1. Pick a topic you know well, or would like to know more about, and draft an outline of an ebook you can sell online. Do some Google research to see what the competition is like.

2. Join an affiliate program such as eBay or Amazon if you haven’t already, and incorporate ads into your website and blog.

3. Build a blog or website to talk about your chosen topic. This is where you can sell your ebook or sell other products from affiliates on the topic you’ve chosen. Write several posts and schedule them to post over the next 2 weeks. Write an article on the same subject, using Ezinearticles or another article site, and include links back to your new blog.

4. Join a service like PayDotCom or E-Junkie to have a way to market your ebook when it’s done. Explore whether there are other products there on your chosen topic which you could market as well.

5. Get online and start networking on related blogs and sites where people with your interests post, such as forums and blog networks. Post comments, get to know people there and let them get to know you. These folks can really help you with ideas for your ebook, and places to announce your work when it’s finished.

Using these five steps as a starting point, you can begin to build a following and a product that you can sell, all as a result of your own writing.

You can do it but you have to think a little differently about your business than the typical freelance writer. Here are the basics:

- You need to do more than write for other people – write and sell your work direct to the consumer.
- Build a network of blogs and websites where you sell your products direct.
- Earn income from these sources – selling your work multiple times, direct to readers and buyers, and not just a couple times to publishers (who are profiting from your work themselves!).
- Learn how to build sites and blogs quickly, or use tools to help you do so.
- Learn how to market your blogs and sites effectively – or hire someone to do it for you at affordable rates.

Just those five easy steps can get you started. But, you may be asking, where do you find out more about each of those steps?

There are dozens, if not hundreds of web sites and blogs that will tell you what you need to know to start a profitable writing business, including blogging for money, and publishing your own websites to bring in money.

In the next series of posts, I’ll focus on some of the details of how to do this, including Web resources, links, and ideas to get you started and keep you going to build passive income as a six figure writer.

The flexibility of working in freelance writing is probably the most attractive aspect of writing for money. Usually, though, freelancers will tell you that the money is not that great, and getting freelance writing jobs can be truly competitive. It seems though that many writers don’t take advantage of online wirting opportunities both to find work writing for others, and also using your own writing skills to build your own, personal income stream.

I usually encourage people to think of their writing as a business – not a business as a freelance contractor, but a publishing business. You write articles, web content, blog posts, for pay; then you sell those to other people, such as businesses building an online presence, or webmasters building niche websites. What’s to prevent you from using your writing skills to create online “real estate” in the form of your own websites that bring you money?

When you’re thinking about how to make money whether online or off, Hub Pages is one of the ways you can make money with writing.  Building Hubs requires that you write reasonably well, have interesting content to share, and make your Hub attractive enough to bring back visitors again and again, which leads to you making money with your Hubs. So, if you’re starting out as a freelance writer, it can’t hurt to build Hubs to add an income stream, but also as a sample of your work that you can use to show clients.

You can also find work writing articles and content for others. Sites like Elance.com or Guru.com give you an opportunity to search for clients who need writers. Be sure to post a professional profile and references to showcase your work. Some of the jobs available include article writing, e-zine writing, blog post writing, and writing ebooks on a particular topic.

You can also post ads around the Web offering your services. You can list your services at Digitalpoint Forums, Sitepoint Marketplace, and others.

Build yourself a great looking blog or website showcasing your work too, and by using smart search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you can get organic traffic from those looking for writing services.

Start to learn how to build your own websites which will bring visitors and help you make money with your wriitng. A good, inexpensive ebook on the subject of how you can build a profitable writing business is Building An Ebook Empire, by Tiffany Dow. Check it out, and get started making cash from your writing.

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.

But wouldn’t you love writing that much more if you could also support yourself with it?

If you’re looking for a way to make money with freelance writing, writer jobs are probably not the best way to go. If you can write, why look for a job? Use your writing skill to write your own ticket.

Writer jobs generally pay badly, $20K or $30K can be considered a good job. Over $50K per year is unlikely except for the highest echelon of experienced staff writers, who can make more than that. You may get benefits of course, but these jobs are highly competitive. If you’re looking for a way to make money writing, why choose a desk job?

If you’re young and right out of school, it might make sense to find a writer job that will get you experience and bylines. Magazine and newspapers like to hire new grads because they are inexpensive, and they don’t take as much offense to things like having readers contribute more content or low wages. Younger writers are also likely to be more familiar with online content, so they can blog or Twitter all the day long.

But as a writer, especially as a freelance writer, you can do whatever you want to earn income. You can write blogs; you can sell articles; you can sell packages of articles. You can create your own website content. You can make money writing articles.  You can be a publisher of content, not just a hired gun who writes for other publishers. Frequently writers are stuck thinking inside the box of finding a freelance client. But why not publish your own stuff, direct to your own audience?

There are plenty of new places in today’s online world to sell your freelance writing, especially if you’re good. And, to acknowledge reality, especially if you write nonfiction. But think how easily you could indulge your fiction writing urge if your nonfiction created a hands-off income stream for you to live on?

Do you want to make money writing, or is it more important to get a book on a shelf in a Barnes and Noble (which, very soon, shelves will be out of style). Become an online publisher – and skip the writer jobs, if you are looking for the best way to make money on your own terms.