A Guide To Writing

Many first time authors jump into the freelance writing world without realizing that there is more than one type of income available. Most writers, and most workers in general, understand the normal “paid once for work done” model. You write a batch of articles, an e-book, a press release, and you get paid for that work and that’s it. You made what you made. Do the job, get paid, and move on.

As a classic example of the “paid once” model: you write 10 articles and get paid $50. Another example would be to write a list of 50 fun facts for $1 per fact, or you get lucky and get paid $18 an hour, but then you’re only allowed to charge for “x” number of articles and then you’re done. Once you do this work, it’s done and over with and you never make any more money off of it. These are examples of one time payments, and the type of payment that most freelance writers are used to.

There is a second form of payment for writing, one that is particularly available to freelance writers who work online. This would be passive or residual income. Income that is made from work that has already been done and completed in the past.

Passive, or residual, income happens when articles you wrote stay online and continue to make you money (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) days, weeks, months, or even years after you finished writing them. This is normally done online with a deal where the author gets Internet ads displayed on the page and gets a cut of the payments made every time someone clicks on those ads, but there are also “pay per view” set ups where the author gets “x” amount of money based on page views (like $2 per 1,000 or something similar). When a writer sets up articles this way, they tend to make far less money up front, but then as a lot of articles make money over a long period of time the passive income can really add up – all for work that has long since been finished.

There are many different ways of making passive income writing online. Many different websites pitch themselves as a good option to authors looking at residual income, although some are really good and some aren’t much better than rip-offs. Google AdSense is the most common way for writers with blogs to try and make passive income off of their blogs. The goal, whatever the route, is to get paid month after month for years for articles that have already been written.

Online freelance writers have the ability to earn both types of writing income: passive and normal one time payments. In fact, one of the best strategies for new freelance writers is to go after both. Look at passive income as a long term strategy that might eventually get you the freedom you’ve always wanted, while one time payments help you to learn the craft and pay the bills until your residual income becomes a major monthly pay check.

Over time, the combination of residual income and regular freelancing gigs can help freelance writers to make an excellent living, and one that may allow for more time off during burn out, or even the Holy Grail of online writing income: a full time residual income so you never “have to” work full time again. The key is to be persistent. Most writers get fed up after a couple hard years and quit. The more a writer sells, the better his or her portfolio is and the easier it will become to get work. Passive income tends to be really slow growth, but it’s worth it because of where it can take you.

When writing online, don’t limit yourself to only one type of income. Freelance writers need all the income they can get, so work to get all the passive and active income that you can earn!