What’s the number one thing everyone is craving after online? You guessed it: information. If you can meet the demands for this information, you can be paid quite handsomely for doing so. You can even build a solid career out of writing on the web, provided you can produce consistent, quality content.
Writing is a skill that’s in demand everywhere, not just on the internet; magazines, newspapers, and advertisers of all kinds are in constant need of new material. Overall though, there are a great many more writing opportunities available on the internet, which offers easier success for a beginning writer. The reason is simple, just consider how many website owners, bloggers, newsletters, zines, etc. that need fresh content weekly or even daily. As you might imagine, the vast majority of this work is being done by paid workers.
Ghostwriting
Most online publishers will go to sites such as Elance, or Get A Freelancer to locate “ghostwriters” willing to write content according to their specifications. There are positives and negatives to writing for clients through these types of sites. On the plus side, you negotiate a price for your work before you start writing, and you can be quite confident of payment. The downside is that you only get paid once for your work and usually must relinquish all rights of authorship.
In the beginning it can be difficult to build contacts or write for specific requirements on topics you know little or nothing about, but with practice you will pick up speed. Eventually you will gain the confidence to be able to juggle multiple assignments and meet deadlines on time. As your contact list and reputation grows, you will then not only have plenty of work, but be able to charge much more for it as well.
Instead of going solo and working with clients yourself, you may also seek out a ghostwriting team. You can find them by searching online, then check their website or send an email to see if they are currently accepting new writers. This is a good choice for people who just want to write, but don’t want to bother with finding assignments, as the topics are generally chosen by the team leader.
PLR
Besides ghostwriting, another option for writers is to write Private Label Rights (PLR) content. PLR is similar to ghostwritten content in that you pass the rights to the work on to the buyers, but the difference is that you write the content yourself beforehand, according to what you can see is in demand, then sell it to multiple buyers. You can then give buyers of the content a very inexpensive rate, and make much more selling it over and over than you would to a single individual for a premium.
Publishing
Many authors prefer not to relinquish rights to their articles at all, or wish to write about topics concerning their specific expertise or passion. In this case, writers might distribute their works through sites such as Yahoo Publisher Network, article directories, or their own blogs, and make money by way of endorsements placed within or around the content. In this case pay is not instant, and not even assured, but articles published this way can be far more lucrative than articles simply sold off for a one time price.
Is it really possible to earn a full time income as an article writer? The answer is that yes, it not only is possible, thousands of people are full time writers online as proof. You might be surprised at what some writers earn per year, or even per month! Of course, speed and quality are the keys that must be mastered in order to earn a consistent income by writing online, but so is knowledge of which publication channels yield the most return for your efforts.