A writing business has got to be one of the niftiest "turn key" operations for the work at home mom. Granted, you have to know how to write and have an interest in doing that for the majority of your working hours. But beyond having the skills and interest, you basically need a reliable computer, good software, printer, your reference books of choice and a plan to market your skills so that you actually attract clients. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is being able to find the right writing business.
There are a number of ways to turn your writing skills into a viable business.
Copywriter
A copywriter uses words in an engaging way to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. A successful copywriter is able to create copy that persuades the listener or reader to act. Advertising firms hire copywriters to prepare copy for TV, radio or print ads.
Some people describe website content development as copywriting since website copy must engage readers and be written in such a way as to achieve optimum ranking in the engines (Search Engine Optimization). If your client wants her potential audience to find her easily when conducting an online search, she'll want her website page to show up within the first few results when keywords for her site are entered into a search engine. A skilled copywriter or content developer should be able to do both - write engaging copy for human readers and "keword" rich copy for search engines.
Copywriters usually charge by the hour and can range from $50 - $300 an hour, depending on their talent and experience. You might want to think about specializing in a type of copywriting if you're more interested in securing higher end fee rates.
For example, some WAHMs have developed a specialty in writing copy for web based or online sales pages. Online sales pages are those pages that are used by website owners to promote AND sell a product or service to website visitors. These pages seem to be about a mile long (much scrolling involved, along with the use of bold, colored text) and throughout all that scrolling you're asked about 2-3 times to make a purchase in order to secure all the add on benefits that are explained with much hype throughout the page.
It may sound a bit over the top but it works and there are many moms out there creating a name for themselves as top sales page writers. One particular well known WAHM that I know charges up to $2,000 per sales page (she makes a good, full time living as an online marketer and others want to emulate her success). But the average range that I've seen WAHMs charging for the creation of a sales page is between $75-$150.
Article Writing
One of the most cost effective ways to promote a business is to write a story of interest that ultimately promotes the company and then offer it to magazines, newspapers and all sorts of online publicatios that reach your target market. Not all publications accept unsolicited articles, but many do (especially trade publications).
High priced public relations firms can charge brick and mortar businesses thousands of dollars a month to offer PR services that include pitching and placing articles (about the company) in strategic and desired magazines and newspapers. Of course placement in those tier 1 publications can also help to drive thousands if not millions of dollars worth of business.
But here in the small business, online sector there is something similar going on at a tiny fraction of the cost (and in many cases a tiny fraction of the impact). Article marketing is the process of writing articles (400-500 words) about a business and then shooting them off to online "article directories" which act like big distribution junctions that deliver your articles to hundreds or thousands of publishers/websites and other directories that feature content.
Of course many of these websites/publications may not reach your target audience at all but since the cost for the distribution may range from $0 to around $20, many businesses find the exercise worthwhile. If you want to offer your client more value - you could develop a targeted list of websites and publications that reach your client's audience and then actually contact the editors or publishers for each publication to discuss the possiblity of featuring your client's article in an upcoming edition.
Currently WAHM's charge from around $15-$50 to write articles like this for clients (some charge less and I don't understand why). The lower fee range usually occurs when a client purchases a bundle of articles (packages of 5 or 10). Just remember to watch your time and ensure that you are billing accordingly. Ideally if you're a skilled writer you don't want to be writing for less than $30 an hour and many articles can take that long - especially if it is a subject matter that is new to you.
Check in next week when I'll be reviewing other writing businesses for WAHMs including special report writing and the ever popular ghost writing business.
Married with two teens, Sharon has spent the better part of her family life juggling kids, juggling dream jobs and successfully presenting telecommuting and work at home solutions to pleasantly surprised employers. You can visit Sharon at her website, New Urban Mom .
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