Writing online

[missscruff]

Thanks for all your advice guys! Its really interesting stuff.

I find the hardest thing is trying to figure out if a site will actually pay me. I don't want to be writing content for people and not be getting paid for it!

[TheodoreK]

Thanks for all your advice guys! Its really interesting stuff.

I find the hardest thing is trying to figure out if a site will actually pay me. I don't want to be writing content for people and not be getting paid for it!

From my experience that's really not a big problem!
Compared to freelancers, usually the people who are looking to buy articles or hire a writer have a lot more to lose!

If an employer does not pay you, you lose at most a week's pay and you can resell the unpaid content to someone else and make some money out of it. On the other hand, the employer stands to lose a lot more because words travel fast and good writers are limited and can't be found easily

So, most employers will pay you always on time, some will "forget" to pay you unless you start spamming their paypal/email with reminders and only a despicable few will not pay you at all.

You should not be afraid of those few who won't pay you.
I've done numerous writing jobs in the past year and only three individuals did not fully pay me. I only lost $36 from all three of them combined and who knows, I might even get paid some day! (One person withheld payment for almost five months but in the end they gave in to my reminders :P)

[DomainMagnate]

This thread partially inspired me to write some tips for freelance writers here.
Merely from a marketing perspective I see how most writers make the same small mistakes, that if they work on fixing those they'll get many more clients.

[inplainview]

Thanks for all your advice guys! Its really interesting stuff.

I find the hardest thing is trying to figure out if a site will actually pay me. I don't want to be writing content for people and not be getting paid for it!

As a result of needing huge quantities of fresh, original, and relevant content, I created my own copywriting business. I have never taken on a project without being paid in advance. Therefore, from my experience, you don't have much to worry about not being paid for your work.

As starter, offer a few free reviews on any Internet Marketing forum and in no time you're going to build yourself a customer base that will keep you busy for years to come.

[aneil4lom]

http://cracked.com pays writers $50 u.s. for articles. Just go to their website and click "write for us" at the top of their page for further instructions.
if you have a website, cracked allows you to put a backlink to it on the article you wrote for them so basically it brings tons of traffic your way, and possibly potential sites to write for.