Writing clean copy will help you make money blogging
As some of you know, I am a blogger by night, but a journalist and sub editor by day. I spend all of my time writing, so I know that can string a sentence together. I don’t put in the same amount of work for a blog post as I would a hard-news story, but I know that I am able write with style.
I read a lot of blogs of people who say that they make thousands of dollars working as online freelance writers. I’ve written about Internet freelance writing before, and it’s not something I’m particularly keen on when writing for print media is more profitable and also a heck of a lot more fun.
Even so, if you want to become a freelance writer on the Internet, there is one simple way to go about it: author a blog that exhibits your skills. People notice how well a blog is written, and I get asked to write for people without advertising my services. Mostly, I have to turn the offers down because the money isn’t worth my time, but this shows the power of blogs.
For so many people to comment on writing style should be enough to convince you of its importance. Things that annoy me as a reader include excessive use of italics, exclamation points and patronizing ad copy – don’t treat your readers like children.
The editor of the newspaper I work for actually hired me partly because he had read one of the blogs I author. You can make money, both online and offline, writing articles about absolutely anything.
Most recently, I edited a press release for John Cow (ripped it up and put it back together). The thing that I am able to do best is write, so if that’s one way that I can reach out to other bloggers (popular bloggers in particular) then I should capitalize on it and see how much money can be made on side projects for other people.
The latest project I’ve been offered actually came from someone who I sold a link to on another blog. He read the blog he was buying on, found my other blogs and then asked me to write (actually rewrite) articles for him for $50 a week. Again, I’m unsure if it’s worth my time at face value, but by writing for the websites this guy owns, I have the opportunity to promote my own blogs on high PR sites.
If you need help with a writing project then you can contact me and maybe I will be able to do something for you.
Remember: clean copy will make your blog shine. If you need some guidance, you could always head over to my tips for writing better blog posts.
Like this post? Subscribe to the feedShare:
Digg it for goodness sake! Stumble your heart out!
3 Responses to “Writing clean copy will help you make money blogging”
Angel, another good post and good advice, well done.
One thing I would ask though is does ethics come into this?
Would you write for any cause if the money was ok?
not a critisim, just wondering?
When it comes to press releases, there’s very little ethics involved. Writing a press release is a service, and when a release goes out to the public, it doesn’t have my name on it. writing a press release is like writing ad copy — I don’t have to believe what I’m writing, but I have to write for a client.
For news stories it’s a totally different matter. At the end of the day, I need to work.
Good points. I see a lot of blogs that are filled with mistakes (hopefully mine isn’t).