How to Make Money with Freelance Writing

I've written a lot of guides about freelance writing and getting started in a new self-employment career, but it seems like there's always something new to talk about. I'm extremely passionate about my writing and feel like there are so many people out there who can get to their dream of writing online, but never seem to go all the way and make the effort.

When I began, it was a plunge in the purest sense. I was 21, living completely by myself in a foreign country, and with nobody to fall back on if my endeavors didn't pan out. There was a lot of fear involved in that decision, but if anything I think it was the totality of my decision that allowed me to make it work.

You see, I had bills to pay; if I didn't have money for food within the next few weeks I would starve; I had a cat to feed who took every possible second to remind me that his bowl wasn't filled. In short, my life depended on succeeding as a writer.

When I made the leap to full time freelancer, I already had one client whom I had been working with part time for a few weeks while I made plans to leave my call center job. He was paying me $2 for 500 words. At that rate, I would have had to write 5 articles every single day of the month to just pay rent, let alone buy food.

I needed some more options.

My sole source of clients for the first few months was Freelancer.com, a site where most of the buyers run article content mills for purposes like backlinking. They were quick and dirty, and I felt like I wasn't really going in the direction I wanted.

However, by making the decision to do this full time I was able to spend a lot of my day on the internet researching other possible means of online income. I tried Craigslist, Guru.com, Elance, and others, and over time was able to build up a fairly strong list of clients who were paying me enough that I could actually pay off bills without churning out 20 articles a day.

Then something incredible happened: One of my clients emailed me and said he had a colleague who was looking for some website content, and he had recommended me. I had my first referral.

Since then, most of my writing work has come from solely referrals, and every month looks brighter than the last.

The point of this whole story is that if you want to make money with freelance content writing, you are very likely going to have to start at the bottom and work your way up. It's going to be hard at first, nearly impossible if you have kids or a family to support, but I wouldn't trade the experience I gained in that first year for anything in the world.