So You Want to be a Content Writer?

When I was 17 years old I knew I could write and all I wanted to do was write. I was to be the next Rod Serling and create fiction that would make people realize that my writing was from a "wondrous land whose boundries were that of imagination," I imagined that a publisher would one day advance me royalties just to hear my thoughts. Then one day, after submitting a dozen, or so, trite adolescent works to periodicals it became a stark realization that I could not win the freelance writer race at seventeen or even eighteen. My life, so far, had been nothing more than my job in a gas station, my days in high school and the emotions that were soley inspired by hormonal love for my dark haired girlfriend and Ruby and the Romantics greatest hits. Everything else was born of Poe, Serling, and immaturity. I was too young and naive to write anything of substance. Huxley was still a war and Woodstock away,

As I matured and met the woman that was to be my first wife, my need for paying my car insurance and utility bills overshadowed my desire to write and I tossed my career into the closet with the old copies of Argosy and Trump (not Donald) that had said thanks but no thanks to my submissions so many times. I needed to work at a conventional job like the rest of my young married male friends did. Except for those that played in clubs or sold weed for a living. There I remained for two marriages, ten jobs and what seems like a whole chapter in 20th century history and it really was, when I seriousy lhink about it.

Traveling forward into the next century, I was still working at my career in commercial and residential mediocrity and still at the mercy of those self important individuals that held my financial future hostage. Then once again the Friday afternoon news arrives with a headline stating that the recession had taken its toll on one more individual. That individual was me. Again. I was now highly experienced in my field, but older, and I could not get back into the work force despite my retraining and diligent searching. To fulfill my desire to work at something, I began to write for various websites on the internet. I did not receive one rejection notice this time except from About.com who referred to me as substandard or something like that. I was not getting paid for all my work, but at least someone was reading and I got positive feedback which fed my desire to continue. Then one day I saw an ad on Craigslist, the site that I had called a scam haven in one of my prior articles. It said, "writer for ads needed for vacation rental homes in Orlando. Please submit a sample ad." I wrote an ad and I was hired to write more of them for a couple of bucks each. After decades, I was actually paid for writing something. It was like giving a bottle of Jack to a recovering alcoholic. I immediately found another site looking for a writer for few bucks and one small gig led to another and I am now writing content for websites and articles on a full time basis, at least on a good week.

Is this what you want to do with your life? It is a good feeling to awake in the morning and only have to make coffee and go to your qwerty. Knowing that you have 5 articles due by 4:00 or your editor will be unhappy, can quickly snatch the joy from your non-commute job. If you enjoy working 10 -15 hours per day, writing about subjects that you know nothing about and have no interest in whatsoever, and love to be criticized for your use or non use of semi- colons and leaving out hyphens where hyphens once belonged, then content writing might be for for you. It is after all, writing for a living and being self employed, until your editor tells you otherwise.

If becoming a content writer is something you have desire to do, and assuming that you have the desire to write and have always had it, you need to move forward at this point. I am also assuming that you have the ablity to put your thoughts into wrtten word and have good command over a language. It does not necessarily have to be the English language unless, of course, that is the language you choose to write in. Keep your writing concise, clear and direct. Remember that you are writing to the average person who is looking at an article or website to gain insight. Avoid flowery or overly descript wording. Keep the reader away from the back button by making it easy reading. Next, you have to leave your desire to write fiction and that best selling novel on the nightstand and return to it only when you are not writing content, which you will be doing for the greatest part of your waking hours. On the nightstand, next to your best selling novel, you should also leave your pride that tells you that you are above writing for less than you could make delivering pizza. If you want to write, its like wanting to fight, Expect to get your brain beaten and scrambled for pennies per word to gain experience in the writing ring. Remember the movie the Karate Kid where Pat Morita told the kid to wax on and wax off? It is the same thing with content writing. Without the ability to repeat the same motions over and over again you will never develop a format and style. Content is all about page length and word count and getting factual information into the space without sacrificing the flow of words to keep the attention of the reader. You will also often be asked to use key phrases repetetively for search engine optimization. If you approach the task without a format you will be constantly checking your word count and going back and padding your content which will make it appear contrived. A format is very important and more of a subconcious than a concious effort, It is very similar to playing a musical instrument to a song that you have never heard before. Your experience keeps you a beat and a note ahead of the progression. With writing content your experience will tell you how many words you have wriiten, so far, and how much content is needed to complete your assignment

So now you have worked very hard, writing content for practically nothing, and you have written articles on some of the better article sights like Hub Pages and you have gained a following on these sites. You may have made a few dollars from advertising that was posted on your articles, if they had a lot of traffic. It is now time to create a website or blog containing all of what you consider your best work and get it out there on the internet and also send it to potential clients. You have already avoided the phony, pay for work, sites and have probably learned that submitting original content as samples to prospects is potential piracy of your work. Now you are prepared to move ahead. Apply to every single ad that you can find and give them the link to your site to review your work. Go to online ads for every city in the US and apply and re-apply. The idea here is, not so much to get the jobs, but to get the clicks on your site. Join the forums, the writer groups and anywhere else you can post your URL. Join Wordtracker and Google Analytics for tips on keyword research and utilize them. Write articles for sites like Squidoo and Hub Pages and back link them to your website. Eventually, after months of hard work, the search engines will notice your site. Out of all the potential clients you have contacted you will probably land yourself a couple that pay better than when you began. You have just climbed to the next rung on the writing ladder. Do not look down. Just keep climbing and eventually you wiil return to your nightstand and pick up that next best seller and show it to a new VIP client. Good luck and good writing.