Writing Jobs

[Philip Overby]

Hey everyone, just throwing this out there if anyone knows anything. I've considered focusing on becoming a freelance writer part-time. I just want to pick up some writing jobs where I can and trying to string together some kind of income out of it. I don't think it will be my main source of income, but I wanted to explore this and see what is possible. I've found some pretty good websites so far that offer jobs (elance and oDesk so far) but I'm sure the competition is pretty high.

Anyway, does anyone have tips for finding writing jobs (not necessarily fiction writing, just anything writing related)? I'm not expecting to make a mint or anything, but just want to see what's out there.

Thanks!

 

[tlbodine]

Craigslist is one of my favorite sources of gigs -- check the big cities as well as your home town. I've got two very good regular clients that get me $100ish a week each thanks to CL.

There's also Constant-Content.com, where you can post articles about whatever you'd like in hopes that someone will buy them, and Textbroker.com, where you claim and write assignments from a pool (so you don't have to bid on the assignment - you do it, you get paid). The work can be mind-numbing sometimes, but sometimes it's a lot of fun.

Also bookmark Problogger, FreelanceWritingGigs and WritersWeekly and visit them every day for job leads.

If you like the bidding style work from oDesk, you can also try Guru. I'm not a big fan of bidding sites, but you can sometimes snare decent gigs off them.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks a ton! Those all sound really good. I'll check them out soon then. I appreciate your feedback!

 

[Devor]

I would say to put together an online freelance resume, linking to writing samples and credentials. I've never used it, but I knew someone who recommended Visual CV for that kind of thing.

 

[danr62]

Also, check out Make A Living Writing, it's great blog about freelance writing.

 

[Philip Overby]

I was interested in possibly ghostwriting some things. I always see postings about people who want something they wrote converted in a longer form or whatever.

Basically, I'm taking Chuck Wendig's advice and writing whatever I can.

Thanks everyone for the input so far!

 

[Jess A]

I can't help with ghost writing. But for freelancing in general (journalism) - if you find a story you want to write, make sure you know the publication you want to pitch it to. Get back issues if it's not an online publication. Know your audience (the readers), and follow the style guidelines. Know what stories haven't been told or find new angles, and when you pitch it to the editor in advance, explain your idea - sell it. Tell them why it's so well-suited for their magazine/publication.

Knowing the market is essential. Keeping a list of consistent ideas and following favourite stories is also very helpful.

I also agree with an online portfolio. Show that you can write and that you can do the research. Start small and work your way up. When you're unknown, editors are going to have to put more trust into you to do their publication justice. After all, they have deadlines, and if they give you a space and you screw it up, they'll remember. But if you pitch a good idea and you show that you know their magazine scarily well, they might work with you (and not steal your idea!).

Oh - and I got some good advice recently. Become good at photography and take a lot of photos, make a stock photo library of your own, every topic under the sun. And if you intend to write about your travels, photography is the key. Magazines love good quality photos.

I would have absolutely no idea how to get into ghost writing, I'm afraid. Though I suspect some of the above works for fiction too.

Another piece of advice - be willing to write anything and everything - profile pieces, how-to pieces, short fiction stories, commentaries, reviews, current issues, travel etc.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks Jess A! Good advice!

The ghost writing idea was just a thought. Not sure if I'd pursue that or not. I could write about travel some since I live in Japan and I've done a fair deal of traveling while I'm here. I'm not a travel, travel, travel, type of person, but I like to go on trips now and again.

I'm looking to branch out of just writing about fantasy and such, so I've been looking for other topics I might be interested in writing about.

Also, I've been looking into other online for-hire work. I'm open to pretty much anything as I'm going to be teaching part-time soon and I want to "spread my wings" so to speak and pick up various odd-jobs on the internet doing various things. A lot of these kind of jobs can be scams, so I want to be careful that's not what I'm running into.

I've also considered more online tutoring jobs since I have an education background and data entry (got 80th percentile on a typing/accuracy data entry test so I figure that's decent.) I'm also going to explore acting/extra work more since I have taken full advantage of my "foreignness" since moving here.

So in essence, I'm hoping to become a jack-of-all-trades and master of none for a bit. If it doesn't work out, back to full-time teaching I go, I suppose.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

If it doesn't work out, back to full-time teaching I go, I suppose.

A fate worse than death!

I'm telling myself I'm kidding and trying real hard to believe it.

Seriously, though, good move on going for acting gigs. I was only in Hong Kong for a few months before my face ended up in magazines and I was entertaining decent-sized audiences doing things I found ordinary and hardly deserving of a cheering crowd. I should've expoited that. Yeah, definitely take advantage of being a foreigner! With your pro-wrestling history, you've actually got proper resume-filler.

 

[Philip Overby]

I do like teaching, but maybe I just haven't found the right "type" of teaching yet. I have many great students, but I guess the bad ones sort of ruined it for me. I want to teach people who want to learn something. I know that's difficult to find sometimes, but I know those kind of jobs exist. So yeah, for now I want to try some other avenues out and see what happens. I have gotten offers for extra work before, but I think I need to sign up with more agencies. I just signed up with the one and they don't offer me much.

As far as writing jobs, there are some editing and translating gigs in Japan, but they're few and far between it seems. Or maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

 

[Zero Angel]

I gravitated towards teaching college because I figured those people at least wanted the degree they were shooting for and so would be interested in their classes...HA

If you can make a living with writing, go for it

 

[Devor]

For Ghostwriting - and I'm just guessing - but you would want to show some experience doing collaborative writing. And if you don't have any, get some.

There's a bunch of writers around here with more ideas than they can write. I could give you ten, myself. You could try making a post offering to write someone else's short story - as practice - in exchange for a reference letter. If you do a couple, you could see if you can get one to go anywhere.

 

[Philip Overby]

Just wanted to note I've been doing some freelance writing and have made about 60 dollars so far. Not a fortune by any means, but it's still cool to write and earn some extra money.

There are also loads more places than I thought that pay writers for money. Some are more attractive or competitive than others, but it's nice to know there is a lot of work to be had if you really look for it.

 

[Chilari]

Hey, congrats on earning cash writing! Here's to the next $60. And the next, and the next.

 

[Steerpike]

I did some ghost writing. It can pay well (I once got $500 for a book project that I finished in a day). With the projects I was involved in, I knew the topic and a general idea of how they wanted it presented, and apart from that it was up to me. The buyer didn't make any input into the writing process as it was going on. After the first draft was complete they emailed me with revisions, and that was that.

 

[Weaver]

I gravitated towards teaching college because I figured those people at least wanted the degree they were shooting for and so would be interested in their classes...HA

HA, indeed. It's worse when teaching high school, though.