Thinking of becoming a part time freelance writer , how to get started

Hey BM. We've already spoken a bit about blogging and some other stuff but freelance writing's another pack of jellybeans entirely. May I suggest popping over to this brilliant discussion with bostonphil about the same subject? http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2548292.aspx There's a ton of useful info on there from loads of helpful people. Your profile doesn't specify what country you're in and that'll make a (potentially significant) difference to what you can do and where you can earn. From what you're saying, you consider $10 an article "not bad". That's actually pretty good, especially if it's through a bidding site like oDesk. Very nice start indeed. For more than that kind of money, you're probably going to have to look beyond the bidding sites. From my limited experience, this means you'll have to either apply direct to clients from third-party job listings or produce content and sell it to anyone who's interested. For job listings, there's three resources I always suggest: Deb Ng's freelancewritinggigs.com, Anne Wayman's aboutfreelancewriting.com and the Monster List over at Freelance Switch (http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/monster-list-of-freelance-job-sites-2011). Incidentally, there's a rate calculator at http://freelanceswitch.com/rates that'll help you work out what you want to earn per hour. For selling content at your own prices, the only place I know is Constant-Content.com (which is very good if you have a creative brain that invents lots of titles to sell). Given that you're working part-time, you're going to be more limited than a full-timer. It's going to take you longer to get started and you may have to do some badly-paid stuff to get your foot in the door. That is, unless you have the cojones to just dive straight in and apply for the high-end stuff and can produce the quality they require. That depends very much on how confident and how sure of your ability you are. From personal experience, I've found it more important to control the work flow than to be exceptionally well-paid as a part-timer: other responsibilities mean I need to be able to move work around and juggle deadlines a lot more than a full-timer - otherwise, I'd risk letting clients down and getting a bad reputation. That's my choice and my schedule, though - yours may be different. Bizarrely, I'm right in the middle of writing a book about this very subject. Ooooweeeeeooooo, synchronicity.

There are several sites you can write for and earn some nice money. While I am the advocate of running your own blog as you can profit a lot better from this in my opinion I can inbox you of a couple of sites I know about. I have a friend on here who is a wealth of knowledge also. I'll see if he can share some tidbits with you also.

The best way for you to break into freelance writing is to submit articles on different topics to many different sites. It is important that you retain exclusive rights on all of your work, so that your articles are not published elsewhere without your permission. Some websites I recommend are Helium and Associated Content. I hope that helps. Best wishes in your endeavors.