March Freelance Writing Goals: Calling It In

Calling It 2 Days Early

So this month definitely wasn't what I was hoping for - and it seemed that a ridiculous amount of things went horribly wrong as if there was some universal conspiracy to make my life and freelance writing career stressful and frustrating. But these things happen, and all we can do is keep going. The one time for me when goals can become a huge albatross instead of an enabler is when I'm closing in on the end of the goal time and know the goals are no longer achievable, but because of an OCD habit to put up a large sheet of paper with a circle representing every article in my goal I begin to get frustrated when not every one is crossed out. So I'm calling it early because I think considering the surrounding circumstances, it was a very good month and besides, I prefer doing helpful articles for my readers, like the recent Demand Studios review.

So, this month which I was hoping would be a month of quiet before the storm, turned out to have plenty of rough moments on its own. For starters, our "amazing" cable and Internet provider's Internet went down four times this month, for blocks of no less than 8 hours. This isn't including frequent 2 am to 5 am outages, which are my best work hours during the day. That didn't help, and would be a killer to my freelance writing career even in the quietest of months.

Then there were personal issues that had to be resolved, an editing job that looked easy but became a disaster, and the delay of a major contract that would have allowed me to hit the $5,000 goal I set for myself. Not all was bad, as some of the delays were due to me not working for an entire day on two separate occasions because of opportunities that came up that were both business and/or creative related and I'm a firm believer in not letting potential once in a life time opportunities slip by. Whether they work out or not, who knows? But freelance writers can't be afraid to take chances, and occasionally a Hail Mary pass wins the football game.

Anyhow, back to the writing goals. I'll talk a little bit more about this at the end, but as for 30 days in March there were multiple Internet problems, including major outages for 4 days and minor ones for another 10 (believe me, I'd switch companies if we could, but where we live we have one choice and that's it, so I'll deal with it). In addition to all that, I can say there were 7 days where I did virtually nothing. I'm not trying to use that as a justification for the mythical "what I could have done," but take it as a guide that if I can do this much in 23 days with a lot of interference and Internet problems, think what can be done with your writing goals and career when you simply focus and decide to obsess for one month to improve your lot.

So let's go over the goals and see how I did. Original goals will be in bold.

Freelance Writing Goals

Over $5,000 in freelance writing income. This does NOT include passive income or increases in passive income sources like AdSense or eHow. I fell $1,500 short of this goal, which I won't say was easily achievable if everything went right, but in a calm month I would be able to do it without any problem, something I wasn't sure of when I started this month. Add in the passive income, editing work, and what I'm likely to do in the next two days, and I got within $600.

Double my AdSense income in one month. I did not honestly expect this one to be doable, and I understand that the majority of HubPages hubs and InfoBarrel articles aren't going to start getting decent traffic and producing until later down the line as they climb the SERPs. In fact, it's safe to say that all the new articles and hubs I made will make several times what they make now in just a few months...which was part of the point of this exercise, to get the work done. Obviously since I'm calling it quit before the end of the month, I'm going to guess by making the last two days of the month equal to my worst day in March. Based on that, my AdSense did go up 37% in one month and just based on the work I've done, it wouldn't surprise me if this month's number doubled or more by the end of June. So I'm very happy with those results.

Double my eHow income in one month. Done. Even with 2 days to go I can say I already hit this one, and I'm obviously extremely happy with those results.

Get the AdSense income to over $100/month for me and my brother's business. Didn't even come close, but we did double the AdSense income, even though this part of the business pretty much fell completely by the wayside after the first week of March.

Creative Writing Goals
Finish 3 more zombie short stories. Technically I haven't finished one, but I'm ridiculously close to having all 3 finished (in fact it might be done by the end of the month). And even though I agree with Ernest Hemingway's quote: "The first draft of anything is shit." I'm really pleasantly surprised by the potential these stories are already showing.

Finish 2 more chapters of the novel "Broken" I'm helping to co-write. One chapter will be done by the end of the month. The other won't be.

Finish 4 chapters of the novel I'm writing for my sister. This one I wish I had found more time for and is the one I regret not getting further on the most. One chapter is done. A second will be done soon.

First 20 pages of my novella "Pawprints to Saskatoon." 5 pages are completed, and there is a much more complete outline. The last 3 pages are also written.

First 10 pages of "Men with Beards" screenplay I'm helping to write on spec. Still developing the ideas on this one, but on the actual writing this one is a goose egg.

Write, complete, revise, and send out 2 additional short stories. I am about three quarters of the way through 1 additional short story, but no hint of a 2nd.

Passive Income Writing Goals.

Write 100 InfoBarrel articles. Wrote 50. Built 50 backlinks to various published InfoBarrel articles through writing more articles.

Write 100 new HubPages. Will have 45 by the end of the month. Did some huge backlinking work on some hubs that were starting to rank really well for a couple really good money making keywords.

Write 15 new Squidoo lenses. Will have 5 finished by the end of the month, although 10 half filled outlines are waiting "in progress."

Write 30 new Xomba articles. All 30 will be written by the end of the month. If bookmarks counted I'd be about 100+ over on this one.

Other Writing Goals

Minimum 8 blog posts on this blog this month.
This blog post makes #6. I could sneak two more in, but that would just feel like cheating. Still, 6 in a month isn't bad for me, and definitely would have had 8 if the Internet was up for any amount of time.

Minimum 12 blog posts over at my "Fixing My Life" blog. Only managed 5, probably be 7 or 8 by the end of the month. But still going swimmingly despite this past month, so hey, having it happen is a whole heck of a lot more important to this freelance writer than blogging about hoping it does.

Rough scripts out for YouTube parodies (pet project). Yes and no. I have 5 scripts. Somehow they're all newer ideas that weren't at all the ones I was talking about. Well, we'll chalk that up to being a great problem to have.

100 articles for backlinks via the KWA directories. By the end of the month I'll have over 80 posted.

30 articles for UAW (which is really 90+ since you have to have 3 versions of each plus hand put in all those annoying boxes at the end). Well this one didn't go nearly as well as I hoped. I'll have 6 done by the end of the month. I'm not counting the 8 I had outsourced.

Revise my poetry portfolio. This didn't happen. I'll arbitrarily blame spring fever for this one.

10 personal hand written letters through the month of March. Five down and five being written over the next two days, so this will be a check.

And other stuff never mentioned in the goals: I've written over 100 articles this month for article marketing purposes, not to mention work gathering backlinks, some guest blog posts, setting up new niche sites, all the work I did for my brother's and I's business, and about 120 pages towards e-books I'm writing for the future. There's probably more here I'm forgetting. It's been a busy month, despite some burn out days, some days without the web, and some days where personal matters had to trump everything else.

So even though I didn't hit a lot of the goals, I feel pretty great. Based on the numbers here, I think had this month gone smoothly, I actually would have accomplished most of the goals I set out, which seems outright insanely awesome to me.

Besides, when I look at how much is done, how can I be upset? Most of this work, I'll see the full benefits in the weeks, months, and even years to follow. When summarized:

• I've built over 500 backlinks to my sites (not even including UAW) and web properties
• 50 new InfoBarrel articles
• 45 new hubs
• 5 new Squidoo lenses
• 30 new Xomba articles (not even counting the 100+ bookmarks that tend to rank really well with Google for some reason)
• 6 good long Master Dayton blog posts
• eHow income doubled with AdSense up 70%
• More creative writing in one month than I've done in nearly two years

And this was a BAD month where everything seemed to be going wrong. One of the greatest benefits of this experiment is that it's shattered a lot of glass ceilings. If this is what I can do in a bad month, then how much more could I do in a good month? For decades people believed that a 4 minute mile was impossible. Once that barrier was broken once, it opened a floodgate and that barrier has been broken hundreds, if not thousands, of times since.

I think the same thing applies to writing goals, whether creative or freelance. With a lot of my ideas of "realistic" shattered, it wouldn't surprise me to match these numbers next month and not be nearly as tired or stressed doing it. Once it's been done before, suddenly it's a lot easier to get there again.

And good thing, too, since taxes are going to eat up virtually all of my freelance income from March and early April. Ugh - well welcome to the freelance life :) Hope everyone is doing well, and pursuing their writing goals with gusto. Cheers!

A Freelance Writer's Worst Nightmare: Carpal Tunnel

Writing Through the Pain

First of all, I'd like to apologize to my readers and friends for the long delay, and thank you for the kind words, comments, and e-mails over the past month. I'm not a big cliff hanger type of guy, so I assure you that part two of making a living freelance writing as a college student will be finished shortly as things have settled down.

There are many things that can affect a freelance writer's career, and one that has hit me for the first time a little over a week ago was carpal tunnel syndrome. As someone who is used to spending 10-15 hour days at the keyboard for years on end, I was probably long overdue for some type of repetitive stress disorder, and man did it hit me big time.

The pain in my arm was agonizing, and started in the hand, went to the wrist, and even shot up my arm all the way to the shoulder when I pushed too hard. I'm not going to go in to a lot on carpal tunnel or repetitive stress disorders, but I figure since writers are often pointed out as a classic occupation that suffers from this, I want to talk about it quickly.

Not all of freelance writing is about the writing. In my case when the pain was too much, I went to Wal-Greens and picked up a carpal tunnel wrist brace, which came with splint. This helps to provide support to your injured arm, and keeps the wrist from bending in a way that cuts off circulation to your hand (which is more or less how carpal tunnel works).

After even just a week of wearing this thing for a few hours a day, I am now a firm believer that every freelance writer with carpal tunnel should own one of these. And if you don't, consider getting one to help you at the first sign of discomfort or pain. Catching it early is a huge part of preventing it from getting worse.

Beyond the brace, take some ibuprofen three times a day to reduce swelling. This also means that you writers can't drink while treating CPT - not that any of us do anyway...:)

Other steps include breaking up your writing time into smaller slots, taking breaks, and reducing your work load by eliminating the things you really don't need to do and being efficient with your time. Carpal tunnel isn't anything to be taken lightly, as I've found out the hard way.

So while you're writing be careful, take care of your body, and if you need it or even feel slight discomfort in your hands after a long day, I strongly recommend a carpal tunnel brace to help treat your condition before it gets worse.

All you freelance writers stick together, and I'll be back with that long awaited second post on making a living as a freelance writer from college shortly. Thanks for the support and kind words, and to all the carpal tunnel writers out there - I feel ya'. Take care and keep on with your writing dreams.

A Busy Writing Summer Kicks Off

Insane Summer Writing Goals?

Regardless of what calendars say, to me June 1st has always been the "official" start of summer. As a new season begins, I'm also taking some time to wonder where I should go as far as my own specific writing goals. This isn't just about how much freelance writing work I want to get done this summer or how much I make, but also how I make it. While freelance writing and residual income are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they're not always the same thing, either. One website that is an example of where the two meet is eHow. You write all the articles and content, the website splits the advertising revenue with you. That continues even after you stop writing, making writing for eHow one way that ordinary online writing can be turned into passive month after month income.

I've been freelance writing in some form for about five years now, and I've managed to make a full time living at it since year one. It's not always the most financially comfortable living, but I've done all right and even had some quite good years in there, as well. I've been able to travel, enjoy freedom of schedule, explore the Northeast (especially Vermont), Alaska, and Austin Texas, and I'm on my way to the West Coast and Oregon in a few weeks here, once all the final ducks are set up in a row. But one thing about conventional freelance writing is you're always looking for repeat work, always looking for a new job, and after five years the "boom and bust" way that freelancing works can really wear on you when you're trying to create some form of order or semblance of stability in your life for the first time.

And this is where passive income comes into the picture. I've read Grizz's make money online blog and really appreciate his knowledge and honesty. I've followed a few Internet Marketers like Josh Spaulding and Jeff Herring, signed up for Court and Mark's Keyword Academy, and bought Marisa Wright's e-book on maximizing profits on eHow. I've been extremely happy with all the information this has gained me, and have been struggling between some health issues, personal issues, and family issues to put all of this information into action. I'm just hitting the point where enough has cleared up that this looks possible - although that move to Bend, Oregon, coming up in a few weeks is definitely consuming some major time.

So what's all this mean? It means that while I'm going to keep writing website reviews and giving advice on how to make a living freelance writing, I'm also going to be spending the next several months shifting most of my efforts to making passive and residual income: income that is going to keep paying me for my writing long after the actual blog posts, websites, articles, etc have been written.

Most of my writing the past year and a half was for an employer in Austin, Texas, who is an Internet Marketer. I'm withholding the name simply out of respect because I'm not sure what's considered "appropriate" or not. I was hired for 14 months and change, and then let go. There's no ill will: I was treated fantastic the entire time, had a great face to face talk about the situation and decision, received glowing endorsements of my work, and I still gladly freelance for them on a monthly basis. But that time in Austin was my dream job: get the writing done wherever and whenever you want, just get it done. Remote location working - and Austin is a great city to have that perk!

Then, it was over. So with passive income and residual income, imagine the security you would have if you knew you were making enough off of past work to make a full time living even if you didn't write anything new all year. Imagine if you had two or three different income sources that were providing you with a full time yearly income online. Aside from the obvious complete freedom of movement and freedom of time, there's also the security factor of not ever having to rely on someone else for your own livelihood.

So that's what I'm working towards now. When I first move into Bend, I'm going to have no TV, I'm not going to know anybody in the area, and no video games or other distractions. This makes it a great time to really buckle down on the work and see what I'm capable of producing in a short time period like a summer. My student loans are in deferment (I can rant again about the politics and waste of money grad school often is - but I digress), and I really don't require that much to live if I trim the budget down to true necessities.

So I've done a lot of really hard thinking about what I want to do as a freelance writer, what kind of writing really excites me the most, and what my writing goals for the summer should be to get me from another freelance writer struggling with this gawd-awful recession, to someone making a full time income off of passive online sources. Right now I can look at a couple hundred and change in completely passive income per month. I'd like to push that to three grand or more.

I work best with a clear plan that still gives me freedom to improv my way there. In other words, I do best with general goals, but don't do as well when I break that down all the way to strict day by day guides.

So for the next three months, here's what I'm shooting for to try and make that transition from freelance writer to writing for passive income online:

1. 22 niche websites monetized with AdSense or Affiliate links
   
2. 10 micro niche blogs monetized
3. 150 new hubs on HubPages
4. 300 new eHow articles
5. 10 Clickbank campaigns by using PotPieGirl's Squidoo lens strategys (50-70 lenses)
6. Get this blog up to 100 visitors a day and look at monetizing it
   

These are the main goals, and not even listed will be the normal freelance writing work, more articles to add to Constant-Content, and the heavy amount of article marketing and link building to get these articles, hubs, lenses, blogs, and websites onto the first page of Google for their respective niche keywords. The link building and article marketing in theory should take even more time to get these all to first page Google than even the actual writing.

This is also in addition to moving across the country and picking up some extra freelance work from Guru.com in order to help pay for the expenses, as well as improving what I already have set up and earning for me. I'm not naive: getting all this done without outsourcing means I'm looking at 12-16 hours a day, almost every day of the summer. And you know what, to take a shot at the life that a full time passive income could offer me, I'm willing to do that. I can rest in September when 90%+ of my work will be analyzing results and building backlinks.

I posted those goals because that's a great encouragement to me. Now it's out there, published, where anyone can see it (and ask about it) later. I'll update my own progress over the summer while still adding posts that hopefully all the rest of you will find helpful.

I guess this post also points out something else I believe about freelance writing. This advice also works for probably any process that helps you earn money online. If you're going to go, go all out. If you're going to work for something, shoot incredibly high. If you shoot for the moon and miss, you might still make it up to space. If you shoot for the mountains and miss, you're still stuck in the hills.

Freelance writing isn't easy, but it has benefits I wouldn't trade for the world. That said, even the most happy traditional freelance writer, in my opinion, would be a fool not to also invest in passive income for now and the future.

That's all for now. I hope all of you are doing well, and keep on writing. As always, my one bit of advice is get started writing online right now!

She Listened, She Acted, She Made Money Freelance Writing

She Made Money Writing for Constant-Content!

This was a pretty good week for this freelance writer. This is just one of those times where the writing jobs are flowing in, nagging problems were all resolved and wrapped up nicely, and best of all, I received a great e-mail from Lesley Anderson sharing her great freelance writing news (I censored the amount the article sold for out of respect):

"Hi there!

I left a comment on your blog awhile back when I found it and read about Constant Content. I believe I used your affiliate link to sign up, and I've sold my first articles! I just thought I would pass it along because it's thanks to you that I found that website, and now hopefully we both get to share a bit of the wealth. I sold a couple usage articles for just a few dollars, but this morning I sold my first full-rights article for $XX! It was a response to a public request and took me all of a half hour to write. I can't believe it. I was so skeptical and it actually worked. Hopefully I can keep this up and make both of us a bit more money!

Thank you again for introducing me to constant content, and I'll be sure to keep checking back at your blog as things continue.

Take care!"

Lesley gave me permission to print this e-mail about her big sale on Constant-Content in the blog post, and I thank her and congratulate here once again. The main reason I started this blog was because I wanted to share the enormous amount of information I've learned during my freelance writing journey and to help others. This applies whether it's getting a head start on life (college students), get some critical extra side income (disabled, retirees forced to work, unemployed) or to just avoid the many costly mistakes I made early on as a writer.

That's why an e-mail like Lesley's is so encouraging to me! I'm going to reveal some numbers that I usually wouldn't, because I'm hoping that this, along with Lesley's e-mail, will help encourage others to take the jump and help improve their lives with the extra income and freedom that freelance writing can provide.

From affiliate links, I have recommended 166 authors to Constant-Content as of this post (the 10% I get comes from the website's cut, not the author's, otherwise I wouldn't ever use the affiliate link), and of that group only only about 15 have written anything. Six of those people wrote one article and that's it. 9 have written two or more articles. Only two seem to have written more than one or two before giving up. Out of those 9, all 9 have sold at least one article.

Lesley sold another article tonight while I was writing this post - I may have that information before she even does. This means out of 166 people, only 2 have given anything close to a serious effort, and it has paid off pretty well for both of them, and I'm confident that it will continue to do so.

What's the difference? Lesley read my blog, then she took action by signing up, then she took action again by actually writing and posting articles to Constant-Content. That's it. She put in the effort, and that's the difference. It's actually ridiculous how often I see a commission that comes from an author who wrote one article and that's it. If there are that many articles selling, why not keep at it? Even one or two a week means by the end of the year you'll have some decent side income. Do that for a few years, and that can be a vacation fund, a retirement fund, or even a springboard to a better life.

So if there's anything you can learn from this post, aside from the fact I'm a sucker for a good news e-mail, is PLEASE follow Lesley's example and take action. Her testimony proves that this can work.

So thanks again for sharing, Lesley, and here's hoping to many many more successful articles sold at Constant-Content and elsewhere for you and everyone else reading!

Associated Content Review

Freelance Writing Reviews: Associated Content Review

There are many different online freelance writing sites, and Associated Content is one of the better known ones. AC has been around for several years, and there are some definite advantages to writing for Associated Content, although it's not a site I would put all of your efforts into, mostly because the chances of making a full time living from AC alone are nil to none, but that doesn't mean that AC can't be a solid stream in a multi-stream plan for writing income.

There are a lot of writers who say that they don't like Associated Content at all, and that's fine, everyone has a right to their opinions, but I find I like AC as a working supplement to my main writing sites and my main writing projects. The first thing you need if you're going to write for Associated Content is a PayPal account. Opening a PayPal account is easy enough, and we shouldn't have to go into many details beyond that. If you're completely new, then follow the link and that will help.

Associated Content offers several different rights for articles, and they occasionally also have "calls for content" that writers can fill and get paid for. If you have a digital video recorder, there are also video requests and this can be a great way to get some investment back for that camera and be a niche you can help to fill, as there is less competition there.

Up front payments generally range from $3-5 in my experience, which isn't a lot but you have a lot of freedom in what you write, and there is also a PPV (page per view) bonus that gives you a chance to make passive income, which is always a huge bonus for any freelance writer, in my opinion. For every 1,000 page views you get a bonus - whether anyone clicks on any of the site's advertiser's or not. This starts at a $1 per 1,000 views and moves up in increments based on your "level" until 10 where you get $2 per 1,000 views. This passive income is a nice benefit of AC, and applies to articles that are even "Display Only" rights.

Exclusive rights are said to pay the most, though I've never noticed a major difference, and no matter how much I like a site, I can't justify selling exclusive rights of an article for an extra 75 cents or something equivilant. Go for the non-exclusive rights, which allows you to re-use and re-publish the article down the line to earn more income. If you're a freelance writer, you learn to sell and re-sell as much as possible.

If you have a good base of articles based on evergreen topics, then you can do quite well. The best way to probably approach AC, based on some very recent adjustments I've made, is to go for articles that coule get a lot of traffic, but don't necessarily convert well for product sales or Adsense (because here is traffic you can get that has far less competition). List articles also do well. Getting $4 up front isn't bad, but getting $8 a month from here to eternity for a single article you wrote years ago is even better. Like this article on post apocalyptic films, which nets me about $8-9 a month, every month, and I wrote it in September of 2007.

I'm confident in sharing that because for one, it's an article I've been able to get some very good keyword relevant backlinks for. What does this mean? It means it will stay near the top of Google for those search terms. It's also an AC article and not a blog, meaning a liar can't call Google and get it "Google Slapped." If that sounds scary, it's something you'll have to learn about later, especially if you get Adsense, but don't let it paralyze you - early on it doesn't mean anything and you can make a full time living writing online without Adsense.

But I digress. The point is, for an article like that, it's $8 a month for an article that took all of two hours for me to write. And it could have been quicker if I wasn't watching "The Simpsons" at the same time. So 16 months since it was written times we'll say $6 a month (just to make the math on the safe side and to take into account when my PPV was lower), and that's $96 ($100 with up front payment) for an article that took two hours to write.

So instead of having one single article a month that makes $8 a month without any more work, what if you had 20? 50? 100? 250? Will it take time? Definitely. And work. Everything in life worth doing takes both. Once you get that many articles with Associated Content that get traffic, the articles continue to work for you.

There are literally tens of thousands of search terms that get a thousand or more searches a month online and have virtually no competition because there's no advertising competition, no product that converts to sales, etc. So most online entreprenuers who are in to Adsense drop it and move on. Associated Content has Google's respect. Write an article, and with a minimal amount of gathering backlinks (and sometimes this part is even unnecessary) if you've done good keyword research, your article will be on the first or second page of Google, sometimes even at the top.

Some seasonal articles do very well for me, as well. A couple of mine tend to get around 10,000 views in two months, but only during November-January.

Aside from the PPV and passive income that comes with it, I've also received freelance writing assignments from people contacting me after seeing one of my Associated Content articles. This has actually happened several times, and has earned me some pretty good side cash via PayPal. This is another benefit of AC: the readers and the attention it can bring as you try to build your freelance writing reputation.

So Associated Content shouldn't be the mainstay of your online freelance writing efforts, but when used correctly and in conjunction with other websites, this can be an effective stream of income. Happy writing.

Freelance Writing Blog Update: Some Quick Freelance Writing Tips

3 Freelance Writing Mistakes That Might Be Killing Your Profits!

Freelance writing can be a great job that offers a flexible schedule, freedom of time and place for work, and for those writers who learn and adapt, a really good living, as well. One of the problems that many beginning, and sometimes even experienced, freelance writers run into is that pure writing ability isn't the only measure of who makes the most money writing and who makes the least. In other words, there's a lot more to being a writer than the actual writing.

There are many mistakes that good writers make that holds them back from really making all they could with their freelance writing work. The following are three of the main mistakes that freelance writers make, particularly online writers.

Freelance Writing Mistake #1: One article means one sale. This is a huge mistake that far too many writers make. If "The Atlantic Monthly" is paying you $5,000 for a single 1,000 word article, that's one thing, but most freelance writers aren't making that money. Since you do so much research for one article, learn to write and re-write that article to spin several original articles out of one assignment. Why write one "how to" blog post, when you can re-write that same information for a new article on eHow, one for Constant Content, and another for Associated Content. Great freelancers learn how to get more money for the same amount of work.

Freelance Writing Mistake #2: Staying loyal to one website. I've seen this advice given to beginning online writers, and it is terrible advice. First of all, look at mistake #1. Second, if you're on a site that pays absolute peanuts for your writing, you are far better off leaving them for better paying markets where you can earn what your writing really deserves.

Freelance Writing Mistake #3: Not being flexible. Having a niche is great. I've done very well writing poker articles, something I'm familiar with since I'm also an amateur player. But if I was only a poker writer, I would also be a very poor writer. The more types and styles of writing you are willing to learn, the more jobs that are open to you and the more money you can make as a freelance writer.

Those three mistakes have prevented some very good writers from becoming full time freelance writers, and has limited the profits of even some full time freelancers. If you are looking to be an effective freelance writer, make sure you're not making these three common mistakes and your bottom line is sure to improve!

Writing Online for Money: Active Income Vs. Passive Income

Different Beasts: Active Income Vs. Passive Income

This freelance writing/making money online post is going to be a long one, because the subject of making active income online versus making passive income online is something entire books could be written on. In fact, there has been. When you're looking to make money online, there are many different ways to go about it, and this is even true of a niche like freelance writing.

First, some basic definitions: active income is the regular way most freelance writers get paid. You writer an article, you get paid, and then that's it. You might sell articles on Constant-Content or Associated Content and get paid once (although if you have usage rights you can ((and should)) recycle and re-sell these articles), or a few times if you re-sell these, but that's not the same as passive income.

Passive income is income that keeps coming in consistently from work you may have done a week, a month, or even years ago. Adsesne is easily the number one example of how to make money with passive income. A good niche blog that you write, rank well in the SERPs for, and then put Adsense on could be completely "finished" in say October, then continue to earn you Adsense money daily even though you don't have to put in any more work.

The idea of passive income is very appealing for obvious reasons. It is easier to make active income while freelance writing, at least if you need money immediately. If passive income was easy, everyone would be going that route. The thing about passive income is that you have to go into not only writing, but into Internet Marketing, if you want to master the art and science of passive income, and you're going to have to learn a lot and work your butt off to see any tangible results at all, much less start getting to the point where it is a consistent steady full time level of income.

As far as making an annual income, it is easier to write online for active income: following the old trend of writing articles, getting paid, then repeat. This is the model of work most people are familiar with since being a full time freelance writer means you probably planned on working every week, building the portfolio of clips, and treating writing as you would any other home business.

And if that wasn't what you were thinking when the idea of becoming a freelance writer started to sound appealing, be careful. It's not an easy job. Being a writer requires extremely hard work, long hours, a lot of work on your craft, tight deadlines, and the occasional four day weekend you can take on a whim is balanced out by the 18-20 hour days as you close in on a deadline.

And before I get angry e-mails, let me make one thing clear: passive income doesn't mean three months of work and then you're done forever. If you get big enough with enough sites, then your work load is certainly diminished, but it's still not the end all be all of everything going on. You will still need to collect back links, especially if you are in a competitive niche, you will definitely need to make sure to re-purchase your domain names every single year, and you will need monthly hosting to make sure your websites are up and making you income.

Aside from Adsense blogs, other common forms of passive income that are more common include affiliate sales (often Amazon, eBay, or other affiliate sites), BANS (Build A Niche Store) websites, and there is even some passive income with sites like Associated Content, where you still get paid for page views (traffic). While this won't ever be the same level of passive income as these other sites, and should never be assumed that it will become a full time income. I have about 200 articles on AC, and aside from the money paid in the past, I tend to get $20-25 a month even if I don't log on at all for months at a time.

Yeah, that's not a lot by any stretch, but I'm still getting a few hundred dollars a year for articles that were written up to three years ago. That's not a bad deal, especially since 90%+ of my articles on there have been recycled multiple times, and yet they still earn me money instead of staying completely unused in a file cabinet or long deleted Word file.

Websites like HubPages and Squidoo can also help build a good passive income. These sites tend to blur the line between Internet marketing and online writing for money, and both have some great advantages. If you're a beginner, I recommend both these sites heavily because they have great forums and communities where you can get help and support, and they allow you to learn your craft. It is much easier to get a Squidoo "lens" or Hubpage "hub" (both are basically one page websites) ranking higher in the search engine rankings than a blog or start from scratch website, and Squidoo will record every long tail keyword phrase that someone types into a search engine to find your website (VERY useful in learning how keywords and Internet search rankings work). Both let you design pages for free, and both give opportunities to make income.

While the income from both sites are generally modest, the top "Lensmasters" at Squidoo, like the very top "Hubbers" from Hubpages, make in excess of over $1,000 a month. Squidoo requires a lot more updating and maintenance than Hubpages, but both give you a chance to make money online writing, establish web pages you can use for backlinks, and learning the basics of getting traffic, making sales, and becoming comfortable doing so.

As someone who tends to be severely technologically challenged, I can attest to how helpful these two sites have been in helping me to learn how online commerce works and to get far better at online marketing than I ever was before.

Right now, I will openly admit that I am far better at normal freelance writing for money online than passive income with Adsense. Why? Because I didn't discover Griz's blog and the possibility of Adsense online until June. What has been encouraging to me is how quickly I have to learn on the fly from reading these blog posts, and yet without being able to put in the full amount of time I've wanted, I'm seeing consistent and amazing growth in my monthly Adsense income.

Does it take a whole lot of work? Absolutely. Are more people who want to become a freelance writer thinking about "active income" and writing job by job? Absolutely. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do both. Diversify. Write for rent and paying off debt and date money job by job now...and read the blogs of make money online experts and look at setting yourself up for the long term. If you want to learn how to be a successful freelance writer, then it makes sense to learn both

If you're a freshman in college reading this, you should be drooling. You have four years to write and save money (or have extra spending money or both) and you have four of the best years to work on setting up the passive income. If you're far better than me at computers and online stuff (and if you're a freshman at college it's almost a certainty you are) then who knows? Follow the advice of the experts and you might not have to find a job after college, because you might be set with your own business.

And just to help you avoid scammers at all costs, here's a list of make money online experts, the guys I'm learning passive income techniques from, and the guys all of you should be learning from:

The Keyword Academy Program

Internet Marketing with Courtney Tuttle

Blogging Zombie (Justin seems as nice a guy you could ever ask for advice)

Lissie's Internet Marketing Blog

That's it. There are groups of bloggers who argue back and forth about what's scamming and what's legit, and it's pretty easy to get taken in. But what these four guys teach is invaluable, and these are the best of the best who (amazingly) share tons of knowledge for free, so eat it up!

If you are learning how to become a writer and how to get paid for writing online, the active writing isn't hard. If you want huge money writing, learn about passive income from these guys. I'm seeing enough results from my own work to know I'm catching on and the consistent growth in earnings tells me all I need to know: these guys are for real. Even if you're a writer not interested in marketing, it's good to learn from what these guys have to teach.

Earning active income online is easy, and I'm not going to go into it nearly as much for that reason. The other reason is that I've already mentioned making money on Associated Content & Constant Content in another post, and more posts will be aimed specifically at the people looking to become online freelance writers for sites like Guru & Elance, Constant-Content, and Associated Content. There's a lot of money to be made online, and I want this blog to be especially focused at helping brand new freelance writers get going. Those first dollars mean the world to the writer who makes them for the first time, and I hope this blog can contribute to many future success stories.

Good writing, and keep up the hard work!