Have you ever wondered why some freelance writers seem to have more work than they can handle while you seem to struggle to keep busy with paying gigs every day? You may have wondered if these other freelance writers’ work is significantly superior to yours, if they low-ball their rates to stay busy or if they have some incredible industry connections that they use to find projects. In some cases, some of these things may be entirely true. However, in many other cases, busy freelance writers simply know how to find quick and easy projects to work on. These projects can be used to fill up the dead space in their schedule when they otherwise would be twiddling their thumbs and not earning money. So how can you find quick and easy projects?

Bid Sites

Elance.com is perhaps the most well-known bid site available to freelance writers, but there are several others that are equally good sources of work. Some of these sites require you to pay a monthly subscription fee for the benefit of finding work through them. However, most freelance writers will be able to find plenty of work through the sites to make the nominal subscription fee worthwhile. To maximize the benefit of using these sites, you should keep an eye on your work schedule. Start bidding on projects a few days before you think you will have downtime. Further, only bid on projects that are of a scope you are capable of handling with your other work projects. Many of these sites have an incredible selection of opportunities to choose from, so it is easy to use these projects to fill your schedule.

Self-Publishing

Bidding on projects, however, does require time and effort. You are not paid for your time to search for projects or to bid on them. Further, you may not be rewarded with a project after investing your valuable time bidding on it. With this in mind, you may consider the benefits associated with self-publishing your work. There are several different websites that allow you to write articles of various lengths and publish them for profit. Some will pay you a flat fee per article, and others will pay you on a per page view basis. While sites that pay on a page view basis will not generally put a significant amount of money in your pocket immediately, these sites can be used to build recurring income over time.

Sell Your Work

Self-publishing websites allow you to write articles and post them on their websites under your own name. However, another option is to sell your work to private parties who will then publish the work under their own name. You can write on almost any topic you choose, and some websites will allow you to name your price for your article. The downside with these sites is that some articles may not sell immediately. So you may write an article today and not see income from it for months. The upside, however, is that selling the rights to your pieces can result in a greater amount of money per article.

With these different ways to make money and fill up the downtime in your work schedule, there is no reason why every freelance writer cannot stay as busy as he or she wants to be!