB Groups and other relevant online communities on Discord, Reddit and Quora.

4. Write your Ebook based on Solutions to those Problems.

5. Create a free ebook on Canva or Notion.

6. Upload it on Gumroad or Payhip and fill out the details.

7. Start promoting your Ebook on your Twitter. Spread the word on your other social profiles as well.

[Pro Tip : Make it Free to get more Leads. Later, you can sell a paid product to these directly from your Emails]

Running a Paid Newsletter:

Building an Email List is useless if you don’t have anything to Offer.

Launch a Newsletter to offer your knowledge and resources to people who are a few steps below you.

With just over 3 months of experience running a Newsletter, I’ve realised that people love consuming bite-sized info, mostly skimmable.

And a Newsletter can serve this purpose quite well. So here’s a Checklist on starting a Newsletter online:

1. Come up with a catchy Name for your Newsletter.

2. Choose a free Newsletter Platform : Beehiiv, Substack or Revue. [I use BeeHiiv]

3. Create your own Content or Curate it from other Creators on the Internet.

4. Create a Free Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram account.

5. Have 2–3 Newsletter Issues ready to be published.

6. Spread the word about your Newsletter on your social profiles.

7. Most social sites let you link a URL in the Bio. Attach your Newsletter Link in there.

8. Start creating content tailored around the topic of your Newsletter on your preferred social site.

9. Once you hit your first 1000 subs, introduce a Paid Subscription Tier in your Newsletter [Most Newsletter platforms have this].

10. Other Monetization Methods : Affiliate offers, Running Ads, Promoting your own E-Products, Consultations, etc.

Running Newsletters is one of the most trending side income streams today. Try it out yourself.

What Next?

There’s literally no excuse to not make money today.

Everything I’ve listed above — every tool, platform, strategy or getting traffic is completely Free. The only thing you need to invest is your time and efforts.

Passing it over to you now. Which one are you planning to go ahead with first?