Getting Started Part 1 – Associated Content
I’ve been talking a lot about how you can start you freelancing career, the steps you need to take to organize your life and keep everything in place as you commence writing for money. But, I also thought I’d write a little about some good starter spots for before you become a full time freelancer. I write full time today, freelancing for dozens of websites and make a fairly decent living.
However, when I started, I had no idea what I could write and whether anywone would pay me for it. It seemed like a pipe dream. So, I did research and found a few sites that would take articles on spec and pay me for them in varying forms. Some would pay up front, though very little. Others would pay me advertising revenue as my site attracted visitors and traffic. Still more sites would offer a way for me to sell my articles to other people in a marketplace style setting.
So, I took all of these ideas and started putting them together. I’ll review them one at a time for you here though, starting with what I think is the best place to start writing for those unsure of whether they can make it in the field.
This site is a great place to start for a few reasons. First off, you have to have a basic semblence of writing skill. You don’t have to be a professional, but you can’t use the same blotted sentences you put together for your blog every other day. You need to draft an article, choose a good topic and some good keywords and make sure everything fits together properly.
You can essentially write about anything you want, which is another great way to get started. When you start writing, you have no restrictions, only your ability to think of new ideas. There are some places where you can’t make money on the site – movie reviews, book reviews, short stories and poetry, and other similar products that don’t make money over time. However, you can publish nearly anything if you desire.
Next, after finishing an article, you upload it to Associated Content. You will write a good headline for the article, something Associated Content will help you do if you need the help, and then you’ll fill out a variety of fields asking for additional information, including categories, tags, quotations, key points, and more. Finally, you choose a photo or two to represent your article (they need to be copyright-free or permitted for use) and you upload the article.
After about 8-10 days or so, you’ll receive a response from Associated Content with an offer on your content. It will be slightly more if you chose for the article to be exclusive to the site (meaning you can never use it again for other publication). I recommend keeping everything non-exclusive in case you decide to use other sites such as Helium or Xomba to double or triple post your content for additional money.
The offer can be as low as $3 and as high as $50 depending on how much traffic Associated Content assumes you will be able to generate with the article. This is where you start learning about SEO and how to write an article that draws traffic. You also start to learn what sells and what doesn’t and what client will expect from you.
The most important part though is that almost nothing is rejected. If it is rejected, you should look at a few more articles on how to write articles for traffic and see if you might be missing something (I’ll have more on this later). It gives you ample practice to learn about the online article writing trade as well as start putting together a nice little portfolio. If, in the end, your article does not gather the attention you would hope, no worries – write another one. Plus, you start making money for your writing – one of the best feelings you can ever experience as a writer.
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