How To Make Money Online By Writing

So, the big question that everyone is wondering: How to make money online by writing? Is it even possible, and which platform and or website, should you be using?

How much can you be paid per job or per word or per minute of transcribed audio or video? How easy or how difficult is it to land your first writing job, and how should you get started?

Well, in this article, we’ll try to go over and cover, as many of these questions as possible, so that you have a clearer idea, whether or not making money online by writing, is something that you’d like to get involved in.

Let’s check it out.

So…Why Make Money Online By Writing? 

So why make money online by typing and writing at all? Is it even a good idea to begin with? Aren’t there better ways out there to make money online? Isn’t written content creation saturated? Do people even read or write anymore?

I’m sure there are other, faster and probably “better ways” to make money online out there (unless you really really love writing), but making money online by writing, is something that pretty much everyone can do.

All you need, is a pc and an internet connection, and you’re off to the races.

And you might be thinking: “But wouldn’t writing content for money be super saturated, if the entry barrier is so low, that anybody can do it?” ?

Well, it would look to be the case, but actually…there is a lot of demand for written content creation.

A lot of businesses and business owners need content for their sites and blogs. Rather than writing it themselves (which takes a lot of time and effort to do and to get right) it takes a lot of weight out of their shoulders, if they could hire someone else to do this part for them so that they can continue working on what they do best.

This means that anyone that is in need of written stories, written reviews or product review articles, essays, quotes, infographics and the likes…is your potential customer.

So make no mistake…Written content, is very much in demand.

Heck, even I’m, that always writes his own content, will personally be going to buy a few tens of thousands of words, for around $1200…which is “a lot of money” for written content.

The thing is, a LOT of people is looking for content.

Since written content is in such high demand, if you have any experience writing and are interested in making some money on the side, you can easily find jobs and gigs, all over the web.

So how to make money online by writing? Here are the steps to follow.

• Figure out which kind of job you’d like doing. It can be article writing, transcribing (video or audio), translating (essentially transcribing, but in another language) captioning, of others. 
  
  
• Find a marketplace or website to sell your service.
  
  
• You offer your service or post the job.
  
  
• You complete the service, depending on both what the client wants, as well as following the policies of the website or platform you’ve chosen to work on.
  
  
• You get paid.  

 

How Much Money Can You Make With Written Content?

In the case of article writing, you can expect to make anywhere from 0.01-0.1 cents per word (or even more) depending on your skill on the subject, your track record, and other factors, although native speakers in the desired language will probably be looking at the 0.1 cent range.

It really does depend, but if you’re starting out, don’t have any track record, no testimonials or sample work, you’ll probably want to start at the bottom, and work your way upwards. Getting paid 0.1 cents per word, looks like it’s not that much, but it really does add up. ?

If you’re okay with writing a well researched and well put together article of 1000 words, you can make anything from $10 to $30 or even $100, and when you get more experienced and have more job samples and testimonials, you’ll be able to get referrals and you can start upping your price range and even charge by the hour.

If you’re transcribing or captioning, then you’ll usually be paid for every minute of audio or video that you get completed (usually around $0.5-$1 per audio or video minute) and if you’re doing bigger projects, it can be anything from $200-$500, obviously depending on the project. 

Some other sites, like Medium.com, can pay you for the amount of people that view your content and how much interaction it gets. I’ve written about making money with Medium in this article here. The uspide of this strategy in particular, is that you can write your own content and get paid for that, instead.

Making money with writing, is something that definitely takes time, and just like any other skill…you might not see very little results in the beginning, but if you stick with it long enough and you work on it all the time, you’ll be able to reap the benefits down the line. 

Want To Write Articles? Before You Begin…

So now you know you want to make money online by writing. You’ve made up your mind. You want to write content, you know it’s something that you’re good at, and although it might feel a bit terrifying at first, you know that you’ll get better with time.

So what should you do now?

Well, you’ll simply want to head out to different websites, and present your services as a writer, and get started writing.

BUT…

If you’re starting out, I would personally recommend you creating a portfolio of written content (articles, review, quotes, poems and other pieces) that you’ve written, so that the potential clients have an idea of what you’re background is, and what they can more or less expect to get out of your writing services.

I would, for example, have 10 articles written, in the 500-1000 word article in a few different topics, just to be safe (if I didn’t have this website to show). This really ups the chance of you getting gigs, because it shows professionalism and a track record. 

Another really powerful thing that I would recommend you doing before throwing yourself out there in the trenches, which will allow you to virtually guarantee that you’ll find a gig a lot easier, is the following:

Work for free, in exchange for a testimonial (In the beginning).

And you might be thinking “What? Writing for free? Why?” ?

Well, it’s not exactly “for free”. You’ll be getting a testimonial in exchange, which in the writing industry…is HUGE. 

Nobody wants to be the “first one” to do anything (unless they’re competing in some Guinness world record or something) and by you showing that someone else already has done business with you and where happy about your work, highly increases the likelihood of someone else going ahead and purchasing your writing services.

Best Websites To Sell Your Writing Services 

Okay so now you hopefully have somewhat of a track record, you have some testimonials and a few samples under the belt…where should you go and sell your services at?

Well, there are a number of legit websites out there that you can use to make money from your typing skills. There are some really bad ones, some really competitive ones, and others that are really good. Here are some of the most popular websites that you can use, that are legit.

Upwork.com

Upwork is just one of the most recognized freelance websites around. This website is a bit too competitive for beginners, and I wouldn’t recommend you getting started with Upwork, unless you’ve got some experience.

Upwork functions on a “bidding mechanism”, where you as a writer will have to use credits that the website gives you, to apply for the different jobs. You then get contacted by the job poster, and you can get to an agreement within the website.

I myself, was never able to land a job as a translator or a writer here, when I started out, although I was amongst the highest ranking English to Spanish translator test takers in the entire platform (whatever that means).

The good thing here, is that you can also find other freelancing tasks, that can parallel your writing skills, and you can offer those too. You also have some tests that you can take, which enhances your profile, gives you more credibility and shows more professionalism.

Upwork pays by bank transfer, Paypal as well as by Payoneer.

Rev.com

Rev.com is a website that allows you to make money by typing both from audios and videos, onto text. . You can make money by recording audio data, captioning Youtube videos and so on and they pay out via PayPal.

There are two different types of jobs that you can do, inside of Rev.com.

• The first is being a Transcriptionist. This is where you listen to audio and video and you accurately type what is being said, at any given moment in time and you also label speakers. And for this job, you can make $0.30-$1.10 per audio/video minute.
  
  
• The other option is to be a Captioner. This is where you watch a video and you also accurately type what is being said. You also need to sync both the typed out audio, with the playing video. Here the range of pay is $0.54-$1.10 per audio/video minute.

Last I checked, Rev.com wasn’t accepting any more writers, but you can head over to their site to see. It’s a great site that pays out weekly, allows you to work as much or as little as you want, and also allows you to choose from whichever topic you want. What more can you ask for?

Freelancer.com

Freelancer is another great website that you can use to earn money by writing short articles. It’s an Australian online marketplace that offers different services from SEO, to linkbuilding, illustration, 3D design, website design and of course…content and article writing.

To get started with Freelancer you need to create an account which is free to do, and after logging into your account, you can set up the different skills that you have, then go to “Work” then “Browse Categories”. Here, you can choose the category that you want.

You can then select the project that you want, and bid on those projects. Use your bids wisely, because the free subscription plan (free account) only allows up to 8 bids, for a certain amount of time.

You’ll then want to wait for any customer that decides to accept your bid, and if you both come to an agreement, then you can set a “milestone” which is sort of like a “checkpoint” to see if the customer is happy with the initial results, and wants to continue with the job.

After the job is completed, you both get to rate one another, as both sellers and buyers (very similar to UpWork actually). Keep in mind that the rating system in Freelancer, is very important. 

Payment methods include Paypal, Skrill, Payoneer and Wire transfer too.

TranscribeMe.com

TranscribeMe is another online website, in which you can make money by transcribing audio into text (similar to rev.com).

This website, pays out around $15-$22/per audio hour and their top earners make around $2000 per month, where the average monthly earning of their transcribers are at $250 per month.

A great thing about transcribeme.com, is that there is no experience needed and that you can actually get promoted within the company and grow into higher paying positions and projects, which I think is pretty interesting. ?

You can sign up for free, and after taking a small accuracy test, you’ll be ready to be part of the pool of transcribers. You can work from the comfort of your own home, whenever and how much you want, you can transcribe short audio clips and micro tasks. 

They also pay regularly and securely via PayPal. 

CrowdSurfWork.com

CrowdSufWork.com provides on-demand transcription and captioning services. Thousands of captioning and transcription jobs are posted online on their website, every day, which means that you as a writer, can get a piece of the action.

If you’d like to be a part of helping deaf people and second language learners out with subtitles, then Crowdsurf, is a great option.

A great thing about crowdsurf, like with some of the other websites on this list, is that you don’t need to have previous transcription experience. They help you get started with all the training and support you need to start making money writing, and all you need is to create a free account, have a computer and an internet connection.

Similar to transcribeme.com, you’ll have to take an assessment test, after which, you’ll have your account ready and you can start transcribing.

The length of the audio files you’ll have to work with go from 5 seconds to 30 seconds for each audio clip, and the payment ranges from $0.03-$0.20 per media minute plus additional bonus rates. 

Personally, I wouldn’t say that making 3 cents per minute ($1.8 per hour of audio) is worth it…it probably isn’t. So if you’re not making the upper tier of that amount, I wouldn’t recommend Crowdsuft.com. So that is something to keep in mind.  

Payout through Direct deposit, Paypal, and a few other methods.

Fiverr.com

If you haven’t heard of Fiverr, you must have been living under a rock…for a while.

Fiverr.com is among the biggest freelance marketplaces worldwide, that offers services of all kinds for the low cost of 5 dollars (hence the name).

The upside of Fiverr, is that it’s really simple to get started. All you need to do is create an account and post the jobs that you’re offering. Fiverr, also works on a “rating based” system, meaning that the better your job and the happier clients are with your work, the more chances of getting more gigs (and more frequently) you have.

Here’s the catch though…

If you’re selling your services, at $5 a pop…it’ll be difficult to make a lot of money, since you’re not guaranteed to get a gig, like in the other websites that we mentioned.  For this reason, and if you want to get the most out of Fiverr, you need to create “add ons”.

These are complimentary services that you can add on top of the original one, to increase the amount of money you make per gig, which is what most of the sellers inside of Fiverr, that are making good money, are doing. 

The downside to Fiverr, is that it’s generally regarded as being low quality, and the writing industry, is no different. 

It’s difficult to sell your online services on Fiverr, because there is a lot of competition. Low quality writers, undercut each other on prices, and as a buyer…you want the “best bang for your buck”.

This usually ends up with customers buying spun articles or written content that doesn’t make any sense, they get burnt and it gives the platform a bad rap.

To be successful in Fiverr, you’ll want to have some credibility established, some sample works and maybe some testimonials. This will give you a huge boost in the marketplace.  

Conclusion

There you have it everyone, those are some of the top ways on how to make money online by writing, as well as some of the top websites that I’ve personally found out there, that you can use to get started makeing money online writing, as soon as today.

There are for sure a lot of better ways to make money online, but getting started with something as simple as writing, whether that be transcribing audio, video, article writing, or anything in between…is a great idea because it doesn’t require you to learn any new skills and you can get started today.

Be sure to pick and choose one strategy, and keep working on it until you see results. After that, you can branch out into different avenues and try different websites and strategies.

Peace.