How do writers make a living?

well, 2 things, first of all writer's world has been taken over by writers from developing nations. They will do anything to make$300 per month and you cannot compete with them.

However, there are lot of people out there, who want extremely good content. They want only best content. They will even pay you $10 per article or $20. I know such type of buyers are few. But , with tsunami of crappy writers and panda algorithm, need for good content has been rising.

So, when you say i will charge 1 cent per word, you are targeting buyers who are looking for low ot medium level quality. They are not looking for premium quality, 90% of them are feared by google's duplicate content penality.

Thats why they need medium quality article, which pass copyscape and get them good ranking.

So, you have to brand yourself as "Excellent Native English writer, who write only top quality articles". You have to play in this strata.

Now, you say, you love researching the topic. People may not go for well researched articles, but as far ebooks are concerned, research is of prime importance. So, instead of articles , go for ebook writing. Something like $297 for an ebook.

In ebook arena, you will not have to compete with writer's from developing nations. Stress, how you use slang which can only be written by native english writer.

If you want to make a living from writing, go ahead and create your own products. Articles writing bring in some income but you have to keep doing it. Your own products may take time but will keep earning you for a long time (depends on the niche). Continue with article writing to promote your products. Definitely this combination works. There are some very good WSO’s on product creation if you need help.

As a fellow writer I feel your pain, I take a long time to write articles as well.

One idea is to write a bunch of articles and sell them as PLR packs. I'm thinking of that, but I don't see any reason I wouldn't run into the same problems ankur mentioned. I wouldn't take time to write new articles but I'd still be undercut by foreign writers. His ebook idea is a good one.

This is in fact why I joined Warrior Forum in the first place--I don't see writing as a viable long term possibility. I'm looking to have different income streams so I don't have to depend solely on writing.

I remember it well: it was one of the best-written and most interesting "Warrior for hire" ads we've ever seen on the board. I'm so pleased to hear that it did as well as it deserved to.

This is, indeed, the decision you face - and it's not one anyone else can make for you.

Personally, I decided, at an equivalent stage, to start writing for myself instead of for others, and for me, that decision has worked out well.

It's a perfectly viable long-term decision to continue writing for others, but not, I suspect, in the same markets for which you're writing now.

Don't let people tell you (as some will try to) that "writing for yourself makes you a marketer more than a writer", because that's similarly true of writing for others. What one earns as a writer ultimately more or less boils down to one thing: the markets in which one chooses to compete, and those depend on one's marketing skills more than on one's writing skills (assuming only a basic level of competence which we all already know you exceed considerably).

You might find some of these resources helpful/interesting in making your decision, Terry:-

Jennifer Mattern's blog

Carol Tice's blog

Freelance writing jobs (minmum payment requirement of $50 per article to be listed there)

Free report on how to attract new freelance writing clients during a recession

The Renegade Writer Blog

The "Irreverent Freelancer" blog

The Well-Fed Writer: Lucrative Commercial Freelance Writing - Land Lucrative Freelance Writing Jobs

Words on the Page.

I know people that make their living as freelance writers, but you are correct, you have to a fast writer if you are working for freelance wages. There are a couple things you might want to consider, perhaps you just don't like the work, so therefore you struggle to complete it. Or, perhaps you're a bit ADHD (I'll admit I am :-)) and you just need to buckle down and focus more. Many have found that working in 15 minute bursts helps them maintain focus and work faster, or maybe you have a time of day where you are more productive.

Since, you don't mention lack of work as being a problem, I'd try experimenting with some ways to boost productivity before giving up on the idea all together.

Not everyone can write fast so it stands to reason that while you may be a good writer, freelance writing might not be the ideal job for you. When you trade time for dollars, you need to find a way to earn those dollars fast enough to make it worthwhile.

Here are some suggestions:

-Spend time writing for passive income sources. Build your own sites, submit to revenue sharing content sites like HubPages, and so on. Then one article can earn on an ongoing basis so it's ok that it took a few hours to write.
-Pick just a few niches to focus on. This will cut down your research time and over time you could find that your hourly rate goes up.
-Target higher paying clients. Instead of content mills or other places where people are looking for cheap articles, focus on business writing, query print publications such as magazines or trade journals, etc.
-Diversify so you've got multiple streams of income. Build your own niche sites, write for some great-paying clients, do Elance bidding, etc.

I've been at this 5+ years and continually work to raise my rates. Just like anyone with a 9-5 job wants a raise once in a while, so do I. I build relationships with longer term clients and from the start I tell them that I periodically raise my rates.

Good that you are choosing not to be complacent.
Good luck!

im also looking for a job as a writer... any suggestion

I have a few suggestions that should help you speed up production while keeping your quality in place.

First, invest in a kitchen timer. This can help you control how much time you spend researching a single topic. Not much is worse than researching your topic only to find that a few hours have passed instead of 30-45 minutes.
Set the kitchen timer to 15-45 minutes (depending on how much you already know about the topic) and spend this time gathering as much information as possible.
Also, don't just read about the topic. When you find an interesting bit of information, cut and paste it to Notepad. This can help you keep track of things that you might forget between reading and writing.

Second, visit Challenge.co which is a website about Internet Marketing. Signing up is free, and inside the members area you will see several modules broken down by days and weeks. If you skip ahead to Module 3, days 2 through 4, you will find some handy tricks for researching keyword and topic information.
The site has great tactics for researching keyword/topic information for websites. They suggest writing articles over the course of a few days, and they even explain why.
Since I found this information, my articles have been more focused, written more clearly, and researched in no time at all. Just remember that you don't have to have the program they suggest. You can use your browser to visit the same websites, and the notepad or wordpad programs to save your research notes.

Last, build your relationships with your clients. Often times the people that hire you will own a website about a specific topic. By building a relationship with your clients, you will find yourself writing content about the same general topic. This means you won't have to do 'as much' research because you should already know a bit about the topic.

I hope this helps. Keep doing what you love, and remember to get paid what your worth, not what you think others are willing to pay. Heck, hire a writer that charges the same as you to see what kind of quality you are competing with. You may find you are stiffing yourself.

Good luck!

Most professional writers provide their services to a specific set of quality business clients. They learn the industry, they maintain close, daily contact with their clients, they have pinpoint English skills and can write extremely compelling content, they work fast and have a professional and ethical business ethic.

Building this business is so much better than running around trying to find people to "crank out" articles for. Do you want your articles spun a hundred times and end up on cheesy, bottom-feeding websites, or do you want to be a professional and build a portfolio of quality stuff on big-time websites that you can use for selling yourself to new clients?

You could choose to write for 2 cents a word, or you could establish a client base of real businesses (yes, brick and mortar businesses) and live a comfortable lifestyle.

That is how they make a living.

There are writers - and then there are Professional Writers. Which one do you want to be?

Allen

I'm a writer myself and quite frankly I manage to make a decent income writing. The problem however is trying to compete with a Tsunami of writers from places like India and the Philippines.

My two cents on this one is do not compete!!! these guys will do anything to make $1 and 99% of them are crappy writers. I've simply stopped writing articles and just focus my attention of providing sales pages / copy that sells. I tell my clients straight out that you're paying $200 for a sales page which will convent and if it does not I'll keep tweaking it till it does. So trying doing something similar!

As many of the note-worthy writers have posted on here, you don't have to limit yourself (and you shouldn't) to finding writing jobs online only.

Don't use Elance as a guideline for how much articles should cost - you're providing valuable, quality writing. You can charge much more for that. As a result, you'll weed out people who want 'penny articles' and attract a much better client base. Excellent books on the subject on amazon, have confidence in your abilities and go forth! You can do it!

Hello Terry,

You can make a full time living from writing in a number of ways. In my mind,
there is not any single way that is right. It just has to be something you feel
good about and like.

But keep in mind that you will usually be trading time for money as a writer,
unless you do something that brings royalties. Or, you write books and publish
them on Kindle. There are quite a few writers who do well following that model.
You could write fiction or non-fiction and use Kindle as a marketing platform.
There are still other possibilities to explore that complement Kindle.

You do not have to become an affiliate marketer or anything else, really. However
you may naturally evolve into other areas after some time and for what ever
reason.

Others have mentioned writing for magazines. If that interests you, then you
should check out Bob Bly's site. He's a retired copywriter and has published
many books on many subjects over the years. He has several books about
writing for magazines and how to get started with it.

You can find opportunities everywhere. My personal opinion is there are far more
and greater opportunities for writing outside this forum. Although there certainly
are plenty of gigs here, and they can be helpful for finding momentum.


Ken

The first thing to remember as a writer in the IM world is that writing short 300 word articles will not help make a living. It requires lots of research to write even a small article and one can get burnt out very quickly. So switch to writing eBooks or info products and don't charge by the word. Include value added services like eBook cover design, pdf creation (things that you can out-source) and pretty soon you will find yourself making 15$ for every 300 words you write.

Writing an eBook is easier because it helps to keep the flow going without breaks once you are done with the subject matter research.

I have written more than a few articles for offline magazines. I wrote articles about subjects that I was an industry recognized expert for, so I needed to do very little research for them. That meant I could write them very rapidly. In a few of them I interviewed industry execs for quotes, which I included in the articles.

I found that kind of writing extremely fun and rewarding, all monetary compensation aside. It was also a great way to expand my professional circle of influence. Having your resource box next to the article with your smiling picture and bio is worth it's weigh in gold in the print media world. The added bonus is that the pay was quite attractive; far more than even the best paid online free lancers get.

It worked so well for publicity I had execs in our industry ask how much I had to pay for the articles. They were amazed when I revealed to them that it was the other way around.

The other thing that really surprised me when I first started is the low level of professionalism expected by many of the editors. They seemed genuinely surprised when I submitted my work before the deadline and ready to run. Needless to say, that surprised me, and made me wonder what the industry standard was.

It gets easier.

You start getting orders which are very much like earlier orders, particularly when you write for niche IM markets. Yes, the first time I wrote keyword articles for squirrel-proof bird feeders, it was a couple hours of research. Now I don't have to do any research at all. You want ten 500 word articles on squirrel-proof bird feeders, all I have to do is write.

Your research skills improve, too. You develop a series of bookmarks and procedures that you can use to research any topic rapidly, and it doesn't take hours of research anymore.

Your client list gets focused. You start getting a number of clients in the same general area, especially if you get good at some obscure topic that becomes hot.

But most importantly, you put your rates up. Anyone who can write fluent English without spelling and grammar errors should be charging at least two cents a word. If you're a professional, and it sounds like you are, you should be charging at least five. You won't get that straight out of the gate, but you'll be able to get that later on.

And never stop writing your own stuff. People buy writing from you as an investment. When someone pays you $250 for ten articles, it shouldn't be hard to figure out that he's making more than $250 using those articles in his business. Ask questions and keep learning, so you can start putting your writing to work for you. Test it. Try it. See if maybe you can write ten articles for yourself and bring in $500 or more.

I don't freelance anymore. I write my own products. Things that people would pay me $500 to write now make me thousands, and keep earning forever because I still own them and people still buy them. But if I hadn't done all the freelance work I did, I wouldn't be able to do that. My clients gave me a better education than anything else, and paid me for the privilege on top of it.

I stopped doing it after I ended up competing with people who are willing to write for $1 per 500 words.

Work smarter, not harder. Give up writing articles for people lol.

Writing is a God gifted skill, it is not easy for everyone to write on some specific topic. There is a huge difference in writing a book or novel and writing a short article on some technical topic. Those who have good general knowledge and research can really earn as a freelancer writer.
I have a suggestion for part time technical writers to develop their own website or blog for Google absense and write for their own website to keep it updated and attractive for visitors. In this way they can earn more than writing for others.

If you like writing, instead of writing of others, why not either write a book that you sell or write copy for your own products and services? It's the way to go if you are a great writer.

If you can put out some sample articles that are really good then you can charge more. Many people are tired of the articles that they pay good money for that are not worth distributing.

There are many waiters and waitresses in LA that have a screenplay and they are just waiting for their break. That is not a very good business plan though, LOL.

The real money is in copy writing. There are some really good copy writers who have training courses etc. to help you learn and break into the business. But as long as you are trying to compete with the low dollar people you will just spin your wheels.

Just like for many it's a lot easier to get up on the stage and act, or play the part of a character, than it is to go as themselves and be interviewed or give a speech, so it is with people in other aspects of life like writing.

For example, I have always found I make a very strong wing person. I can think of ideas and implement them with great efficiency, and market, etc...when I'm assisting others. I've always had a harder time when trying to do it for myself.

It is likely there are some writers who feel less inhibited when writing for others. You could apply the saying that the "lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client" as well.

I don't know if commercial writing is an art. I suppose it
is if you make it that.

Definitely a "mastery skill" though. Like playing the violin,
like blowing glass. There's no limit to how accomplished
you can become as a practitioner.

Key word practitioner, one who practices.

Alan Weiss's stuff on setting up and running a consulting
business is the best I've read on how to maximize your
income and effectiveness while working part-time hours
and having no real employees. Very valuable to those
wanting to create wealth through thinking, listening,
giving advice, and writing.

I just wanted to point out that this can mean very different things to different people.

Even in the US, cost of living rates vary greatly.

I have always priced my work so I could earn a nice hourly income - for my area. Others, living in other parts of the country, might look at my rates and go :confused:. I, however, am quite happy with my rates.

Without reading all the responses here... To the OP I would suggest that if you want to make a full time living as a writer, then you have to look at your personal ability and leanings first. If you are a clever and compelling/persuasive wordsmith, then you might look at writing copy. If you are a methodical researcher, then ghostwriting may work better for you. Sadly though, for most, articles have become a commodity. So, the pricing is as such.

The other place you could make money as a writer is in producing content for real businesses on the web. Not internet marketers. You could easily sign up a bunch of clients for a few hundred up to probably a thousand bucks a month and just constantly create a and push out content for them linked back to their sites, pages, etc...

Instead of being an "offline consultant" or whatever they are calling it now, you are just producing content for them...

You CAN make a living from it but you need to establish a base of customers first.
In this business MANY orders are repeat orders by customers where you did already jobs for.
Also...i personally tend wanting to get away from the "ezine articles"-style $5/500 words articles, i am simply not going to nor want to "compete" with people who write crap articles in broken English for cheap marketers who pay only peanuts for an "article".

There are more lucrative areas in writing, like reviews, ebooks, sales letters, web content...the cheap people from the so called "developing countries" are not touching those areas since they usually do the crappy ezine-style articles and cannot do more advanced stuff

Freelance writing is a very BROAD subject. If you are only going to focus on SEO articles, then you are going to be forced to compete with low cost providers. If you want to make writing worth your time, you will eventually need to specialize on a specific type of writing that is high value i.e. Copywriting, Technical Writing, etc. Once you begin specializing outside of general SEO articles, your hourly rate should go up significantly, regardless of how much time it takes you to write.

just my 2 cents

If you're going to continue researching and writing articles, use two monitors. One for research, the other for writing. Also, set a desktop timer and limit your research time to 5, 10 or 15 minutes. When your time is up, reset your timer for another 10 minutes or so and write about what you've learned as quickly as possible without over-thinking the process. Don't edit as you write, simply let your writing flow and save editing for your final 10 or 15 minute set.

As time goes on, you'll find that you can cut down on some of the time spent in different phases, particularly as you become more familiar with different topics. Clearly, repeatedly writing within just a few niches also helps. If nothing else, the research gets a lot easier as you begin to know exactly where to go to get exactly what you need research-wise.

When writing $10 articles, you have to place serious limitations on your time. Of course, always strive to offer your clients quality work, but don't spend a lot of time trying to create a masterpiece for ten bucks. If you've spent 30 minutes crafting a decent article, there's no need to spend another hour tweaking it to perfection. It's hard to fight the urge to stop editing sometimes, but at some point you're going to have to determine that the article is worthy of $10 and move on to the next one.

Have you looked into Constant-Content yet? I suggest you do so as it offers an opportunity for you to write on subjects that you're familiar with (and enjoy), which will also cut down on your research time. Oh yeah, and YOU set your own article rates. Some writers use the site as their sole source of income, while others simply use it as an additional revenue steam.

Also, go offline. Things like magazine articles and company newsletters will net you a lot more money per hour. Writer's Digest is a good source to help break into magazine writing, but also try approaching smaller local magazines with article ideas. Or, approach nearby apartment and condo communities and offer to create a monthly tenant newsletter. Remember that the same content can likely also be used for multiple tenant communities with minor changes, which will further increase your per hour earnings.

Think also about writing white papers, speeches, press releases, resumes, bios, greeting cards, etc. If we were to all brainstorm the many different ways to make money writing, I'm fairly confident that we could come up with hundreds of ways that have absolutely nothing to do with SEO, keyword research or Internet marketing. Of course, earning a living as an SEO writer is doable, I'm just making the point that there's no need to stay in that box.

I've found that most people hate writing even if they're halfway good at it (and we know that not everyone is). Then there are those who don't hate it, but who suck at it even if no one's brave enough to tell them as much. A good writer who actually enjoys the work, however, is priceless. Recognizing this is uber important when it comes to actually making a living as a writer.

OK, I think many of you guys are misjudging copywriters and writers in general.

I know some copywriters who can crank a letter out within hours - and charge thousands for it. But what many people fail to realize is that you're not just charging for the time you put in, but the years of experience it took to build up the skills to write like that.

It's crazy to assume that copywriters aren't marketers either. They keep their projects off the radar because there's no point in telling you they write for themselves... there are entire industries outside of the Warrior Forum in case you haven't noticed.

Just clearing that up for anyone else who's "baffled" about why copywriters don't have their own products and sell them. A lot do, they just don't blast out about them.

Same goes for other writers. I believe Alexa only does her own projects now, and I'm sure she could confirm that writing for others beforehand was a great experience builder.

It's a great way to get some passive income going while you learn about different markets through research... you learn all sorts of valuable things like...

- How to research a market and find out what people want

- How business owners are setting up their models (when you charge higher prices for your writing, you get higher quality clients - which means you get a peak into what they're doing to make money). Not suggesting that writers will copy their clients projects - although there were a few threads by concerned marketers. That's very rare in my experience.

- You learn how to manage your time... you can't be slaving away for hours on a project - you can crank them out as fast as you can, while maintaining quality.

- You learn how to put together a project and put the pedal to the metal... that goes for your own projects and clients. Too many people procrastinate - they don't know what to write, how to put pieces of information together, blah, blah, blah.

Think about the uses for those skills!

Freelancing is a great way to get started online. Moral of the story - Don't judge books by their covers (thought that was a fitting metaphor, lol)...

- Dean

Hey Terry

I am a writer myself and also help train others.

I have to say - I am a good writer... not a great writer, but where I and the people I train excel is in combining that skill with EXCELLENT and fast research.

From running an outsourcing business I found that the biggest hurdle for most writers actually had nothing to do with 'writing' and everything to do with their lack of research skills (meaning they did not know how to find relevant information quickly).

There are 4 different approaches you can take to really boost your profit per hour:

1 - Only bid/accept jobs that you have at least a basic knowledge of beforehand. If you see a job that wants 5 articles about astrophysics and you know nothing about it, just give that job a miss. Build up a list of topics that you know about and rate your knowledge (eg basic/in-depth) and try to stick with those.

2 - Use the "one problem - one solution" rule. If you are writing about dog grooming, keep your research as specific as possible - don't get caught up reading about related topics ie dog diet, health, etc.

3 - Never 'waste' research. I recommend grabbing text relevant to your research and saving it in Word or your bookmarks, clearly marking it so that you already have a head start the next time you write about that topic.

If you do end up doing a heap of research on a new topic - after you deliver the work to the client, throw together a quick ebook on that topic off the top of your head (eg. "Dog grooming secrets: 10 ways to keep that coat shiny" about 5,000 words), then upload it to Kindle to sell. That way not only have you learned and given the client the work, you have also set up a passive income stream for yourself every time someone buys your book on Kindle

Multi-tasking is key to squeezing every bit of value you can out of anything you do.

4 - Brush up on your online research skills and bookmark handy sites to use for research. Wikipedia is always a great start if you know NOTHING about a topic and gives you ideas of keywords to use in your research to get the most relevant results.

Make sure you know how to use all of Google's advanced search features - they are invaluable in refining data so you get the info most relevant to you

TIP = DONT write for marketers lol... seriously I have met too many people in the marketing community who want TONS of articles for next to nothing.

I pay writers what they are worth

Copywriters I will pay anywhere from $300 a sales page upwards
Article writers I will pay anywhere from $20 per article. Heck I have even paid $100 for a 1000 word article...

This way I get quality.... plus lets face it... usa, canada, england and australia dont work at Indian rates ( pakistan is killing the usa economy coming in and doing articles for $3 or $8 an article )

You get what you pay for in the end!...

what makes me laugh is people want quality but they dont want to pay for it..

Then they end up with poorly written articles, having to re have them done..

Just do it right first time and pay people what they are worth $20 an article is not much when it can take a good hour to write a decent well researched article. If they do it by word count... anywhere from 0.05 to 0.08 cents a word is good in my books

Unless it is an extremely difficult and complex subject, you should not need 3 hours to write 400 words. Maybe an indication that article writing is not for you.

I don't know about you, but it is indeed the case i see MANY people offering "article writing" where its just too obvious that they have no business WHATSOEVER to do so.

The "funniest" thing is if such people have the audacity to point potential customers very proudly to their "quality" sample articles - and the sample articles are already HORRIBLE. (As seen yesterday).

I really think that many "writers" don't even know how bad they are really.

They make a living by writing.

I do agree that the competition from developing areas is so stiff.
My advice is to try to go upmarket.
Emphasize quality and charge more.
Enough of us have been burned by low cost mediocrity.

I make a full time living writing online, love the flexibility and freedom, and I only type with 2 fingers, very slow.

I got Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 and it tripled my writing speed.

YYes, it is $100 (sometime it is on sale) but I speak now, and crank out 4 - 6 GOOD 400 word articles per hour.

It is stupid-quick directly out of the box.

I work 4 or 5 hours for clients, and make a full time living, then spend any extra time that I want on my own product creation and IM efforts.

I highly recommend it.

But the bottom line is, if you are researching forever, it is going to be tough to make it as an Internet Writer. You need to be able to quickly scan a fe wsources, copy and paste for a couple of notes (like specs and numbers that are hard to remember, not to copy and paste for content!) slam out a good, smooth, flowing article, then move on to the nest article.

From what it sounds like, I believe you are probably a writer with above average or even great ability, and that is what makes it tough. You want everything to be perfect and the best ever.

You have to learn "systems", like a pattern I use, that is your own.

But I definitely recommend Dragon Naturally Speaking Home edition 11.

It will increase your publishing time 2 to 5 times.

Speak, spell check and save.
Super quick.

Good luck.

Patrick

Wolhouse

That is what my boyfriend did when he started online, but he never did make money doing it, I thought about doing it myself after watching him make a little bit of money, but you have to write too many of them to get any money and takes too long, it might be ok for a short-time thing but not for the long hall.

Thank You
Christina

Most writers just focus on a subject they are versed in, as you've found out, having to research the subject matter will reduce their hourly rate, so they stick with what they know, and when free time comes around they brush up on potential subjects they would like to be versed in

Hi Terry ,

If writing is what you like but takes too much time , how about having dragon fly (I am not sure about ) speech software which you can edit rather than having to type each words . That could save you a lot of time .

Ebook writing is also more lucrative most cost $300 upwards so if you enjoy doing a bit of research then it is a good

The choice is ultimately yours what you want to do

Writing is becoming a commodity, almost. If you choose to write PLR, I'd consider using TheBestSpinner and creating unique versions of your articles as opposed to the same article for everyone. As long as the quality is high, you could sell 10 packs of unique articles in popular niches and probably do pretty well for the effort involved.

Write about what you know. Find local firms, if needs be, who could benefit from article marketing as a marketing strategy and have them sign you up on a retainer fee. If you charged say, $500 a month and you had 10 businesses on a retainer fee, that's a cool $5,000 a month writing on what you know for their blogs, directory submissions -- whatever! I worked in the travel industry for 10 years and published a regular newsletter back then. Now, I write for the travel trade (tour operators, travel agencies, hotels & lodges, airlines) on a retainer fee.

Yes, there is.

Don't try to compete with those writing for $5, $3, $2, $1 or even less per article. You will get nowhere.

Instead, position yourself as a professional writer and charge more. A lot more.

There are plenty of clients who are more than willing to pay $25 and up - way up - for well written articles. Try starting out at $25 per article and aim to raise to $75 per article eventually - or more.

At $25 per article you only need to write four a day to get $100 a day. Just because the crowd are all competing for table scraps ($5 and less per article), doesn't mean you have to as well.

Stay away from content mills, bidding freelance sites and starving webmasters. They will never pay enough. Believe in your own abilities and position yourself as a professional writer who charges accordingly. It works.

John.

I see alot of people using comapnies such as oDesk to ignite their online writing careers. Most of them start cheap, but with experience alot of them start charging a hefty hourly rate and still get the jobs.

Wow I realized I epically failed on my pricing (lol). .0075 and .015 are the numbers I was aiming for there.

do writers really earn a good money..if yes then i ll start..

I am a pretty quick writer - I have no trouble looking at several resources and piecing together an article rather quickly. I can write in almost any niche that way.

That said, not everyone can research the same way. If you find it takes you a ton of time to write an article, you may want to consider finding a very specific niche and sticking with it as much as possible. Are there certain topics or subjects you like that do not take you as long as others to focus on?

With that in mind, sticking to a niche might make it harder for you to find freelance work; so I'd suggest starting a website that focuses on your niche so that you can sell original content (or even PLR - check out Tiffany Dow's PLR ATM course on how to start that type of business).

When I first came here and started my content business there was almost no one doing it. Times have changed, big time. Now everyone is trying to undercut everyone else with their writing and so forth. It's wild.

Here's my advice: get into content writing and get out, use the cash to fund bigger and smarter projects.

I was always wondering how someone could make a living writing 20 articles for $5 or something which always seemed like nothing compared to the time. But I guess if you are more well known then you could charge a lot more.

If you are really good at writing copy you can make a lot of money. Imagine writing a sales page for 5 to 15k! You just need to set your sites on what you want to do and aim for it.

Don't write for others if you really want to make money - unless you're getting paid premium rates for copywriting.

There are a million ways to make good amounts of money with writing, but almost none of them involve working for someone else >_>

Any writer who wants to gauge their level of expertise and talent should submit their next ten articles to offline magazines. The great majority of physical magazines will provide you with submission guidelines at your request. You may also find this information by searching online.

Since most magazine editors will critique your articles, your ten article submission will provide you with an excellent lesson in article writing. Correct your errors, do the rewrites and submit again.

Getting even one article accepted will put you on a whole new path away from the one cent per word market. Adding your accepted offer to your writer's portfolio will also add to your prestige as a writer.

HINT: Most writers make their living through sales to physical media (ie; books, newsletters, magazines, brochures, etc.)

You may have to build-up a solid portfolio first before you can establish yourself as a Quality writer. Sure it takes time, but any kind of success requires exactly that - patience and real effort. You have to be willing to make some sacrifices to improve your skills

You need to move up the scale from article writing to sales copywriting. That's where the value is, and therefore that's where the money is.

from what I've seen they go to freelance sites like odesk and guru.com to tell people about their writing skills and people hire them to write content.

By writing good stuff.

by writing stuff that makes sense ... all of the above posts hits right on the spot