7 Ways to Make Money as a Writer Online [and How to Get Started]

Many people earn a living online these days. One of the most popular (and profitable) is writing.

Whether you’re a full-time writer or it’s your side hustle, writing can be a great source of income. You can make money writing online through freelancing, blogging, creating an ebook, or even doing social media. There are several sites dedicated to helping you get started writing online.

Freelancer

Becoming a freelancer is one of the best ways that a writer can make money online. A freelancer is someone who offers services to a business or company. As a writer, your service would, of course, be writing. Freelancers are independent contractors and can have many clients at once.

As a freelance writer, you can work when you want to. You can also choose what type of articles you want to work on. You may start off as a lower paid writer, but as you continue to get more work and build your reputation, you can raise your rates.

Freelance writers can make money writing almost any type of content. This includes:

Article writing
SEO writing
Copywriting
Technical writing

Ghostwriter

A popular form of freelance writing is called ghostwriting. As a ghostwriter, you write content for someone else, but under their name, not yours. Many website owners, entrepreneurs, and other small businesses are too busy to write themselves, but want good content and are willing to pay for it.

You won’t be able to add any of your ghostwriting work to your portfolio, but often these gigs can pay more because of that fact. If you are just starting out as a writer, you may want to build your portfolio first, but if you’ve been writing for a while, ghostwriting can be another stream of writing income.

Being a good ghostwriter means being able to capture your client’s voice when you write. While they are your words, you want your writing to reflect their style and opinions.

Editor

As an editor, you review other people’s writings. You will fix poorly written content and find errors and typos.

All written material should be edited before it goes out into the world, so there is a lot of opportunities for editors to find work. If this is something you are interested in getting into, ask your writing clients if they have editing work for you. This is a great way to get started because you are already familiar with their content style.

As an experienced writer, you can fill in holes in your writing schedules with editing work.

Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant (VA) isn’t necessarily a traditional writing job but can involve writing depending on your specific clients. VAs are usually freelancers and often work from home and can set their own schedules.

Many of the tasks are administrative in nature but can include creating content, proofreading, and creating social media posts. Other tasks include scheduling appointments, booking travel, organizing files, bookkeeping, and more. Entrepreneurs seek out help from virtual assistants to keep them organized and handle daily tasks. This helps business owners stay focused on other areas of their business.

Having a formal certificate isn’t required to become a virtual assistant, but it’s good to have an idea of what services you want to offer and how to build your VA business. The easiest way to get started is in an industry with which you are already familiar. For example, if you’ve been a Real Estate agent in the past, then becoming a VA for another agent would be relatively easy. You probably know other agents and are familiar with the work so you know you’d do a great job.

Breaking into a new industry is going to be more difficult, but not impossible. Talk to business owners in the industry you are looking into and try to get a feel for their needs. That will give you valuable insight into what services you should offer.

If you are struggling with getting started, consider signing up for Kayla Sloan’s $10k VA course. Through her course, Kayla shares many of the strategies she used to build her virtual assistant business, which pulls in more than $10k every month.

Social Media Manager

If you know your way around all of the social media platforms, you can make money creating content and campaigns for entrepreneurs for their social media channels. You can consult on social media strategies or work as a manager for their social media accounts.

Social media is such a part of our everyday lives now. If you have the ability to create captivating or thought-provoking social media posts, there’s money to be made. Every good business owner, website owner, and online personality include social media as part of their marketing strategy.

Create an Ebook

Another side hustle for writers is to create an ebook.

If you know a lot about a subject, you could write an ebook about it. For example, if you understand how SEO works, you can create an ebook discussing SEO in-depth. There are so many topics out there that a writer can write about. If ‘how-to” books aren’t your thing, you can always write a short fiction or nonfiction ebook. Ebooks are an excellent source of passive income. Once you’ve written your ebook, you can sell it online with little to no work involved.

Start a Blog

Last but not least, you can create a blog. The opportunities are endless. You can use your website for advertising your writing services, or you could discuss different topics on your blog. You can sell products on there as well. When you’re coming up with your blog, you do want to figure out a niche or two. Then you can start promoting it to people who like that niche.

Your blog will also turn into your portfolio. Once it gains, traction potential clients will find you. You may start to get emails from people looking for your writing help. Having a blog can change your life. If you’re a writer, it’s something that you should seriously consider doing.

As you’ve just read, there are several ways that you can make money online if you’re a writer. Freelancing, editing others’ work, writing an ebook, and creating a blog are just a few ways. If you need to earn extra money, figure out which way works best for you and get to work.

Related: How to Make Money Blogging

Where to Find Writing Jobs Online

There are several ways to find freelance jobs. Let’s take a look at some of the places where writers can find jobs.

Job Boards

Job Boards are a way for writers to quickly search through listings of job postings. Typically these are free for job seekers to search. Check out the following job boards and see if you find any jobs that look promising for you:

If you are in the beginning stages of being a freelancer, you can use websites like Upwork or Fiverr. Writing gigs are typically low paying on these sites, but can help build your portfolio and get you started. Getting started is the most important thing. Building your writing business won’t happen overnight.

Traditional online job boards can also be a source for writing jobs. You just need to refine your searches to focus on writing jobs only. Here are a few more job boards that could lead to writing jobs:

Social Media

Writers can also use social media channels to find writing jobs. One way to do this is to join Facebook groups for writers as well as in your writing niche. Many writing jobs come from referrals from other writers.

Building relationships with other writers no only can lead to jobs, but also gives you peers you can turn to for advice.

LinkedIn is another great option. You can create a profile for yourself and include details about your writing, links to writing samples and your website, and make connections with businesses and individuals who may need writing services.

Networking

The other way that you can find freelance jobs is to network with your friends and associates. This can be a lucrative way to build your writing business. If you are looking for jobs, let your network know. There is a good chance they someone needs your services or knows someone else who does.

Plus, as you provide excellent services for people in your network, often you’ll gain referral work. Having a reputation as a good writer often leads to even bigger writing gigs.

Attending networking events can also lead to paid writing gigs. For example, at FinCon, there is a freelancer marketplace, where writers can sit down with entrepreneurs, website owners, and companies looking for new writers. There’s usually a cost associated with attending big events like this, but it can be worth it if you are good at networking.

Local and regional networking events can also be a great source for finding writing jobs as well.

Making Extra Money as a Freelance Writer and Work At Home Mom

Stephanie Taylor Christensen is a work at home mom running a successful freelance writing business. Check out this episode of the Part-Time Money Podcast to learn more about how Stephanie left a corporate career when her son was born and has since been pursuing a freelance writing career in her spare time. She also teaches yoga once a week, which pays for her gym membership and child care. In the podcast, she spends some time taking about how to become a freelance writer, even when you have a child at home.

Stephanie’s Story: Wanting to Work from Home

Stephanie Christensen hadn’t really planned to quit her day job and stay at home with her child. But once she actually had her son and experienced life with both parents working full-time, never seeing each other, and never seeing her child, she realized she wanted something different for her life.

After 9 months of trying to have it all, she found her marketing career unfulfilling and set out to see if she really could have the best of both worlds: stay at home with her child and try to earn not only additional income but build a viable, flexible, and nontraditional part-time career.

Here are 19 more work from home ideas.

Stephanie’s career as a freelancer started off slowly. She had written for a children’s magazine in the past, as well as some catalog copywriting, but all of her samples were outdated and none were online. She learned as she went.

Starting Small and Building a Clientele

The first thing she had to grow accustomed to was the salary difference. Since her career in marketing had paid well, Stephanie found herself being humbled by agreeing to write pieces for as little as $15 each. But it was a way to get some live, published work on the web to show people what she could do. Consequently, when she pitched her work to other websites, she had something to show her writing talent.

Stephanie advises other aspiring freelance writers to do their research and do it well. She likens it to putting a puzzle together–going to websites, finding editors, what writers are working on what sites and where they have worked previously. It’s studying that kind of information that helps determine which publications hire freelancers.

Being relentless is key, according to Stephanie. Sending 200 emails and hearing back from only a couple of people is not unusual. Those few might offer small amounts of money to write for them, but if it’s a stepping-stone to get to the next level, then it might be worth it. Evaluating the ROI of your time doesn’t always equal dollar signs; sometimes it means opportunity.

For a part-time job, Stephanie finds herself sneaking in 6-8 hours of work a day, during the various times her child is sleeping. Now that she has a solid client base, depending on how much she wants to take on, her monthly salary can range anywhere from $1,000 a month to beyond $3,500.

Stephanie’s Advice

Stephanie has 3 pieces of advice for anyone seeking a side gig as a freelancer:

1.Find the balance between knowing your worth and not having a chip on your shoulder. Sometimes it’s tempting to pass on a good assignment because it doesn’t pay as well.

2.It’s important to celebrate the little wins, as well as the big. You may not be writing the cover story for Money magazine, but you were featured on Yahoo! Finance. That’s worth celebrating.

3.Do not freak out and assume that just because things are not moving quickly it means things are not going to pan out. Don’t get discouraged.

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here are some of the questions I asked Stephanie:

What made you want to start making part-time money?
What was your employment situation before you started?
Financially, how were you able to make the transition so quickly?
Was having a child your catalyst for making the move home?
How did you decide on freelance writing?
What was it about freelance writing that was appealing?
How do you make time to write?
Tell me about your yoga instructing income?
How do you move from small writing gigs to big?
How much are you bringing in from your writing?
What’s next for your freelance writing career?
What mistakes have you made along the way?

View the full transcript by clicking show

Welcome to the Part-Time Money Podcast, Episode 9: Making Extra Money As a Freelance Write and Work-At-Home Mom. I am your host Philip Taylor, creator of PT Money Personal Finance.

Alright, today I am with Stephanie Taylor Christensen, and Stephanie is a former marketer turned freelance writer, all around happier wife, mom, and human being as a result, a regular contributor on business, consumer interest, career, and personal finance topics for Investopedia, Business News Daily, and some other publications. She also has been quoted in New York Times and Yahoo Finance.

Stephanie also does some yoga instructing on the side as well as runs her own website.

Philip Taylor: Stephanie, thanks for joining me today.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Sure. Thanks.

Philip Taylor: What made you want to start making some part-time money?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Well, actually really I guess it was kind of an offset of having my son. After he was born I went back to work full time for about 9 months and really just realized that from a quality of life standpoint, it was not working for me anymore, so I took the plunge and ended up staying home with him but always with the intention that I was going to try to do both, so it was not that I was trying to back out of the career world at all. I just was not satisfied in my marketing career and figured this was the time to try to see if I really could have the best of both worlds, stay at home with my child, and try to earn not only additional income but build a viable, flexible, and nontraditional part-time career.

Philip Taylor: Okay. Awesome! So, at the time you were full-time employed. What was the company again or what was the industry?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: I worked in financial services, so I used to work for a couple of major banks across the country in marketing, Then before I left full time, my final job was working in an advertising agency for a financial services client. As anybody who has worked in that industry knows, it is not great in terms of work-life balance, and you are kind of attached to the black bear at all times.

Philip Taylor: So, from that point making the decision to stay at home with your son and start these other projects, financially speaking (you can get as detailed as you want), how were you able to make that transition so quickly? Do you have a husband who works, or is there some other financial input into the family?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: I do. I was lucky enough to have a supportive husband who also works full time, but in addition to that I had way back when (I am 33 years old now), when I was 25 found myself $15,000 in credit card debt on a $31,000 a year salary and finally realized (this was during the housing market boom where everybody was buying, and to be quite honest with you, I felt like I was kind of behind the curve in terms of my peers and being saddled with this debt) I was never going to move forward in life. Basically for 2 years I really just cracked down, put myself on a really strict budget. I did not eat out. I did not go on trips. I walked dogs on my lunch break and after work. Eventually after 2 years I got rid of that whole debt.

Philip Taylor: Awesome!

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: From there I really just worked on building wealth, and that was my focus after that. So, I have never lived beyond my means. I saved anything that I could after that. So, I had built a pretty sizable savings relief fund not only for my own financial security for whatever the future would bring but also because I kind of always knew that at some point I was going to want to probably explore some type of different career option. I worked in marketing for 10 years, and to be quite honest I hated every second of it. It was kind of my flexibility fund I guess you would say where if that day ever came where I was ready to freak out and move to St. Thomas, I would have the money to do it.

Philip Taylor: So, was having your child sort of that freak out moment then?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: I guess, yeah. It was the catalyst. I never in a million years anticipated that I would want to stay home. That sounds terrible to say, but I am a career-minded person through and through or I guess business minded. I always said, “I can’t imagine why people quit working when they have kids, and I could never do it,” and all that, but once I was in the reality, I had a kid, and I saw what life was like working a full-time job with both parents doing it and not seeing each other much or our kid, I just realized it was not what I wanted for my life.

Philip Taylor: Okay. Awesome! So, how did you make the transition from that feeling (obviously that is the need) to then realizing, “Hey, I can probably do some freelance writing.”? What gave you confidence to go in that direction?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Well, it definitely started off slow. I had done writing in the past. I worked for Highlights for Children which is a children’s magazine.

Philip Taylor: Oh yeah, I know Highlights.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: It produces a catalog too, so I had done copyrighting in the past. I had some writing samples and a background in writing, but quite honestly my writing samples were pretty outdated. I did not have anything online. It was a paper catalog. When I first started out, it was really just kind of a learn-as-you-go process. I will be the first to say in my full-time job I made a pretty decent salary, and it was humbling. I definitely had to take a step down and do a lot of stuff for very little money. I started out actually writing for a couple of websites like Demand Studios which pays like $15 an article. It does not pay hardly a thing, but it was a way to get some live, published work out there on the web to show people what I could do so that when I started pitching other websites, I had something to actually send them to show that I knew what I was doing and that I had writing talent.

Philip Taylor: Gotcha

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: So, I really just kind of took the plunge. Like I said, I did stuff for very little money, practically free, and then just started slowly, slowly building from there.

Philip Taylor: So, what was it about freelance writing that attracted you or I guess was appealing?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Well, going back to my first job out of college I was laid off after a year. I worked at a recruiting firm called The Creative Group which is a division of Robert Half and basically places freelance talent in corporate marketing departments and ad agencies. It was a great kind of learn-the-business type of thing to get an idea for how much freelancers make, what they do, and what that whole side of the business looks like, but I always kind of wanted to be doing the jobs I was placing the candidates I was working with in. When I got laid off from that job, I actually dabbled in freelance writing for probably a few months but just did not have the financial safety net to do it, and I kind of got discouraged. It was a little bit of a stop and start, and then I walked away from it. I had always wanted to do it. I just did not have the guts I guess to start over, really walk away from the money, and do what needed to be done to start to build it.

Philip Taylor: I see. So, now that your son is older, how do you make time during your day if you are with him some? When does the writing take place?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Well, I definitely tell everybody I work a million times harder now than I ever did when I worked full time. Honestly, I get up at 4:30 in the morning and do writing then. He wakes up usually around 7:30, so there is a 2-1/2 hour block of time when I get stuff done then. I am a morning person luckily, so it is not so bad. He takes an afternoon nap, and I get writing done at that time, so that is about a 2-hour block of time when I can get things done. Sometimes in the evening after he goes to bed, I get back on the computer and write some more.

Philip Taylor: Gotcha.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: All said and done, I probably do work a solid 6-8 hour day. It is just not your typical 9-5.

Philip Taylor: Gotcha. Yep. That sounds about right. So, you also do some yoga instructing. When does that take place?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: The beauty of the yoga instructing – I guess what I realized in terms of trying to make something out of a part-time career – is that you really need to focus on the ROI, not focusing so much on what you are getting paid per hour but are there other intrinsic benefits baked into that where you can maximize your time. So, the great part about the yoga instructing is I am able to do it at my gym which I go to anyway and offers childcare. So, I do it in the morning. My son is able to go into childcare there which they offer to me free as a benefit of teaching. My gym membership is also free. So, whereas normally I would be at home with my son, it gives me an opportunity to maximize that time, not have to hire a babysitter which costs basically $10 an hour and up, go do what I would do anyway, and get paid for it.

Philip Taylor: Yeah, and he gets a little social time, right?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Exactly! So, it takes the guilt off of keeping your kid at home and worrying that you are turning him into a bubble child.

Philip Taylor: That is great! I like that! So, backing up to the freelance writing, how do you take it from starting to write for, like you said, publications that only paid you a small amount that you were just trying to get out there (I think you said Demand Studios is that company) to then being able to be featured on places like Investopedia and Business News Daily?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: I think it really just comes down to most people who are writers I think have a natural inclination to be strong information gatherers, inquisitive, and understanding kind of how to peel back the layers of the onion. That is really what it takes. You just kind of have to search around. It is almost like putting a puzzle piece together. If you go to one website, find out who is the editor for that website, and then figure out where it is that they worked before and kind of connect the dots. What writers are on that website? Look them up. Where have they worked before? This is where you can kind of figure out what types of publications hire freelancers. It really just is about being relentless. You might send out 200 emails and hear back from a couple people, and then those couple of people that come back to you might offer you very little money again to do something. If it feels like a good stepping stone to get you to the next level, maybe it is worth it. I think it is about using your time in again the way that is going to give you the most ROI. That might not be money. It might be about opportunity. I think it is important to carve out a couple days a week to do marketing where you are solely just pitching people, seeking things out, trying to connect the dots, figure out who hires freelancers.

Philip Taylor: Gotcha. I like it. So opportunity and ROI – I like that. But, speaking of money (and you can share as much as you would like here) how much are you able to bring in now that you seem to be working with some bigger publications?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Yeah, now that I have a solid client base (once you establish a few clients, it gets easier because you can spend less time pitching and seeking, and they will come to you once they know you are a good, reliable, capable writer), depending on how much I want to take on or how much I can take on, it can range anywhere from $1000 a month to beyond $3500.

Philip Taylor: Gotcha! So, hey you are approaching at least, I would assume, a percentage of what you were making with your other career, and this is only on part-time money here.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Exactly! Again, going back to that ROI, you know I used to spend $1200 a month to have my kid in daycare, so take that out of the equation. Take my commute time out of the equation and the tax benefits I can have from a home-based business and all that good stuff, and things start to look up.

Philip Taylor: Awesome! I love it! So, what is next for you in the writing world? I know you have recently started WellnessOnLess.com. Maybe you could share a little bit about that and how that is going to interplay with your freelance writing career.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Yeah, so WellnessOnLess.com is really kind of a platform I guess for not only what I have learned but what I believe in and what I think would be helpful to other people. Like I mentioned, I have been in debt before. I have been there. I get it. I know what it is like to have this credit card debt where you think, “Oh my gosh! I do not even want to sit down and add up all this stuff that I owe because it is just depressing!” It is partly about sharing my experiences with that with other people to help them rid themselves of debt and then what to do once you get out of the debt. So, the other piece of that is you start saving, you start building wealth. Probably most importantly you think about, “What is it that I want to spend my money on that is going to bring me joy, and where can I eliminate things that I don’t care about?” So it is not about being cheap. It is not about being frugal. It is not about locking yourself in the house and not going out to eat. It is about if you love to go out to eat, then great, go out to eat. If you love great wine, buy some great wine, but then scale back somewhere else that you do not care about and find things to balance out. The other piece of it is really just my belief in the importance of health and wellness. I am a marathon runner, and as you mentioned I am a yoga instructor. Those things have just added so much value to my life in terms of stress relief, giving me focus, giving me time to just think through things. Some of my best writing and business ideas have really been when I was on a treadmill. The other piece of that is just educating people on the benefits of that and things that you can do. Again, you do not need to spend $15 to go to 1 yoga class. You do not need to spend $150 on a personal trainer. You do not need to spend $500 at Whole Foods in order to live a healthy and well life. So, it is really a hybrid of all those things.

Philip Taylor: I love it! There are so many connections between money and health.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: There are, aren’t there?!?! It is kind of amazing – the mind, body, money connection!

Philip Taylor: Yep. Well, that is great. Definitely everyone needs to check out WellnessOnLess.com. It is built on WordPress and on Thesis, which is the same setup I have at ptmoney.com, so definitely getting started in the right direction there, Stephanie.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Good.

Philip Taylor: Let’s see, what did we not cover? What about mistakes? Any mistakes you have made along the way of growing this freelance writing business?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: I would say I have. I have run into some stops and starts sometimes. I think it is really about finding a balance between knowing your worth but not having a chip on your shoulder. There have probably been maybe some opportunities that would not have been bad things to do, but at the time I was just starting out, and I had maybe a preconceived notion in my mind of what I used to do or what I used to make and feeling discouraged if somebody came back and said, “Hey. We will pay you $100 to do this,” and thinking, “I used to make more than that in a very small period of time.” I think probably the biggest mistake is just not celebrating all the little wins. I think it can be easy to get discouraged and maybe beat yourself up if things are not moving quickly enough in the right direction that you think. I think that is something I have to give some credit for to my husband because I am kind of a crazy overachiever, and it can be hard to look back and think what I used to be financially versus where I am now. He is always a great cheerleader for celebrating the little accomplishments. Maybe I am not writing the cover story for Money Magazine, but I was on the homepage on Yahoo Finance. I think that is probably the biggest mistake that will derail someone from trying to get in a part-time situation. Do not freak out and assume that just because things are not moving quickly it means things are not going to pan out.

Philip Taylor: I love it! Good advice! Well, anything else we did not cover or that you would want to talk about?

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: No. I think hopefully I have shared some information that will be valuable to people. Again, I think the most important takeaway I can offer somebody is just to think about the ROI, and opportunity is as important as money when you are trying to make a part-time situation work, kind of seeing the big picture.

Philip Taylor: I love it! It is great stuff! Thanks so much for being on with me, Stephanie.

Stephanie Taylor Christensen: Sure. Thank you.

Writing is a great way to make extra money as a side hustle or as a full-time career choice. Find the right writing job for you and get started today. You’ll be on your way to extra income before you know it.

7 Ways to Make Money as a Writer [and How to Get Started]