Two Types of Freelance Writing Income
Many first time authors jump into the freelance writing world without realizing that there is more than one type of income available. Most writers, and most workers in general, understand the normal “paid once for work done” model. You write a batch of articles, an e-book, a press release, and you get paid for that work and that’s it. You made what you made. Do the job, get paid, and move on.
Maybe as an example you ghost write a book for $1,000. But once that book is wrote, you get your money and that’s it. You never get royalties, you can’t re-use the writing or anything like that but the work that you’ve done you were paid for once and you will never receive another payment for that time spent.
There is a second form of payment for writing, one that is particularly available to freelance writers who work online. This would be passive or residual income. Income that is made from work that has already been done and completed in the past.
Passive, or residual, income happens when articles you wrote stay online and continue to make you money (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) days, weeks, months, or even years after you finished writing them. This is normally done online with a deal where the author gets Internet ads displayed on the page and gets a cut of the payments made every time someone clicks on those ads, but there are also “pay per view” set ups where the author gets “x” amount of money based on page views (like $2 per 1,000 or something similar). When a writer sets up articles this way, they tend to make far less money up front, but then as a lot of articles make money over a long period of time the passive income can really add up – all for work that has long since been finished.
Google AdSense is probably the most common form of monetization, but there are other ad providers, as well as affiliate marketing and even several “pay per view” websites that pay you based on traffic. With this method, as your articles or websites rank higher in the search engines where web surfers can find them, you continue to earn money on writing you finished years ago.
Online freelance writers are in a situation where they can actually earn both types of writing income: both passive and active. This is actually one of the best strategies that a beginning freelance writer can have. The one time payments help you pay the bills, learn your craft, and get an idea of how the markets work. Meanwhile, when you have sent out query letters or have all your bids out for online jobs, you can write for yourself and build up your passive online income. It takes a lot of time for passive income to grow, which is why it’s so important to have a writing strategy that uses both.
Online freelance writers can enjoy two streams of income: the active and the passive. The best part about this is that when there are tons of active jobs you have to rush to get done, the passive income streams will just keep on making money without any help. When work gets really slow or thin (like during this last recession), then you can keep working on the residual income knowing at least a little more is going to come in. The combination of these incomes, and perseverance, is the only way to have a successful freelance writing career.
If you are a beginning freelance writer, please take heed of this article and don’t limit yourself to just one income stream. Freelance writers, especially early on, need all the income they can get, so work on both passive and active income streams and you won’t be sorry!
