Enjoy writing and want to earn $20 or more per hour online, from the comfort of your own home while setting your own schedule? You can, by becoming an article writer. Article writers generally start at $7 apiece, and depending on how fast you type you can do anywhere from 2 to 4 per hour.
On a typical day, you’ll be spending about 10% of your time corresponding with clients and about 90% of your time on actual writing. You’ll be writing on all kinds of topics, from dog training to hypnosis to building internet companies.
What You Need to Get Started
You’ll need a basic understanding of how message boards work, preferably some HTML skills as well. If you have a strong knowledge of internet marketing, you’ll have an advantage because a lot of clients tend to want business-oriented articles.
You’ll need a computer that you feel comfortable typing on for long periods of time. You’ll also need a PayPal account linked to your bank account so you can take payments.
Finally, you need good typing skills and great English skills. You don’t need to be an English major to succeed as an article writer, but naturally the higher the quality of your work the more likely your clients are to return. The faster you can type, the more you’ll also make per hour as you’ll be able to complete more projects per hour.
Where to Find Clients
There are many places you can get clients from. These include freelancer websites like eLance.com, Guru.com and oDesk.com. You can also get clients from internet message boards where webmasters tend to congregate. As your business builds, you’ll get a lot of your work from repeat clients.
Internet message boards like the Warrior Forum or Digital Point are good places to start. They’re either free or very low cost and the market is pretty stable. There are standard rates for native English speakers and standard rates for non-native English speakers.
Getting clients is as simple as identifying the correct section to post in, seeing how other people are advertising and then imitating their techniques with your own spin.
Make sure you have at least 5 to 10 high quality samples. If a client is thinking about hiring you, the first thing they’re going to do is look at your samples to see what kind of work you can produce. If they like what they see, then they’re going to weigh it against your pricing and against the samples of other freelancers and make their decision.
Getting clients on freelancer sites like oDesk or eLance can be a mixed bag. On one hand, you have an extremely high demand. A lot of people come to these sites looking for freelancers. On the other hand, you have an enormous amount of competition that’s often driving the price down.
