Four Things Every Writer Needs to Do to Make a Full-time Living from Their Writing

It's a sad fact that the average writer only makes about $1,500 to $4,000 a year unless that writer is a business writer.

What about everyone else? Shouldn't other writers have a chance to make money writing, especially a full-time income?

Before the Internet, writers didn't have many options. You could try to publish your poetry, fiction, nofiction, etc. in books and magazines, but the pay was dismal at best unless you somehow managed to breakthru and become a superstar in your field.

The Internet changed everything. Writers suddenly had millions of places to publish their work, but again the pay was sometimes dismal.

Now though, although you will find there are as many opinions on online marketing as there are marketers, here are four methods you can use to build your readership of your site and make a full-time living from your writing regardless of what kind of writing you do.

If you're starting on a shoestring, you'll still be able to
build traffic without spending much money.

1. Write articles. As a writer, this should be a simple thing for you to do. Even if your chosen field isn't article writing, you can still easily create articles that readers will read.

Luckily, writing articles can be as simple as creating a list of items and then adding detail to each one.

You can also write step-by-step instructions on how to do something. This technique will work with just about any type of writing because internet surfers are always
looking for how to information.

2. Create an optin list. The one thing that all of the top marketers online agree on is that you must have a list.

There are two ways you can do this.

First, you can purchase leads, but make sure you find a respectable dealer and make sure that the leads you
purchase are targeted to your market.

Second, you can build your own list. This is cheaper, and it takes longer, but you'll be better off because you know your traffic is targeted.

These are people who want to be on your list and want what you sell.

You can do this by adding a subscription box to your
web site. You can offer product updates, short articles or
reviews, information on trends in your field, or any other
valuable information you think your customers can use.

You can also offer contests, or a valuable free premium to
your customers to get feedback.

This is also the easiest way to promote your products
because you have a list of people who are interested in
what you have to say.

3. Pay Per Click Search Engines. This is a relatively new
trend, but it can provide you a way to get more targeted
traffic to your business.

Pay per clicks will provide you more targeted traffic than
standard search engines and directories because you have
more control over your keywords and ranking. Many will get
you started for free.

You can download a copy of 47,200 Hits for Free, and excellent free ebook that will show you how to get started using pay per clicks. http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/freeware/47k_custom.zip

4. Joint ventures. This is another method of traffic
generation frequently used by top Internet marketers writers should be using.

A joint venture is where you find a newsletter publisher
and have him/her promote your product in his/her ezine. The
publisher get a percentage of the sales made from
advertising your product.

It is similar to affiliate marketing, but there are other
steps involved to creating a successful joint venture.

You'll want to offer publishers a deal they can't refuse.
Give them a free copy of the product but include plenty of
bonuses. Make it as easy as possible for the publishers to
accept your offer.

If you follow the steps above, implementing one step per
week, in four weeks, you will have a complete marketing
strategy.

The most important thing you should remember is to test
everything you do, including headlines, body copy, ad
placement, etc. Get rid of anything that doesn't work, and
zero in on your market.