Looking to launch your writing side hustle but not sure where to start? Then, you are in the right place!
WRITING SIDE HUSTLE TO START TODAY!
But before we start, I must remind you that starting the freelance writing career alongside your 9-5 is not like walking in the park.
It requires great discipline and effort.
Having said that, many bloggers or writer begin their writing career while working 9-5 and now enjoying their hard earn labour with an income of more than 10k per month!
I am not anywhere near that so I have curated some of the platforms we can use to boost our writing side hustle
How to make money writing from home or anywhere you want?
I begin writing for fun, not knowing I can earn money with that during the pandemic at end of 2021.
Similar to the majority of the people I am trapped inside the house and blessed with a few extra hours in my hand.
What I also realized is that working 9-5 really drained up my time with the long hour’s commute and unnecessary meetings that can be done over email
Now, since I’m back in the office I missed the autonomy and flexibility that I had over my time and longed to go back and work from home (and wear pyjamas to work)
Also, with the rising inflation and economic instability, I know that relying on one single income is risky.
After writing (inconsistently) for months, just recently I have decided to take things seriously and am ready to make money out of it.
For disclaimer, I had absolutely zero experience in blogging and writing. My background is purely medical and I never had any writing clients whatsoever.
And if you are like me, we are in the same boat. We are the two clueless peas in a pod. But worry, not I have curated the best platform for launching our writing side-hustle gig.
The way we can earn income as writers could be directly from clients or from the writing platform that I will share in this article
Writing side-hustle for beginners to start along your 9-5
The following list is the writing gigs platform you can try as a complete beginner
Some of the platforms required minimal member fees to allow you to read and share your stories
All you need is a laptop, internet connection and the right attitude to launch your writing career and you are one step away from living the life you always wanted.
Widely used writing platform
Medium
Medium is one of the well-known writing platforms where anyone can register and start writing right away. It’s by far the easiest to set up and navigates without any prior knowledge of coding or web designing
The best part of Medium is the writer. With a wide range of non-fiction and fiction topics, you can learn and get inspired by the content shared by the writers
Fees: $5 monthly
How to make money on Medium
- Set up a writer’s profile
- Join the medium partner program (MPP) once you get 100+ followers.
However, to earn money via MPP you need to link your Medium account to your bank account via stripe.
Countries supported in the MPP (currently) are:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United State
Your countries are not listed in MPP?
Worry not, just recently Medium introduced the Tipping features
- Medium Tipping Features
The Medium Tipping allows people to tip you with any amount if they like your article or found your article helpful
This can be done through a third-party platform of your choice. It can be Ko-Fi, PayPal or Patreon
This can give the motivation for those who are unable to join the MPP program like me to continue writing on Medium platform
- Write consistently
Like any other advice on writing, the only way you can earn is to write consistently
How much do I make from Medium?
I will be very transparent here
I created the account back in January 2022 and so far I have created 10 articles( I know)
And I make 0 dollar
Make sense right? If you are lacking in consistency you will get the same result as me. And my country is not listed in the MPP program so I dont take Medium seriously before
Excuses aside, now that Medium had introduce the Tip feature, I should strive harder in this platform
Some of the top writers can even earn up to $2500 per article as it’s based on the number of the view
On top of that, you can start and grow your email list by including the lead generation source at the bottom of the articles.
This can give you a boost in the whole generating online income by offering your product and services on your email list.
Feeding trends
Feeding Trends is a newer writing website based in India that works quite similar to Medium. The only difference is this platform contains ads.
Having said that the way of earning income relies on ads rather than monthly subscriptions. The ads click will generate income.
You can apply for its partner program once you had 10 articles and post consistently at least once every 3 months
Fees: $5 monthly
How to make money on Medium
Vocal. Media
If the Medium platform has a twin, it’s vocal.media
Even better, you can advertise and sell products on top of writing articles on this platform
What I like about this platform is that they have a writing challenge that offers up to USD 10K for the winner! If you love challenges and the theme fits your niche, you don’t have to think twice to join this platform.
Cool huh?
But if you are ready to write yet, and want to get some inspiration this platform offers vast communities dedicated to niche topics like education, life hacks, crime story, relationship, and skincare to name a few.
If you have existing content, you can republish it on this platform and submit it to one of the vocal communities
Fees for Vocal +: $10 monthly or $49/year (for the first year)
How to make money on vocal.media?
Compare to medium, this platform pay per view! This is great for beginners to get the gear running
Vocal creators get $3.8 /1000 reads and vocal+ creators get $6 /1000 reads
Not only that, they pay you an extra 50 bonus for publishing your 50th story on Vocal. How’s that to keep you motivated?
Plus, they allowed tipping which helps you earn extra bucks. Triple win!
I will give a full review on vocal. media after using this platform for a month
Substack
Other writing platforms
- Elephant journal
- Proem.online
- Svbtle
- Micro.blog
- Tealfeed
- Hashnode
- Hubpages
- Wattpad
- Simily.co
- Getrevue.co
- Ghost.org
For those who like to share their opinion and views
Newsbreaks
This is the platform if you are regular and updated with the local news. This US-based platform provides information on local news, events and on government and political updates
If you are always up-to-date with the local news and have a strong opinion on any topic, this side hustle for writers might be a good fit for you.
How to get paid?
Paying a rate per thousands of views. But, you have to publish 10 posts and 100 followers to apply for the monetization program.
Quora
You probably heard about quora before the infamous question-and-answer platform
But did you know you can monetize using quora?
Just July last year, Quora introduce their partner program
How to get paid?
- You must be residing in one of the countries listed
- You need to be an active writer with thousand of view
- The payment is done using Stripe or PayPal
Blogging
If you prefer full control of your writing and monetization, creating a blog or niche website is for you.
But mind you, to own and grow the blog, it might take years especially if you are a beginner (like me). Because there are lots of aspects to take into consideration like traffic and monetization methods which you have to do on your own
Blog/ Niche websites=
Traffic x Monetization method
To get the traffic you have to learn SEO or search engine optimization. Simply put, you have to learn the act of creating articles with good keywords so you can rank higher on google. it is not that it’s impossible, but these skills can take some time to learn.
But on the plus side, the way you can monetize the blog is endless. But the most common ways is by advertisement and affiliate marketing
- Run ads
- Accept paid mentions and guest posts
- Monetize through affiliate programs
- Sell physical or digital products
- Offer writing or consulting services
Despite having domain authority of 1, one of my articles manage to get on the first page of google less than a year after creating the blog!
Freelance writing website
The best way for writing side hustle is by finding clients
If you are ready to work with clients, here are some websites you can visit.
Based on your qualifications, experience and skills you can set the hourly rate for your work or get paid per project basis.
However, due to predatory and scam practise still going on rampant, be vigilant before you take any job or projects
