1000 Ways to Make Money Writing: #15 Write for your local paper

Writing for your local newspaper can be a great way to break into print, and land your first paid writing assignment. I know that some people will write for free, just to develop their portfolio. I highly recommend that you never write for free - always expect some payment, even if that payment is quite small at first.

Look through the contact information for your local newspaper, and contact editors with ideas for short article ideas and or/column ideas. Please post a comment if you try this and have success!

* Query letters used to be the way you contacted any editor with a potential article idea. In a query letter, you'd introduce your idea, and why you were the perfect writer to put such an article together. Now, query letters can often be much more informal: a well-put together email is often all it takes to land an assignment. Please do research on the newspaper (or other publication) that you're querying first. To fail to do this step makes you look unprofessional, and your email will quite likely be quickly deleted. Find out the editor's name, and make sure they're the current editor. Brainstorm up some strong article ideas before contacting the editor.*

1000 Ways to Make Money Writing: Write Children's Books

Obviously, writing books for kids can be a goldmine if you stumble onto an idea that children and parents fall in love with. But, even if you don't want to go the traditional route of finding an agent and/or submitting your book ideas to a traditional publisher, you may still be able to write great stories for kids...and earn some money while you let your creativity flow freely.

Try starting a blog with children's stories, and monetize the said blog with Pay-per-click advertisement like Google Adsense, or take ads from kid friendly websites.

Or...another option is to look at self-publishing your children's book idea.

1000 Ways to Make Money Writing: #13 - Study the Writer's Market

Most suggestions on how to make money writing from home don't come with a link to purchase a book. But, when I thought back to when I first started writing for money, I realized that the Writer's Market was the best investment I ever made.



Take time to find the current contact information for the editor you're writing to - the biggest turn-off for any publisher or editor is to discover that the writer has sent in a query to them, but with their name spelled wrong, or even to an old editor altogether!

Study the current Writer's Market for information on small, medium and large publishers of newspapers (less and less available opportunities for freelancers), magazines, and online zines and websites and blogs. Even if the Writer's Market is just a jumping-off point for you, you'll discover tons of ways that you can make money writing. It should be in the library of any new or wannabe writer, along with seasoned writing professionals.