The market for writing is rapidly expanding, as internet usage is growing around the world, and it really is a global market now. English is already established as the web's primary language, and anyone with good writing skills can market and sell their work online.
As a freelance writer, you can create web content, produce useful reviews, make interesting filler items, write articles on various subjects, and use all of your writing skills. If you can provide an effective copywriting service, there are some excellent opportunities on the internet.
Whether you are an experienced freelance writer, or just starting out, you need to have a presence on the internet. You can start your own blog, or build a website, and use it to promote your writing skills. A personal website can also be used as an online resume of your work.
If you don't want to set up your own webspace, or if you want to have additional opportunities to promote your writing skills, you should think about joining at least one community site. You will then have a profile page on which to show your bio, and a link to your own blog or website. You could also place links on your profile to some of your online articles, or to your profile pages at other writing sites.
Helium is obviously the best community site to join. This site helps new writers to get established, and is excellent for building up a stock of articles, selling articles to the Marketplace, and earning a residual income.
You should get yourself listed on a few good, legitimate freelancer sites, and use these to find businesses requiring copywriters, website owners looking for paid content, and organizations which need writers for their e-zines and newsletters.
Webmaster forums are good places to find members who want to buy content, or who will pay you for posting in their forums. By joining some of these forums, you can offer to provide writing services to webmasters.
If you have specialist knowledge about a particular subject, you can find suitable websites and try contacting the owners or webmasters, offering to write good quality content for the site.
There is an ever increasing demand for written web content, because established sites always need fresh content, with effective use of keywords, to give them search engine optimization and to keep up their high page ranking. New sites are constantly appearing and will always need good quality content.
The internet is the world's biggest market for the written word. If you want to make money by writing, now is the time to get yourself known and to promote your skills online.