Write Short Articles to Break into a Freelance Writing Career

My freelance writing career began a long time ago, and I can vividly remember the first check I received in the mail for a story I had written. It was for the princely sum of $2.50, but you would have thought it was a thousand dollars the way I carried on. My husband and I lived in a house in the country with no phone, and no one was home that day to share my enthusiasm.

That didn't bother me. When I had stopped dancing around the front yard, I walked all the way into town, 4 miles, to show the check to my mother. The thrill of receiving a check for my writing has never stopped and, fortunately, the size of the checks has grown as I gained experience.

Being a writer is a lot different, and in several ways, more difficult than it was way back in my Underwood typewriter days. The competition is stiffer. More people are college-educated now, know how to write well, and are churning out material at an astounding rate.

Secondly, the tools of writing have changed. Computers have made my writing much faster and are equipped with spell and grammar checkers so that editing after an article is finished is far easier than it used to be. That means though that an editor will expect my copy to be letter perfect by the time it reaches his or her desk.

Finally, because the sheer volume of printed material has increased so much, writing is not valued in the same way it was a few years ago. In the past, writers toiled for months perhaps years to produce a decent manuscript. When it was published, friends flocked around to congratulate the author. Today, there are so many manuscripts for editors to choose from that they can afford to be very picky about what they buy, and when you do have something published, friends are often too busy reading something by one of their favorite authors to pay much attention to what you have accomplished.

Unless you are another Stephen King or Danielle Steele, don't expect to get fabulously wealthy by writing, but in spite of its drawbacks, writing can still be a profitable and satisfying business. Especially if you have some writing-related sidelines to bring in additional income along the way.

Such sidelines might include editing, teaching beginning writer's classes, creating brochures, newsletters, reports, or blog posts for other businesses. All of these possibilities can provide additional cash to help you pay those bills that never seem to stop coming.

You may want to write a novel, but I prefer writing short articles. I remember reading in Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who" books about a writer who said his English teacher in high school taught him to develop the ability to write at least 1000 words about any subject she assigned to him.

That sounded like a fun challenge to me so I tried it out. The problem was, what to do with the articles after they were written. I went online looking for markets and found several. If this type of writing appeals to you, why not look into one or more of the following places to publish your articles or find some online sources of your own. There are many.

1. Associated Content.

I would feel guilty if I didn't mention Associated Content, the place where I presently publish most of my online writing.

Associated Content is free and easy to sign up with, lets you write about almost any subject you can imagine, and pays you a small upfront fee in most cases. There are some subjects they don't pay for-fiction, poetry, and recipes for example. Your article must be at least 400 words long, but since I often get carried away, mine are usually 1000 words or more. They want you to create a title with keywords that readers will be using search engines to find. They also require a brief description of the article to be used on the home page of the site.

Later, you choose a classification for the article such as Crafts, parenting, business, etc. Then, at the end of the article, you are given a chance to provide a photo, an interesting or amusing fact about your content, some relevant links to other sites the reader might find helpful, and a list of the three main points of your article.

Once you have submitted the article, it usually takes several days for it to be approved, and during this time, you are allowed to edit the article, add pictures, etc. You will be notified by e-mail when an offer has been made on the article and you can accept or reject the offer.

If an article is rejected, you can still allow it to be published and will receive a small payment for each time your article is viewed. The per view payment is paid in a lump sum once a month, but when articles are purchased, payment is made directly into your Paypal account within a day or so.

Readers are allowed to comment on your article and you are able to respond to the comments which is a nice feature.

2. Constant Content

Constant Content does not buy your articles directly, but posts a portion of your manuscript for their clients who are seeking material. If the client likes what he sees and decides to purchase the content, he pays the money to Constant Content, who then forwards the entire article to the client. Constant Content deducts a commission before paying the remainder of the money into your account.

One nice thing about Constant Content is that you set your own price on your manuscripts. You decide what amount you want for your work and then add enough to cover Constant Content's commission when you price your work. You can designate whether you are selling one time usage rights, or exclusive rights.

Constant Content also has a requested articles section where you can go in and check requests for articles to see if there are any that you would like to produce. If so, you claim the request and are given a certain length of time to produce the article. On requested articles, the buyer sets the length of the article, the rights he is asking for, and how much he will pay.

3. eHow.com

This is strictly a market for How-To articles. There is no up front payment so your pay comes from page views only.

This site is very easy to sign up for and use. They like a photo of the How-To project in steps if possible. You provide a list of supplies needed for the project in a side-bar and write a very brief introduction to the project, followed by 4-6 steps (more if necessary) explaining in detail just how to do it.

A new feature has recently been added-an "I Did It!" button for readers who have tried the project to add their experiences about following the instructions to make the item or do the project themselves.

Subjects covered range from finding a lost pet to getting gum out of a carpet. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, this is a great site for you.

4. Other places you might want to check out are

Blogsvertise.com where you are given assignments, eLancer.com where you bid on writing jobs, Writer's Weekly with its weekly column of free-lance writing jobs, Helium.com which pays according to page views, MyLot where you interact with other members introducing new discussions of your own or commenting on the discussions of others for a small amount of money. And don't forget Lulu.com, where you can actually upload your own book for free, design a cover, set your price, and start directing people to view and purchase it right where it is stored on the Lulu site. (Lulu takes a cut, of course.)

I haven't tried to give you a complete list of places to earn money writing online. It would take a whole book to do that. I just wanted to give you a small taste of the many, many places you can write for money online.

If you really want to become an online freelance writer, sit down at that computer and get started today.