Since the internet came into our lives, the
market for short articles has increased greatly. But is
submitting an article to a website the same as submitting an
article to a magazine?
In short, the answer is no. The main difference
between the two is the time factor. You can query an idea to a
magazine, and even if you do so via email you may have to wait a
while for a response. Once the article is written it is
commonplace to have to wait several weeks or months to see it
published – and to receive your payment.
On the internet it couldn’t be more different.
You can query an article one day, write it the next and have it
published online and the money in your PayPal account all in the
space of just three days – sometimes quicker. People are
clamouring for fresh information online, and if you can provide
good content and provide it quickly, you’ll find unending
possibilities for selling articles.
Although the pay for internet articles is
generally much lower than that handed out by magazines, there is
far more work available to take. If you are a reasonably good
writer and you can write fast, people will soon start coming to
you to ask for your help in supplying content for their
websites.
Writing for the internet is an excellent way to
speed up your writing, as you can’t afford to hang around when
the work comes in batches – which it often does when you get
jobs from the freelancing sites. If you’re serious about online
writing, you’ll soon find yourself doing batches of five, ten or
even more articles within the space of forty eight hours or so.
This is where the magazine market really falls
down. Apart from the fact that many magazines are now taking
less freelance work and relying more on in-house writers to
provide their content, you’ll need to be able to establish a
stable of at least twenty magazines to write for on a regular
basis to enjoy any kind of decent income.
Personally, I have four or five markets and
clients that I work for online, and that’s more than enough to
earn me the same amount in my spare time each week as I earn
from my regular full time job. Online writing has allowed me to
seriously think about giving up work and writing full time; a
notion I never could have considered when I just wrote for
magazines.
Internet writing also has the benefit of taking
away much of the responsibility of thinking up good ideas. The
client knows exactly what they want, so you know upfront that
you will have to write five short articles on, say, planning a
wedding. And that leads neatly into the other benefit of online
writing – you will broaden your skills and stretch yourself
immensely, as you will be writing about many more diverse
subjects than you would otherwise.
So if you want to be a more versatile writer, and
much quicker to boot, perhaps it’s time you started looking
through the freelance writer job listings to see what’s
available. When I started, I bagged three jobs within my first
ten days, and I haven’t looked back since.
It’s easier than you might think – you just need
to step up to the challenge it offers.
About the Author:
Allison Whitehead has been a freelance writer for 17 years,
and has had hundreds of articles published on many diverse
subjects in both magazines and on websites. She now works
mainly for online markets and shares her experience and sources
at
http://www.squidoo.com/smoo_publishing
