3 Harsh Truths I Have Learned About Earning Through Online Writing

My Writing Journey

Online writing, although lucrative, has its ups and downs. With numerous niches to leverage, many people have established holistic livelihoods by capitalizing on its peaks through their competencies.

The writing community is warm, supportive, and uplifting, with diversified advice for everyone seeking guidance. The medium community has been one of my best supportive partners in my writing journey, and here are three of the harshest truths I’ve had to learn:

Quality Content Is Not Enough

Beginning my writing journey, I thought producing quality content was all I had to do to earn as a writer; to my surprise, this was just part of the process. Writing meticulous, informative, and engaging content is the first step to building a loyal fanbase, but it doesn’t bring in the money instantly.

Marketing one’s work, building an exceptional portfolio, and pitching clients are crucial steps if one is interested in earning from online writing. Practices like guest posting, collaborating, and writing volunteer pieces are great ways of advertising our talents as writers, drawing in paying clients and increasing traffic, views, and readership for our work.

Though this has been the most challenging pill to ingest, taking this advice has yielded substantial results.

Posting Is Not Marketing

Seriously, I cannot be the only one to think posting my work on a blog is marketing! Finding this out was deeply discouraging, considering how much effort I believed I was putting in. It boggled me how much more I had to put myself out there and how much risk of rejection and failure I had to expose myself to to attract remunerative customers.

Blog posting is a pronounced portfolio-building strategy, but it is not enough to garner paying clients. Marketing and advertising the blog plays a vital role in recruiter recognition. Crafting SEO-based headlines that rank and go viral on Google is a good starting point, followed by leveraging social media apps to increase traffic and views by potential clients. To attain money-making recruiters, I need to cultivate a network and put my services and talent in clients’ faces instead of waiting to be discovered.

Empathy Is Crucial

Predicting the readers’ reaction to my content has been challenging. Sometimes, I write a piece with a strong feeling of its success but have it fall flat, and those I barely have hope in do well. I took the liberty of examining my pieces and realized people want something they connect with emotionally.

Evoking emotions in my readers is the key to establishing a long-lasting and loyal relationship with the readers and attracting valuable customers. People want sympathy and understanding; hence, addressing a pain point they’re familiar with and letting them know they are not alone helps attract paying clients.

Interacting with fellow writers has been significantly helpful, especially here on medium; I have received beneficial guidance on what to and not to do, and the above three are the tip of the iceberg. I still have a long way to go and many things to learn, and I’m immensely grateful for everything I’ve accomplished so far.