Unlock writing side hustles for an extra $1,000 to $10,000 monthly! Turn your passion into profit. Let’s write our way to success!
The real question boils down to: which one feels right for you?
To help you figure that out, let’s dive into each writing side gig by answering these two simple questions:
- How much room is there to grow? Some writing gigs let you earn money without constantly hustling, while others require you to put in hours for every dollar you make.
- How soon can you start seeing some cash? Some gigs offer quick returns, while others need time and effort before the money starts rolling in.
And to make it even easier, we’ll throw in a first step you can take today for each gig.
So let’s get right to it!
1. Affiliate Marketing
First of all, you express your opinion concerning certain things or situations and witness people believing your opinion once you begin to have a loyal audience of blog readers. Then, you use them to help consumers discover innovative products and services from other brands.
It is like being a matchmaker where you are matching those who need a certain product to that product or matching the people in need to certain people. Isn’t it that in their lifetime there are great products out there but sometimes people don’t get to know them? That is where you come into the equation as a trained professional with one’s life on the line each time you are on the road.
For instance, whenever your readers click on a link and end up buying a particular item, you get a little finder’s fee — in other words, a thank you for introducing them to each other – A Commission. So, it is like having a job where you make people glad about finding great things to buy while making some extra money yourself.
An excellent example of an affiliate marketing website is The Spruce. They write articles that rank for keywords like “best crockpots” and “best rice cookers.” Each of the blog posts contains affiliate links to the products mentioned in the article. Whenever a reader purchases a product, The Spruce earns a commission.
The Spruce is an example of a multi-million dollar affiliate marketing website, proving that affiliate marketing can scale to be much more than just a small writing side hustle.
This is another striking advantage of affiliate marketing which is that you do not have to bother about purchasing products, taking orders and delivering them. But there’s a catch: well, you will not be able to regulate or oversee the quality of the products you are placing in the market. If the wrong product is promoted, the STAR ends up damaging the reputation that was cultivated over time.
Furthermore, it always takes time to cultivate an audience and there is no shortcut to doing so. That might sound like starting to get paid immediately or within a week, which is highly unlikely in most cases. But after you prove yourself and gain profit, having a website can really generate your passive income. You can sit back and take your time in writing new content since the old blog posts will continue earning you money.
Scalability
Affiliate marketing can really grow, with some brands like The Spruce being worth millions. You can even outsource the content creation, turning it into a mostly passive business. However, big success stories like The Spruce are rare. On average, affiliate marketers in the U.S. make around $82,000 per year. , according to ZipRecruiter.
Time To Money
Affiliate marketing has a direct link to keywords, or the right placement of the given websites. If you want your newly created site without established authority to start generating profit, it is recommended to stick to these rules and the time can range from half a year to a year and a half.
How to Start Now
To get started with affiliate marketing, set up a website, select a niche, and begin writing content on your blog to build an audience.
2. Content Repurposer
Content repurposing is republishing a single piece of content, like a video or podcast audio, in a different format, like a blog post or social media clips.
Some organizations employ the services of freelance writers with repurposing in mind; this means that instead of writing a piece for a certain platform and then writing another for a different platform, it is more effective to write the piece once and distribute it to multiple platforms.
Here’s an example of a freelancer who offers content repurposing services at different pricing tiers:
Scalability
The only way of increasing content repurposing is to create an agency; in essence, it is not the recommended business model known to become a seven-digit business for a solopreneur.
Finally, the majority of clients who approach firms that provide content repurposing services have the same desire to get the best results for their content marketing strategies at an affordable price. This means that instead of seeking the services of an acknowledged freelancer for a reasonable amount of money you could be bidding for a contract against people who freelanced for as low as $6 on Upwork. Now, focusing on the average content repurposing salary, ZipRecruiter reports that the content repurposer salary falls at about $60 per hour.
Time To Money
Content repurposing is currently trendy today which makes it one of the well-demanded service-based side hustle business that you can get right away from the comfort of your home.
How to Start Now
Find companies with long-form video and audio content and create a blog post and four social media posts from their video/audio content. Send it to them and offer to work for free with the option to later charge.
3. Blogging
Bloggers select a niche, such as food or traveling, and then write blog posts on the topic to build an audience.
After building a loyal following, there are many different ways to monetize a blog, including:
- Sponsored blog posts: A brand pays to write a blog post on your blog. The average cost of a sponsored blog post is about $250, though how much you can charge really depends on the authority of your website, how much traffic it earns, and the value of your audience.
- Affiliate marketing: You promote products or services on your blog and earn a commission from the sales.
- Working with sponsored brands entails finding a brand that will pay you a certain amount of money and ask you to sell their products or services. For instance, travel blogger Matt from Expert Vagabond gets between $4,000 and $20, 000 per brand partnership.
- Of course, another effective way of getting the most out of your blog is by directly selling yourself or the products and services of your preference to your audience. For example, Blogilates owner Cassey Ho’s net worth is said to be in the range of $7 million to $8 million, of which $5- $6 million has a link to POPFLEX. She gained a big fan base from her online journal and her channel on YouTube prior to venturing in marketing her personal merchandise line.
Scalability
How much you can grow your blog really depends on how you make money from it. If you’re only using affiliate products and sponsored posts, you might see some growth, but it could be limited.
But if you create your own brand once you’ve built up your audience, that’s when things can really take off. You could potentially make well over seven figures by doing that.
However, it is scalable from an operations standpoint if you hire other freelance writers to write the content. You can also stop publishing and continue earning passive income from existing content.
Time To Money
This takes time because you have to build an audience and your first year of blogging might be the hardest because advertisers are not willing to pay you for your services before you have a track record; six to twelve months, at most.
Get More Support On Your Journey As A Writer
The best way to become a great writer is by writing. So don’t wait or plan anymore – pick one of the writing side hustles above and take the advice in the “how to start now” section.
That said, you can increase your rate of learning and earn faster if you regularly receive feedback on your work and have basic frameworks and instructions to improve your writing.
This is going to be a 3-Part series, so stay tuned for more!