Time was, a freelance writer could make a good living writing for newspapers, consumer magazines and trade publications. Some writers can still do this. Most, though, are finding that the publishing world is going through a dramatic change: To survive today, most freelance writers need to write for the Web, too.
And writing for the Web -- and making money from it -- requires a new set of skills for writers.
A Struggling Industry
The nation's recession has hit traditional print publishing especially hard. The list of print publications either going out of business or moving more of their operations to the Web is long. The Christian Science Monitor, one of the nation's most respected newspapers, has made the switch from publishing a print edition every weekday. The newspaper now publishes just one print edition, while putting its content online every day. The Detroit Free Press is moving from a daily publishing schedule to printing three traditional editions a week and relying on the Internet for everything else.
Other respected publications are struggling to stay alive. The Chicago Tribune Company has declared bankruptcy. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has done the same. In Seattle, the venerable Post-Intelligencer is barely hanging on.
Yes, it's a bloodbath out there for traditional print publishing. And it's also evidence that the future of publishing lies online.
Can Writers Really Make Money Writing for the Web?
This may sound like terrible news for freelance writers who've specialized in writing for magazines and newspapers. After all, bigger newspapers paid $500 or more for freelance stories. Trade magazines can pay $1,000 or more for longer features.
But the Web? Most Web sites pay considerably less. How can a writer hope to replace even a $400 print story by writing for Web site that pay $50, $25 or less for stories?
The answer? Volume.
The Importance of Volume
Writers must produce a lot of content when they write for the Web. The good news is that it takes far less time to write a typical Web story than it does to turn around a feature for most print publications.
Web stories often require no phone interviews, where good interviews usually form the basis of powerful print writing. But online readers are often looking for short snippets of information quickly. That's why so much Web writing is made up of short how-to stories that are usually easy to research and to write.
Freelancers moving from print to Web must make this transition: The quality of online writing isn't nearly as important as the quantity. To succeed in writing for the Web, writers need to produce a lot of stories in a short amount of time. That's the only way to make those checks add up.
This doesn't mean writers must turn in hack work. And it certainly doesn't mean they should turn in plagiarized content. It does mean that writers should take on stories on topics that they already know a lot about. Freelancers who've covered the residential real estate business, for instance, can write a slew of stories about preparing a home for showings, finding the right real estate agent, avoiding foreclosure and any other number of topics. If writers have been covering a topic for years, writing good, informative and quick shorts about that topic should be an easy task.
Writers who are transitioning to online writing, should also realize that a successful writing career is often a varied one. The most successful writers might turn in several short Web stories in a given month while turning in a smaller number of higher-paying, more time-consuming stories for traditional print publications.
It's never easy to work through a changing industry. But freelance writers need to realize that not all change is bad. Those freelancers who can write well while writing quickly are the perfect writers for the new world of Web writing.
Dan Rafter - I'm a freelance writer with more than 15 years experience covering the residential and commercial real estate industries. Of course, this ...
