About 1/2 the people I know who work at home simply aren’t making a living with it or are skating that fine line between paying bills and sacrificing their cable or other wanted amenities. I’ll be honest here, there’s no reason for that. Let me tell you the top 5 reasons you aren’t making enough money working at home.
5. You are working for the wrong sites. There are a lot of sites out there that WILL pay you for writing. The problem is, some of them are truly terrible. IRA is a good example of this. I worked for them for a couple weeks when I first started doing this. I loved it. I made a guaranteed $35 or so every single day for 10 easy articles. The problem is, those articles are 400-500 words and typing 10 of them every day can get so boring, you’ll end up wishing harm to whoever is requesting 10 articles about dog mittens or solar pool heaters. That’s also less than 1 cent/word unless they’ve changed lately.
4. You are too lazy. I personally fall into this category. I’m lazy. I don’t particularly like to work in any way, shape, or form. There’s nothing wrong with that but it can be the difference between $1000 a month and $2000 a month. Don’t just work to skim by, work to make a significant upgrade in your lifestyle.
3. You are underselling your skill set. You may not be selling it at all! Everyone has one particular field they excel in. Quilting, Xbox games, Parenting, etc. You know something and know it well. If you see an ad requesting 25 “high quality” articles on something that matches your niche, aim to impress with your bid. Don’t say “I’ve been a writer for 10 years”, say “I’ve organized a local scrapbooking group in my town’s local library for the past 3 years and know all there is to know on that subject. This will show a potential client that you know your stuff, won’t have to research or rewrite it, and will probably work fast.
2. You aren’t looking at the competition. If you are using a bidding site or have your own website, you have to see who’s working against you. Check their site thoroughly. Check their profile thoroughly. Odds are, it’s a company or individual who’s just outsourcing everything anyway. A simple “All work done by me. Guaranteed.” can win you a job easily.
1. You don’t know where to look. Well, that’s why I started this blog as well as www.onlineworkresources.com (if it’s up) A lot of people don’t know where to look at all! I sure didn’t when I started. I’ve been very lucky and just happen to stumble across great gigs by accident. Look everywhere, do NOT pay for anything (unless you want to try affiliate marketing or upgrade some type of bidding site membership.
A lot of your competition, especially on bidding sites and forums, is an absolute joke. If you were born and raised in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, you already have twice the skills of a lot of your competition. I understand they may have 2 different types of English degree but seriously, they are spitting out articles that no English person would ever read past the first few sentences. There are some who are getting better at it but it’s still and English speaker’s market.
For many of us, the articles we write are supposed to be to generate sales or interest. You aren’t going to do that with a bland rewrite of various Wikipedia pages and that’s tiresome to do day after day. Let your personality shine through in your articles and in no time, you’ll have a loyal client base that will only come to you.
