I want to prove to people that $100 days can be had (without spending anything) if you put in a little effort and work out the right strategy.
So here is my plan: There are many opportunities for freelance writers on the internet. Before you say “woah, I can’t do that, I’m no good at writing”, keep in mind that I barely passed high school and have no tertiary education whatsoever. When I left high school I didn’t feel the need to go to university because I had a $13.50 per hour (good money back then) job catching chickens….seriously! Come on I was 17 years old and not very bright! Anyway, my point is that if I can do it then you can too.
I am going to run this case study for 7 days, or until I reach the target of making $100 in one day. I’ve never attempted to make money doing this particular task before, so it could get ugly!
I’ve decided to use a website called iWriter for my adventures. Anyone can sign up for an account at iWriter and begin writing articles for those who request them. The initial pay is not much, but I like to look beyond my nose and find opportunities where others fail to look. So for a standard writer who has just started out, the going rate is $2.43 for a 500 word article. Once you get proficient at it, you should be able to write a 500 word article in around 20 minutes, so even then you are only looking at a bit over $7 per hour.
Now here’s where it takes a turn for the better. Each time you write an article for someone, they give your work a rating out of 5 stars. After you have 30 ratings and have maintained an average of at least 4 stars, you qualify as a premium writer where you will make DOUBLE that of a standard writer. So that is $4.46 for a 500 word article. Now we’re starting to see some potential!
If your writing is of a high enough standard that your average rating is 4.6 stars or higher after 30 reviews, you qualify as an elite writer. For a 500 word article, an elite writer can get paid $8.10. This is what I am aiming for if I am going to be successful with this case study.
There are also other ways to earn a little more. If a requester loves your work, they have the option to leave a tip for you. They can also put in a special request, which means they want only you to write their article. This makes you a little more as well. These extra earnings can be had for any level of writer.
The Strategy
I’m going to take my inspiration and direction from a previous post I made here about how to set goals in a way that gives you the best chance of success. I encourage you to go back and read it and understand it as it has the potential to really help you earn. So looking at that post and breaking down my goals for this study, we know the main goal is to make $100 in a day.Next we break that down a little further by introducing HOW I am going to make that $100. Obviously it is writing articles. Now, assuming I can make $8.10 for a 500 word article (there are longer and shorter ones available as well), then I would need to write approximately 13 articles in a day, assuming all of them get accepted by the people who request them.
As I discussed in the previous post, even breaking down your goals to this point can be detrimental. Each time I write an article (with the exception of the 13th one) I have actually fallen short of my goal. Not very motivating. Sure, you can put a positive spin on it and say I’m one step closer to the main goal, but it is still too far away.
So what do we do? Break it down even further. My goal is to write one article. Simple as that. I need to shut everything out, forget about the $100 and everything else and completely focus and dedicate myself to the goal of writing just one article.
What happens after I write it? Well, I get a feeling of accomplishment for having reached my goal which is going to give me a huge motivational boost. Then immediately after reaching that goal, I set another one. This next goal is going to be the same – write one article. Focus, dedication, commitment and 20-30 minutes later the goal is achieved. Then after each one is done, I immediately set another one and so on and so forth.
Because I’m not thinking of the $100 goal, or how many total articles I need to write to achieve it, if I stay focused I “should” be able to pass the $100 at some point without even noticing I did it. Remember, the focus is on writing one article, not on the $100.
Laying The Groundwork
Because I am neither a talented or experienced writer, I decided to spend the weekend practicing and try to get the first 30 articles done so I could qualify for the higher level. Turns out I have a bit more talent than I gave myself credit for, as I reached the 30 articles with a rating of 4.8 stars. Go me! I even had one particular client ask for me specifically on several occasions, so that was a good boost to my ego and my account balance. I didn’t keep track of exactly what I made during this part as it wasn’t part of the case study – just a practice run to warm my typing fingers up and get my rating up so I’m ready to hit the ground running when I start the real challenge. I believe it was around $50-$60 anyway (there were a few 300 word articles that I wrote which pay less obviously).I should also point out that your account balance does not get credited on completion of the article. It only gets credited when the requester accepts your article, so sometimes they can take a few hours and other times it can take a day or two. Because of this, I expect my actual earnings to be lower on the first day as there is likely to be some articles that are still pending approval.
DAY ONE
Total earnings $16.71
Doesn’t sound like much, but I was pressed for time today so didn’t actually start writing until 11pm. I guess one of the benefits of being a freelance writer (if I can call myself that) is that you can work anytime and anywhere. The downside of that is you really need to be self motivated, which I often struggle with. Anyway, there are 6 days to go to get to the magical $100 figure and tomorrow I will have a lot more available time in which to write.DAY TWO
Total earnings $108.75 – Case Study Over, I Win The Internet!!
I got some real momentum going today. The nice feeling of accomplishment every time I finished an article really kept me going so I was able to finish the case study 5 days early!I had some interesting topics to write about also. One particular article I found quite amusing and entertaining to write was about sex toy parties! I guess now with technology allowing for keyless entry that the old key parties have slowly been phased out and replaced with sex toy parties!
One of the other writing tasks I completed was to transcribe an interview with Tom Ewer. He started out in internet marketing before really finding his feet as a freelance writer. He has a website called Leaving Work Behind which I found quite interesting to read. This really got my mind ticking over and wondering what possible paths I could take with freelance writing from here.
I looked further into 2 different routes I could take. The first one would be to set up a PLR (private label rights) store and sell some articles. The best resource I found for doing this came from Tiffany Dow, who has done the same thing and even sells a product showing how to do it. I really liked everything I read about Tiffany, so when my payment comes through from iWriter on Tuesday, I’m going to donate $10 to her angel fund that she uses to help struggling writers.
The second option for me is to go into publishing books on Amazon Kindle. This is also a good option for setting up a small passive income that can be used to leverage my way into other areas of marketing that I want to explore.
Final Thoughts
This has been a really interesting experience for me. I never really fancied myself as a writer and didn’t ever think it would be something that would interest me. While I am not going to do it full time or make it my primary focus, it does give me the option to go back to iWriter anytime I need an injection of cash which is always a good option to have. I will also work on writing some PLR content to sell, as well as writing some Kindle books. I have a major project coming up that is going to need a lot of my time and attention, but as time permits I will definitely go back to writing and expand on my newly found experience and add to my income streams.The whole intention behind this case study was to show you how you can earn some money without having to spend it. This is just another great way you can generate some cash that will allow you to leverage your way into bigger things, that you were unable to do previously because of the costs involved. Just imagine if you spent a few hours each week writing articles and were able to bring in an extra $50? Whatever your main business is, I’m sure an extra $50 each week to advertise would really help it to take off.
Update: I’ve now added a new blog entry showing you the bestway to actually write your article
8 Tips To Get The Most Out Of iWriter
Hopefully some of you have been inspired to try your own hand at making money writing articles with iWriter or another site. I’m going to lay out what I think is the best way to approach it to ensure maximum returns.- Always focus on quality. Forget about how long it takes you to write the article initially, just concentrate on writing a good article that follows the guidelines set by the person requesting it. As you continue to write, your skills will develop and you will be able to write much faster, but you should let the speed come naturally. The earnings are pretty small if you can’t get your rating up, and the only way to get a good rating is to put quality ahead of speed.
- When you begin, try to find the shorter 150 word or 300 word articles to write. Money is not the focus at the beginning, the focus is on getting those first 30 ratings that will enable you to qualify to write the higher paying articles.
- Always read the instructions. Most people requesting articles to be written for them will provide you with instructions on how they want it set out. To ensure good ratings, you should always follow their instructions. If you don’t understand the instructions, then don’t write the article. Often you will be supplied with instructions regarding keywords and keyword density. This is purely for SEO purposes, so if they ask for a keyword density of 1%, that means you should have the keyword in the article once for every 100 words on average. Also the keyword needs to be in its exact format – so if the keyword is dog training tips, then it must appear exactly like that and in that order. “10 dog training tips” is fine, “tips for dog training is not”, as although it has the right words they are in the wrong order.
- Never, ever copy or steal someone else’s content, or use spun content. Quite often rewriting another article is fine, as long as you completely change it so it is 100% unique.
- Always tend to special requests first. These are people who like the work you produce, and have the potential to assign you a lot more work, so make them your first priority. Even in the few short days I was doing this I was starting to get quite a few of these special requests, so I’m sure if I continued writing I could eventually get to a point where all of my work came from special requests. This is the added effect of focusing on producing quality articles, because you will quickly reach a point where people will be chasing you to do their work, rather than you searching for work to do.
- If an article requester has a low approval rating (ie. they reject a lot of articles) don’t always take that as a sign that they are likely to reject your work. It is also an indication of the quality of work that has been submitted to them, so try to stand out by making sure your work is good. Remember, they have come across a lot of poor quality writers on the site, so if you can show them that you are a high quality writer then there is an increased likelihood that they will send you all of their work in future. The only exception I make to this is if the requester has not approved any articles at all and rejected a large number .Although iWriter are very good at dealing with those trying to cheat the system, it does not always mean there aren’t a few people on there doing the wrong thing. Just avoid those people and you should be fine.
- I want to mention quality again. It is just that important. Looking at the main page of the site, of the top 10 most prolific writers (those who have written the most articles) only ONE of them is qualified as an elite writer. I’d rather be paid twice as much for the same amount of work, so getting to the elite status should be a priority. Quality will pay more than quantity in the long run.
- iWriter does have a fast track program that allows you to become an elite writer (for a fee) without having to write 30 articles. If you are just starting out, then I don’t recommend using it. You need to gain the practice and experience first. If you are a seasoned writer and just looking for an extra freelance writing site to make money, then it can be a worthwhile investment.