Want to write whatever you want and get paid for it?  This article is for you. If you want the ultimate freedom to express yourself, all while getting paid along the way, I’m here to help. I’m going to share with you two websites that will pay you to write nearly anything. I’m also going to give you some tips for starting your own profitable website.

I’ve been making my living online for over ten years. In fact, my story is kind of unusual. My first job was working in a factory. It was a temp job. It mostly involved long hours cutting carpets. It was not fun, but, strangely, I enjoyed it. My boss was a short and fit and had a foreign accent. I grew up in the suburbs and wasn’t used to accents. He often bantered with a man who walked to work. The walk took him 2 hours. I vividly remember him joking about his wife’s breast milk. I’d never heard people talk like that.

When it came time to take a break, my coworkers didn’t seem to understand why I wanted to keep working. In my mind, I was in the groove, enjoying the repetition of the work. “This is when you take a break,” they said, staring at me until I stopped.

I’ve never been very good at working according to other people’s schedules. It took me several years to get started on my own. But, I eventually did.  If you’re anything like me, I hope you’ll find this article helpful.

The first opportunity I’m going to present to you is a website called HubPages. They’ve been around for a fair amount of time now. The gist of it is this: You post articles on their website, and they share their ad space with you. They’re very well established and have been around a long time. Many writers report earning several hundred dollars a month from them, or more. I’m going to be up front and say that it’s not easy to earn that much with HubPages. They do have a good community and can be a great way to practice writing, but if you want to make you living from writing, you definitely shouldn’t depend on them.

The second opportunity is very different than the first: Constant Content is a website that lets you post articles online for sale. This means you have a lot of flexibility with what you write. But, you’ll want to be strategic. Think about who will end up buying your articles. Think about what your potential buyers will be looking for. Choose a good niche and do some research. Knowing your audience is one of the most important parts of selling anything. In this case, your audience is not just the people who will be reading the article when it is published — it is the business owner who is looking to fill a specific need with their website.

The third opportunity is to start a website and make money by selling ads. In this case, I highly recommend signing up for the Google Adsense program. I’ve been working with them for over 10 years, and have had a lot of success. The Adsense program is fantastic because they take care of all of the ad selling. Google is one of the most profitable companies in the world for one reason: They’re very, very, good at selling ads.

Running your own website can be a lot more work than just writing. You’re going to have to answer some fundamental questions:

• What will it be about?
• Who will visit your website?
• How will they find you?
• How will you keep them coming back?
• Who will your advertisers be, and will they be able to pay enough to support your writing?

Each of these questions are very important and will need to be answered if your website will be successful. Don’t worry about getting it right the first time. My advice is to experiment. Start with an idea, and find out as quickly as possible if it will work. You don’t have to have a business plan. The most important thing you need is website visitors. If you can find them, and give them what they want, then you’re 90% of the way there.

The fourth opportunity is to simply find your favorite websites and blogs and send them an article idea. You just might be surprised at how many of them will pay you for your ideas and your writing. Before you send them a pitch though, be sure to have a solid understanding of what they publish. Does your idea match their needs? Will the editors like it? Will the audience respond?

If you have an article idea that you strongly believe the audience will love and that will fit the needs of the website editors, then there is one more step. You need to be able to sum up the article in one very short sentence. It needs to be a powerful sentence. This will be your pitch. Short, sweet, and to the point. Try writing several of these one sentence pitches and telling them to your friends. If they’re immediately excited and interested, then you’re probably on to something. If their eyes glaze over, then you have more work to do.

The four opportunities are just some of the ways you can earn money writing whatever you want. When I first started on this path, I was still in college. Nobody told me it was impossible. I simply started trying things until I stumbled on something that worked for me. This was in 2003. I had stumbled on something called SEO, or “search engine optimization.” It was shockingly easy at the time, and I was very successful. Nowadays, it is an important skill, but is much more difficult. I don’t do much SEO anymore, but it is what got me started.

These days I’m an expert Facebook marketer. Our Facebook page at Freedom With Writing has more than 200k+ fans. If I had stuck with SEO, I’d probably be broke, or stuck working for someone else. My point is this: What works now might not work tomorrow. The trick is to be flexible and when you find something that works, run with it.

That’s why you should subscribe to Freedom With Writing. We send you writing jobs. Our hope is that one of the many jobs we send will be perfect for you. So, be sure to sign up if you haven’t already. It’s completely free.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article, please reply to the email you get once you subscribe.

Also, please send me an article pitch! Our website is all about helping writers succeed. If we accept your article, we’ll pay you a minimum of $75.

Sincerely,

Jacob Jans
Editor
Freedom With Writing