by Elaine M. Doxie

Created on: August 05, 2010   Last Updated: March 15, 2011

Writing online is a good way to bring in income, whether you are a stay at home mom, an out of work professional, or even if you have been a writer for years.  For many people it just brings in a little additional income, but there in an ever increasing population that is able to make a living from online writing.

As with any kind of freelance writing, you need to figure out a schedule that will work for you.  You need to set aside the hours that you can work, and that your mind is at it's sharpest.  For many mothers, this may be the time just after the children have gone to bed.  For others, it may be in the morning, middle of the day, or evening depending on their schedule.  The more money you need to make from your writing, the more hours you have to set aside for it. 

Once you have figured out the time you can devote to your writing, you need to figure out what websites pay the best for online writing.  I have found success personally at helium.com, and at associatedcontent.com.  However, these are just two of an ever increasing number of websites that will pay you for your work.  Some pay upfront fees only.  Some pay upfronts plus ongoing revenue for page views.  Some pay only ongoing revenue.  If you need to be paid immediately, a site that pays upfronts is best.  If you can find a site that pays upfronts plus ongoing revenue, the upfronts may be slightly smaller to begin with, but the ongoing revenue usually makes up for it.

Promote your work extensively.  Twitter is one of the best tools for promoting your content, but you can also promote on Facebook, Stumbleupon, and other websites.  You may even want to join a site such as webanswers.com, answers.com or even yahoo answers and sneak a link to a relevant article into your answers every once in a while.  Web answers is a good choice for this, because they also pay you adshare revenue if you win a best answer, so you will get more money just for promoting your articles. 

The most important thing to remember is that if you are really serious about being a writer, don't give up.  Keep writing.  It may take some time to build up an ongoing income from your writing, but as long as you don't give up, you will be able to increase your income.  The other most important aspect of being a writer is to enjoy it.  If you don't enjoy writing, then this is the wrong career for you.

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