And The Times They Are A Changin'

Freelance Writing in 2011: What to Do Now?

Hey all. This freelance writing blog post has been long overdue, but I've felt for several months now that there have been some huge issues that not only do all online freelance writers need to deal with and then there are also the questions I've been wrestling with as far as what to do with this blog. I'd like to say I have everything figured out, but that wouldn't be true. This is going to be a long marathon read, so grab your caffeine and snack and settle in and dig in because I'm tackling everything at once this time.

First of all, if some of this post seems redundant or a little circuitous, please cut me a little bit of slack. Organization isn't my biggest strong point to begin with, and some of the things I want to talk about right away also have relevance to multiple freelance writing topics being covered in this post. Basically this blog post can be broke down into three overarching topics that will each have plenty of subheadings:

1. How the freelance and Internet markets have changed dramatically in 2011
2. What you should do NOW as a beginning writer or Internet Marketer (as opposed to a lot of advice that is now obsolete due to #1)
3. What's the future of this blog?
   

These three topics are going to cover a lot, but there's no argument that the online world has changed immensely. It's always going to, and Google's Panda updates and (although they deny this many search results say otherwise) decision to jump into bed with giant companies and retailers in the search results has only added to the chaos. Advice I've given for the last two years for beginners and part timers, advice that worked for the last two years, often doesn't work anymore.

A lot has changed since I started this blog. HubPages is not the place to send beginners anymore or a place to make easy online income. eHow no longer exists and there's a lot of signs that Demand Studios might be in trouble. Constant-Content is still a potentially great place, but the long waits are getting to the point of being intolerable. But demand for independent freelance writers for web content is also at an all time high. The Keyword Academy is moving from TKA 1.0 methods to TKA 2.0 methods - the online world is changing and what's being created isn't going to look anything like what's been there in the past. This doesn't mean that the ability to make a living online is harder - if anything it's easier in certain ways and the best strategies are more sustainable from a business and personal stand point, but let's not kid ourselves at all: you have to adapt to the changes to survive, much less to thrive.

This blog has been about passion since the beginning. I love being a freelance writer, I love helping other people, and I wanted to really teach what I had learned to others so they could take advantage of this stuff far earlier than I did and also skip a lot of the learning curve that causes so many to quit. Figuring out you can make a living online can be a life changing proposition and so many college students, college grads, and young adults are struggling at a time when even a part time income from online writing could make all the difference in the world. I've done my best to provide excellent advice, and a lot of it still applies. Unfortunately because of the ever changing nature of the online world, and 2011 was the mother of all years even by normal "change" standards, a lot of the old posts are outdated or even worse, give advice that is not only outdated but now flat out wrong.

Does this freelance writing blog have a future?
The hardest section to address will be what the future of this blog is and what the future of my efforts helping others as freelancers is going to look like. Because of that, it's also the section that will be the most broken up. For one, this is a Blogger blog, which means I don't own it. If Google decides to shut this blog down and erase all the posts tomorrow, they could. This doesn't mean it will happen, but someday it could. So what would I do at that point? What about my readers? Where do I want to go with this blog I started (more than a little naively) back in 2007?

Depending on when you read this, the "Sign up for Updates" form may or may not be on the right hand side from Aweber yet, because my first priority is getting the post up and then following up with possible future transitions. Basically I'm going to start collecting e-mail addresses because in all likelihood eventually I'm going to have to move my blogging efforts to my own URL that I actually have control over. The e-mail addresses will allow me to update whenever there's a new blog post, point you to that rare blog post or program that actually does kick butt, and when I start publishing e-books and kindle books ya'll would be the first to know. In the eventual situation if Google ever decided to eliminate this blog, then I would be able to tell you where to go to find my long winded blog posts :)

So if you want to stay in touch, keep an eye for that box and sign up, and from there it's onto our huge array of topics. And while the Social Proof will be more important for my future blog site, if you don't mind giving this post (or blog or both) a +1 on Google Plus or posting this on Facebook with a "Like" I would very much appreciate it - but only do so if you really find value here. I would never ask for any support you don't think I deserve.

Is HubPages worth writing for Post-Panda?
I supposed I can't get away with just saying "no." Well: No. I can no longer recommend HubPages to beginners or anyone really for that matter. Some of my hubs are staying up because I just don't have websites where some of those articles will fit, and you can still get an occasional backlink but based on a lot of reasons, I would recommend not spending your time here. Sign up for The Keyword Academy, even if you can only afford the one free month at first to learn what you need to learn and work on your own sites. That's the way now of building a great passive income, and two years ago HubPages ranked quickly and acted like a "short cut." All the work I've done this year shows me that there are no more short cuts to ranking quickly. Going with your own sites is the fastest way to go.

Ever since going to the subdomains, here's the pattern I see with HubPages: traffic shoots up for 4-5 days, then plummets to near non-existence (this means from 2,300 a day to less than 300) for the rest of the month, then 2-5 days where for no reason they shoot up in rankings again. So far despite a lot of testing, there's no rhyme or reason and until it stabilizes, if ever, I can't recommend them. The general HubPages' admin reaction to Panda and how they decided to run the business were also atrocious and often misguided and in my opinion did more damage than even the Google Panda update did to HubPages. If you want a fuller scoop, then check out my blog post on HubPages for the full story.

Otherwise, it's enough to know that I no longer support HubPages and have already removed 35+ hubs and counting, and anticipate only having 30-40 there by the end...all backed up if (when?) HubPages eventually closes.

Why are you pushing the Keyword Academy so hard?
I know what it's like to start in the hole. It sucks. I've worked my way out of homelessness twice and despite what a lot of people in the States think (excuse the language) - it's next to fucking impossible to do. Think about it: I started off with a really crappy laptop, but I was a homeless guy with a laptop. Without it, I have no idea how people dig themselves out. But that's a 10,000 word post for another time, you can get the abbreviated version of how I became a freelance writer there, but the long and short of it is: I don't have a lot of time to waste because I have medical bills, student loans, credit cards, and basically a ridiculous amount of monthly bills that require many hours of freelancing to cover even at $30+ an hour, and then there's that expensive travel habit. If you're looking for long term passive income so you can live a life a la The 4 Hour Work Week, or looking to make yourself a safety net for after college (never been a worst time in history to be a college grad entering the job market), then The Keyword Academy is the best method.

It's NOT a get rich quick scheme, it does NOT work overnight, but if you're looking for passive income, they teach the best stable long term methods, give the best tools and advice, and will show you how to succeed if you're willing to work for it. There is no short cut using Amazon or AdSense anymore - so stop trying to game Google and learn how to make your websites Google's darlings instead. That's why I strongly advise joining The Keyword Academy (yes, that is an affiliate link, because I do believe that much in them to put my reputation on the line) if you are looking to build passive income. It's the best program, and they're going to offer you more than I ever could.

Is Demand Studios Finished?
If you've been coming here as a freelance writer and you don't have any interest in online passive income, then the section on HubPages doesn't really affect you at all. However this next one will. I've long been a proponent of Demand Studios as a great place for college students, busy moms, people with disabilities, or basically as a place a beginning writer could go and get experience in the writing world and make some decent money. A lot of people argued on this point, but $15 per article for a writer with no experience isn't bad, and if you've looked at the economy lately, for a lot of people it was good. Especially since there was no reason to do less than 2 an hour once you got the hang of what DS wanted, and voice recognition software could move that up to 3-4.

But traditionally Demand Studios would also have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles and in the past three months they fell dramatically down to 10,000 area, and have consistently been 3,000 or less recently. This is not a good sign for them at all, and considering the timing of when former eHow writers agreed to their buyouts, often at 8-12 month's worth of royalties (which was before the Panda update) and then DS having to pay writers for the contracts that were agreed upon at Pre-Panda earnings levels, and then the Panda update slammed Demand Studios properties during this time. Traffic losses were anywhere from 40 to 80 percent depending who you talked to, and this is from a company that has produced one quarter of profit (end of 2010).

Even before Panda, Demand Studios warned they expected to lose between $8.5 million and $16 million in the first two quarters of 2011, and that was Pre-Panda. The actual numbers according to the released statements for 2011 was $8.0 million - but we know traffic numbers are down immensely and the company is already buying back stock from its public offering. Even if the company itself isn't "finished" in the traditional sense, I'd be extremely surprised if the freelance writing section survived. With tens of thousands of authors competing for 3,000 articles, it's no longer worth your time anyway.

So what's this mean? Frankly, if you haven't begun finding private clients on and off line, now is the time. The good news from the Google updates is that poorly written $1 articles from India, China, and the Philippines are not making the money any more. More than ever the very well written and crafted articles are scoring well in Google, meaning the demand for English speaking freelance writers to write excellent web content is shooting for the roof. And people are willing to pay a lot more for it than even a year or two ago.

So ditch Demand Studios. Like HubPages, they're not coming back. It was a good ride while it lasted.

Wait a minute, Squidoo is back in?
This is a harder one to answer that falls into the "yes and no" category. I am making some excellent money from my early efforts at Squidoo but I have several things going for me:

• I was there in the very beginning and so have followers, a forum presence, and several aged and well ranking lenses
• I understand exactly what types of topics work best now on Squidoo and which should be saved for my own sites
• I know how to set up the features on my Squidoo lenses to get A LOT of affiliate sales from Amazon and eBay
  

Does Squidoo have a ridiculous amount of potential for the future? Absolutely! Based on traffic numbers I'm getting, I think it's only a matter of time until they expand the tiers and I expect the value of each tier to continue to grow. That said, is Squidoo for the inexperienced or pure beginners? I don't think so. If you want to build some online passive income and absolutely refuse to create your own sites, then Squidoo is better than HubPages now in my opinion, and use a site like InfoBarrel to dive into AdSense.

Free reports coming soon
As an English major I have been trained to hate cliches with a passion, but as a blogger they can come in handy. In case you somehow have never noticed, I can get long winded in the old fashioned Grizzly style of blog post. I have a lot to say about freelance writing, and I want to share my online writing experiences in as much detail as possible to help out. So the cliche goes "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," and that's how I feel about a lot of the old posts on this site. There's still valuable information, but there's also a lot of outdated stuff mixed in.

I figure using those posts as the basis of some free updated reports will not only be helpful to everyone and help me sleep better at night (not kidding, I get some weird OCD sometimes and once I started worrying about people getting old info from my blog - it kept me up), but help convince of ya'll to stay with me once I check into a new URL location :) I'll be updating on Constant-Content, Associated Content, Squidoo, and some of the less site specific and still very important "general" topics like finding online work and private clients.

And by soon, we'll say next two months. The end of this year is looking pretty crazy. Following that will be an e-book on making a living as a freelance writer: updated for online, offline, and passive income. I'm thinking about releasing it as a Kindle e-book, but am not completely sure yet. Might do a PDF online version and a Kindle, though the obvious potential issue there is people without a Kindle paying more than those who do. Anyone who has thoughts on this one way or another feel free to comment: I'm curious to see what the feedback would be.

Updating the 4 year plan for college students
This is a big one. My original post on a 4 year writing plan for college students to turn them into full time freelance writers (with passive income) by graduation was one of my favorites to write, and that was almost 2 years ago. The problem is, out of the 6 or 7 sites I recommended for college students to sign up for, now I would only recommend one of them (well maybe two, but only one solid) and several of them don't take new writers any more. In other words, while the concepts behind the 4 year writing plan are sound, the specific actions mentioned are terribly outdated. I could see this one being a report, it could be a blog post, it could probably be expounded upon into a Kindle e-book, but one way or another an update will be coming. Like I said in the original post, I'm really passionate about helping college students because it's not that long ago I was there - and this is stuff all of them should know to create a much more stable future than what the job markets are going to give them.

Hasn't the Keyword Academy Changed?
Yes, and for the better. But wait, I hear you saying, didn't you fully support The Keyword Academy for almost a full two years now? Yes. This isn't contradictory, either. What is now being called the TKA 1.0 was completely effective when The Keyword Academy started, and to an extent it still is completely effective. None of the moderators or people running the Keyword Academy say otherwise, but the risk of being de-indexed by Google and of wanting to stabilize the passive income is what leads to TKA 2.0, the new methods.

If you notice one of the constant themes of this post, it's "update, update, update" followed by the explanation of "the writing world changes, things aren't the same anymore, the writing world changes, things aren't the same anymore." So doesn't it make sense that if a great online passive income course is going to STAY RELEVANT that it must change?

The simple state of it is this: there is one and only one course online (and there are many trustworthy people, writers, marketers online, so don't mis-quote me here) that I would attach my reputation to without worry. Going by the honor code I was raised by, I would give my word to vouch for The Keyword Academy without hesitation. That's how much I think of them.

Super quick list of site changes

• eHow - no longer accepts writers
• Demand Studios - no longer recommended by me
• Xomba - no longer recommended by me
• Associated Content - okay for pure beginners, but much colder on this than before
• HubPages - you might be able to make something, but no longer recommend
• Squidoo - still torn on them, but better than HubPages
• InfoBarrel - best option left for AdSense share article directory
• Constant Content - great for beginning writers, can make some good money, but the wait times have become ridiculously long. Cools me a little on the site
• Helium - never liked them after test, still don't. Stay away.
• Guru.com - you need to be committed to this site, but good for pure freelancers
• Elance - see Guru.com, though some will like Elance better, some will like Guru better
• Rentacoder, oDesk - lots of good reviews, I don't know enough first hand to give you advice either way on either one of these sites
  
• The Keyword Academy - Hells Yes
• Master Dayton - Do you even need to ask? :)
  

So what else are you up to? (aka why you've been away so freaking long?)
Between personal life, friends getting married, and literally 1/2 the summer traveling, I've been busy. I'm working on multiple businesses, looking forward to the premiere of an independent film I helped produce (I try not to do more than one Hells Yes a post, but this is definitely worth another Hell Yes), and am about to set up a professional website - the new blog may or may not be attached to the professional site - still deciding on this. Might be a good way to go since ya'll could find me and see how a professional page is set up - once again if you have any comments on this feel free to comment, I'd love to hear it!

This is also another point of why I want to move off of Blogspot. SEO is MUCH easier on an owned URL than a blogspot blog. In other words, I could post shorter posts more often along with these super long ones and get more traffic with less effort. If I don't have to spend a lot of time getting links, I can spend a lot more time writing and helping others.

So what is the future of this blog?
As far as the exact blogspot blog, I'm going to keep it up. I know I could get a lot of juice to a new site doing a 301 direct to a new site with the 2,000+ links pointing to this one (by the way, a HUGE thanks to everyone out there because I have NO IDEA how I got to that number!), but I'm terrible with technical stuff and I'm traditional. This blog has done well and helped out a lot of people and I talked with a lot of you and enjoy these friendships. Even if almost all new posting goes to the new blog when it's up and going, these are going to stay here.

Second, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some money involved. Not in a "I'm a greedy bastard who wants to steal everything you own" sleazy Internet Marketing sort of way, but according to my stats over 60 people a month search for "Master Dayton" in Google. I've gotten some really good work from this blog, and the self-deprecating name is not only funny, but it's a pretty damn good brand. And I'm not taking advantage of that at all. I think there's no question I'd have more consistent readers, more searchers who stay longer, and that I'd help more people with a more professional looking blog. That's certainly going to look a lot better than a blogger blog, and there's a lot I do outside of freelance writing with creative projects I'm excited about...and having a blogger blog is a huge liability.

At the end of the day, there's a lot of benefit for me switching to a blog off of a professional page, or have a blog on its own URL completely. Don't read this as an end or good-bye, but it's time to move forward, and by taking the first steps myself I'll also be able to teach others how to do the same. Opportunity has never been greater....so let's go grab it together!

Master Dayton Blog Update

Master Dayton Blogging Update

Well it's been almost a full month since I last updated the blog, and I am sorry about that for the many people out there who I know have been following this blog and have been waiting for another post. I won't get into the personal details, but in the beginning of July we had to deal with a major family emergency/tragedy, and while facing this family always comes first. I won't go into details beyond that, but it's going to be very hard (God willing the worst any of us will ever have to face) and I will be continuing this blog because normalcy is like humor and faith - you need it most when it seems the most impossible to hold onto.

There has been a lot going on with the writing career that's encouraging. I think the freelance market is definitely beginning its turnaround. Things are still much harder than they were a year ago, but it's not nearly as bad as it was 6 months ago. Even though I did virtually no work at all in July, my residual or passive online income increased almost 70%. I took a few hours to study what I did at the end of June to see if there was something I was doing that might have explained that sudden surge. To my pleasant surprise, the answer was yes. While writing for many different websites, the numbers seemed to show me that in all my experimenting I had stumbled upon what potentially could be one heck of a winning combination - especially when writing for passive or residual income - which makes this particularly interesting and exciting to me.

Right now I'm not going to reveal it because I want to do some very focused testing over the next two months to see if my initial findings still hold up. The good news is that if this works, it's geared far more to writers who learn only a little bit of SEO or Internet Marketing as opposed to Internet Marketers. I know for me and many other online writers, learning the SEO is difficult and somewhat frustrating (I mean we're writers - we want to write, right?). If my testing holds up, you'll still need to know some basic SEO and keyword research, but once you have the basics down you'll be able to focus 90% of your effort on writing. I know if you're naturally more inclined to writing then this would definitely be a bonus.

So that's good news. I'm on the verge of making the $100 monthly threshold for AdSense. While I'm always getting paid bi-monthly now, just hitting that $100 every single month is a major mile stone that is really encouraging. Plus, you just can't complain about an extra Franklin every single month for work that has already been done. My eHow earnings also went up about 68% in the past month, and I just finished a major Power Point project that netted me about $440, with a second one now on the way - just in time for that major dental surgery I need later this month.

I also just picked up some really high paying freelance work this week, and have some leads on some more possible freelance work that might turn into steady gigs. If a few things go right, then maybe fall will be able to turnaround 2009 for me at least financially, if no other way. So in short, there will be many more updates to come, and I plan to continue to add more great information to try to help everyone out. If you're new here, take a look at older posts - I try my best to give away a lot of really good freelance writing advice, especially aimed at beginners, so please feel free to comment on anything you find useful, as well.

So that's it for now. More website reviews, writing advice, and the results of my upcoming two month experiment all coming soon. Good luck writing to everyone, and please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think!

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!

Make a Living as a Freelance Writer: How to Get Started from Scratch

How to make money writing online as a full time freelance writer

Freelance writing: a lucrative job offering great freedom, or a slave wage job with long thankless hours for chicken scratch? Well when you're looking to make a living as a freelance writer, especially with an emphasis of making a living as a freelance writer online, you're likely to have both. Being a full time freelance writer has great benefits, and I wouldn't trade it for a 9 to 5 office job ever, but there are lean times, too. So this brings me back to the e-mail I received (and sorry for the delay on this post – a hectic December of which I'll go into further later), which was basically along the lines of: 'I've been laid off, I only have a couple months of unemployment, help me!'

So instead of making an e-book to sell (besides, making a living as a freelance writer online is way too broad for one e-book), I'm going to write this post to answer the question of how to become a freelance writer. I made a full time living as a freelance writer for two years and change before getting a remote working assignment writing for a company, a dream job which has now come to an end as I was also laid off in the end of November.

This was the first time I've ever lost a job, and the "punch in the gut" feeling is one I'll never forget. So I'm back to freelance writing, and for anyone else in the same situation, I hope this post really helps teach you how to become a freelance writer, and to avoid many of the mistakes that I made when I was just starting out as a beginning writer.

So before I begin giving tips for becoming a full time freelance writer, there are several conditions and parameters that need to be addressed.

1) There are many different ways to make a living as a freelance writer, and many different routes to take. I'm not saying this is the best way or only way, it's the way I would start from nothing all over again considering my experiences writing and personal lessons learned.

2) This isn't the exact way I'm going back to writing full time now – but this post is for true beginners who might not understand the web or writing business the way I do now

3) This plan is aimed at people who are unemployed, or disabled, and want a side or full time income, though this could also work for work at home moms, college students, or anyone who wants to make a living writing online

4) This plan also assumes that sometimes it's more important to scrounge enough dollars together to pay rent than to always "work for high hourly wage."

With those out of the way, let's get on to making a living as a freelance writer, starting from scratch and I'm going to assume you need to get some income coming in relatively quickly, and that you have a limited budget. I'm also going to focus almost exclusively on writing online for money as opposed to print.

Starting an Online Freelance Writing Career from Scratch

On a limited budget, especially if you've just been laid off or are living off Social Security disability, knowing where you don't have to pay for a membership, but can still make some pretty decent money writing, is very important. There are several great places where writers can sign up for free and make money writing online.

#1 Constant Content: Constant Content is one of my favorite places to write online. CC is a place where you can write articles and set your own prices, offering different prices for usage rights, unique rights, and full rights. Full rights articles sell the most, and you can charge the most for them, but once a full rights article is sold, you never get to use that article again, so make sure you set your prices high enough. For 500 words, the lowest area I'd set full rights prices is between $27-37. If in doubt, set the price $15 higher than you think it's worth, and you can always check the "best offer" button.

If your article is about a highly specialized area or highly technical, then charge even more. For Constant Content, your articles need to be very high quality, completely free of grammar errors, repetition, etc. This site has tougher editorial standards, but that's what allows them to sell articles at much higher prices than most other sites. The other thing is that even though CC will sell articles' usage rights, meaning you can re-sell those articles, they will not accept articles previously published online. So only submit original articles.

To learn more about how to make money with Constant Content, take a look at my complete Constant Content review, which I wrote earlier on this blog.

#2 Ehow: Update: Ehow no longer has a writing program, although you can still write for Demand Studios on a pay per article basis.

Ehow is a great place to write, in part because it's one of the best places I know for online writers to build a passive or residual income. Ehow is really worth a look, especially to individuals who know how to write great "how to" articles, or to writers who like structure. Ehow designs itself so you make step by step articles, add some links, and your pay is based off advertising revenue that your articles generate. Some people are making literally over $1,000 a month in residual income from eHow – which means they're making over 12k a year for articles that they wrote once and never had to touch again.

Based on many different people talking, making several hundred dollars a month in passive income is pretty common, but it takes time to build up. In other words, if you write 100 good articles in a month, you probably won't see $100 your first month, but in a couple months your articles might very well be making that type of money, and continue to make that every month for infinity. This is more of a long term place to write, and these also need to be original articles, but because of the unique step by step style, it's very easy to write and rewrite articles to use at ehow and other places.

#3 Associated Content: Associated Content is another free place where writers can write and get paid. Up front payments in my experience generally range from $3-$6 an article, which isn't much at all, but when used in conjunction with CC and eHow, this can be an excellent website that not only gives you some up front payments for writing (along with actual name exposure for your writing that can lead to other writing jobs – I've made some good money via PayPal through jobs I landed because of an Associated Content article) but also allows for passive income through a pay per view (PPV) bonus. This starts at a bonus $1.50 per 1,000 page views for your articles, and as your all time views climbs, you can get up to $2.00 per 1,000 page views. It doesn't sound like much, but I make about $40/month on PPV, so that's $480 a year for articles I already wrote, and early on I did EVERYTHING wrong in writing articles that will keep getting traffic over time.

Used in conjunction with eHow and Constant Content, Associated Content can be a very valuable part of your online freelance writing portfolio.

These three places are good places for online freelance writers to get their start, and even more important for some, these are all free websites where writers get paid for their work. Another place worth mentioning is www.oDesk.com. This is an auction based site where employers put up jobs and allow writers to bid on providing the service. oDesk is a poor man's version of Guru or Elance, and if you are truly starting from nothing or worse, it might be a good place to get some work and some decent income into your checking account quickly.

That said, don't expect any high paying jobs from this site, and in my experience it is definitely worth the extra time, effort, and money to build your reputation at Elance or Guru. Which brings us to an interesting point here. After Constant Content, Associated Content, and eHow, there are several paid sites like Guru and Elance, which pay a lot more but require paid memberships, and then there is the Internet Marketing branch of writing, which also often crosses writing.

For right now, I'm going to make the Internet Marketing a topic for another time, but there is a lot more money in this than there is in writing, and the writing skills can really give you and edge if you're a quick learner with the marketing. Squidoo is an example of a place where you can make money by building websites, and if it's in the top 80,000 you get money based on a "tier" system, you can also get money through affiliate sales. Squidoo is a place I really enjoy, and if you get into Adsense and monetizing blogs, then it's definitely a place you should be, but it is probably 75% Internet Marketing and Affiliate work, and 25% writing.

It's also not an extremely fast way to make money online. That's why I mention it as something that's great for looking into the future, and for diversifying your streams of income. You never want all your income coming from only one source, because then if you lose that main source of income, you lose all your income instead of just one small part.

Guru and Elance are the two best online places to write for money. Both require membership fees, but the reason for this is to make sure the best writers are hooked up with the best employers. The minimum amount anyone can make from Guru is $25 a job, while the minimum for Elance is $50. Both auction websites give out tons of good or high paying work, and it is definitely possible to make a full time living off one of these sites alone. Guru allows you to buy a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription. I always buy a yearly because it gives you the best deal, and because I know from experience you can make a full time living off of Guru – and I've never been rated above #49 among their top providers. I would say that easily the top 100 providers make a full time income writing for Guru, and it would surprise me if that number was closer to three or four hundred.

Elance only allows a monthly subscription, and while the ceiling for how much you can make is even higher for Elance than it is for Guru. There are some individuals who make six figures writing only for Elance. I would also say that Guru is a little easier to get started with than Elance is, but for people who are serious about becoming full time online freelance writers I would strongly recommend building your reputation on both websites.

A year long subscription to Guru is in the $250 range, and Elance is $10 a month for individuals, or $20 a month for businesses as of this writing. If you can afford this, then you should work to really build a sparkling reputation on both sites, and it will take time. Look early on for lower paying jobs or jobs that specifically say they are open for beginning writers, just to get those early credentials to build off of. Once you begin building your reputation, your work load starts growing exponentially, and that even takes into consideration that you'll start charging a lot more as you get more work.

My first months at Guru, and I was working off a dial up Internet on a piece mail computer and this was three years ago when there wasn't nearly as much work on Guru as there is now, my income went as follows: Jan $50, Feb $200, Mar $650, Apr $1180, May $1675, Jun $1,899. There is far more work now, and I'm convinced that good writers who can write a decent query and who target lower paying jobs early on to build their reputation can climb the monthly income far more quickly.

The most I've ever made from one month on Guru was $2,500, and then I wrote a lot less because I was going to grad school and moving. My per hour income continued to climb, however, and if I was writing full time for Guru, I would expect to be able to make $30,000 a year or more. During that month, I also snagged two jobs that would net me $2,000 in future work, and eventually the remote location job that paid over $40,000 a year. There are often companies on both these sites who will hire impressive freelance writers full time, so there is a lot of opportunity.

As for the free freelance writing sites mentioned earlier, learning to reuse the same research and resell articles is critical to making a really good living as a freelance writer. For example, suppose you write an article for Constant Content and only offer usage rights. Once that article is on CC (and it's critical to know that CC does not allow their articles to be indexed by Google, since they are selling content to other websites), as long as only usage rights only are on sale, go ahead and sell it to Associated Content as original content since it hasn't been published anywhere, but only sell them non-exclusive rights. Pick up any up front payment they will offer ($3-5 usually), and you'll also enjoy the PPV bonus from those articles month after month as long as the website is around.

If the article you wrote as a freelancer is a how-to article, you can rewrite it and put it on eHow and further enjoy the benefits of passive income from article views! If you can write 3-5 articles a day, then at the end of the month you have 100 articles are more. If you received up front payment for all of them, then you have $3-500. Sell even 10 Constant Content articles (and that is a low amount if you have 100 posted) and you could be looking at anywhere from another $150-$300. Add in the page per view bonus and whatever you earned from eHow, it's not much, but it's possible to be close to a grand in your first month.

And when you're unemployed that's far better than zero. Writing income also grows exponentially. Suppose you make $1,000 your first month because of the work you do, then you do twice as much the next month. You probably won't make $2,000 in that insanely busy month. You'll make more. The freelance writing income continues to grow, and the larger a body of freelance writing work you do, the more it tends to build on itself.

Guru and Elance are nice because when you get a job, you are going to be paid, and at respectable rates for writers because the employers know the value of good writing and are often willing to pay very good money for it.

I would use all of these freelance writing sites, as they allow me to get my name out there, earn up front money, set up the beginnings of decent passive income from more than one source, and build my reputation on two websites that can help you build a full time writing income.

This has already been a very long post, and the basics of what you need to know have already been mentioned, so for a short aside: if you want to make a really good living online, especially if you are interested in writing for passive income, then look at Hubpages and Google Adsense.

Also: Avoid Craigslist and Helium.com like the plague. There are legitimate writing jobs on Craigslist, but there are also tons of scams. Helium.com might not be a scam, but it is a site to avoid. Read my complete Helium Writers Website Review to find out why Helium.com is a total rip off.

There are more ways to make money writing online, and I'll go into more later, but this post is how I would tell someone starting over to make a living writing online. And I STRONGLY recommend signing up for Elance and Guru if you can afford to take a few months to really establish yourself as an online writer.

Use all of these resources at your disposal, and follow the advice here, and you will be on your way to becoming a successful online freelance writer. There is always more advice and other ways to get there, but there's enough information here for you to start making a reasonable living easily in 6 months, if not far sooner. Now you have to do it. If you want to know all about passive income online and the long term, then take a look at this Keyword Academy Review I wrote as I truly believe in their program!

So good luck, feel free to ask for advice in the comments section, and happy writing until next time!

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!