5 key things leading to success in your online writing career
Money is a sensitive topic to talk about in public. You know that, right? Come, let’s talk here in private.
I am not a rich bastard and I won’t promise you $1,000,000 within your first month either. To be honest, I am still looking for steady clients. But before I get some tiring gigs, stick around and bear me company… and in the process, I will tell you my story and give you five key things that will help you succeeded whenever and wherever.
OK, thanks.
I started my writing career in 2015. Well… it was more like a dream really. So, I signed up for this website — iWriter — and boy, was that a painful experience. I was fired up and ready to work. I applied for some of the best paying gigs on the website. The first one was entitled something like, “Ways in which women can prevent cramps…” or something of the sort.
So, I opened a new tab and searched for the keyword phrase in my search bar. Everything that I needed to write the article was online and I was thrilled. “This is going to be awfully easy!” I said to myself.
Within an hour, I only had about ten words to go to hit the word count; or at least it was what I thought they were looking for. Then, I submitted the article long before the due time and waited eagerly for the results.
The response came about three days later. As you would expect, my article had been rejected and there were some demeaning comments like, “Poor content and bad grammar, spam content, and please do not write for me if you cannot follow simple instructions!” To make matters worse, the client gave me a 1-star rating — out of five — for my work.
But I wouldn’t give up! What was worse, getting some article rejected by some client who probably had family issues, or getting yelled at on a 9–5 daily job? Yup, you are right! So, I decided to try another and another.
Within a week, iWriter banned my account from the website “due to poor rating.” Apparently, if you work for more than three clients and get a rating of less than 3-star, you are out.
I decided to get into blogging and affiliate marketing. Blogging was a lot harder than writing. It demanded writing convincing content to have readers buy stuff from your website. However, after hours writing some compelling content and expecting people to react, the best result that I could get was, “Awesome article. Keep up the good work!”
This was frustrating. Some of the comments, as I came to realize, were even spam. But I did not give up. Since I knew I was working to be my own boss, I never gave up. I kept writing and more posts. I knew I would have a breakthrough one day.
The actual breakthrough.
On the second year, as I was advertising a post on Facebook, someone spotted my website. He inquired to know if my email subscription was active. At the time, I was not doing so well, but I still knew some basics about email blasts and I couldn’t deny some dosh. He wanted me to write an email blast for his upcoming event.
Since I was used to writing at the time, I did some quality work and avoided the mistakes I had made before. My article was not perfect, but the client loved it.
I went back to iWriter, registered for another account and tried my luck. “Probably, the clients over here are harsher than other content mills,” I said to myself.
Wow! The first article was approved with a 4-star rating, the second one, the third one… I could not believe it. I now had full self-confidence.
Since then it has been a smooth journey with lots of successes and failures — actually more failures than successes. But what the hell! If I made it on iWriter, I can make it anywhere!
So, today I want to teach you the five key things that can help you make money writing.
Before I go, let me leave you with some tips that will help you earn online. Without these, you won’t go far.
- Don’t give up.
Most people ignore this, but perseverance has always proven very useful to me. Find a reason to keep you focused and don’t give up on it. For me, I wanted to be a freelance writer to be able to write novels, which is my passion. I have not written one yet, but I will soon.
Maybe you want to travel the world, stay at home with your children, or even attend the movies during the day and work at night. Don’t give up on that dream.
- Choose a niche and build a blog.
The greatest boost in my writing career was my blog. Although it is yet to be completed, I was able to get a picture of what blogging is all about and what clients go through in their everyday lifestyle.
Most preferably, I will advise you to build a sales or affiliate website. Here you will need to convince people to buy stuff from you and in the process familiarize yourself with the market. You will also learn the importance of proper grammar and SEO.
- Write every day.
Having a blog obviously propels you to write daily. Even though writing for clients helps you focus on your grammar, and time management, well… because of the dollars, clients do not come on a daily basis. In order to improve your writing per day, you will need a website or a constantly updated blog.
Hey, a blog is very important! Don’t give me that look! Tell you what, build a personal website and build a blog page that you will be constantly updating. Thereby, you will hit two birds with one stone: show off your skills and practice your writing.
Guest posting is also helpful.
- Read a lot.
A great friend told me, “Your mind is built out of the things you hear and see, since you cannot plug in a software to be updating yourself on a daily basis. So, if you don’t read, your mind will not grow and you will be slowly degrading. You may even be unable to write due to lack of words.”
- Find clients.
And lastly, it would be all in vain if you do not get actual target practice. You can write for ten years, but if you do not know how to manage your time or follow instructions, you cannot handle clients.
So, go out there and get yourself some clients too.
Guest posts come in hand in this case. Tell your clients that you once wrote for the Huffington Post, but don’t mention that it was for free, and don’t lie either. Your clients will be left thinking something like, “If this bastard got the editors at Huffington Post paying for his crap, then he/she/they must be really good!”
So, do you want to be a writer? Those are the fundamental things all writers do consciously and unconsciously. How about you try them out and see, aye? Let me approach this client and hear what he has to offer.
I will get back to you, bye!
Alex Muiruri is an enthusiastic content creator and copywriter. He focuses on content writing, email blasts, and is a passionate blogger. Far from being a writer, he is also movie fanatic and dreams of writing a fancy action novel one day.
