September 2008 – The Work At Home Blog

Get Started In Freelance Writing

How do you get started as a freelance writer?

Freelance writers can make a great deal of money working at home. There are male and female writers and there are professional technical and copywriters that are single, are Moms, are stay at home Dads and also Grandparents.

I know single mothers that went from poverty to owning their own homes and having successful businesses. Some writers get their start and quit their day job and others get started when they are unemployed thinking it’ll get them through lean times. Many of those writers never go back to a traditional job because of how lucrative and rewarding writing for yourself can be.

Whether you want to work at it part time or full time, freelance writing is a great gig to get into. The Internet has opened up a world of writing opportunities and you can write about just about any subject you’re interested in and get paid for it. If you’re willing to write about boring or very speciality subjects as well, you can get paid even MORE.

How do you get started?

Here are tips to get you going. It’s not an easy job but there are a lot of opportunities available and while it takes time to get started, you can be earning a full time wage within a few months if you’re motivated and talented.

Get some samples together

You’ll need to get samples together to show prospective employers. There are two great ways to do this:

Open a blog at blogger.com and make a blog about a subject you can write well on. Write lots of articles in that subject and promote your blog.
Submit article to free directories. These can help you promote your name online so people who are thinking of hiring you can find you. Sites like this include: http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.articlealley.com, http://www.articledashboard.com, http://www.ehow.com, http://www.helium.com and http://www.Squidoo.com.

While many of these sites accept articles for free, sites like ehow, helium and squidoo will help you make residual income while you’re looking for work and creating samples!

Look for Jobs

Now that you’ve got samples and perhaps a resume together, there are a lot of online classified sites that you can find jobs at. Some are specialised for writers (http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com) and some are more general (www.craigslist.com) but having writing gig categories.

You can also join job bidding sites like http://www.elance.com and http://www.rentacoder.com. These sites allow you to create an online portfolio and apply to jobs. The beauty of sites like these is that you can be a bit more relaxed about being paid. If you want to be a freelance writer, you’ll need some serious scam radar because there are rip off artists and scammers and plagiarisers out there.

There’s a lot more to it and you’ll want to learn about search engine optimisation, SEO writing, self promotion and develop niches to increase your income. If you’re interested and motivated, you can learn as you go while you’re earning.

Concluding thoughts:

Freelance writing is a very lucrative and rewarding work at home career! Find a mentor to follow. I have a freelance writer blog that offers mentoring and tips and there’s a writer mentoring site at http://www.inspiredauthor.com that provides writer chats and plenty of tips. The more you can learn, the faster you can get some great writing gigs!

You can also read the 6 Figure Freelancer – A valuable resource providing detailed information about getting started in writing for the web.

Making Money At Home With Your Digital Camera

Interested in becoming a freelance digital photographer? There are a lot of ways to earn money on the internet and a lot of freelance jobs available. Making money online can even be done offline in the form of photography that’s sold online. There are thousands of websites online that want unique content and it’s a proven fact that websites that have great pictures are worth more to the website owners.

There are many online sites that sell stock photography for anywhere from $1 an image to hundreds of dollars an image. This is the case for online stores, real estate sites, classified networks and more.

How much money can you make selling pictures online?

How much you can earn per picture all depends on several factors including:

The quality of the photo,
The demand for the subject matter and;
Where you sell the digital pictures.

Learning the art of digital photography can help you succeed along with finding out about how to go about selling your pictures online for profit. Click selling your photos online for helpful information.

MLM Programs Online – Are They Worthwhile?

MLM programs are multi level marketing programs. If you’re at all familiar with Amway, this is a common example. In a MLM program, you pay to get into a program and the person on the ladder above you receives a commission based on everything you do. For everything you sell, you get a commission and the person above you in the ladder does as well.

There are many MLM companies that want to sign up telecommuters who want an online income. Very often they want you to sell products from your home. There are many affiliate marketing and multi level marketing programs out there that you can work at. This market can be difficult to break into and you can find yourself fighting to make money with MLM. If you’re interested in online marketing, there are a lot of resources to help you.\

Internet marketing is a booming industry where you sell products online instead of the traditional multilevel marketing from home.

To learn to break into this area, you can find:

free reports
ebooks for sale
free membership sites
premium membership sites
mentoring programs
product review sites
online marketing forums

Look before you leap! Read testimonials and look for reviews from multiple sources, if possible. Look for a money back guarantee and if buying through a program with PayPal or ClickBank you can have a bit more comfort knowing your purchase is protected.

Riding Out A Financial Crisis – Make Extra Money

Working at home can be a great way to earn extra money to prepare yourself for a financial crisis. The state of the world economy wise in recent times has made people nervous about protecting their nest egg. A good way to make sure you’re protected is to make extra money and today’s post can give you a few online startup business ideas.

Some people who work full time just can’t figure out how to do that so a good way to do it is to get into a p/t work at home job. Whether you fill out surveys, do paid forum posting, dabble in some affiliate marketing, do part-time freelance writing, start selling online via ebay or another online store or do some freelance web design in your spare time, every bit of money can add up.

You’ll find lots of online opportunities such as through job bidding sites and online classifieds. Take the money you earn online and contribute to your nest egg. Every little bit will help and you might be surprised at just how much you can earn in your spare time online.

Resources:

Check out Commission Blueprint for Making Money with Google and ClickBank: here,learn about paid Surveys: here read about Legit Online Jobs

or Start an Online Store. For any online money you earn, diversify your investments and consider living within a strict cash budget.

There are a lot of free and paid options online. If you do pay to join a program and develop an online business, save the receipt for your expenses at tax time!

WAH Jobs: Telemarketing

There is an increasing number of telemarketing companies that have decided to use a remote workforce. The cost of office space makes this work really well and with technology advances, they know they can adequately train off site employees.

There are pros and cons to telemarketing jobs. If you enjoy sales or customer service work, this could be the work at home job for you. It could be something that’s self paced and doable in your spare time considering that calling customers could be done in various timezones so this can work around your schedule if the employer permits.

On the down side, this isn’t likely a job you’d do with children underfoot. Some work at home jobs can easily be done with your kids at home but when you need to talk to customers, you don’t want your two year old hollering in the background or trying to climb up on your knee.

On the down side, some of these jobs could be commission only so may not provide a guaranteed income. Some telemarketing companies will offer salaried positions plus bonuses so it could be lucrative for you if you find the right job marketing the right product.

Above and beyond selling stuff, you could do things like customer surveys on the phone which is in the telemarketing area but can be easier than having to sell items through cold calling.

This type of position could be a WAH job with benefits such as medical and dental and the company you work for should provide you with the equipment you need to do your job. There could also be some tax write offs for home expenses.

The WAH Science of Forex

What is Forex? Foreign Exchange is what the acronym stands for and it’s the exchanging of currency to earn a profit. Foreign exchange is big business on the internet and a lot of people who do it earn it at home in their spare time.

Profiting from foreign currency is something that isn’t just a simple science…it requires a lot of knowledge about pips and trading times and it’s a fast moving cycle that could net you big profits or losses.

If you want to get into Forex, you might consider buying an automation program that helps you. You can buy memberships, ebooks and other programs that can help you maximize your earning potential.

As an illustration, if you buy US funds with UK funds on day one and then on day two sell it back, you could have a profit. This might equate to small profit at first but as your profits grow you can invest more of your profits into this and yield higher dividends.

One of the secrets is to play it safe at first and play with your profits and then if you do have losses, you haven’t lost anything because you lost from previously earned profits. A lot of people are capitalizing on this. You can learn systems manually or you can cut some corners by getting into a program such as Forex Autopilot

or check out this video:

Should It Ever Cost Money To Work At Home?

Working at home is somethign a lot of people want to do for many reasons and whether they want to work at home full time or part time, most of them are worried about being scams.

Is there ever a time when a work at home job should cost you money to get into?

If you’re working for a company, generally NO unless you need to pay to get certified for that position first through an accredited course. This might be the case with something like medical transcription which is a popular wah job. Before you leap, LOOK at whether the school is accredited and what their placement rate is. Some schools will offer a practicum so that you can get employed easily and quickly.

Equipment may need to be purchased so you can do the job such as a computer or with a transcription job you might need special equipment to listen to the transcription recordings. For most cases, the employer will provide you with the equipment so if you’re being asked to shell out, beware.

Some companies such as call center jobs will require you to pay for their training. In this case, look deeply at whether or not a company offering paid training comes highly recommended before signing up!

When you decide to do something freelance, you could have expenses but these are expenses that you choose to pay in order to invest in your business such as knowledge, courseware or e-books that can help you get into areas like freelance writing or internet marketing.

It’s very wise to look at product reviews and look for honest testimonials before investing in a wah job. The vast majority of jobs where you telecommute and work for someone else will not require you to pay money.

Internet Marketing Jobs: WAH And Be Your Own Boss

Considering a job in internet marketing? When looking at work at home jobs, you might choose to be an entrepreneur instead of work for someone else. How can you become a successful internet marketer? The secret is to learn as much as you can.

Affiliate marketing involves selling existing products online for a commission. This works really well for many people because they don’t have to inventory anything and you don’t have to do hard selling. With affiliate marketing, the seller sells the product for you; you just have to get interested buyers to their sales landing page and let them close the deal.

There is a plethora of products avialble this way and you can sell them any number of ways through ClickBank, through an affiliate network or as a direct affiliate. Even better, you can often make money on people who sign up under you as a superaffiliate selling to your downline.

There is a plethora of resources and online product reviews designed to help you find your way as well as free e-courses as well.

Here’s a list of a few available programs:

Commission BluePrint: Learn about making money from ClickBank selling ebooks.

Affiliate PayLoad: Learn some affiliate marketing secrets.

Get Google Ads Free: Maximize your money making opportunities with Google

When looking at investing in affiliate marketing it’s very wise to choose a program with a money back guarantee. Programs sold through companies like ClickBank protect buyers with guarantees and will claw back your money if you’re not completely satisfied.

Work at home success happens with determination and a desire to learn. Take advantage of every available opportunity and you could earn a full time income at home working for yourself.

Sell Water Hybrid Kits Online

One of the latest money making opportunities I’ve found is the car hybrid kits you can purchase online. Because the kit is not copyrighted you can buy the kit and make money from this yourself. Not only can you save money on gas but you can sell the kit to others, earning a decent work at home income. How it works:

Learn About Running Your Car On Water

The run your car on water kit is available from many sources and you can purchase it and save money by using a mason jar of water in a special kit in your own car that allows you to cut your gas consumption by about 40%. Then, because you now have the information on how to do this, you can use it to do several things:

Put together hybrid car kits and sell them
Sell the information in your own e-book
Install the kits

You can capitalize on this locally and online. Either be an affiliate for the existing water 4 gas program or make your own program and sell it on the internet.

This work at home option offers extensive options for making money online. Again, you can save money on gas when you buy the information and build it yourself, you can sell this information in an affiliate program and you can even sell the kits or perform the hybrid conversion.

Several programs are available including:

gas for free

and

water 4 gas

Get Paid To Fill Out Surveys

There are companies that want your opinion and they’re willing to send you surveys and pay you for your information.

Get Paid For My Opinion? But Why?

Companies want to know stuff, and market research companies that work on behalf of companies also want to know what you think about packaging, slogans, brands, the environment, pricing and more.

Paid Surveys: Pay vs. Points

Some surveys will pay you money and others will allocate points that can be cashed in for prizes. It varies depending on the program. Others will give you ballots for every survey for a chance to win something for your efforts. Of course, you’re likely most interested in companies like Pine Cone Research, Ipsos Reid or others who will send easy surveys and then send cheques to your house or love to your PayPal account.

There are lists of companies online and some are not as easy to find so you can enter programs like Survey Scout or others to get the inside scoop on how to get into paid surveys.
Click Here for more info on paid survey options.