Make A Good Living Writing: My Journey As A Writer, Experiences And Inspirations For Aspiring Writers Or Struggling Writers

My motivations:

I started Freelance article writing in the year 2010 after I gave birth to my baby.  I discovered that as a mother there are limits to things you could do in terms of office work. Again, because I thought it was wise to engage in work from home which will give me the flexibility I needed to care for my baby, take care of the home and at same time offer me a means of livelihood.

Early days:

I searched on the internet for different work at home opportunities. I wanted to start with forex but it was a bit complex to start with and I didn’t fancy it. I enrolled in a program they referred to as quick smart program. To participate, you pay a certain amount of money into two people’s accounts and as you get more people to join your network, you would get paid more money. I did it for quite sometimes but was not satisfied as I didn’t think it was a genuine business and what I love to do. I had to drop it.

Again, I tried graphic design because I am a graphic designer but I wasn’t as fascinated as I am with the article writing and so I had to suspend it till a later date. I must mention here that when you are starting out as a freelancer, you may be bombarded with a lot of opportunity out there but trying to find out which one is genuine is what you must do so that you will not be scammed.

My Honest Advice

I would advise that enrolling into sites that require you to pay money before you could get a client is not advisable especially at this stage as you may be discouraged if you are not able to make the amount of money commensurate to the amount you paid for subscribing.  But as you grow and develop, there may be need to do this if you want to but you don’t have to as there are thousands of ways and places to get job out there without having to pay a dime. Again, to ascertain the credibility of any site, it is good to search online for the user review of that particular site or service.

My first article writing assignment and the compensation

I saw an advert about requirement for a writer. The advertiser said he will provide a text to be re-written and that anyone who can read and write well can do it. Even though I haven’t done such work in the past I decided, I’d give it a try. Guess what happened? The feedback I got after I wrote the test article was that it was fantastic.

I was however advised to use a simpler and easy to read vocabulary and language that could easily be understood and introduced to a plagiarism checker I will be using to check my articles for plagiarism and uniqueness before submitting my work to the client and that was how I started. Though what the client paid me then was very small for an article of 500 words; I considered it worthwhile at least for the fact that it provided me with a credible and genuine way to make money from home. It was also an opportunity to gradually learn this type of business and a means of keeping busy rather than just focusing on the house work, taking care of baby and managing the home.

How I moved from working for pennies to a higher paying article jobs

When I became confident that I have gained enough knowledge and could boast of writing a very good article, I gave up working at that rate and increased my charge for article of 500 words gradually.  Step by step, I moved to higher paying article writing job

The rate is really not stable. It all depends on the nature of the article, the amount of research required and the time required to write such article but currently, I earn much more than many people who do office work while working at the comfort of my own home. It is not bad to make an average of 500 dollars a week working from home. Is it, please share your thought!  For me, it is such a nice and pleasant feeling. Sometimes, I am bombarded with work that to meet up with all the demands alone becomes extremely difficult. What I do at such point is to get other good writers to work with me. I then supervise and co-ordinate their works.

Again, the rate I charge for my article writing work depends on whether the client wants some links in the article, some photos or videos and if the client wants the article to be uploaded and published for him on his website or blog. Some clients too would desire that you share the post via the social network as well and this too determines the rate to charge per an article.

At this stage I was, able to spread my tentacles wide

When I started out, I was limited to where I can apply for article writing due to the limitations placed by paypal on some countries including Nigeria, my country. I could only apply to clients that pay through western union, direct bank transfer and Nigerian clients who could pay straight into my bank account. Today, however, I am unlimited to where I can apply for article writing job as I now make use of the paypal account and skrill account of my friend in the US to receive payments from foreign clients.

It all started like a joke but today, I must confess that even though the journey is not a hazzle-free and I have not reached to where I desire to be, it is well worth it. I would recommend article writing to anyone who can especially moms and people who would otherwise be unemployed in the face of job scarcity and economic downturn. You can choose to do as much as you want depending on the time you have at your disposal, if you are looking for just an additional means of income or a major source and means of income.

One good thing about the article writing business is that you have the global market to deal with and therefore there is always a freelance writing work available on a daily basis out there. Again, you get to do it at your own convenient time and have no need to pay for transport to your office or battle with how to cope with a bossy employer or unfriendly colleagues.

When you are just starting out as an article writer, it is better to pick a particular niche and develop in it. The more articles you write on a particular niche, the more experienced you become in that particular niche and the more expert you become at that niche. You can go ahead and gradually add other type of article writing and niches as you get more and more experienced and advanced. The advantage of being an expert on a particular niche is that most clients won’t hire you if you have nothing to show them that you are experience in that field. So this gives you more credibility before a client who wants to hire you.

On the other hand, being able to spread out your tentacles will give you room to get as many client as possible and work for any type of client whether they are looking for article writing, copy-writing, news article, technical writing, academic writing, white paper, thesis writing, e-book writing, a list article, a how to article, tutorials, ghost writing, website content, a help with their social networking profile and post, blog articles, sales pages, newsletters, web advertising and online marketing campaigns or even research and data entry work and so on.

You may wonder if it is possible to write on wide varieties of topic. My answer is yes, you can write on any article topic. Once you have gotten the basics of article writing, learnt the basic SEO concept for article writing and the use of keywords, how to construct a compelling headline and to grab the attention of the particular audience you are writing for, you are good to go. You must also be able to write good, correct and easy to understand English and also know how to put complicated words into an easy to understand English.

Please share your opinion or your article writing experience. If you are helped by my experience and thoughts, feel free to leave a comment. Wishing you all the best in your writing career! There are a few more things I didn't include here such as my experience about blogging and owning a blog due to space. Those will come at a later date. Oh, I forgot to mention that my doors are still wide open for more clients. Hire me and feel free to recommend me to your friends and colleagues who may need a writer. You are assured of a job you will be happy with.Talk to you later!

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