Freelance Writing Jobs from Home

A Step-By-Step Blueprint to Make Your First $1,000 Online

Getting freelance writing jobs is a way to make money from home.

As the economy around the world continues to falter, many creative people are beginning to realize that they can put their considerable skills in writing to earn more money online than they can from a regular corporate

job.

In this article, I want to tell you about how to use your keyboard, mouse, word processor and internet connection to earn a good living working from the privacy and comfort of your own home.

This is a step by step, follow the numbers, blueprint for you to create an income from home working as a freelance writer.

Whether you are unemployed, partially employed, or want to break away from the drudgery of doing work that does not fulfill your creative soul, the following blueprint will help you make money online doing work that you love.

My assumption is that you can already write fluently and express your ideas clearly on paper.

However, if your grammar is questionable, your spelling, shaky, and you have trouble crafting clear sentences or developing a logical sequence of thought, simply take some writing classes to bring your skills up to par.

Writing, like carpentry, dog grooming, or house painting, is a skill. It’s not difficult once you know how. Study and practice can make a rookie writer into a wordsmith. Forget the myth that it’s a gift reserved for only a few because you don’t need to write like Hemingway to make money from freelance writing jobs.

If you can cobble a few decent sentences together, then you have what it takes to make this blueprint work for you. Frankly, anyone with enough will and desire can learn to write well…and profitably.

Writing is fun, profitable, and well worth taking the time to master.

Build It And They Will Come

The first thing you have to do is set up your freelance writing business. Although you may be working from home, be as serious about this as if you were building a brick-and-mortar business and had forked out $100,000 to open your shop.

Ready?

Let’s go through the various steps you need to follow to build both an online and offline business.

1. Choose the mindset of a winner.

Write out clear goals of how much you would like to earn each year as a freelance writer.

Daily envision yourself as living the lifestyle that you desire. Make these images big, bright, and close. Stimulate your subconscious mind with the desire to succeed as a writer.

Your clear goals and daily intentions are what will move you past obstacles, discouragement, and fear to creating a new reality for yourself.

2. Create an online presence through your own website.

It’s easy to create a website. Really.

Go to Godaddy and register a domain name.

Then go to Hostgator and set up an account. Initially, use the lower priced versions. You don’t need anything extravagant.

Once you have everything set up, go to Fantastico in your control panel and use the automated Wordpress installation.

After you have your Wordpress blog up and running, then go to “themes” in your Wordpress back office and choose something other than the traditional default theme. Find something that expresses your personality.

Your Wordpress blog over time will get you free traffic from the Search Engines. Wordpress is better than Drupal or Joomla or any other Content Management System for getting online traffic.

If you are not familiar with how to do any of these things, then you have two choices: one, get a friend to get it set up for you; or, two, hire someone from Elance.

It’s important for you to have your own web presence because it’s a way for people to come to know, like, and trust you. Without a website, it’s difficult to get online clients. People like to know something about you before they do business with you.

On your blog, create the following pages: a profile page, a testimonial page, a sample page, a service and rates page, and a contact page. Add these pages gradually if you don’t have any samples or testimonials. Over time, you will have more content than you can display.

In addition, begin daily blogs, adding small tips on writing techniques, personal experiences, reflections on life, opinions about prevailing trends, and so on. Your blogs should be related in some way to establishing your writing ability. Make your posts keyword-rich to attract blog traffic.

The idea of creating a writing blog is to come across as a friendly and trustworthy source of good information.

3. Create a Paypal account.

By creating a Paypal account, you will be able to receive money from clients. Despite rumors to the contrary, I have not had any problems with Paypal. I have been with them for several years now.

4. Sign up for Social Networking.

Create another profile on Linkedin and Naymz. Get a Facebook and Twitter account, too. You can, of course, add many more social networking sites, but these are the basics.

In addition, sign up at a forum or two to get to know people interested in the same things you’re interested in. This is also a great place to put your signature link that points to your website.

5. Get some business cards.

Go to Vistaprint and get 250 free business cards. Always carry a stack of cards with you when you leave the house. On your card, of course, mention your website.

Whenever people ask you what you do for a living, casually mention that you are a “freelance writer.” This will pique their interest as writers have a certain mystique. This is the time to hand them your card. Church social groups are an especially good place to hand out your cards.

Don’t say, “I’m hoping to be a freelance writer,” or “I’m trying to make some money online, etc.” There is no room for modesty when it comes to self-promotion.

However, don’t be pushy, either. Just be informative, friendly, and approachable. Nobody wants to be coerced into buying anything — even if they desperately need your help.

Although you may only get one client from every hundred cards you hand out, this client could make you hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year. Your entire business might take off with just one card in the hands of the right person.

Later, you can expand this offline marketing plan to include flyers, small ads in local papers, and so on. But for now, keep it simple and start with business cards.

6. Once you are making some money create an official business.

Create a legal business once you have all the kinks straightened out, made up your mind about your business name, worked out self-promotion ideas, acquired a few clients, and generally proven to yourself that you do indeed have a money making business.

This step will help you to create legitimacy as well as apply for tax breaks at the end of the fiscal year.

Congratulations, you are now a self-employed business owner.

Reach Out And Touch Someone

Now that you have a business presence, it’s time to get some clients. Here are five instant steps to take to make that happen.

When signing up at any of these recommended sites, do not pay to sign up–unless you have proven that they pay off for you. You may be promised many more leads once you sign up, but first prove the value of the site to yourself by working with the free options. Your goal is to make money, not lose it.

7. Create content, reach an audience, and make money.

Here are five places to start making money right away: Associated Content, Constant Content, Helium, Brighthub, and eHow.

The way to make money here is to review some of the best articles, analyze them, and make notes. When you write your articles, do what your models articles do.

8. Pick from a work pool.

Sites like Demand Media and Textbroker allow you to pick from a variety of job requests.

9. Sign up at job boards.

Here are some job boards to sign up for: Elance, oDesk, Guru, Getafreelancer, and Scriptlance. Remember, don’t pay unless they have proven their value to you.

While these job boards may offer a lot of work, there is also a bidding war here. Avoid the trap of doing a job for one or two dollars. It’s simply not worth your time.

You will have to weed out the places that actually pay from those that are looking for slave labor from desperate writers. You’re a writer, a skilled worker; don’t let marketers push you around with insulting offers.

10. Promote your own website or that of others with free articles.

Use article marketing to drive free traffic to your website. You can do this by using websites like ezinearticles, articlesbase, buzzle, goarticles, articlesnatch, articledashboard, articlealley, and ideamarketers.

While you will not get paid for posting your articles, your takeaway comes from your writer’s resource box. Here you can point people to your Wordpress blog or to an affiliate website where you can earn a commission. For affiliate products to sell, visit Clickbank and pick some affiliate products that you can review.

11. Apply for writing jobs.

Use places like Craigslist, Freelancewritinggigs, and even Monster to find writing jobs.

12. Keep refining this plan.

Refine this blueprint for getting freelance writing jobs. Test it, learn from your experiences, then customize it; take notes as you go along and make it work for you.

Once you start making some money, continue to learn, allocating a little time and money each month to add to your writing and marketing skills.

Wrapping It Up

In creating a freelance writing business, there are many traps and pitfalls. Most of them come from either internal self-sabotage or from getting scammed by false promises. However, by following this blueprint, you are well on your way to creating money from home by writing.

As you work through the plan, you will find some techniques will not work for you and some websites just don’t deliver on their promise; but persist in following your overall vision. Once you have a few good gigs under your belt you will build momentum.

You can make money online. You can get on top of those bills and create an independent income right from your home computer.