If you’d love to know how to put your talents to good use and make money writing online, this post is for you!
The biggest challenge being a writer is that no matter how talented you are, you’re never guaranteed to monetize your art.
Unless you’ve built a big audience of people interested in your work, or are an ace at self promotion, your amazing wordsmithing could forever be hidden behind a bushel.
However, in this day and age of global reach online it’s easier than ever to make money writing online without ever having to become the next Pulitzer prize winner.
Here are 21 fun and actionable ways for you exercise your creativity and start to make money writing online.
1. Become a Blogger
If you love writing, you’ll love blogging!
Once you’ve created amazing content and google starts to rank you for it, many of your rankings will last for years, provided you consistently create new and valuable content around your topic, update your existing content and remain relevant in your niche.
However, it has become much harder to generate organic traffic in the last couple of years so you need to be prepared to drive traffic to your posts from a diverse range of traffic sources, such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc.
Plus you’ll need to be happy putting in a solid amount of effort up front, without instant reward. In fact it may take 6 – 12 months before you start to see any real traffic depending on the niche you’re in.
However, once that traffic starts rolling in, the only way is up!
Many bloggers make upwards of $10k, $50, $100k a month by creating consistent, valuable and relevant content.
To get started, choose your niche, create a simple wordpress site and start publishing! Focus on mastering keyword research, writing articles daily if possible and away you go.
2. Write on Medium
If you don’t fancy the thought of having to purchase a domain, hosting and starting a blog (although it’s super easy these days), start writing on Medium.
When you sign up for Medium’s partnership program, you have two options to get paid. As more Medium members spend more time reading your Medium articles you receive a share of their membership fee based on how long they spend reading your article.
So for example, if a member spends 10% of their time reading your article you get 10% of their monthly member fee.
The second route to make money writing online on Medium is to refer the app to others and get 50% for every person who becomes a Medium member. Currently, the membership fees are $50 for a year or $5 a month.
With both these opportunities you can see it’s a numbers game as membership fees are low, so my recommendation is to become a prolific writer on Medium (the same if you’re growing a blog) and really specialize in a specific niche so people know you for something and look forward to reading your articles.
3. Create and Sell Digital Products
Are you an expert in a specific field?
If so, you’re in a great position to create and sell educational resources to capitalize on your expertise.
Perhaps you love writing about cooking, gardening, cars or sports. Maybe you want to teach others how to make money writing online, help students with their writing processes, or create ultimate guides on fitness and health.
The world is your oyster, and your knowledge could be presented as an ebook, a PDF, online guides, even a scripted video course.
Information marketing is as old as the hills and the overheads are low. Simply package up your knowledge as a saleable PDF, ebook or newsletter and use a free sales site such as Gumroad or Substack to promote it.
Social media sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn are amazing for building an audience who will happily pay for your expertise.
4. Produce Scripts for Videos
Fancy yourself a scriptwriter?
Collaborate with video creators and write their scripts for them. So many great on screen talents know how to deliver a line but aren’t great at writing their own scripts.
Video content is growing year on year at an astonishing rate so this is an excellent opportunity to make money writing online.
You will find hundreds (if not thousands) of video creators seeking your talent on freelance sites such as Upwork or Fiverr, or you can simply contact video creators whose work you admire and ask if they require any assistance with their scriptwriting.
5. Start Website Copywriting
Copywriting is big business and is a great way to make money online for a beginner.
If you’re a good copywriter you can get paid very handsomely for sales pages, landing pages, video scripts, emails, even copyrighted blog posts. As a beginner, you can use AI to help you write compelling copy.
Because copywriting is a skill in its own right the competition for great copywriters is less than for blog writers or ghost-writers for example.
Copywriting is about persuasive writing that leads the consumer to take action on your words.
You can get started by looking for contracts on sites such as Upwork or Freelancer (copywriting site), however as you start to build a reputation, word of mouth is huge in this market.
6. Write Long-Form Content for Websites
Long-form content includes blog posts or articles with word counts of 2k and above.
Many website owners and online businesses don’t want to create their own content. Even the best blogs sometimes use ghostwriters or contractors, alongside their in-house writing team to increase the amount of content they can publish.
If you can demonstrate that you also have SEO knowledge and can target specific keywords and write both for humans and the search engines, your skills are even more valuable.
Find contracts on Upwork, or sign up to a dedicated writing site like Writers Access to get regular writing jobs.
7. Publish Your Book
Someone once said ‘we all have a book in us’. (Not sure who said it so I may just have to take the credit).
If you’d love to write and publish your own book, there’s never been a better time to become a self published author.
Who needs traditional publishing houses?
Once you’ve created your masterpiece simply use the Amazon KDP program to upload your work and create a book for Kindle or a paperback. You’ll then be able to expand onto other platforms like IngramSpark which could see your book in traditional bookstores.
You can even make a lot of money by recording your book and uploading it to Audible.
The world is your oyster whether you’re a fiction or non-fiction author so what are you waiting for?!
8. Turn Your Writing Into Print on Demand Products
Do you love to come up with funny memes, or inspirational quotes?
Perhaps you write jokes, riddles or informational one liners.
If so, why not turn your writing into a T-shirt, mug or branded hat?
Print on demand gives you the opportunity to add your design to a multitude of blank products, provided by the print on demand company.
Most suppliers offer everything from iphone cases, yoga mats, shoes, socks, notebooks, cushions, you name it!
What started as primarily a t-shirt business has expanded into a wonderland of products!
A unique way to make money writing online is to simply design your one liners using a platform such as Canva and adding them to products that people would love to wear, drink out of, or display in their house.
Here’s a great example of a framed print with a simple but inspiring message for sale on Etsy.
9. Create Notes for Podcasts
Most podcast shows are accompanied by show notes and written articles, summarizing the episode, highlighting important parts and linking to mentioned resources.
Most podcast hosts do not want to write those notes themselves.
You could become a specialist at listening to and summarizing podcasts into fantastic notes which are super useful to listeners/readers.
Look for contracts on sites such as Upwork or approach podcast hosts directly and ask if you can work with them to improve their current podcast articles.
Not only do you get a chance to make money writing online, but you’ll also learn a ton by listening to podcasts you love!
10. Craft E-Commerce Content
A great way to make money writing online is to become a specialist in writing content for ecommerce sites.
With almost 70% of visitors to ecommerce websites abandoning a purchase at the cart stage, your job would be to create vivid product descriptions, clever upsell copy, and engaging, action led, cart abandonment emails.
With more and more online ecommerce stores being created and launched every day, store owners are increasingly looking for writers and copywriters to help them maximize sales.
Look on sites such as Upwork or Freelancer for ecommerce writing opportunities.
11. Work as a Translator
If you’re fluent in more than one language, a great method for making money online as a writer, is to work as a translator.
When we ran our 7 figure Amazon business, we hired writers from France, Italy & Germany to translate our product listings and follow up emails.
If English is your second language or you’re multilingual, consider becoming a translator for Amazon businesses, ecommerce stores, blogs and any online asset that could or should be translated.
12. Write Press Releases
Many traditional businesses still rely on the good old press release to distribute news about their company.
There’s an art to writing a press release and creating contacts in the news industry.
If you become a specialist in this area, you could potentially attract the attention of thousands of news outlets for your clients, helping them to spread important updates about