by Natalia Jones

Created on: January 10, 2010

Writers often struggle to increase their income because they have set notions of what it means to be a writer. They refuse to give up the dream of penning a bestselling novel that will skyrocket them to both fame and fortune, so they end up barely getting by on last minute jobs that they perform under duress because they have to get some money to pay the bills.

The following are some of the ways writers can increase their income from writing, while still doing what they love.

Write What You Know

It is a simple fact that when you write what you know you get better results. The words flow onto the page with ease, which means there is no need to spend hours researching when you could be writing for money. All you need to do to capitalize on this is to find your niche market and then apply for jobs. There may be ghostwriting or freelancing opportunities that will be able to fill in the spaces between your payments for your novel.

Don’t Be Afraid to Go Commercial

Writers feel that going commercial means selling out their vocation, but this doesn’t have to be the case. No other area of freelancing pays as much as commercial writing and you get to use your creative genius to help companies to put together marketing material, corporate profiles or even annual reports. Sure it’s not fanciful but it can be colorful and very interesting to learn about the business side of things while getting handsomely rewarded.

Explore Different Avenues For Getting Your Work Out

Print publications may be winding down and scaling back in many niche markets, but for every print publication that disappears ten online publications sprout up. It’s all about looking in the right directions and finding ways to get your work into print, whether in the virtual world or on hard copy.

Market Your Skills

Writers need to market their skills just like any other profession. There is no reason to believe that writing quality work is all that is needed for building your reputation as a writer. You need to have a portfolio, which can be online or offline, or better yet both. Having a website or blog to market your skill as writer is not a bad idea as well.

Life as a writer can be difficult if you don’t have a multi-faceted plan for your income. It can be frustrating to depend on one publisher to pay all the bills and there is really no need to do that when there are so many opportunities waiting at your feet.

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