You may have heard that writing isn’t profitable.
Maybe your parents or a teacher told you about this, or it’s just the impression that you get from society in general.
You may have the stereotypical vision of writers as “starving artists.”
But thankfully, there are actually a whole bunch of ways that writers can earn a living!
In this post, I’m going to show you 20 different ways that writers can earn a living.
Freelance Writing
Obviously freelance writing is my favorite, and the majority of how I earn my income.
It isn’t necessarily a specific way to earn money unto itself. Instead, it’s more of a broad category that can include a bunch of different things that appear on the list below. Like writing articles or blogs for clients.
As a writer looking to earn money, I think it’s important to get yourself into the freelance mindset. To get someone to pay you, you’re going to have to be able to solve some kind of problem for them. Usually this revolves around creating written content.
Being too busy isn’t an excuse to put it off! Read my article How To Start Writing With A Busy Schedule or Full-time Job if you don’t feel like you have enough time to get started.
Blogging
Running your own blog and monetizing it is another way that writers can earn money.
There are lots of ways to start making money from your blog, including ad revenue, affiliate products, selling your own products, and lots more.
The downside to blogging is that it can take months before you get established and start to get a lot of views that you can monetize. But on the upside, the blog belongs to you and keeps making you money as long as you rank in search results and people can keep finding you.
That’s different than freelancing where you might still be writing blog posts, but you exchange them for a one-time payment.
Is blogging the right choice for you? Check out my article Should You Start A Blog? to see!
Self Publishing Books
Self publishing is still alive and well in 2020 and beyond.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is by far the biggest platform out there. It’s what I’d most recommend. But there are other platforms out there like Kobo, Smashwords, and others that you may want to consider as well.
Both fiction and non-fiction sell well if you know what you’re doing. Making money with self-published books mostly centers around doing research into what already sells, and writing to market.
If you just write a book that you’ve always wanted to write, it may sell well or it may not.
Aside from just writing the book, you’ll also need to learn what makes a good cover, how to market your book, and other skills as well.
Press Releases
Companies, governments, and most other large organizations will need to announce things to the world at some point.
That’s where press releases come in. Someone has to write announcements for these companies.
Magazine Articles
Most magazines have internal writers that do repeat work for them. But many also accept pitches from the general public.
In some cases, you just need to email them with an idea for an article and they’ll either reject it or give you the go-ahead to write it.
Other times, magazines will want to see the completed article in advance. So you may have to write a piece and then approach a bunch of different magazines to try and get them to buy it.
Journalism
Newspapers and journalism in general is a bit of a dying industry, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going to university to study it. But some journalistic outlets may hire you even without a degree.
This can range from just writing news articles about current events, or you may have to go out and interview people to get first-hand accounts and then write about what they’ve told you.
Nowadays the internet also offers opportunities when it comes to independent journalism that never existed before.
Writing Competitions
You may have stories, poetry, or other forms of writing that you’ve already created.
Keep an eye out for writing competitions that you can enter your work in. Often these have cash prizes!
Some competitions may be held locally, while others are done nationally or online.
Social Media Posts and Content
If you spend all day on social media anyway, then being a social media manager might be a dream come true for you.
Somebody is coming up with those witty tweets on Wendy’s Twitter account. Most brands from restaurants to clothing lines all have their own Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other pages that they need to pay someone to manage and produce writing for.
Product Descriptions
Any product that a company is selling online needs some kind of product description.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a t-shirt, a garden hose, a video game console, or anything else.
If you go on a company’s website to buy their product, there will be writing telling you what the product is and what it can do.
In my experience, writing product descriptions is more entry-level writing work. But I’m sure there are some people that really specialize in it and make good money at it as well.
Copywriting
If you want to make money from writing, becoming a copywriter is probably the most lucrative path to take.
Copywriters use a combination of writing, sales, and human psychology to help companies sell products. They make things like sales pages and funnels.
Since this form of writing has a huge impact on how well a product will convert, companies will pay huge amounts to have it done right.
White Papers
These are basically in-depth reports that companies will hire you to write for them.
I don’t know a ton about them, so you’ll need to look into them yourself. But I hear they can be pretty lucrative!
Guides or Manuals
Every product, software, or anything else a company sells will usually need some kind of manual to accompany it, which says how to use it.
Someone has to write these! It can be a bit boring and technical, but it can also pay well.
Grant Writing
Grants are proposals that non-profits write to get government funding. You could write them for charities looking to get funding, or for scientists at universities who are looking to get money for research, and all sorts of other things.
Business Writing
Business plans are basically the grant writing of the corporate world. Companies need a business plan to show to the bank or investors to convince them they’re worth lending money to.
You’ll need some good financial knowledge and to specialize in this space, but you’ll be rewarded accordingly.
Most business writing will be to help startup companies get funding.
Ghostwriting
Ghostwriting isn’t necessarily a category of its own. Instead it encompasses a whole bunch of other kinds of writing.
Any writing that you do where you don’t get credit for it is ghostwriting.
This might be writing blogs or articles for a company. Some publishers even hire writers to write entire books but then publish it under a pen name.
Read my article Should You Ghostwrite As A Freelance Writer? to learn more.
Legal Writing
A more specialized type of writing that you’ll probably need at least an introductory law education for. You can draft up contracts, write legal letters, and other things for law firms.
Resume Writing
Yes, people will pay you to write a compelling resume for them!
You’re more likely to end up creating resumes for CEOs and other high-performing individuals, as opposed to people who are straight out of college.
Considering that landing a job will give them a hefty salary for years to come, it makes sense that people would be willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for you to craft the perfect resume for them.
Academic Writing
It’s not exactly ethical, but there are lots of academic writing websites out there. Or you may get your name out in your local college or university and run your own business of this type.
Students who don’t want to do assignments themselves will often resort to hiring writers to finish essays and other kinds of papers and projects for them. You can make a decent income from this, if you enjoy writing in a more academic format.
As far as I know, helping students to cheat isn’t illegal on your part. But they may get expelled if the school finds out. And you aren’t really doing them any favors when it comes to their education.
Speech Writing
Everyone from movie award winners to politicians may hire someone to write a speech for them.
This is a specialized area of writing that you may focus on. Especially if you’re good at writing compelling or charismatic messages.
Website Writing
Nowdays, having a website is a must for any respectable company.
Everyone from dentists to plumbers needs a site where people can find them at.
As a writer, you may specialize in writing content for company websites. You can help them to create a compelling and interesting home page, about page, contact page, and other parts of their website.
You may reach out to companies with existing sites that could use some work, and help them to improve what they’ve already got.
But the best approach is likely to partner with a web developer who can do the technical details of creating websites, and you can worry about the words that appear on the page.
Conclusion
From the outside, writing can seem like an unprofitable career choice.
You might think that writers are just people who write poetry or novels in their spare time and never actually see a penny from their work.
But there are a ton of ways that writers can earn a full-time living by doing what they love and are best at: Writing!
Hopefully there’s at least one way of earning money on this list that jumped out at you. Give it a try and see what happens!