If you’re a keen writer with a bit of experience you might be looking for ways in which you can start to make money from your skills. Whether you want a bit of extra income or you want to make a career out of writing, we take a look at five ways you can monetize your writing skills.

Set up a blog

It’s not one of the quickest ways to start earning money from your writing, but setting up a blog is a good long-term project and can eventually turn into a reliable income.

To get started you just need to set up your blog website. There are plenty of really easy-to-use website builders that come with templates so you create a well-designed blog in a few minutes. Take a look at Blogging Basics 101’s reviews to find one that works for you.

Then you need to start writing and publishing content on a regular basis. It’s a good idea to identify a particular subject or niche that you’re interested in and have plenty to write about. The more specific your niche the easier it’s going to be to set yourself apart.

To boost your reach you can make sure that you’re sharing and promoting your blog posts on social media. Writing blog posts that are search engine optimized is also going to help you get more traffic to your site.  

Once you’ve started to build up an audience for your blog you can monetize it in a number of ways including advertisements, affiliate links, or sponsored posts on your site. While it will take time, blogging allows you to write about what you want and create a steady income.

Freelance writing

Freelance writing is a good way to expand your writing skills and build up a portfolio of different projects and types of writing. There are thousands of businesses and brands that need written content for a huge range of things such as websites, white papers, and articles, technical guides, advertisements, printed publications, marketing materials, emails, or social media posts.  

It’s not always the most stable income, especially when you’re starting out. But as you build up your experience and reputation you should be able to secure a steady stream of work, especially if you build up good relationships with your clients.

Put together your existing portfolio of writing and create a professional-looking website to promote your services. You can find opportunities on various freelancing sites — Webflow outlines some of the best options in this post. It’s also a good idea to reach out to your network and promote your writing services on places like LinkedIn — word-of-mouth recommendations can be really valuable.

Start teaching others to write

If you’ve got a lot of writing skills and experience then you could make money by sharing these with others. Lots of people are looking to improve their writing skills or learn about certain aspects of writing such as creative writing or blogging. Whatever area you’re an expert in, you could teach others either via tutoring individuals, running group classes, or creating an online course.

Teaching individuals or groups can be a big commitment and take up a lot of time, which is why many people will choose online courses instead. Once you’ve set it up you can charge people to take your course and it can be a fairly self-sufficient source of income.

There are plenty of online platforms that are designed to make selling courses easy. If you’re not sure where to start then take a look at Learning Revolution’s reviews to help you decide. You then just need to put together some lessons that provide real value to your target market and start promoting your course to encourage people to take it.

Ghostwriting

You’ll often find ghostwriting opportunities listed on freelancing websites — this is when you write something as someone else and that person is then credited for the work.

It doesn’t give you as much opportunity to build up your portfolio as all the writing will be published under someone else’s name. However, ghostwriting can be a good way to improve your writing skills and it often pays pretty well. If you don’t have much experience with different types of writing, then ghostwriting is a great way to learn. You might be writing anything from blog posts and online articles to longer pieces like a book.

Freelance editing and proofreading

If you’ve got an eye for detail and an excellent understanding of grammar then you could start making money from editing and proofreading other people’s writing. Many writers or businesses will want a fresh set of eyes on their work to check for any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, or just to help tidy up what they’ve put together.

Editors and proofreaders will often focus on a particular industry or type of content so that they can become experts in that area.

Most businesses will require you to have some sort of degree or a certain amount of experience. If you’re just starting out it can be a good idea to reach out to some small businesses or publications and offer your proofreading services in return for some referrals or testimonials.

These are just a few of the ways in which you can monetize your writing skills. Some of these will provide you with a bit of additional experience and income, while other options could turn into a full-time job.