As a writer, there are plenty of opportunities to make money writing in ways other than groveling for jobs and competing with thousands of other (less expensive!) writers for freelance gigs. Why not write for yourself, and build your own online properties that make you money?

Freelance writers often don't think this way; their idea of making money writing is to send out queries, wait forever, hope an editor bites and eventually pays them.  They think like contractors, freelancers, self employed people perpetually trying to find clients, but not as business owners building income properties. For example, I've read books about how to make six figures freelancing, but often the books are about how to churn out article after article, query after query, and sell to someone else, but not how to start publishing and build your own income stream for yourself.

So how do you get started making money online as a writer, where you control the product and publish for your own profit?

There is a website called The Keyword Academy, which offers basic starting advice about how you can make money with online writing. Yes, you have to also build very basic websites - usually using sites that provide tools for you, like blog sites or other online services. And you need to learn the basics of how to market your site or sites, but again, you can use writing skills for this effort too. As a freelance writer, anything you can learn to market yourself online can only help your career.

And what if you don't want to do this kind of writing? That you really want to make a living writing sci-fi novels, or murder mysteries? If you're not making it yet with your preferred income stream, and are picking up side jobs and freelance jobs to pay the bills, why not also build some of these side projects bringing you passive income, once they are built, which comes in again and again, which you own, as opposed to a single sale of an article which you have to resell again and again to have it make you money?

And, if you're someone looking for a way to earn money with a blog because you have been laid off, or are looking for a second income, I can tell you, you don't have to be a professional or even highly skilled writer to do this kind of writing. You need to be clear, understandable, and know basic English, but you don't have to be a PhD in Creative Writing to earn money writing online.

This is just one small way you can make money writing online, writing for yourself, building your own portfolio of income properties, which can support you with additional income, or even primary income eventually, if you want to find more ways to make money writing.