Entry Level Freelance Writing
You know in your bones that you’re a good writer, and you have something worth writing about. How do you make that first step into getting paid for it?
Ways to break into writing
- Start a blog. If you’re going to promote a website, why not make it your own website? Start a blog and see if you can make it popular. Writing regularly teaches you how to write.
- Volunteer to write for a charity. Find a favorite non-profit agency or website. Offer to edit their website or write news releases for them. They probably won’t turn you down. Make sure it’s an organization you care about. Ask them to give you a job title to put on your resume. If what you write gets published, you can put that on your resume too.
- Accept boring assignments to earn more exciting money. Few novelists get rich quickly (and, alas, even fewer poets - but you knew that already). You’ll make money faster by writing a brochure, a white paper, a press release, a technical manual, or a trade magazine article.
- Apply to join a blog network. If you’re chosen, you’ll receive training, support and some cash. Some of the best are About.com, KnowMoreMedia, and b5media.
- Search the freelance writing job boards. My favorites are About Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Jobs, Writers Weekly, and Writer’s Resource Center.
Who’s hiring writers?
Many people think that freelance writing is limited to suggesting a story idea to a magazine editor, who hires you to write the story if the idea is good. But there are so many other places to sell your work than through magazines. And pitching a story idea or querying an editor may or may not lead to your becoming a regular member of the publication’s stable of writers. Being a family man, I value opportunities for consistent work, so I’ve approached my writing career more conservatively.
Here are some companies I’m familiar with who are paying writers for long-term work, in bite-sized pieces:
- Mahalo, a human-powered search engine: $10-$15 per page.
- SearchSays, another human-powered search engine: about $1 per 1000 characters
- Google, not exactly writing, but they want writer-types for temporary, part-time jobs: $15 per hour
- Brijit, abstracts of high-class popular magazines: $5 each
- Historical Abstracts, abstracts of scholarly articles about history and social science: $5.50-$8.50 each, more if you can read other languages (They also recruit volunteers, so specify if you want to be paid).
Michael on August 28, 2007 
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I’ve recently done some work as a freelance business reporter/stringer for Trenchmice, and I’m very pleased with how it’s going.
Like you say, a lot of freelancers turn to technical writing on occasion to keep the earnings coming. It can, however, be worth noting that technical writing carries some inherent risk and liability considerations that many people fail to acknowledge.
My name link here will take you to an interesting article on what these liabilities can be, depending upon what type of tech writing you’re getting into.
While much technical writing will not place you in a risky position, it’s worth asking yourself some basic questions as a freelancer before you get into it.
Hi. I am a sruggling youth who has one large goal of building my own business from the bottom up. I also enjoy writing so much, and any job that would alow me to better myself at it would be a true blessing for me. I am currently enrolled in college and it is apart of the plan to achieve my goal. I am searching for a writing job that can give me some extra cash. I am on a road to success, but I keep hitting the speed bumps in the road! What can I do to get closer to my goals?
Update: I’m no longer working for any of the “companies I’m familiar with” except Historical Abstracts, now purchased by Ebsco. One reason: most of them seem to be out of business. Google isn’t, of course, but they just laid off thousands of temporary workers. KnowMoreMedia laid off their bloggers too. But don’t give up - good writers are still needed.
Thanks for the update. I actually visited some of those sites and found them defunct. Mahalo might still be of some interest though.
It would probably be useful if you updated the main article rather than just adding a comment, as that’ll save people clicking through to sites that don’t exist.
Unfortunately, I don’t have edit privileges for old posts, but maybe Daniel will have time to do it.
I am a young man who just had the most beautful baby girl in the world. My writing has been inspired by her and I think my level of writing is getting a lot better. I am not a college trained writer, I write from the mind. I have tried a lot of different writing web sites but they all say you need college expirence, For the lack of a better word that is bullshit, What makes my work any different than someone going to college……..Money!
Some writing teachers warn against depending on college to turn you into a writer. It can’t. College can give you time and motivation to read other writers, and your tuition supposedly pays for someone to read and critique your writing. I’m not the only writer who’s afraid of what a MFA Creative Writing degree might do to him. I’m afraid it might turn me into a writer than only MFAs, professors and book critics can understand. The only way you can write is as yourself. College can turn you into somebody else. The question is, do you want that?