Where I Get Paid To Write Update

June 05, 2009

Almost three years ago, I published a list of some of the most lucrative writing markets I had found. At the time I listed the following places which had proven useful for me as a writer:

  • Exquisite Writing — an international copywriting agency

  • Blogitive — a blog advertising company

  • Lifetips — a site with mini sites about thousands of topics

  • Freelance Writing Gigs — a site which provided great job leads

My Client List

Three years on, the picture looks very different. My client list looks like this:

  • two online monthly trade magazines for which I source news and write feature articles, going back to my roots as a journalist

  • a travel blog where I post twice weekly for an offsite airport parking firm

  • a tech blog, where I post roughly ten times a month

  • a review blog, where I post batches of reviews of of new websites at intervals

  • a business consultant, for whom I write article marketing articles

  • a musical entertainment provider, for whom I write environmental articles for his local website and occasional travel articles on the destinations where he operates

  • a management consultant, for whom I write website materials as well as helping with other projects

  • two copywriting agencies

  • an education firm, for whom I do proofreading

  • a European bimonthly magazine which deals with development issues, for whom I do proofreading

I also do occasional guest blogs on topics such as parenting and finance, among others.

Great Places To Find Jobs

The places where I look for work include:

I also get a lot of work from referrals.

Places which have not provided much include Elance, Guru, Odesk — and let’s not even talk about GetAFreelancer. However, I would still recommend that new writers give Exquisite Writing a try.

Why This Matters

There are three points to make with this list. First, that having a varied client list will help insure you against ruin if one client disappears. (I have a couple of big clients in there and admittedly it would hurt if I lost their business, but I’d still have something to keep me going while I looked for a replacement).

Second, that you probably have a wide range of abilities — the more of them you use the more varied and interesting your writing career will be. At the moment, my current client list represents a good balance.

Third, that persistence is one of the keys to freelancing success. When I started freelancing, I took certain jobs just for the experience — the pay wasn’t worth writing home about — so I could build my skill level. That paid off by bringing me better paid opportunities and referrals from satisfied clients. Wherever you are starting from, you can do this too.