Member-only story
14 Ways I’ve Created an Independent Income Writing
Commonsense and creative ways
As of late, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about making money as a writer, becoming a better writer, keeping up motivation as a writer, and so forth.
I even saw someone who shared a story saying, “there are only three ways you can make money in writing.”
Really? That’s interesting because I’m certain I’ve been able to create an independent income from writing in more than just three ways.
Broadly, he might be right. But on a granular level, there are more opportunities than you might even realize.
1. Revenue Sharing
Revenue share sites like InfoBarrel don’t get talked about as much anymore. Medium and News Break are far more in vogue.
But these types of sites are still out there. Hubpages is the perfect example.
I wrote 71 odd articles on InfoBarrel. I never made much on the site — you would need a lot of eyeballs on your articles to make anything (how’s that any different from Medium?). Still, I got something from my effort.
2. Ghostwriting
I started ghostwriting in 2013. At first, it was just short-form blog posts for architecture firms and merchandise suppliers. It didn’t amount to much.
Before I knew it, I was ghostwriting for Entrepreneur and HuffPost contributors. I even got requests to write long-form Neil Patel style digital marketing guides.
As I write this, I have a contract shaping up for a 70,000+ word book.
No, you don’t get credit for your ghostwriting efforts, you can’t reveal your working relationships, and it doesn’t help you build your own stature, authority, or following. But ghostwriting can be quite lucrative.
3. Staff Writing
I have been a staff writer of Music Industry How To since 2015 (you can even see my face on the homepage).
It’s funny, because Music Industry How To ranks for a ton of broad keywords, so when musicians are searching for something online, there’s a good chance they’re reading one of my articles.
