How do I earn money from my writing skills?
Hi! This is a big question to answer. There are plenty of success stories of writers who were able to earn millions through their work. To make the best of it, I would recommend you publish your writing online and create a business model out of it for maximum profit. Having a website and publishing content on it is very easy these days.
I’ll assume that you are a developed writer and have built up your skill over time and that you really are motivated to make money off what you write because it does take work. Making money writing is kind of like re-learning to write because it’s a very big skill you start off terrible at but get slowly better over time. But if you learned to be a great writer, you can learn this stuff, I guarantee it.
Anyway, the first thing I suggest you do is to identify the USP (Unique Selling Point)of your content. If you write fiction, why are you one of the best writers in your genre? If you write articles on a topic, what makes you better than other people? We’re going to lead with this idea in your marketing.
To earn money through writing, you have to make the best possible use of your writing skills. You have an advantage because so much of making money online requires good writing.
First, you need to display your work to more and more people so that they see it and you build a following. In business, this is called getting traffic. Traffic helps you get more fans, people who love your work, and want more. Writers who put in the effort to draw in a crowd of fans can make money with that platform for the rest of their lives.
You can start with a blog first. WordPress makes it easy and it’s free. Then you can monetize your blog with the help of Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, Google’s Ad Sense, etc. But the real money, as you could imagine, comes from selling products and services. You can sell books on your website, but because books aren’t very expensive, I recommend adding other items that an interested buyer would spend money on.
Just as an example, here are some things I’ve seen a fiction author sell. I use a fiction author as an example because I constantly see fiction authors whine about how they have no ways to make money other than selling more copies of their books. Let’s find out how untrue that is:
1: Audiobook versions of books can be sold for much more than the regular eBook. Same for hardcover versions.
2: Personally signed copies are a popular way to make more money off hardcore fans.
3: Merchandise, such as T-shirts with quotes from the books, pictures of major characters, etc. Anything for a fan to show off their love of your work.
4: Since writers often buy from each other and take inspiration from one another, a fiction author could sell personal coaching on how to write a great story. This would be the high-ticket item, which not many people buy but earn the writer a lot.
Hopefully, you are starting to see the power here. This is just what I came up with within a minute, on the spot. When you turn your writing into your own business, you can do anything you want. You can make it work however you wish. You don’t have to play by anyone’s rules.
Of course, to get more value, I don’t recommend doing all of this stuff with a free website, but initially, you can use a free one and transition over to a domain that you paid for with nothing lost.
Getting more and more visitors to your website, where you sell your books and related products or services, is really the best way to make money. Everything else is putting your success in someone else’s hands, and frankly, I don’t trust anybody! B-) Resist the allure of publishers. There’s nothing wrong with getting published by other people, but it’s not a reliable paying gig, not unless you’re the next Stephen King. We’re talking putting aside a tried and true method of building a business because you want to be in the 1 percent of writers who earn a consistent living just through selling books via a publisher. You can chase that dream, and that’s great, but work on a platform of your own along the way. This is all just assuming you want to make money writing fiction, but much of it translates into other mediums.
Anyway, publishers aren’t that bad. There are many writing formats such as articles, blogs, collaborative works, etc., so you can opt to go with one or more formats in which you feel comfortable. Once you become popular, you may get invitations from other people, publishers, websites, etc. to write for them. I recommend building a platform this way, where you are gradually getting the attention of other authorities online while also building an organic presence of your own, each feeding the other.
The rewards for doing this right are unimaginable. Your sincere effort, time, and quality content will be the price. A pleasant, popular website with plenty of stuff for people to buy, that they actually want, is like a personal money-making machine, regardless of whether it’s about writing, garden tools, or fat-loss supplements. Selling online always works the same way: get more traffic. Unlike highway traffic which causes delays and frustration, we want as much web traffic (site visitors) as possible. Traffic = customers, and the people who focus on getting more customers to succeed.
I’m emphasizing this because I’m a writer as well, and I know that writers tend to be solitary and inwardly focused. I promise you, this is the best way forward. Focus on your own writing, of course, but focus on building a traffic-heavy platform full of passionate fans at the same time.
Personally, one specific traffic-drawing method worked the best for me starting out, that I’d recommend to just about any beginner. If you are interested then you can read the review of One Minute Traffic Machines (OMTM).
Please feel free to reply to me if you have any questions.
Good Luck!
Thanks,
Cleo