By Brian Ankner.
In the art of writing there are several areas or levels of expertise.
We will go over a few of them and find out where you would like to end
up in the world of professional article writing.
The hobby blogger writes to tell stories of what they have seen,
read or about an experience they had at some sort of event, online or
off. The hobby writer rarely uses a spellchecker and their posts
usually reflect the innocence of a novice writer.
The casual writer is the more serious blogger or website owner that
tries to convey a story, write a review or share knowledge in their
field of expertise. They will have several sites or blogs in areas
surrounding their life and occupations, often times posting in several
other peoples blogs or forums daily. Whether they know it or not, they
are actually grooming themselves to be a great writer.
The advanced writer supplies content for others in the way of
articles, white papers and reports after doing research in that
particular field and composing relevant, targeted information about the
subject. They may get compensated for the material or submit the
articles to directories for distribution for SEO reasons or to
establish themselves in the market as an authority for sales purposes.
Professional writers get paid well for their efforts. Sometimes in the
tens of thousands for a high conversion sales letter, documentary,
biography, or book. They are the syndicated columnists, feature story
authors in magazines and the ever popular technical manual composers.
They will often have pen names to protect their identity and can be
ghost writers giving up all rights to the project for compensation.
In the advanced and profeessional areas, writers are sought after
mostly due to the fact that not everyone can convey their thoughts and
ideas well, let alone write them down in the proper format or
storyline. Hence the growing need for writers.
In the online world thousands of websites and blogs are being
created every day and the one common theme between them all is they
will need content written.
The majority of all websites are about a company or service, the
balance are for selling products either physical or digital. A small
percentage of sites are purely informational and are not monetarily
driven like the .gov sites and some .org sites.
Almost all offline companies that want a website created will hire
it done. A golden opportunity for writers. Just plug in with a few
website creation companies and you will have a nice part time freelance
writing job.
Online marketers trying to sell products will try to write their
own sales pages for the small or low cost products but when it comes to
the high end market they will inevitably seek out a professional to be
able to convert as many leads as possible thus reducing their cost to
sale ratio.
This is where the advanced and professional writer comes in to the play and are eagerly sought after.
An advanced writer can work on an almost endless variety of
projects. A writer can either focus on an area of expertise, or write a
greater variety of general knowledge articles. The going rate for
quality articles in the 500-700 word range is $15.00-$25.00 each
depending on the quantity ordered. Not bad considering and article can
be made in less than an hour for the groomed writer. A nice paying part
time job and a respectable full time income when you build up your
client base.
As more high end products and services come online the professional
writer can develop an awesome stream of income when they have proven
themselves in the market. I know many of the top writers for the online
world and it is usually a six month wait before they can get to your
project unless you have very deep pockets.
Most of the professional writers for online copy easily exceed six
figures a year and rarely do they get a blister on their finger from
the keypad!
For the beginner there are many resources for developing the skill
of writing. There are workshops, seminars, courses, reference books,
and connection with other writers. I currently subscribe to many
copywriters RSS feeds so I can study their style. Every day will become
part of a your training. Every minute at the keyboard adds to your
store of information, ideas, topics, methods and style.
A writer is not a writer until they put words to paper or screen
and this is the application of the training that you will have acquired
over the years. Yes I said years, it takes time to get good at anything
worthwhile.
Usually, most of us see the quality of our work going up as we ramp
up our productivity. The old saying is "the first one is the hardest"
and it plays true in writing also. My first article had to have taken
at least four hours or more and the end result was nothing to be proud
of! After a while and the desire to get better, it now takes less than
an hour to write a 600 word article, research included.
Article writing is an art form - not only must you be continuously
creative, but you also must have the desire to continue. As long as you
have an ounce of creativity you will be able to become a good writer.
Eventually, you'll get to the point where the discipline, the
passion, and the experience will all come together and your skill as a
writer will either produce a nice income or the sites and blogs you
create will get highly ranked from the quality content.
By Brian Ankner.
http://www.topshelfarticles.com/Professional_Article_Writing.html and pick up the tools to
