3 Sustainable Business Ideas For Writers to Make $1000 a Month
Because you probably don’t want to work for peanuts all your life.
Writing is often seen as a mere hobby and not a serious income source.
This mindset has kept millennials from seeing the business side of writing that is full of exciting opportunities. The problem is that we see writing as a poorly-paying job rather than a skill to build a reliable business around.
But, knowing how to turn your skills into a business is the real bet.
In this post, I have talked about some writing businesses for you to consider as your next side projects.
Content marketing agency
First thing first. Running a content marketing business requires sufficient knowledge of digital marketing and copywriting. But that’s not a deal-breaking factor if you are already an active online writer. Being an online writer automatically depicts that you probably understand the basics of digital marketing.
Anyway, content marketing service is all about helping businesses increase their sales, get new customers, and keep their existing customer base glued to the brand.
Your clients will expect you to fulfill all their content-related needs. Blog posts, social media, web content, newsletter, promotional content, video content, SEO, and even customer pitching emails — every single thing. They must see you as a one-stop-shop.
How to start and grow your business
- Get your company registered.
- Build a team of professionals with different specialties.
- Reach out to businesses and offer your services.
- Establish a strong social media presence.
- Try to get positive feedback from clients you have served.
- Market your services like a beast.
Like every other business, your content marketing agency will also require time, patience, and effort to grow. However, as a writer, this business has everything you need — money, growth factors, challenges, and complete utilization of your skills.
Scriptwriting business
Scriptwriting has emerged as an incredible option for creative writers after the rise of YouTube and several OTT platforms. If you are a little creative and good at playing with words, this can be a good home-based income source.
As a scriptwriter, you are expected to write scripts for videos, shows, courses, web series, and video games.
The best part is that you can scale your service to a full-fledged business. Once you have a steady flow of work, you can go ahead and hire a few creative writers to handle the workload.
Here’s the step-by-step process to start a scriptwriting business.
Starting a scriptwriting business is no different from a content marketing agency. It goes like:
- You find a few clients and work for them for peanuts and get their reviews to build a strong portfolio.
- Then you use that portfolio to pitch bigger clients and slowly start getting recognized.
- All this while you build a strong social media presence.
- Finally, you hire a team of writers and marketers to handle the work and promote your service.
Scriptwriting could turn out to be a thrilling experience for you if you have not tried it yet. And who knows once you have started, you discover a new skill and a whole different side of yourself.
Keep challenging yourself. Your growth will surprise you one day.
Niche Blogging
Blogging is not dead. Don’t believe bullshits. Blogging has not lost its glory, people just don’t want to try hard enough.
However, the success rate at blogging is lower than ever. And that’s not because it doesn’t work anymore. It’s because people give up too soon. That means if you want to stand out from about 97% of people, don’t give up. It’s just as simple as that.
Niche blogging is still a great business model for writers. You can pick a niche that you have good familiarity with and start publishing posts. Sure, it’s not that straightforward, but no business comes without its share of complications and challenges.
The trick is to treat it like a real business. That will encourage you to show up and work on your website regularly.
Starting and growing a website simply requires the below steps:
- Get a hosting service and register for a domain.
- Choose a platform to build your website (WordPress recommended).
- Select a catchy theme, add pages, and install some useful plugins.
- Write SEO-friendly posts and publish regularly.
- Keep the off-page SEO in check.
- Use Quora, Medium, Twitter, Instagram, and other social platforms to promote your blog posts.
- Use a lead magnet to get the website visitors into your email list.
- Write guest posts.
- Have patience and work for at least 1 year.
How to turn your website into a small business
Once your website hits a certain number of monthly visitors, you can start monetizing it through AdSense, affiliate marketing, and your own courses.
Hire an SEO writer or two to take care of your website’s writing needs. this will allow you to shift your focus to handling your email list, marketing, course creation, and other tasks. Once you have automated your website, you can scale up by growing more niche websites following the same procedure.
Blogging is nothing sort of an adventure. You go through a lot of ups and downs, make strategies, stay up late to finish an article, research, pitch to other blogs for collaboration, create courses, and what not. It’s the most fulfilling job a writer can pursue.
Bottom Line
Knowing that you have a great skill is totally different from knowing how to use it the right way.
Treating writing as a job is good for quick money. But, that shouldn’t stop you from slowly building your own little empire side by side.
Best of luck.