5 Ways to Earn Money Writing

One of the ways I’ve continued to explore earning income beyond the confines of a traditional office job is through freelance writing. Have you ever seen that person hanging out at a Starbucks during a weekday hammering away at their laptop while sipping on a latte? It’s possible they are a writer of some sort and the coffee shop is the closest they are going to come to setting foot in an office. It seems like an enviable position to be able to work where you want and when you want. But how are they getting paid?

Well, when you step outside the traditional means of office W2 income you may find that there isn’t just one standard way of getting paid as a freelance writer. So what the ways some people are doing it? Here are some examples below.

1. Start a Blog

There’s an extremely low barrier to entry for starting your own blog or website.  In fact, the only thing you really need to do to have a blog is basically

  1. Find an available domain name, and buy it,
  2. Then get hosting for your blog which typically runs between $50 to $100 a year.
  3. Choose a theme and start posting.

So while this is a bit of a gross oversimplification of the process, this is basically all you need to do to self-publish your writing on a blog.  But you’re published; so now what?

You’re published. So now what? Could these be bloggers checking their phones to see if they’ve made any money? Maybe.

2. Earn Affiliate Marketing Income

Well if your content is good enough and you start to gain some traction, you start to gain readers and eventually you find yourself with an audience.   An audience has the potential to be a customer and as a blogger your in the position to direct a message to your audience.   That could be to try a product or service you recommend as an affiliate.  It’s not hard to do if you have their attention.  Do I have your attention?  If so and you want to start a blog you could do so just by clicking here.    See what I did?  I just recommended Siteground as a host because I’m an affiliate.  They’re good and I use them.  So imagine you, dear reader, signed up.  I’d make some money.   Just like that.

If one of your readers signs up for one of your affiliate products or services, you earn a commission.   If you have a large audience you may start to receive several commissions a month, a week or even daily.

3. Write for Others

So writing is entertainment and it educates or informs but first and foremost, it should captivate the attention of the reader.   And if it’s doing so, that writing has value in a way that is similar to the way that TV, Netflix, movies, or the news captivates.   So just as studio’s pay directors and writers and actors to produce content that has value, there are website owners, news organizations, and publishers that are willing to pay for others to write content.   If you want to be a writer, you’re going to want to do two things:

  1. Find the people willing to pay for your writing.  (or let them find you)
  2. Demonstrate that you can write by showing them a bit of proof.

Now if you are reading this, you may be detecting a bit of irony in that this writing is probably a bit on the mediocre side.   Well, what can I say, it’s like I said, there’s a low barrier to entry to blogging.  So while my writing might not be Shakespear, I’m confident my ideas are good.  Hopefully, I’ll continue to improve and look back on this in a few years as a shining example of how far I’ve come.  If nothing else we can at least say I used the word “ironic” correctly which is more than I can say for an angsty 90’s singer.

4. Find the People That Will Pay You

If you’re looking to do #1 and find the clients that could use you as a writer you’ve got to recognize that to some extent, like so many things in life, it’s a numbers game.  So do your best, but also put yourself in front of as many people as possible.

  1. Getting your writing out through your blog is one method.
  2. Reaching out to others that might be interested in your writing is another method
  3. Marketing your writing services on various sites like Upwork and Fiverr is another method. Sign up for Fiverr with this link and you’ll get up to $100 credit.

5. Show Them You Can Write

If you’re looking to do #2 and demonstrate you can write by showing some proof, you’re going to want to be published.   Early on, it’s not going to be easy.  But creating a blog has almost no barrier to entry.  The next step will be reaching out to others and seeing if they will allow you to guest post for them.   It’s a bit of a quid pro quo.   They get some free content which is hopefully your best writing, and for your efforts, you get a bit of exposure.  Exposure means reaching a new audience which means the potential to reach new customers or clients.

But what if your writing isn’t that good?  Well, you could stick to the office job.  Or you could remain unemployed.  Or you could push yourself to practice and get better.  There are tools out there like Grammarly which aims to help improve your writing.  It’s definitely helping me.

How Much I Earned From Four Months of Blogging

Tell anyone you’ve started a blog and you’ll inevitably get the question about how much money you’re making blogging. It’s pretty straightforward to answer how much money I made THIS MONTH.  But it’s not at all easy to answer how much money you CAN make from blogging or how much you’re likely to earn in the future. It’s largely dependent on how much effort you put into being successful.  But what could a person expect?

Different Way Bloggers Make Money

Well, there are many things to consider about making money from a website.   There’s a great variety of ways to earn money.   Here’s some that come to mind for me:

  • You can sell your own product
  • You can promote your own service (I do a bit of tutoring on the side)
  • You can promote a product of another company which is typically called affiliate marketing ( I promote a few services I have used and recommend)
  • You can run ads on your site and get paid for your views. ( I believe you need a lot of traffic for this to be profitable..probably not ideal for early on)

These are some of the fundamental ways to make cash from your website or blog.    This blog “Getting Canned” seeks to provide entertainment and information about the experience of losing your job and I do hope to generate a bit of revenue from affiliate marketing to help keep the site running.

That means that on some of my pages, I refer to products or services like web hosting or scheduling software that I use and recommend.    If someone clicks the links and signs up for a service, I can earn a commission.   So how much have I earned from doing this so far?

Earnings From My Two Sites

Well I started this site in April 2018.  So I’m about 3 months in and I’m just now starting to ring up a few commissions.  I’ve helped refer others to sign up for web hosting and domain services and earned a few commissions that will pay out this month.   The sales commissions were earned from either clicking my site links or me sending the customer the link directly.    Here are screenshots of sales I’ll be paid for this month.

From Bluehost.   I referred two signups and should earn $130.

Bluehost Affiliate earnings
Bluehost Affiliate earnings for the quarter

And I’ve had one signup for the host I am currently using to host this site, which is Siteground.   This resulted in $50 of commissions.

Here’s earnings from Siteground affiliate program .

This felt pretty good to see earning commissions like this with minimal effort.   Full disclosure:  For web hosting signups, I typically have worked with the person to help them set up the site so it wasn’t totally passive income.

Earning my First Passive Income

I did earn my first passive income commission this month.   Someone saw the value in the M1 Finance signup which paid out a commission of $100 to me.   This resulted from them viewing my site and clicking the link.   I wasn’t involved.  To be honest, I didn’t even realize I earned this commission a few weeks ago because I’m a bit behind on my email.   But how’s that for passive income?   Thanks, fellow investor out there.

M1 Finance Affiliate commissions
My first signup from M1 Finance

Dare to dream but perhaps someday I can earn the types of commissions that some of the top people do.  It’s crazy to think some folks out there are making 10’s of thousands of dollars a month.   Take for example Michelle Schroeder who made $136,000 last month from blogging.

So the question is could you generate income from blogging?  This is capitalism so there are no guarantees.   It will take a little luck and a good deal of hard work.  Generally the harder you work, the luckier you’ll be.  In my opinion, it’s certainly worth a shot.   If you’ve been terminated and can spare around $90 that’s enough to get started.   Ping me if you need help.

How To Get Started Making Money From Running a Web Site

The first step is signing up for web hosting. If you don’t feel like spending money and are tech-savvy, why not try Digital Ocean?  Sign up here for a free $100 credit just for trying Digital Ocean.

Click here for a $100 Credit good towards hosting with Digital Ocean.

And What am I Doing With the Profit?

Some money gets reinvested back into the business and the rest gets invested into my new favorite no fee robo-advisor M1 Finance.

M1 Finance

Disclosure:  I have an affiliate partnership with M1 Finance, Digital Ocean and Siteground and may earn a commission on new signups over a certain threshold.