As digital marketing becomes an even more prominent aspect of business growth, the demand for freelance writers continues to skyrocket. But as a freelance writer, it’s often difficult to know which direction to go. There’s a lot of demand, but which niches are most profitable? Once you discover the answer to this question, you’ll find that the money has a way of rolling in.
Target these markets and expand your freelance writing business. Click To Tweet7 Places to Find Legal Writing Jobs
We’ve talked about different types of freelance writing jobs in the past, and we’ve pretty much established that having a specialization is the way to go if you want to increase your earnings. While you can still earn a lot as a generalist, specializing in a niche will lessen the need to hustle for clients day and night. Instead, you can generate more income with fewer, high-paying clients.
That being said, legal writing is one of the more profitable niches. Most freelance writing job boards offer legal writing jobs, but there are certain places that will make it easier for you.
7 Places to Find Legal Writing Jobs Click To TweetHow to Make Big Bucks: Enter Real Estate Writing
If there’s one important truth that every writer should understand, it’s that choosing a niche and mastering that topic is by far the most profitable way to find high paying freelance jobs.
Real estate is one niche in which freelance writers can excel. It can be a very profitable market, whether you’re writing about the marketing aspect or the legal aspect. There’s a ton of copy to be written in this industry, and writers can make a good living if they do it the right way.
Here are some suggestions for getting started in a real estate writing career. [Read more…]
From Freelance Writer to Translator – A Natural Transition?
A passion for the written word and a love of language are two oft-cited drives behind those who have built careers as freelance writers. Whether they’re penning press releases, magazine articles, blog posts or company reports, the act of writing itself is part of the joy that keeps them doing what they’re doing.
In the professional translation sector, these same reasons are often given to explain what inspired individuals to become translators. The main difference in the case of translators is that it is a passion for multiple languages that underpins their careers, rather than just one. [Read more…]
Musicians – Make Ends Meet as a Music Industry Writer
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Christie Templeton, a freelance writer in Los Angeles California who also dabbles in music production and singing. Christie enjoys writing for the music industry when she is not busy writing copy and technical writing for her clients in the software development industry.
Many musicians must work an unrelated job to make ends meet until their music begins to become profitable enough to survive from. Jobs like bartending, waiting tables or retail work inside guitar stores are typical work resources used by a lot of musicians to supplement their income. While these can jobs be flexible to a degree, they usually require a lot of hard work that isn’t really related to the overall dream of being a musician and, in the long run, aren’t contributing towards building credibility in the community as a talented and knowledgeable performer. [Read more…]
The Secret Life of a Freelance Writer
Those of you who paid for premium cables channels in the 80s may remember Angel. It was the tale of a girl who’s momma left here alone with a $100 bill one day who decided to make a living on the streets. She had a secret life–High school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night.
Brett Giddens has a slightly less dramatic secret life. Then again, he’s a real person. He’s an Oklahoma high school basketball coach by day who spends his nights singing in small casinos as an Elvis impersonator.
I have a secret day/night life, too. Mine doesn’t rival the Angel story and it isn’t as fun as Giddens’ tale.
Sometimes, in the evening, I write things that pay next to nothing. And I do it just for fun. [Read more…]
Will Video Kill the Keyboard Star?
A few years ago, text ruled the ‘Net.
Prohibitive technology costs and connection speed limitations made graphic-rich pages a gamble. The idea of communicating with video was laughable.
Now, even cheap laptops come with installed cameras. Phones and other portable video devices are dirt cheap. Server space is more than plentiful and those old slow, dial-up connections are rapidly becoming the online version of 8-track tapes.
Video is gaining ground.
Many extremely successful online businesses have virtually abandoned traditional text in favor of video presentations. Video content, video sales pages, video blogs, video, video, video.
Speaking of which, here’s a video I put together for this post:
This whole video thing really isn’t bad news for writers.
I doubt that the increasing popularity of video will have a negative impact on the amount of writing work available for quite some time. The size of the overall marketplace for content and copy of all sorts is growing so quickly that more video us shouldn’t have a huge impact on the ability of freelance writers to secure opportunities.
It also creates new opportunities for those who can work with video, whether they offer complete solutions or know how to write effective scripts, etc.
Nonetheless, I think video’s gains are important to those of us who make a living with words. Even if it’s not influencing our space much today, I can’t help but to think that it eventually will.
Personally, I haven’t done a great deal of video to support my business. I should probably do more.
Unfortunately, I’m more than a little bit camera shy. If I could convince myself that I was extremely photogenic, I’d probably do short video blog posts once in awhile along with a few other things.
I can toss together slideshow-style videos very quickly–the one above took about fifteen minutes, top-to-bottom. No, it’s not Oscar material, but it’s something. When I spend time on a project, I can actually create some fairly attractive and effective videos. I do them for a few clients with some regularity.
I think I should develop my video skills, invest in pro-grade video creation and editing software and find a way to overcome my camera shyness.
I’m curious. What are you doing on this front?
Are you playing with video? Are you updating your blog with little clips of you chit-chatting directly to your audience? Are you peppering your site with video?
Are you providing video services to your clients or do you regularly collaborate on video projects?
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Note: If you’re still seeing “Obama Girl” bikini as the video’s preview, it wasn’t part of that “use a bikini shot as the preview to drive traffic to your video” strategy. It was purely accidental. And it’s been changed. It just takes YouTube some time to make the thumbnail switch.
50 Submission Guidelines Pages
The job boards aren’t the only places to find freelance writing jobs. Sometimes it’s as easy as looking for submission guidelines or “write for us” pages. Granted, these aren’t client-based projects and regular jobs, but they’re good opportunities nonetheless. What I like about pitching the online and offline magazine markets is that they tend to pay more money than many of the advertised (job board) freelance writing jobs.
In 2010, the work is there, provided you take the time to look.
Over the past few days I’ve had the opportunity to research submissions guidelines from a variety of markets. I think we have something for everyone here. Some of these markets have been featured in the submissions guideline section of our daily freelance writing jobs section and some are making their debut here at Freelance Writing Jobs.
50 Submissions Guidelines Pages
Anthology
- Chicken Soup for the Soul – Pays $200
- Cup of Comfort – .05 – .09/word
Children
- Cicada – Payment varies
- Cricket- .25/word
- Highlights – $25 – $150 and up
Hobby & Lifestyle
- AARP – Pays $1/word
- AskMen.com – Pays $50/article
- Back to College – $50 – $80/article
- Love of Quilting – $200
- Make – $25 – $100
- Quilting Arts, Cloth Paper Scissors & Stitch – Unspecified pay
- Yoga Journal – Unspecified Pay
- Zora & Alice – Pays $20 – $100
Literary & Poetry
- The Missouri Review – Pays $30/page
- Blackbird – Unspecified pay
- One Story – $100/story
Miscellaneous:
- Funny Times – $60
- Orion – Will be open for submissions in June
- The Sun – Pays $300 – $2000
Outdoors
- Backpacker – .60 – $1.00/word
- New Jersey Outdoors – Payment to be determined
- Sierra Magazine – Unspecified pay
Parenting
- Mothering Unspecified pay
- Innovative Kids
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Mystery
- Abyss & Apex – Up to $75/story
- Analog – Up to $600/story
- ClarksWorld – .10/word
- Dark Wisdom – pays .05/word
- Escape Pod – Pays $20 – $100
- New York Review of Science Fiction – $10 – $25
- Strange Horizons – $50/story
- Beneath Ceasless Skies – .05/word
- Neo-Opsis – Up to $125 CDN
- Jim Baer’s Universe – .25/word
Travel
- Abroad View – $25/story
- World Hum – Payment Varies
- National Geographic Traveler
- Traveler’s Tales – $100/story
Writing
- Women On Writing – $50 – $150
- Writer’s Digest – .30 – .50/word
- Write from Home – Pays $25/article – $10 for reprint
To be continued….
Like these? Want more? We have more submission guidelines coming. In the mean time, maybe you’ll find these posts listing guidelines and markets useful:
- 75 “Write for Us” Pages
- 11 Cooking, Food & Drink Markets
- 19 Parenting Markets
- 15 Greeting Card Markets
- 21 Poetry Markets
- 40 Freelance Writing Markets Paying $100 or More
- 40 More Freelance Writing Markets Paying $100 or More
- 11 Environmental Markets
Have you successfully queried one of these markets? Please feel free to share in the comments. We have plenty more markets and guidelines coming up!
