One of the best things about working with the Internet is that you don’t have to quit your “day job” to start! You can “put your foot in the water” starting to earn money writing on the Net. Learn as you go. Read some guides and then grab some small contracts. Don’t pigeonhole yourself with a heavy workload.

Then, as you earn money writing while working on real contracts, you can gain experience, start networking, build your freelance writing business, and better understand what you’ll need to know.

Assuming that anyone who hopes to make money writing can already write plain, clear English at the 6-9 grade level, let’s see what else you may need to know. Any new field has specialized knowledge and techniques to learn. The freelance writing business is no exception.

So what do you need to know to make money writing with a freelance writing business?

Hiring. Work assignments on the Net are normally made by contract, the terms of which are negotiated between the buyer/user and the writer/seller. Have you ever bought or sold things on eBay? It’s basically simple, but there are a number of tricks to learn, such as waiting until the last second to make the final winning bid.

Since you don’t have direct contact with others, learning the tricks of the trade is different online. You don’t become someone else’s “apprentice” and learn everything from them! Learning can be downloaded, strictly by reading guides, listening to audio files, and watching videos.

To write, is to read e-books. The good ones are not free, but they are worth it. Consider them an essential part of your online training to make money writing, and plan to make a reasonable investment in your education. It will pay off well in future income and pay you dividends forever.

The best guide to contracts for writing jobs (from a writer’s point of view) is probably the Easy Writing Biz Guide, which also contains a lot of additional information (see below). Learning from someone else’s experience is much faster and cheaper than making all the usual mistakes of a beginner!

And the communication circles in the Internet writing sector are not that big. If you make a serious startup mistake, you could find yourself with negative publicity posted by a disgruntled client on every exchange in the market. You could be severely disabled, maybe unable to get any more work!

Copy Scripture. One of the most lucrative types of writing on the net is writing sales copy for websites. Good copywriters charge high fees—$5,000 per sales page and more—because they have been proven to get results. Almost anyone can learn how to make money writing sales copy, but it’s an art and a science unto itself.

There are a number of good copywriting training and practice guides that will show you how it’s done. You can find several that apply to a freelance writing business by following the links below.

Ad writing. Writing AdSense and other PPC (pay per click) ads can also be very lucrative. You will see contract offers for ad writers. Once again, there are guides available.

Writing articles and content. This is quite simple, but it also has its tricks. Understand them and you can make money with them. Don’t learn and the competition for this segment of the freelance writing business will eat your lunch.

To make money writing articles and content, you will need to be able to research and write a 500 word article in half an hour. It’s not hard when you know how. 15 items at $8 each and you get $120 a day working at home in your pajamas! Not bad for no travel time/cost!

For more information on starting a freelance writing business and resources to help you make money writing for the web, follow the links below…