Emergency Cash Tip #12: Freelance Writing Without Even Having A Customer
As I mentioned in earlier sections, working as a freelance writer can be highly lucrative.
What I did not mention originally is that there are several other possibilities when it comes to freelance writing.
You don’t always have to look for a buyer; and then create a project that matches her specifications.
Rather, there are other models of freelance writing that don’t involve you using Elance or forums to find customers.
In particular, sites like www.associatedcontent.com, www.helium.com, and www.constant-content.com permit you to participate in such alternative freelancing approaches.
Within this class of sites, there are two important categories:
- the category of sites that facilitate direct sales of your writing; and
- the category of sites that permit you to post content—and then pay you according to how frequently it is viewed on the site.
Category 1 Sites: facilitating direct sales of your writing
Sites like www.associatedcontent and www.constant-content.com will permit you to post articles on their site. Publishers will then browse the site for topics of interest; and purchase your articles if they think it would be a good match for their site’s content.
- One benefit of using this category of freelance site is that your articles will usually sell for a high price (i.e. for $15-20/each, rather than $5/each).
- Additionally, if you truly enjoy writing, the higher prices will permit you to create something requires research and careful thought, rather than something that simply requires you to write as quickly as is possible.
The major downside of this type of freelancing is that there’s no guarantee that anyone will buy your articles at the end of the day. This means that you could invest hours in your articles; and could ultimately never make any money.
Category 2 Sites: pay for views
Unlike category 1 sites, category 2 sites, such as www.helium.com, do not match you with a buyer. Instead, you give the site your content; and, in return, you gain revenue whenever someone views your article. Usually, this amounts to something like 1-3 cents per view.
In general, if you plan to use category 2 sites, you should be careful about which topics you pick. Since these sites usually generate revenue through Google AdSense, they often pay accordingly. This means that you should write about topics that businesses spend a lot of advertising money on.
It might not initially be obvious what these topics are, but if you spend some time on Google Adwords searching for keywords, you should be able to scrape together some keywords that people pay a great deal to advertise for.
Summary
Ultimately, neither of these methods provides a lighting-fast way to make emergency cash.
If you need emergency cash today or by the end of the week, you definitely have other options that are better (such as using Elance.com or Guru.com to find freelancing projects). As a form of supplementary income, these sites are a good option.