Make Money Online: Become a Freelance Writer

Anyone can make a living online as long as they're self-motivated and willing to put in the work. I love being a freelancer because it means I can control when I work and how long I work from day to day. This means that I can take whatever time I want to play with my son or have dinner with my husband or go for walks to the park as long as I find time to work (usually whenever Steven, our son, goes to sleep). Because I can work when I want and as long as I want, I also have control over how much money I make each day.

Probably the easiest route to success as a freelancer is freelance writing. All you need is a decent grasp on the English language and Google. There are many sites out there for freelancers in general, but save yourself some time and sign up for the sites created just for writers. Below you'll find links to the two that I've had the most success with. If you know of any other good ones, please comment.

Constant Content
This site is like ebay for freelance writers. You can write about whatever you want (so long as you follow the guidelines) and post it on the site for people to buy. There is also a request area, and if you write articles specifically for the requests they usually sell, and if they don't sell to the original requester they just get added to the general market place. You can sell your articles for usage, unique or full rights. Usage means it sells for less, but can be re-sold for usage rights indefinitely. Unique means it can only be sold once, but your name is still attached to it and the buyer can't change it at all. Full rights means the buyer can pretty much pretend they wrote it, put their name on it and change it however they want. Most people want to buy full rights, but you can make about $20 off of a one-page article.

Demand Studios
This is definitely my easiest and biggest money maker. You get paid about $15 an article and you write for sites like ehow and about.com. The up side is that every article that follows the guidelines earns you money, so there's no worrying about whether it will sell or not. However, it is harder to apply to this one. You need to submit a resume and have examples of previous work and then wait to be accepted. My suggestion is to start with Constant Content and apply to Demand Studios once you have a few published works to show.

You have to put in lots of work to make money from these sites, but they pay well and if you like writing, it's a great way to make money doing something you enjoy. There is no limit to the different topics available on both sites, so there's always something interesting to write about. Half the time when I write an article I don't even know about the subject, I just see it in the requests and go "what's that?" and google it out of curiosity. It's a great way for me to learn more, write and make money (all of which I enjoy).