Freelance Writing|Freelance Writer

Low Paying Freelance Writing Jobs

I have received several emails and comments regarding my recent post, Three Quick Tips for Aspiring Online Content Writers. Many people seem to agree with every point that I touched on, whereas others are picking on this sentence: “In fact, with my first online content job I was paid $1 per 500 words; that is just about as bad as it gets. Over time this changed, but starting at the bottom is part of the process.”

I wanted to clarify my stance on that point. First off, I can understand why some people would not want to work for low rates. When I started out, it was quite disappointing that my first job paid so low. But with that being said, I still believe that there is nothing wrong with this if you are simply trying to gain some experience. Even though that job was one of the worst I ever had, it also taught me the most about the freelance writing industry. And that is something that I would not trade in for anything else.

The experience of working for low pay and learning how to move up the ladder was essential to my current success. Does this mean that you should work for pennies if you do not have to? Absolutely not. But the bottom line is that some aspiring writers give up prematurely on their career because they think that it is wrong to work for lower rates. If I would have followed that advice, I would have never boosted my freelance writing income to such a high level.

Those who are against writing for low rates have an excellent point; it is simply one that I do not agree with. I am positive that every beginning freelance writer would love to write for local newspapers and publications. But the post that I made was geared more towards those who want to get involved with online writing.

My advice is quite simple: start your freelance writing career getting paid as much as you can, but make sure that you start. The biggest mistake that you could make would be to hold out month after month hoping for higher rates. By getting involved with the freelance writing industry, no matter the pay, you will find that moving forward is much easier.