How to Make Money Writing Online

1. How to Make Money Writing Online A Presentation to The SpaceTech Chapter of The Society for Technical Communication By Michael S. DeVries Founder, I-ShopTheWorld.com, LLC and Principal, The Virtual Consulting Firm (TheVCF.com) November 12th, 2008

2. Agenda • Introduction • “Take Aways” • “Content is King” • Roles of Writing in Internet Marketing • How to Make Money Writing Online for Others and/or Yourself, in general and/or more specifically including: • Blogging • Writing Articles • Writing Press Releases • Copywriting • Writing e-Books • Writing other web page content • Posting in Forums / online Communities • Writing for Email Marketing • How to Competitively Price and Make More Money with Your Writing Online • Where and How to find Paying Writing “Jobs” and/or Freelance Projects online • Getting Started Making Money Writing Online Now! • Conclusions • Q & A

3. Introduction • Michael S. DeVries • is … • Founder of I-ShopTheWorld.com, LLC • Founder and Principal of The Virtual Consulting Firm (TheVCF.com) since 1998 • Moderator / “Publisher” of The Virtual Consulting Discussion List since 1998 and other prior e-zines. • The Published Author of a number and variety of articles in both online and offline publications. • A former Certified, Senior Consultant with the IBM Consulting Group • Experienced in working virtually/online, online business, internet marketing and working online since “before they called the internet ‘ The Internet’” ;) • May be contacted via: • The Contact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/ and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/

4. “Take Aways” • There are Tons of different types of Opportunities for You / Writers to Make Money Writing Online! • Get Started doing Something Now!

5. “Content is King” • Online / on the internet “Content is King”! • Content is still currently Mostly Writing! • E.g.: • Articles and Press Releases • Blog Posts and Comments • Copywriting / Sales Copy • Forum Postings • E-Books • Etc. Etc.

6. Roles of Writing in Internet Marketing • The majority of Internet Marketing, = Selling products and/or services online / on the internet, is still Most about Writing! • E.g.: • Articles for Article Marketing and E-Zines • E-Books and other Information Products • Sales copy / copywriting • Advertisements • Email messages for Email Marketing • Auto-responder messages • Product Guides and Product Reviews • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ad revenue generating web pages, e.g. using Google Adsense • Etc. Etc.

7. How to Make Money Writing Online for Others and/or Yourself • You may Make Money Writing Online for Others through: • Freelance Writing • Joint Ventures • Online Writing Jobs • You may Make Money Writing Online for Yourself through: • Affiliate Programs • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertisements • Creating and Selling Your Own Writings, e-Books and/or other information products • Why Not Do Both?! (Highly Recommended!)

8. How to Make Money Writing Online – Blogging • What is Blogging? • “A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site” • Why do you care? • “As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs …” (Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog) • Blog popularity is based predominantly on Frequent Postings = Fresh Content, Visitor Comments, Volume and “growth rate of backlinks” • Blog Postings  Articles • Others will Pay You to: • Write Blog Postings / Articles for them • Write and Post Comments on their Blog as well as on others’ Blogs related to their niche/Topics • You may Make Money generating Traffic to Your Own Blogs

9. Aside - What is Social Networking / Web 2.0? and Why do you care? • Who has not heard of at least one of the following?: • Facebook • MySpace • Friendster • Each of these is one in the rapidly growing list of Very Popular Social Network Services / Social Networking / Web 2.0 sites. • “A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities …”(Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Networking) • Many Social Networking sites have some type of Blog or other means of public and/or private written communications • Why do you care? • Others will Pay You to: • Write and Post to the “Blog” of their, and others’, Social Networking sites • Write information for their Social Networking site Profiles • You may Make Money generating Traffic to Your Own Social Networking Sites/Blogs, E.g. through: • Selling Your Own Products and/or Services • Affiliate Programs

10. How to Make Money Writing Online - Writing Articles • Others will Pay You to Write Articles, Product Reviews, Product Guides, etc. for them, which they may: • Post to their Blogs, Social Networking sites, and/or web sites • Publish in their e-zines • Email to their email marketing lists • Distribute, your ghostwritten Articles, under their name through Articles Distribution services and Article Directories / sites • Sell and/or give away as Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles • You may Make Money generating Traffic to Your Own Social Networking Sites/Blogs, E.g. through: • Selling Your Own Articles with Private Label Rights (PLR) • Marketing Your Own Products and/or Services through Your Articles • Marketing Affiliate Programs Products/Services through Your Articles

11. Additional Tips about Making Money Online Writing Articles • “Articles must have at least 500 words and at most 2000 words. • Keep your keyword density below 7%. • Do not include your site URL or domain in the body of the article …” (1) • Your URLs / marketing links, usually limited to @2 links, go in Your "About the Author" section, a.k.a. “Resource Box” • The “sales copy” and marketing links in the Resource Box of the Article is how You, or whomever you wrote the article for, Makes Money through Article Marketing • You may also see some of the Articles that we have written and submitted to various Article Directories, etc. over the years at: • http://www.isnare.com/?s=author&a=Michael+DeVries • http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Michael_DeVries • http://www.bukisa.com/people/IShopTheWorld • http://thevcfdotcom.qassia.com/ • If you are interested in additional references for where and how to efficiently submit/distribute your own Articles online, Please Contact me via theContact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/ • (Ref. 1) http://www.isnare.com/guidelines.php2) http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html )

12. How to Make Money Writing Online - Writing Press Releases • Others will Pay You to Press Release for them, which they may: • Distribute through Press Release Distribution services and Press Release Directories / sites • Send to Media Contacts both online and/or offline for Publication • Others will typically Pay You More for a well written Press Releases than for a standard Article. • You may Make Money by using Press Releases to generate Traffic to Your Own Site(s) in any/all of the same ways as those listed above. • (Ref. 1) http://www.prlog.org/ 2) http://pr.prlog.org/how-to-write-press-release.html )

13. How to Make Money Writing Online – Copywriting • Others will Pay “Big Money” to a Proven Copywriter able to write sales copy that successfully Converts a lot of Readers in to Buyers! • Writing good sales copy able to successfully and reliably convert sales at a high rate is a “Real Skill”, which therefore: • May not be for Everyone / every writer • May take a considerable amount of time, effort, study and/or training May be best attempted first selling your own products and services to both hone your copywriting skills and establish a (provable) track record of success • Others may be (more) willing to offer you a Joint Venture (JV) wherein you write the sales copy for their product or service and then you split the profits from the sales generated at some agreed upon terms. • You may Make Money writing your own sales copy, ads, etc. to sell your own products and services and/or those from Affiliate Programs. • If you are interested in references and resources on how to start learning more about making money online Copywriting, Please Contact me via the Contact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/ and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/

14. How to Make Money Writing Online - Writing e-Books • What is an e-Book? • “An e-book (for electronic book: also ebook) is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book.”(Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Book) • Others will Pay You to “ghostwrite” e-Books and other types of information products for them on a wide variety of topics, which they will then market and sell online as their own products. • You may Make Money by writing your own e-books and/or other types of information products and then either: • Selling them yourselves • Negotiating Joint Ventures (JVs) with other Internet Marketers to help you market and sell your products online for a percentage of the profits • If you are interested in references, examples and resources on how to start learning more about making money online writing e-Books for yourself and/or others, Please Contact me via the Contact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/ and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/

15. How to Make Money Writing Online - Writing other web page content • Others will Pay You to write a wide variety of other types of web page content, including: • Text for company home/web pages • FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and Help pages • Keyword rich text for Pay-Per-Click ad (e.g. Google Adsense) revenue generating web pages • You may Make Money by writing your own web page content by: • Developing your own web sites/pages and: • Selling your own products and/or services • Selling others products and/or services through Affiliate Programs • Generating revenue from Pay-Per-Click ads, e.g. Google Adsense • If you want/need any assistance you need with getting your own domains/web sites set up Please Contact me via the Contact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/ and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/ • Utilizing your web content on one or more (FREE) Social Networking sites, and generating revenue selling your and/or others products/services like for your own web site.

16. How to Make Money Writing Online - Posting in Forums / online Communities • The “Trick” to Making Money Posting in Forums and Online Communities is through the links/URLs you are allowed to put in the Signature (a.k.a. Sig or Sig File) attached to the bottom of each Posting you make. • The links in Your Sig should lead to a web site from which you have the opportunity to Make Money! ;), e.g. by: • Selling Your Own Products and/or Services • Selling others Products and/or Services • A “landing page” leading to the visitor to click on Affiliate links where they may purchase others Products and/or Services and You Make Money via their Affiliate Programs. • The text/”sales copy” of Your Sig needs to be “eye catching” and compel readers to click on the links in your Sig. • Signatures are usually limited to between 3 and 5 lines • Most Forums either Prohibit or Restrict the Posting of any kinds of “self serving” or “Referral/Affiliate Links” in the “body” of the Posting • Once you establish yourself as a Good Writer, possibly looking for paying writing jobs/projects, other forum/community members may approach you directly, e.g. Private Message (a.k.a. PM) offering you paying opportunities

17. How to Make Money Writing Online – Email Marketing • There are a number of different variations of internet marketing conducted primarily via email for which others may Pay You to write for them and/or through which You may Make Money for Yourself, including: • Direct Email Marketing – wherein marketing messages are written and sent directly to an email list, generally of people who have subscribed (“opted in”) to receive messages from the sender. • Autoresponders – systems which automate Email Marketing processes. Some Autoresponders (called Sequential Autoresponders) may send out a prescribed series of prewritten email messages at a predefined schedule. • e-Zines - a magazine delivered electronically, e.g. via email • eCourses / eLearning Lessons – often delivered via Autoresponders • The Publisher of each of these types of Email Marketing may and/or You Make Money with them through: • Links to sites where they sell products and/or services • Selling Advertisements to others

18. What You Need to Know about the different types of Rights to your writings online. • Clearly Define and get Agreement to the Terms for Your Writing “up front”, including: • Who (all) may Claim Authorship to your writing? • Ghostwriting • “A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other content which are officially credited to another person”(Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriting ) • Some Article Distribution Services Require that the submitter claim Authorship to the Posted Article • Who (all) may Use Your Writing? And How? • Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Rights • Some Article Distribution Services Require that the submitter have Exclusive Rights to the Posted Article • Private Label Rights (PLR) • “Private label rights can be sold and bought in the form of articles, reports, eBooks, and autoresponders. This kind of content is used for the purpose of allowing multiple buyers to invest in the content with free rein to alter and use it by claiming authorship of it. “(Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_label_rights ) • Duplicate Content • Some Search Engines, etc. “frown upon” and may “penalize” web sties for the posting of (exactly) Duplicate Content(Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Spinning ) • Some Article Submission Services, Directories, etc. “frown upon” PLR Rights and Article Spinning.

19. How to (Competitively) Price your Writing Offers • The following table shows the results from my research regarding the current going (minimum, average and maximum) rates for various types of writing online: • References:1) http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/21912-how-much-do-you-pay.html2) http://www.4allaccounts.com/internet-marketing/41355-how-much-do-you-pay.html

20. How to (Competitively) Price your Writing Offers (Cont’d) • “Survey Shows How Much People Make in Blogs & Social Media Chris Crum | Staff WriterAnd an Interesting Side Note About "Journalism" Read Write Web conducted a survey with some quite interesting results. They asked 20 bloggers and social media consultants (that they claim to know and trust) what kind of money they make with their blogging gigs. …The NumbersIt looks like the average rate on a per-post basis is $25, though some reported to make as little as $10 and as much as $80. "Let's say these people are half-time pro-bloggers making $25 per post, writing 3 posts per day," Kirkpatrick says. "That's $75 per half-day, a little less than $20 per hour, about $1500 to $1750 per month for half time work. Take two of those jobs at once, do it for a year, and you'll make about $40k.“You could do worse, but in-house bloggers seem to be doing better.According to Kirkpatrick, respondents reported annual salaries ranging from $45k and $55k with benefits up to $70k, $80k and $90k with bonuses. …Those in-house bloggers still didn't make as much as the participating social media consultants who make as little as $150 an hour, and most commonly about $300 an hour. …”(Ref: WebProNews, October 11, 2008, http://www.WebProNews.com )

21. How to (Competitively) Price your Writing Offers (Cont’d) • Some Ways to Increase the Rates you may command for your writing online: • Establish and continuously Build Your online Credibility through: • Testimonials and Referrals from previous Satisfied Clients • Start building your client base. Portfolio and list of client testimonials by initially offering to write at a low price and/or for FREE! • Publishing and Distributing Your Own Articles • Publishing Your Own Blog(s) • Posting in Forums, Online Communities and others Blogs • Establishing and Publishing to Your Own e-Zine(s) and/or email marketing lists • Post Your Profile and Offer Your Services through various freelancing sites • Developing and maintaining Your Own web site(s)/pages, either at your own domain and/or (for FREE at) one or more Social Networking sites, including: • Your Writing Resume - Skills and Experience • Clients Testimonials • Links to Your Articles Published online • Citations to Your Articles Published offline • Establishing yourself as a Subject Matter Expert in a Subject Area, Topics and/or niche markets • Offer Your Writing Services on a Trade / Barterbasis. • Progress up the “Value Hierarchy” to types of writing that command Higher Rates • Get an “in house / full-time/corporate” online writing job • Become a Social Networking, and/or other type of writing, Consultant

22. How to Make More Money with Your Writings Online • Offer multiple writings as a “Package Deal” • Although your rate per writing may be lower • Your total earnings will be Greater!  right? • Sell Your Articles with Non-Exclusive and/or Private Label Rights (as PLR Articles/Packages): • Just think …If you sell the same article(s) for even just a few dollars ($’s) per article to anything like one hundred (100) different people …You may make hundreds of dollars ($100’s) per article,You know? • Post Your Articles on Paid Article Directory sites, e.g.: • Bukisa

23. Where and How to find Paying Writing “Jobs” and/or Freelance Projects online • There are Many Forums and Communities Online wherein other members are always looking for Good Writers, e.g.: • The Warrior Forum at: http://www.warriorforum.com • 4AllAccounts Forums at: http://www.4allaccounts.com/index.php?referrerid=5721 • There are Many Freelance “Jobs” Boards wherein others Post Jobs/Projects for Writers, and other Freelancers / Consultants, e.g.: • DigitalPoint.com • Elance • GetAFreeLancer • mturk.com • Odesk • Both I-ShopTheWorld.com and The Virtual Consulting Firm are currently hiring writers for which you may find more information at: • http://i-shoptheworld.com/opportunities/wanted-writers/ • http://www.thevcf.com/jointhevcf.phtml • You may find and easily access these and Many other Freelance and Jobs Boards on The Virtual Consulting Firm’s JobLink web page at: http://www.thevcf.com/joblink.phtml • Watch for additional site recommendations in my forum threads at: • http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/25837-where-do-you-find-writers.html • http://www.4allaccounts.com/general-home-based-business-discussions/42150-where-do-you-find-writers.html

24. Getting Started Making Money Writing Online Now! • Start Writing something online Now! • Join and Post in online forums and communities • Post to others Blogs • Write and distribute your own articles • Start Building Your online Name Recognition and Credibility Now! • Create Your Own web site(s)/page(s) and/or Blogs at: • Your Own domain(s) (Recommended) and/or … • One or more Social Networking sites, e.g. Facebook, MySpace, etc. • Free Blog sites, e.g. Blogger.com, WordPress.com, etc. • Complete Your Profile and Actively Participate/Post in online forums and communities • Start locating and “bidding” on Paying Writing Projects/Jobs online: • Join, Complete Your Profile in and Start “Bidding” on Writing Projects/Jobs in one or more of the aforementioned Freelancer sites

25. Conclusions (/Recap) • There are Tons of different types of Opportunities for You / Writers to Make Money Writing Online! • Get Started doing Something Now!

26. Q & A • Any Questions? • This Presentation may also be found for your future convenient reference at:http://www.thevcf.com/Making-Money-Writing-Online.htm • Please Feel Free to Contact me with any subsequent questions you may have regarding any of this information via theContact information on the About pages at: • http://blog.thevcf.com/about/and/or ... • http://i-shoptheworld.com/about/