Combining Writing and a Second Passion

EARNINGS FOR 2014

I haven't written here in a long time. My writing career has slowed down quite a bit financially since I wrote this because we moved from Connecticut to Georgia and I no longer have that client in Massachusetts. I did figure out my writing earnings from 2014 and was pleased with the results since it was a part time endeavor. Between writing for that one client and online writing earnings, I made approximately $2,780. Hmm, if I were to give myself some advice, I would tell me not to quit my day job! Ha ha, but the thing is now that we have moved, I HAVE quit my day job and am no longer substitute teaching, but writing and selling on eBay as my two mains sources of income. I have a passion for both, and I am having the time of my life!

GOAL ORIENTED

Since I am very goal oriented, I will always challenge myself to earn more money. Right now I am keeping track of ho much I earn weekly, monthly and yes of course annually. And each week I challenge myself to earn more. Each month I challenge myself to earn more. And yes of course each year I challenge myself to earn more. It takes a long time to see the results of my earnings each year, BUT it I continue to challenge myself on a weekly basis, the earnings each month and each year will also automatically increase. Basically it means more writing and more eBay selling.

MY NEW BLOG

To that end , I have just started a new blog here on blogger called, "Thrift Shopping 4 eBay" and I will hopefully earn money from that while helping people get the courage and motivation to also earn money on their own from eBay. I have a friend who encouraged me, and this is my way of paying it forward because honestly if it wasn't for my friend Joe, selling and earning on eBay would still be a distant dream for me. Feel free to follow along on that blog if you are interested. You can find it at: http://thriftshopping4ebay.blogspot.com/

More Money in August!

I am quite excited that the freelance job I have been doing for the month of July got extended by two weeks into August! Whew, that means I will have no problem reaching my goal of earning $2,000 this summer. What a relief. I have found though that with all that's been going on this summer with the move to Georgia looming at the end of August, it is hard for me to get actual work done from home. I do better when I go to the agency's office and can shut myself away in a room and write up interviews I have already done, etc.. At home, my husband is always asking me for help packing things up, or consolidating items in boxes, or weeding out junk that we don't need anymore. Why move things we haven't used in years? It just makes it harder to get the work done.I don't usually have that problem working from home, but the move is getting in the way. Anybody else ever have that problem with working from home?

A Freelance Writing Job For July!

Shortly after I wrote the previous entry, a friend of mine that I have been doing some freelance work for every quarter called me. She has work for me for 2 days a week for the month of July! I am beyond thrilled and have already worked 2 weeks for her. I go up one day, interview people, take photos, write and submit the work to her for approval, then it goes to a different person they have on staff and she posts it where it needs to go...website, Facebook, etc. I was worried about where I would get money from to pay my daughter's tuition once the substitute teaching job ended for the summer, and then this dropped into my lap. It has been a Godsend...and I truly mean its been sent from God! It takes me about 2.5 hours to get there, and I drive the same 2.5 hours back again the next day. But I am getting good pay and great experience for future writing assignments. I am hoping that when my husband and I move, I will be able to pick up some freelance writing jobs in that state. Part of this work includes taking pictures of the staff and clients. I am much more attuned to my camera and am honing my photography skills, and since this takes place in the Berkshire mountains in Massachusetts, I have seen some amazingly beautiful sites and try to never miss an opportunity to capture them with my camera. Life is good for this writer/photographer right now.

I am including some pictures of the beautiful sights I have seen since I have started this freelance work below.

I Feel Guilty For Not Wanting to Be A Copy Writer

I recently went on a cruise and had a lot of time to read. I brought along a copy of the book called, "The Well Fed Writer" written by a guy who wanted to work from home, be his own boss, and thought he wrote pretty well. The statistics in this book of how well copywriters can do amazed me. He says copywriters can charge $50 to $85 per hour and that most companies won't blink an eye. They write articles for newsletters and information for brochures, ad campaigns, etc.Technical copywriters earn less, but even still they are at $35 to $65 an hour. As a writer, can you imagine earning that much money? $85 per hour to do something you love? I was amazed. But then I really started to think about it and wondered if I could actually do that. Somehow, being a copywriter seems like selling my dreams short, Yes, while it would provide a very nice living, there probably wouldn't be time to write on the side for magazines or to write that book I want to someday have published. And then I thought about how I don't enjoy deadlines such as when I write for Textbroker. And when I write for the one agency I do write for, I hate the deadlines there as well. So to imagine a life full of writing determined by deadlines sounds awful and stressful to me. I feel guilty because right now, as a substitute teacher that writes online on the side, I don't make nearly the money I would like to make, or should be earning as a person with a Master's degree. In our marriage, my husband ends up with the bulk of the responsibility for paying the bills.The author is pretty bleak when he talks about how unrealistic it is to try to make a living as a writer of books and magazine articles and that people that do that are pretty much starving artists. Yikes...sounds like me although thanks to my husband, I am not starving. I suppose I could approach other non-profit agencies and tell them about my background in human services and promote myself as a copywriter since I know I could get a letter of recommendation from the director of the agency I currently do work for. But I don't want to. I want to hold out for writing my own articles at my own pace and also write that book someday. I'm just broke and feeling bad about it, and feeling guilty that I can't help out more financially at home. Any thoughts?

Writing Earnings from April, 2014

Ugh...I am almost embarrassed to tell you what I made online writing during April. I totaled it all up and unfortunately it's not very much. I earned only less than $1.00 on Google Adsense...why, I have no idea. I earned about $12.50 on Hub Pages and approximately $27.00 on Bubblews for a whopping total of $39.91 from writing online. Yikes...good thing I am not putting all my eggs in the online writing basket. I did also do some interviewing and writing articles for a newsletter for a non-profit agency, and earned $135 there, and got a raise actually because I started off dirt cheap with them and they told me to raise my price per hour. Pretty good eh? They must like my work enough to tell me to charge them more money.So all told, my writing earnings for April were: $174.91.That's not bad for part time work, but if I was trying to write full time, I would be pretty poor. I must add here that April was a slow month for me earnings wise probably because my husband and I spent about 2 full weeks preparing our house to put on the market, and I was working full time subbing for 3 of the weeks in April. I certainly hope May has better results at least online because I don't have the outside work from the non-profit agency this month so things will be pretty bleak if they online work doesn't pick up. I read on another blog that someone took a bunch of his articles on Hub Pages and turned them into an e-book on Kindle, and was able to do that for free. I read this in a post from a year ago. I wonder how he made out? Has anyone else done this or know of anyone who has? I have had an idea for an e-book for awhile and this may work for me.

I'm Thinking About Writing For Constant Content

Over the summer when I was attempting to earn money full time from online writing, I researched some websites other than HubPages and Textbroker that might help me earn more money. I chose first to write on Webanswers, which I started at the end of June and did well on. Then I decided to take a chance and try Bubblews which is going very well for me. I starteed with Bubblews in mid-August. Things seem to be slowing down in terms of earnings for me on WebAnswers lately. So, while not giving it up totally, I am once again looking for a website online that I can earn from. And I am thinking about writing for Constant Content. I have done a LOT of research on it and am not sure whether to jump in or not. The problems are two fold as I see them: 1) They are huge sticklers for correct grammar, including comma usage, which often trips me up. Articles get sent back if they are not absolutely perfect, and then trying to fix them and resend them is a big undertaking from what I hear. And 2) You have to write articles and you keep them in your own article bank for others to come take a look at and determine whether or not they want to buy your article. If not, they could just sit there forever, and never get sold. That seems like a big waste of time to me. If I spend time writing an article and then no one is interested enough to purchase it, what was the point of putting all that time into writing it in the first place? And now that I think about it, there's a third issue and that is you have to choose how you want an article to be purchased. If I say someone can purchase it, but it needs to have my by-line, then that probably won't sell as well as if I sold it with permission to not include my name...like a ghost writer. Oh yes, one more issue...Constant Content takes 35% of the purchase price. So I guess there are really four issues here that are making me hesitant. Anyone care to weigh in on this? Have you had any luck over at Constant Content or do you know anyone that has? I think I will still mull this over for awhile!

My Writing Earnings for 2013

I am a bit disappointed, aw, who am I kidding, more than a bit disappointed in that I had a goal of tripling my writing income of 2012 in the year 2013, but I didn't even quite double it. In 2013 I earned $520 from writing and in 2013 I only earned $972. So although I earned more, it certainly isn't enough to get all excited about. I did find 2 new writing venues which helped a lot this year and they were WebAnswers and Bubblews. Unfortunately I didn't find them till the end of the summer so maybe things will be much better this coming year from those 2?  So far Bubblews is working out best for me. I am working my way up to earning $100 per month there but currently make between $50 and $75 a month just at that one website. My goal for writing earnings for the year 2014 is $2,400. That still will not support me, nor will it pay for my daughter's college tuition, but every little bit helps, and that will be a big increase for me. Instead of doubling or tripling what I earned this year, I just chose $2,400 because it will mean I am earning $200 a month. This year one of my goals is also to have at least one article published in a  magazine, and to start writing for the site Constant Content. Stay tuned and I will let you know how it goes!