Freelance Writers: How to Use Technology to Make Real Money Online
November 6, 2007
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]
I’ve dubbed November Freelance Writer Technology Month. What’s this all about?
You may want to grab a cup of joe. This article is kind of long, but I hope to shed some light on the changes coming forth for InkwellEditorialcom and InkwellEditorial.blogspot.com.
A Solid Week of Research into How to Make Real Money Online as a Freelance Writer
Recently, I spent a solid week – 50-60 hours – researching how people make “real” money online. I’m talking long-term, sustainable, pay for healthcare and retirement money. To do this, I went back to basics. I forced myself to forget what I thought I knew and approach everything fresh.
As I wrote about in this article, Why Freelance Writers May Be the Poorest Internet Entrepreneurs. As freelance writers, we’re not very good at embracing technology – which is how the real money is made online.
Sure, we may get as far as learning a little HTML code, scan and upload images, and even create simple logos, but we don’t get much beyond that. Once I started reading, practically all of my searches took me to some internet marketing guru’s site.
Invariably, I’d find a discussion about some piece of technology that would give me a eureka moment. That’s when I knew that I had to change the way I went about my business.
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POST CONTINUED BELOW
Read here how I routinely make $250+/day as an SEO writer – and how you can too!
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What Made Me Declare November Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
I want to digress for a minute to explain what made me want to start this series. Simply put, I wanted to increase my online income. I’ve explained before, but as I’m starting up this new series, I wanted us all to be on the same page.
I’ve been a freelance writer since 1993. I make a good living at it, but the last couple of years I’ve been kind of restless in my career. I want to work less and, perhaps more importantly, create passive streams of income that will sustain me into my golden years. At 41, these things weigh heavily on me.
As a freelance writer actually writing for a living, time is my commodity. If I don’t work, I don’t make any money. That’s why I started publishing ebooks and doing freelance writing seminars a few years ago. These added income streams (passive, in the case of the ebooks), which supplemented my writing work nicely.
I liked it. Logging on and seeing money in my account for a product I produced five years ago can’t be beat. This is the direction I decided I wanted to take my career in, and I started to “turn the ship,” so to speak, in that direction a little over a year ago. What does this mean?
How to Change the Direction of Your Freelance Writing Career
I started to cut back on client projects and focus more in producing income from my own projects. This has caused me some financial pangs, but I’m thinking long-term here, as I hope you do too when it comes to your freelance career.
I mean, ostensibly, you can work as a freelance writer forever. As I say in my sales copy on FreelanceWritingWebsite.com, age is not a barrier, income is not a barrier and education is not a barrier. BUT, do you really want to have to write for a living well into retirement?
Sure, you may accept projects here and there for a little extra income from time to time, but do you really want to have to work on client projects full-time at 65, 70 or 75? Having a passive stream of income to add to any social security and/or pension benefits would be nice — if social security is still around, and are there companies that still pay pensions?
So, this is what brings me to this point.
What’s Coming Up in “Freelance Writer Technology Month”
Over the next month, I will be talking about what I’ve learned. I will introduce you to some online techniques to drive traffic to your site, to increase your online marketing strategies and to increasing your online income overall.
As I said in last Friday’s post, I’m always trying to get freelance writers to think beyond “writing for a living,” to “creating a stable income – for life.” This goes way beyond simply writing.
It will be a systematic approach, which means that I will cover a lot of basics – not from the “this is how you do this” viewpoint. But, from the “this is why you do this and the results you can expect” viewpoint.
A lot of it I’ll go out on a limb and say many freelancer writers don’t know about, or don’t understand, as evidenced by the comments left in this article I recently wrote.
One More Thing: I will be posting 2-3 times a week during this series, as opposed to the 4-5 times/week I usually post. Why?
This will be my trend moving forward. Many bloggers post daily (in some cases, numerous times a day) in hopes of driving traffic to their blogs. I’ve always believed in quality over quantity, even though I’ve pretty much adhered to the “you must post frequently to drive traffic” mentality.
My research revealed that this is not necessarily the case. So, I’m already starting to implement some of the information I’ve learned into my daily practices.
Furthermore, I’m working on several projects that will push me towards making more money online from passive income streams. As with anything in the beginning, this takes time.
Over the coming months, I will be revealing my success, failures (let’s hope these are minimal), and mishaps along the way. I’ll hope you’ll chime in so we can all learn together – and hopefully experience success that much sooner.
I hope you will find this series informative – and most of all useful enough to apply to your income goals.
Don’t Forget: Tomorrow’s newsletter features an interview with ghostwriter Amanda Evans at GhostWritingUncovered. A preview:
Question #2: From your blog, I see that you have been freelancing full-time for over two years. How long did it take you to get to that point?
When my daughter was born in 2003 I stopped working full time and went part time. I also got the internet at home and this opened up a whole new world for me. I had always loved writing and I started looking at writers websites and I joined a number of writing groups. These groups were mostly poetry based as this was my passion.
During 2004 I began looking for ways to get paid to write. Most of the information I came across regarding freelance writing was about query letters and how to approach editors. This wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted a guaranteed payment for my writing. I wanted someone to tell me what to write so that I could just do it and get paid.
Subscribe to read the full interview.
Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Start a Freelance Writing Career – Today!
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.
Intro Post: New Series – Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
Post #1: The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money Online
Post #2: SEO Content Development: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Website
Post #3: Niche Marketing: How to Choose a Profitable Niche
Post #4: Software Tools for Niche Websites
Post #5: Turn $1/Day into an Online Empire: How to Make Money with Minisites
Post #6: 4 Controversial Ways to Get More Traffic for Your Website
Post #7: 5 Ways to Get a Job Writing SEO Articles
Post #8: How to Determine What to Charge as an SEO Article Writer
Post #9: How to Optimize Your Website to Get More Traffic
Post #10: Social Bookmarking Software & 9 Money-Making Conclusions from Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
Related Posts
Make Money Online Writing How-To Reports: How to Make Sure a Report Will Sell BEFORE You Write ItMaking Money Online: Just How Easy Is It to Make Money with Minisites – The Real Pros & Cons
Social Bookmarking Software & 9 Money-Making Conclusions from Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
How to Make Money with Minisites: Turn $1/Day into an Online Empire
Freelance Writers: The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money Online
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