Earning your first dollar as a writer is a magical experience. It’s the first step to realizing the goal of becoming a full-time writer and getting paid for your content.
It’s not soon after this experience you’ll start looking for ways to diversify your income. Rather than heavily lean on one income stream, you’ll want a few income streams as solid back-ups.
Having multiple income streams also makes it easier to become a full-time writer. But what are some of the different income streams we can choose from? Here are 5 popular income streams for writers.
#1: Write Books
It’s easier than ever before to write your own book. You can self-publish your book through Kindle Direct Publishing and start collecting royalties. Each book can earn sales through the royalties and direct readers to other parts of your business.
Some authors use their books to promote their products and services, turning a reader into a $1,000/mo client.
Before you write a book, set some goals for that book. What do you want the finished book to do for your career? Some authors make a full-time income just from the book royalties. Having a business model at the backend of your book speeds up the process to becoming a full-time writer, but some authors do just fine with the royalties.
#2: Write Medium Articles
I started writing Medium articles in 2020, and it didn’t take long for me to realize what I had been missing out on.
Medium rewards quality content and allows you to get paid just for writing articles. Medium has many paying members, and they distribute some of those proceeds with the writers.
Some people make 5-figures each month from Medium, and although that’s the exception rather than the rule, reaching $100 per month on the platform is very doable. In my first month of taking Medium seriously, I earned a little over $300 and the earnings have gone up from there.
The best way to grow on Medium’s platform is to look at popular content in your space. Use other people’s content as your model for creating content that caters to Medium readers. I pay $5 each month for Medium’s Premium membership for researching purposes, and it’s helped me come up with great writing ideas.
#3: Include Calls To Action In Your Content
I hinted at this strategy when talking about self publishing, and it’s an important strategy to incorporate for all of your content. At the end of my blog posts, I tend to promote one of my books.
On Medium, I almost always promote my YouTube channel as I want traffic to bounce around from platform to platform.
When you come up with article ideas, think about how you can connect them with your business. Part of the reason I wrote this article is because I have a few books designed to help writers grow their platforms and create more content (you can see my books here).
If you write about a topic often, create products around those topics. You can create training courses, books, services, coaching, merchandise, and other products around the topics you cover in your writing.
#4: Write For Others
Not only can you make money writing content for your own platform, but you can also make money writing content for others. Many business owners understand the importance of creating new content but don’t have enough time to create new content.
You can list your services on Fiverr and submit applications for writing jobs on UpWork. As you get paid by other people to write for them, you can have a bigger safety net as you write content for your own brand.
Over the long term, it’s better to make a full-time income writing for yourself than writing for others. That’s because other people can change their minds about hiring you for additional work, and there’s a cap to your earning potential since you’re trading time for money.
#5: Copywriting
Copywriting is a writing skill that helps you sell products. Some business owners will pay a high price for the right copywriter, but even if you don’t write other people’s copy, you should develop this skill.
It will help you sell more books and get more clients. If you are serious about becoming a full-time writer, you should definitely buy a book on copywriting such as How To Write Copy That Sells.
Copywriting in its simplest form is understanding who your potential customers are and writing a product description that keeps them in mind. There are various nuances to copywriting, but that’s the basic sense of what this writing skill entails.
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