How to Earn Extra Income as a Freelance Writer

Transcription

1 How to Earn Extra Income as a Freelance Writer 1

2 Content Introduction 3 Advantage of Writing as a Business..4 Types of Writing.7 Articles Blog posts Reports E-books Copywriting Autoresponder s Spinning Where to Sell Your Services.10 Contacts Referrals Online Groups Freelancing Websites How Much Should You Charge.14 Specializing..15 Conclusion.17 References...17 Disclaimer. 18 2

3 Introduction If you re looking for a good way to earn extra money using the internet maybe even enough to quit your day job one option is to offer writing services. Who will be your target customers? Online marketers. Content is in demand nowadays for businesses to attract clients. Social media marketing requires blogs and e-books for their followers to read. A website s sales page and marketing also need a skilled writer. Even if you consider yourself new as a freelance writer, there are lots of opportunities out there for you to make some money. As the saying goes, content is king. But not everybody is comfortable or even able to write content. People are always looking for ways to create high-quality written materials and one of the best ways is for them to outsource to a freelance writer. My name is Jonah Chipeco, Founder of Writing Hacks Academy an online school empowering sales managers and entrepreneurs to write for their business. Before creating training programs about writing, I started as a freelance writer in 2011 on top of my day job. Even as a marketing manager then, I realized that I needed a side hustle to achieve my income goals. I understood the potential of the internet to find clients and thought of using other skills I have as the solution. Writing was my hobby and I thought about making money out of it. This is how my freelancing journey began. Five years later, I was able to quit my job and pursue my dream to become a resource speaker. To date, I have taught over 1,000 entrepreneurs and professionals about writing including representatives from the Presidential Communications Group. And in this report, I d like to share my tips on how you can start earning from your writing skills, too. 3

4 Advantages of Writing as a Business There are several advantages of getting into the writing business. It s in demand You can learn about the market You can expand your knowledge as you go along You can find partners First, writing is in demand. There are far more marketers who are looking for high-quality content for their websites than there are writers providing it. Sure, it s easy to find writers on freelancing sites like Freelancer, Fiverr, or Upwork. But if you have tried doing this yourself, you ve probably noticed the lack of quality in their work. It also takes skills to spot a credible writer online. And if you know how to stand out from the crowd and not wait for clients passively, you will thrive. If you provide high-quality content and learn how to grow repeat clients, you will immediately have an advantage. Next, learn about the market. If your target customers are internet marketers, you have to think like one. Expand your skills and learn marketing, too. Successful freelancers know how to market themselves. And eventually, they level up to start their own business and apply their skills in both marketing and writing. Your target customer s intention in hiring you to write content is to attract clients for their business. If you understand marketing basics like creating a buyer persona and crafting messages according to the audience s needs, these will be translated into your writing. Don t write for yourself. Write for your customer. And if your customers are marketers, write for their target customers. Did you get it? 4

5 My first gigs were blog writing projects focused on relationship and health articles. I needed to research not just the published content available. But I always step back to think of what my clients target readers would look for when they search for a topic online. Yes, I also had to understand basic search engine optimization (SEO). If this is term is new for you, Writing Hacks Academy offers an SEO course for Wordpress users. You can look for this on our website under the free resources menu. You see, being a writer doesn t mean you have to master just one skill set. For example, a not-so-popular type of writing yet commonly used is Technical Writing. Content with this form covers particular subject that requires direction, instruction, or explanation. Writing blogs, e-books, reports, instructional videos, and manuals go through the technical writing process. Although some would generally refer to the skills in writing these materials as content writing. Technical Writing consists of the following steps: Keiran Morgan s Technical Writing Process The focus is to assist readers who need specific information on products, completing tasks, operating equipment, and completing projects. It usually involves long-form documents. 5

6 A technical writer requires several skill sets such as: Writing Project management Basic design Computer or software Product knowledge Why am I mentioning about SEO and even Technical Writing? When I started as a freelance writer, I didn t know about SEO or Technical Writing. I learned these skills in the process. Becoming a professional writer will naturally ask you to expand your knowledge. You can either choose to study before you starting but most of the things are best learned along the way. Creating partnerships also goes hand-in-hand with gaining knowledge and experience. As demand for my services grew, there are occasions when I hire other writers to work with me, too. I consider them as partners in delivering my service. You might also want to have graphic designers or video editors among your contacts. Since writing content usually goes together with videos and design, they could endorse you to their clients. Or, you can contact them to design a cover for an e-book you wrote or create a video out of a script you prepared. Along those same lines, you can often leverage these working relationships into further partnerships. If you work with a marketer by writing for them, you can ask for referrals or request to write a guest-post on their blog. It s a great idea to look for a mentor, too. Staying connected with people ahead of the game is an effective catalyst for your success. 6

7 Types of Writing There are various types of writing that marketers are generally looking for. You can offer any or all of the following types of content: Articles Blog posts Reports E-books Direct-response materials (requires copywriting skills) Autoresponder s Spinning Some of these are more specialized than others. Copywriting, for example, will require practice and experience to be effective. Articles and blog posts, on the other hand, can generally be handled by any writer provided they are comfortable with the topic. These different levels of skill will also determine how much you can reasonably charge for your work. Highly paid article writers may charge $50 to $100 per article, somewhere around 500 words. Highly paid copywriters, on the other hand, may earn $10,000 and up for a single sales letter, as well as a percentage of the sales in some cases. If you re just starting out as a freelance writer, you won t probably be able to command higher rates until you ve proven yourself. Most highly-paid writers started out at entry-level rates, just like anyone else. But it is something you can aspire for and could be a matter of branding and strategy. I know of a newbie copywriter who easily demanded higher rates after being mentored by a guru who taught him where to get clients and how to land on highpaying projects. Again, find a writing mentor or an expert in your field whom you can learn from. 7

8 Articles and Blog Posts When you re first starting out, articles and blog posts are the easiest work to find. There are many places where you can market yourself as an article writer (which we ll cover in the next section) and there is a huge number of marketers and website owners who are looking for good content. Reports and E-books Reports and e-books are also popular types of content for many writers. These may be written to be sold, given away as bonuses for other products, or even as an incentive for people to join lists. Want to learn how to create e-books? Visit and learn how to get your guide plus a consultation with me. Copywriting We ve already mentioned copywriting and it tends to be one of the higher-paying forms of content; however, you need to have a proven track record in order to get paid well. Content that uses copywriting skills are those intended to sell products and services, increase brand awareness, or persuade a person or group to take action. 8

9 Copywriting is both an art and science. You strategically choose and arrange words to influence behaviour. Thus, understanding consumer psychology or even neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to craft a message is helpful. Copywriters are also expected to come up with creative concepts and the words that express them. The first few sales letters you write may not generate the same kind of revenue, but if those sales letters convert well and you can build a bit of a portfolio of successful sales pages, it won t take long before you can start charging more. Autoresponder s, a tactic employed under marketing, is also a form of copywriting. The Radicati Group, Inc, a technology market research firm shared that uses worldwide continues to grow from nearly 2.6 billion in 2015 to a projection of 2.9 billion by The 2019 forecast covers one-third of the worldwide population. This means that marketers will continue to use this channel to promote their business. No, we re not referring to simply sending business correspondences via . When you write an autoresponder to your prospect customers, your written copy has either one of these two purposes: 1. To educate (often referred to as nurture s) 2. To offer a product or services (sales s) Many marketers don t understand how to write effective s, or they might not know enough about a particular niche to write them well. That s where your opportunity as a writer comes in. Spinning Spinning is a bit of an unusual form of content and not one that all writers are comfortable offering. It is the process of taking a base, or seed article and rewriting it with multiple versions of each sentence or even word replacements, using a particular format for those alternatives. 9

10 Specialized software, called a spinner takes this spun article and outputs one or more unique versions. The degree of uniqueness will be determined by how effectively the article is rewritten. If you don t use enough replacements or you re not careful about the words you choose, you can wind up with a variation that isn t different enough from the original or worse, doesn t make sense. Article spinning is used as part of a marketer s link-building strategy. The person writing the article is that they will include links back to their client s website within the text. In theory, these links will tell Google that they are very popular and push their website rankings for their chosen keywords. Marketers would pay $200 or more for a high-quality spun article. Even if it takes you four hours to create that single article, you can still earn a pretty good hourly wage. Articles spinning is almost the same yet different from a simpler technique called article rewriting. In article rewriting, a client may give the writer one piece of content and ask to rewrite using your own words to avoid plagiarism. Where To Sell Your Services Existing Contacts and Referrals There are several venues where you can sell your writing services, some more profitable than others. The first one to always consider is your existing contacts. If you re just starting out, your friends and people who have read your written work in the past may be confident to hire you for an immediate need. Once you ve got a few jobs under your belt, build a list of clients that you can go back to whenever you re available for future projects. Before you look for new clients, always get in touch with your existing clients to see if they have any work for you. 10

11 Along those lines, always make sure you capture your customers information at least their name and address so you can contact them in the future. If they like your previous work, they ll thank you for reaching out again. Another way your existing clients can help you generate more business is through referrals. Ask your clients for referrals, even if it s just a matter of letting them know you re available if anyone they know needs a writer. If your clients are happy with your work, they will be willing to recommend you to those people. You can even offer referral bonuses or pay a finder s fee. Online Groups One of the best places to find new clients is through forums. There are many different internet marketing forums and many of them have sections where you can offer your services. For example, you can go to Quora.com and answer questions related to writing or your chosen specialization. Website members can view you as an authority in your field if you consistently give helpful advice. This is just one example; however, there are many other forums that have similar sections available to you. You can also join freelance groups on Facebook to post your services and look for clients who randomly post requests. These are some online Filipino communities that I m part of: Online Filipino Freelancers Bloggers Association of the Philippines Filipino Bloggers Worldwide Copywriting Dojo Philippines Freelance Writers of the Philippines Freelance Writers Philippines Content Writing Jobs, Freelancers Here Fiverr Freelancers Philippines First, you need to take part in the forum or online group discussions to be known. If you rarely post or you join then immediately post an ad for your services, it s unlikely that you re going to find many clients. 11

12 Clients prefer to work with other people that they re familiar with. Even if you ve never met them in person, you can get to know people through online groups. Post regularly and interact. The other benefit you ll get from taking part regularly is that people will be able to see the quality of your writing from the posts you make. This can act as a live portfolio. Freelance Websites Another effective way to find new clients is through freelance websites like Freelancer.com, Fiverr, and Upwork. These can be a good source for mostly foreign clients but there are many others like onlinejobs.ph open for local and foreign marketers. These sites serve as a middleman connecting freelancers and people looking to hire them. They provide a certain amount of security for both parties by moderating the jobs allowing both freelancers and buyers to give their ratings and hold payments in case of dispute. The drawback, of course, is that they charge a fee for doing so. That fee is taken out of the service provider s payment (that s you). You re essentially paying them to find new clients for you. The most effective way to use these sites is to find new clients and then once you have a bit of a working relationship with them you can move to work together directly. You might even offer a slightly lower rate since you don t have to pay the fee to the freelance sites. For example, if you re paying them a 10% fee on every job you do, you could offer your client a 5% discount for working together directly and still wind up making more money. Just be careful if you choose this option. Some of the freelance sites such as Fiverr.com have rules about trying to move off-site for future projects. You want to be sure that you re not breaking any rules by discussing this with your clients. Another interesting way that you can sell your writing is by creating PLR or Private Label Rights offers. 12

13 Private Label Rights means that the buyers have the right to use the content. They can edit it however they wish, put their own name on it, and generally treat it just like a content they had written themselves. The disadvantage of PLR from a buyer s perspective is actually one of its strongest advantages from the seller s (yours) multiple people can buy the rights to the same content From the buyer s perspective, this means that there are other people who can use the same content sell it, use it as web content, give it away, etc. This creates competition compared to having exclusive rights to the content. But from your perspective, as the seller, you can sell the same content many times over. This means you can charge less for it and still wind up making more money. For example, let s say you ve written ten 500-word articles. If you were to sell those to a single client and charged them $20 per article (4 cents per word), you would earn $200. If you took those same ten articles and sold them as a PLR bundle charging only $10 for the entire pack ($1 per article), you would only need to sell 20 copies to make the same amount of money. It highly likely that you could find more than 20 buyers if the articles were on a popular topic and the quality is good. In fact, you might sell 100 copies or more, generating much more revenue with exactly the same amount of work. There is another benefit to selling PLR content, however you get your writing in front of a lot more people, some of whom might be looking for exclusive content. If they see your PLR articles are well-written, it s quite likely that they would be interested in working with you for exclusive projects as well. Think of selling PLR as a front end offer, with your writing services as the back end upsell. 13

14 How Much Should You Charge? The big question on many aspiring writers is how much to charge for their work. This is a tough thing for many people to decide. After all, they want to earn as much as possible and may feel that their work is worth a lot. Typically, the best way to charge for your writing is on a per-word basis. You could charge 5 cents or more per word: 5 cents per word = $25 per 500-word article (Php 1,250) 10 cents per word = $50 per 500-word article (Php 2,500) 20 cents per word = $100 per 500-word article (Php 5,000) The same calculations may be applied for longer types of content. But note that these rates are not fixed. There are several factors you ll need to consider when setting your prices. The first is competition. On freelancing website, there are writers who offer only $5 per 500-word article. We re talking about many of them. And marketers on a budget usually approach these writers. If the work isn t good enough, the client will just edit or proofread the content themselves. If your target buyers are not yet familiar with your skills and the quality of your work, you may need to lower your price to compete and get positive reviews. A good strategy in this case is to make an introductory offer at a lower price than you normally charge, and make that clear in the offer. Let people know that it s a special offer and any future work will be at your regular rates. You ll most likely get some buyers who only sign up because of the discount, but you ll also probably get some who will continue to work with you at your regular rates once they ve seen the quality of your writing. This type of offer can be a good way to get some more clients into your funnel whenever you feel the need to find new ones. As your writing business expands, you ll soon find that you can only work with a maximum number of people at any given time. 14

15 Ideally, you want to have a few more regular clients than you can handle all at once. After competition, these are some considerations: Years of experience in writing or number of clients you have The longer your experience and higher reviews you have, the easier it will be for you to increase your rates. Number of hours You can estimate the number of hours you ll work on a project and compute your fee depending on your preferred hourly wage. Knowledge of the topic and availability of resources If the topic given is easy and there are published resources you can access as reference for your content, the lower cost you can charge. Capacity of your clients Companies who will hire a freelancer would usually pay higher than freelance marketers or solo-entrepreneurs who will outsource a service. Check how much they pay previous outsourced writers so you can adjust your pricing. If you will charge more than your usual, create an add-on offer like extra number of words, free graphics or faster delivery. Specializing The last strategy we ll discuss in this report is specializing in a niche or topic. If you are an expert in a particular market, you might want to consider writing exclusively for that market especially if it s a profitable one. For example, you might specialize in fitness and weight loss topics exclusively. Or, instead of narrowing down the topic, you can target a smaller group of clients you want to work with such as online coaches or event organizers. 15

16 There are a couple of advantages to this strategy: 1. It s easier to write about topics you re familiar with, 2. You can charge more because you re an expert. If you pick a topic you know well, it can make the writing process much faster since you won t need to do as much research. The quality of your writing will generally improve. And because your writing will generally be much higher quality, you can charge more for it. Your customers will be getting expert content and they will often be happy to pay you higher prices. At some point, you won t be confident yourself enough to claim that you re an expert while you re starting. But what s great about the internet is you can brand yourself easily as an authority in your niche. How? By publishing your work. Start with a personal blog or create article posts on Facebook or LinkedIn. You can then create your portfolio and use the content you wrote as sample work. Before you create content for your clients, write content to build your own brand, first. Our online masterclass can help you create your portfolio website and written materials to market your services. Plus, you ll get to learn different kinds of writing so you can eventually choose where to specialize. Learn more at bit.ly/writinghackscourse 16

17 Conclusion There is always going to be a market for high-quality writing. If you enjoy writing and can provide that high-quality work for your clients, you can have sure customers who will need your skills. Getting started is the hardest part. But once you ve got a bit of experience under your belt and have some happy clients, you can leverage that into a full-time writing business if that s your ultimate goal. Remember, the internet revolves around content. That s unlikely to change anytime soon. If you can help other marketers by providing the content that they need, your services are going to be in demand for a long time to come. References Process, T. W. (n.d.). The Five-Step Technical Writing Process. Retrieved from Maslen, A. (2015). "Persuasive Copywriting: Using Psychology to Engage, Influence and Sell". Copywriting: an art or science? (2013, August 21). Retrieved December, 2017, from Copywriting. (2017, December 18). Retrieved December, 2017, from Marketing. (2017, December 13). Retrieved December 22, 2017, from Roesler, P. (n.d.). Top 5 Reasons Why Marketing Still Works. Retrieved December 22, 2017, from What is Article Spinning? Will it help to SEO my Website? (2017, July 19). Retrieved from Article Spinning versus Article Rewriting. (2014, October 29). Retrieved from 17

18 Disclaimer The information provided in this e-book is for general informational purposes only. While we try to keep the information up-to-date and correct, there are no representations or warranties, expressed or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this e-book for any purpose. Any use of this information is at your own risk. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct, the author does not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without a written permission from Writing Hacks Academy. 18