Get paid for your hard work

If you're like me and write articles for a living, then you know that you need to be paid for your hard work. Payment can come from clients who have hired you to write, from pay-per-click advertising, or from banner or text adverts you place on your website alongside your articles. Regardless of how you go about it, you need a consistent and methodical plan to earn an income for your hard work. Please read on for some helpful tips to help you survive in this highly competitive business.

Free submission.

Much of the work that is posted online under my name is shared freely. I am not paid for what I write. I view article marketing as a joint partnership between myself and the article directory. You receive my articles for further distribution and I get good backlinks to my website. In addition, the article directory can earn money from adverts that appear next to my articles, such as Google AdSense or Yahoo! Publishing Network. I also get my name out there and can refer potential clients to the article directories to show them how prolific I am as a writer.

Submit together.

Some of the articles I have published online are intended for customers. They are labelled with my name, as my name is more visible than their name. I write as a "contributing writer", but I'm a freelancer, not an employer. I get paid for my work and they get some decent links.

Do ghostwriting.

The overwhelming number of articles I write are ghostwritten articles. In 2005, I submitted 450 articles to article directories, but another 1200 or so went directly to my clients. When I submit articles jointly, I retain the rights to have my name on the articles. When I ghostwrite, my clients get what I write and retain full rights to the articles. Guess who pays me more? Bring it on!

Invoice immediately.

You can write like crazy for paying customers and still go broke. And how? By not invoicing your clients immediately. Whether you use direct invoicing, Paypal or an "agent" like Guru, you're penniless until the first invoice is paid. Come up with a plan to get your money as quickly as possible. You don't want to have to wait for weeks, unless you like to be in the credit business!

Stick to marketing.

There are times when I have a lot to do and times when I have little to do. In the quiet times, I do my paperwork and I write. In the quiet times, I submit lots of articles to the article directories to get my name out there. Regular submissions keep me in the spotlight and help improve the search engine optimisation for my website. Yes, I have my own website at www.thearticlewriter.com where most of my best articles can be found here. Not all items, but the items that I have full rights to and that I want to show my customers when they look at my portfolio.

So, that's it. Five simple tips to help you make a living from article marketing. If you're good at it, you'll make a decent living writing for others. I doubt you'll get rich, unless article marketing becomes a stepping stone to something else - like writing your own Harry Potter book series!