Get Paid to Write

Get Paid to Write

This page is a work in progress and under construction :) Please check back occasionally

Getting paid to write online comes in many different forms. There are a lot of different opportunities, but a lot depends on what kind of writer you are and what you want to do. There are professional level opportunities and opportunities for casual writers as well. To that end, I'm going to split this list into a few different categories.

Freelance Sites
Content Mills
Classifieds
Professional Freelance Writing
Poetry and Fiction
Blogging

If you are on twitter, you should follow @tweelancewriter - this feed lists writing job opportunities of every type mentioned here

Freelance Sites

Freelance Sites work by allowing you to bid on jobs posted by buyers. For instance, a buyer will post a job asking for a writer to do 10, 500-word articles. They need these articles by a certain date and their budget is $250 max. What you would do is bid on the work by basically saying you can do it, have it done on time and then say how much you would be willing to do the work for. The buyer chooses the option that is most attractive or most inline with their needs. There are a ton of these sites, and some are better than others. I'm also simplifying how they work a little as well. However, there is a ton of money to be made with these sites, especially if you get your ratings up.

Many of these sites also offer affiliate and referral programs for extra income. Once again, some are better than others. You can also retain private contacts from these sites allowing you to do more business outside of the freelance site itself.

I have personally made money with several freelance sites, both as a writer and as an affiliate. One of the main benefits of these types of sites is that they offer many ways to make money, even outside of writing work. Most of them list jobs of all types, and many are very heavy on art and design work, not just writing. But the writing work listed can be of any type. You may be asked to write articles, reviews, descriptions, scripts, ghost write a book and every other type of writing work you can think of.

If you do sign up for a freelance site, it's probably best to focus on just one or two and use others as a backup. There are literally hundreds of these sites. Some are definitely better than others. I will list the few that I like or have made money with.

Freelancer - This is a big one, possibly the most popular freelance site. Formerly known as GetaFreelancer - Many freelance job sites really just aggregate the work from this site. Read more about Freelancer here

ScriptLance -

vWorker - Not the friendliest site for navigation, but offers the best referral program of these types of sites - Click this link to visit vWorker.com

WriterLance - A freelance site for writers

Content Mills

Content Mills get a bad rap among the writing community. But for a person just trying to make some money online, they are a perfect way to do it. The biggest complaint against them is that they expect a lot of quality work, but for very little pay. I would say that it's all in how you look at it. I do work for many content mills and I can see the benefits of using them. I even enjoy working for some of them.

Content mill is also an umbrella term, as there are a lot of them but they all don't operate the same way. There are two major types of content mills. Ones that pay a flat fee for an article and ones that pay residuals on ad clicks and/or page views. There are a few content mills that do a little of both.

While it's entirely possible to make full-time wages as a content mill writer, you will never make as much as you can by writing for yourself as a freelance writer and finding your own clients. However, content mills are an excellent way to find clients, make extra money and build up experience. Those with a true passion for writing should not put all of their talent into a content mill. However, for those that are just looking for extra money or for casual writers that don't have that full-time writer's ambition can get a lot of value out of a content mills.

The biggest benefit of using content mills is the ability to find private clients. On many of the mills, you can set your own per-client price and if you do quality work, odds are that client will be willing to pay for it.

There are tons of content mills, here are a few that I like.

Triond - Publish virtually any type of content that you want. Earn money on views and ad revenue. Retain full ownership of your work. Also offers a referral program.

Wizzley - Similar to Triond. Allows more options for content and ad placement. Also has a referral program.

WritersDomain - Pays a flat fee of $3 for a 200-word minimum article.

Textbroker - Pays on client acceptance. Payment based on writer's rating. Writers allowed to set their own prices for directly requested work.

Interact Media - Pays on client acceptance. Payment based on writer's rating. Writers allowed to set their own prices for directly requested work.

MediaPiston -

Professional Freelance Writing

This option offers the most money, but also requires the most skill. I would suggest that unless you consider yourself a writer, have a passion for writing or see writing as a career, then you should not attempt professional freelancing. Professional freelancing mostly involves writing for yourself, seeking out clients and other freelance opportunities. Many journalists and magazine article writers are freelancers.

There are a ton of opportunities out there for freelance writers. And really, this type of freelance writing is beyond the scope of this particular page. Professional freelancing is not for making a few quick bucks online. However, many writers that start with the above mentioned writing opportunities eventually go on to have successful freelance and professional copywriting careers.

*I will add links with more information soon*

Creative Writing

Much like professional freelancing, but more for those of you with a story in your heart or a poem or song on your brain. There are hundreds of places that accept online story and poetry submissions. Many pay, some are for the love. Also, like the professional freelance category, this one is a little outside the realm of this page. However, you can check http://writersguidelines.blogspot.com/ for some markets.

Keep in mind that these days, you don't have to go through a traditional publisher like in the past. You don't have to mail out manuscripts to magazine editors neither. You can publish yourself, create your own ebooks and many publishers readily accept email and online submissions these days.

*I will add links with more information soon*

Blogging

This is an interesting way of making money. Blogging is an open category as you can blog about literally anything that you want. If you can find and engage an audience, there's no end to the amount of money you can earn or the opportunities you can open up.


The lists presented here are not exhaustive. I will be adding a lot more links later. If there is some information that you would like to know, then just leave a comment or send a message and I will be more than happy to help you.