Feb
6
Freelance writing is big business, and many opportunities exist. The only requirements are strong English skills, a creative mind, and strong writing skills. With modern computer programs that automatically check spelling and make grammatical suggestions, you don’t have to have a master’s degree in literature to write.
While there are full time writing positions available in a variety of places such as newspapers, magazines and other media venues, there are also part time, or side job opportunities. In most cases, part time writers are employed as independent contractors. So for tax purposes, the employer does not withhold any taxes, but issues a 1099 instead. Therefore, paying estimated quarterly taxes may be a requirement for successful writers.
Anyone with the required skills can pursue these jobs. It is a perfect opportunity for teachers. Obviously those people in the field of education are going to have very strong writing skills. Plus, educators are traditionally underpaid. This is also a wonderful opportunity for house wives (or any stay at home parent) that has enough free time to take on an added responsibility. After all, in this economy, a little extra income can really help out!
An example of a writing job would be a contributing editor. The name would suggest that a contributing editor actually edits other peoples work, but that is not the case. Instead, a contributing editor simply writes articles for a publication, and not necessarily on any kind of regular basis. The most common place to be a contributing editor would be for a magazine or a newspaper.
The more common writing positions can be found online. For example, somebody has to write the content for everything you find online, right? And the people who do write the words you find on a webpage are getting paid for it. I know it’s true, because I got paid for writing this article.
A very common type of paid writing these days is blogging. Link building companies will pay people to write blogs that incorporate links in an effort to increase a web site’s link popularity. This is all part of something called search engine optimization. All the writer has to do is write about anything while incorporating certain keywords. Then these keywords are then linked to the web site.
These writing jobs are not that difficult to find. There are websites devoted to advertising jobs to freelance writers. It can also be as easy as looking on craigslist since they have an entire section devoted to writing.
