How To Make Money Online As A Creative Writer

Writing online for money may seem like a fantasy or a low paying passive income. The truth is that you can make some real money writing online for many different websites.

For websites you can write humorous articles, comic related articles and much, much more for anywhere between 50-700$ per article. Another way to put your creative writing skills to good use is by reviewing books for money. You can also make some money on websites like Fiverr, Clickworker and Upwork. The most money you can earn online as a creative writer is if you start a blog.

There are three types of websites you can write for. The first is established websites like Screen Rant that that will hire you, and let you write for them, for a fee. The second and more commonly known websites are freelance sites that are a marketplace for writers like Fiverr and Upwork. The third is reading books and writing reviews. Today I will cover all three to give you a full picture on what your options are and how you can apply.

Here are a few things to remember when you apply for a writing gig to any of these sites for a better chance at success:

you must proofread what you write multiple times after your idea is accepted because the editors will not edit your writing before publishing it
you have to send an entire pitch to the editor of your idea
make sure your pitch is just that not the entire draft
follow whatever guidelines the website has put in place
if you own a website make sure to add your link

This website has affiliate links that I earn a commission from without any extra cost to you. This means that if you click on a link and purchase something, I might make a little money. You will not be charged extra, and some of the affiliate links I use have discounts so stay tuned!

Websites that will pay you to write for them

1. Screen Rant is a really good example because they are always hiring writers who are passionate about movies, comics, movie reviews, T.V. News about your favourite shows and lists of the top ten best movies to watch.

For writers who love movies or comic books this is a fantastic place to look for work.

2. Wow Woman is really a site for female writers. You can do a number of gigs on the site. They will pay you anywhere from $50-100 per post. You can write in three different ways for them. You can write guest posts, sponsored posts, and you can join their quarterly writing contest.

When you apply make sure to write your article in your email, in text, do not add an attachment. A great way to improve your chance of being accepted is if you have a preexisting website that you write for, you can add a link to it, this will raise your chances of your application being accepted.

3. Cracked.com is a comedic website for articles and memes. They will pay you $150 for your first accepted posts, and then they pay $250 per post.

They too have different types of work you can submit. For example, you can make your own memes for them. A thing to remember is that they want you to make a list heading like “top ten unbelievable Batman parodies” and then you will have to submit ten picture memes for the post.

You can of course write a funny article that should be 2500 words long.

4. Link-Able is a site that has merged link building with writing. They do require that you submit three posts that you wrote on three different websites as a project or guest writer. They can pay up to $700 per post.

For this site link building seems to be more important than quality written work.

5. The Penny Hoarder is a website that will pay you to write anything on personal finance. They want you to look through their website and write something original that they have not already written about.

Another requirement to sign up is to upload three published pieces of writing you have done online. They will not publish under a false name, and the editor will email you if your pitch is accepted.

There are hundreds of websites that will allow you to write for them, so keep an eye out for the “write for us” sign at the bottom of the websites you visit.

Website with a marketplace for creative writers

Although many people criticise Fiverr and Upwork for being too saturated with cruddy writers, a low starting cost at $5 per written piece and a lot of competition, I do think they are an excellent place to start for beginner level creative writers. At least you can start earning some money for your time online.

To apply, you need a PayPal email address. Once you sign up with them, you can create your profile with your capabilities and your rate; the more accepted work you complete, the higher you can earn for a gig. Try to deliver work on time and proofread your work repeatedly before submitting it.

It will be a waiting game at first because someone has to take a chance on you, but if you can impress the person you write for they will probably come back to you. Furthermore, they might give you a little extra tip. 🙂

If you make a profile at one of these websites, make sure that your bio is written without any grammatical errors. I have seen countless people make this terrible mistake, of writing a grammatical error-ridden introduction, that would make anyone cringe. Anyone hiring will be immediately put off by this, and they will move on to find someone with better writing skills.

Market yourself professionally to so that you are noticed sooner.

If you feel your written English is top-notch, then make an account with Clickworker. You will have to pass a test to judge your writing capabilities. They have a higher pay rate and more job opportunities than Fiverr and Upwork.

If your written work has errors they will return it to you for corrections, but if you do not correct all the issues in the first round then the job will be resubmitted, and you will have to start over.

Clickworker is worldwide and extremely easy to make an account with. They have seasonal added jobs to look out for and several different jobs to choose from.

Always do three things before submitting written work:

after you have written the post, article, etc. let it sit and then revisit it after a few hours to spot errors
read your work aloud to spot any awkward sentences
use a free tool like Grammarly to spot spelling mistakes

Book reviewing sites that want written reviews

The only low entry-level book reviewing website is the onlinebookclub.org. This website will pay you anywhere from $5-60 per book review. They pay using PayPal only, and the email address you use to sign up with should also be your PayPal email address.

First off they have all genres of books except text books, and you get to choose the book you want to review. So do not worry about reviewing a book that you do not like.

Many people look down on this site due to issues they have with navigating the website. I had a hard time understanding a few things, too, when I first signed up at the site. Do not be daunted by the site navigation because it is actually quite simple when you have interacted with it for a month.

The website has a public forum that you can ask questions on. Within a few hours or a maximum of 24 hours, someone will answer your questions.

They do have some community guidelines that you must follow, but they are also lenient towards newcomers. Moreover, you will have room to err so no worries.

After your first book reviewed, you will be eligible to pick books with a payment. They have a level-based system, and the highest level is level 6. At level 1, you will get only low fees that are between $5-10 and when your level increases the payments increase too. Also, the higher level you have, the more book choices you will have access to, so you get perks, the higher you go.

When reviewing a book you will have to choose which formats you can receive them in.

The formats that they come in are as follows:

PDF
Mobi
Amazon Kindle Book Gift
Kindle Unlimited
Google Docs
Barnes and Noble Nook Book Instant Gift
Audible
Self-purchase

When I first made my account with them I did not have a laptop, and I was worried because I do not have a Kindle or Amazon account. So with just PDF and Mobi, I had ample choice in books to choose from.

If you have great writing skills then you can send your written work to some higher paying reviewing websites like:

The small list above will pay you $100 or more for each book review.

Write a book summary for $100

I did not even know that this was a thing but if you are not afraid of writing then this is a fantastic site for you. You will have to writ 1000-1500 word summary on a book you read that will be trascribed by them for an audio file as well.

Instaread is basically an application for people who want an informative summary of a book instead of reading the actual book. Can someone please tell me why on earth would you read a summary over the actual book? Anyway moving on…

They want you to submit a summary of a classic non-fiction book, old, or new. For the entire guidelines, you can go directly to the guideline page here Instaread guidelines in Google Docs.

You can check if submissions are open here on there submissions page.

Start your own blog

I always recommend that you build your very own website and write about 30-60 blogs on a specific topic, let your website brew online for a year. In the meantime look for writing jobs. When you do get traffic, after a year, think of how you can monetise it.

Making a blog sounds more frightening than it actually is, and that is a simple truth. Just go over to Bluehost, get a free domain, and cheap hosting at $2.95 a month.

They have a speedy WordPress installation that will make you able to set up your site within half an hour. Just use WordPress over Wix, because WordPress is better in many, many ways. Moreover, Wix has so many cluttered pages with too much code, and this makes your entire website slow. WordPress is free and used by over 30% of the worlds internet.

Do not spend money on a paid theme just pick a free one, and do not spend money on paid plugins!

They will have a back-up of your site, and a 24/7 free support system.

Making a website will enable you to earn $500-2000 a month. Honestly, starting a blog can earn as little or as much as you want it to because it is, in essence, a business.

Pick a niche topic that is not one of the following:

recipes
news
personal finance
health and fitness

Do not spend money on keyword research just use Google’s auto-suggest to see what is being searched. You can also scroll to the bottom of the search result page to see what are the other recommended search results.

The reason I do not promote keyword research tools is that they do not have enough data to be able to show you what is trending, and what is not. Google, on the other hand, is used by everyone all over the planet and when they show you auto-suggest, it is because thousands of people have already done the same search.

Once your site is ready make sure to index it, for free, at Google Search Console.

Final thoughts

Creative writing is fun for people who love to write, but you can dominate this as a job opportunity. Everything gets better with practice and if you think you have not understood what it takes then think again. Most of us have few skills and even less self-confidence, but the reason very few humans achieve some important goals in their lifetime is that no one wants to try again and again until they get what they want. So be that person who perseveres in the face of difficulty, repeatedly tries if you are not successful the first time, and has a belief in one’s self.