Please note that this page discusses an opportunity and a product with which this site has an affiliate relationship and receives commission for sales of said product.

How to Make Money Writing Nonfiction Articles

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels

by Glen C. Strathy

If you could make money writing short, nonfiction articles on a topic you were enthusiastic about, would you?

What if I told you you could write as many articles as you like, with no chance of rejection, and each article could continue to make money for you for years to come? If you have any desire to become a professional nonfiction writer, I expect your first instinct would be to jump at the opportunity.

Your second instinct, I imagine, would be to wonder what the catch was. As an aspiring writer who isn't already famous for something, you probably don't get too many editors pounding on your door, begging you to write for them.

And yet, I'm being completely honest when I tell you that anyone with even modest writing skills can make money writing articles. (In fact, with a little effort and the right tools, you could be earning a steady stream of cash as a professional writer. An income you could use to ...

  • Support your lifestyle while in school or retirement
  • Supplement your family income (or maybe even quit your day job).
  • Pay off debts
  • Or maybe free up time to pursue other dreams (e.g. write that novel, take that trip, build that house, etc.)

Even better... with each article you write, you will be building a readership – a platform – that could help you land a contract to write your next nonfiction book, and increase sales after it's published.

Best of all, you will be completely in control. The topics you write about will be entirely your choice. You will have no boss to answer to (not even an editor). You can set your own work hours and take vacation or sick days days whenever your like. Your age, gender, education, and work history hardly matter at all. And you can work from home or the location of your choosing.

It may surprise you, but the fastest way to do this is...

Forget About Writing For Magazines!

Instead, turn your nonfiction articles into either …

1. Your Own Money-Making Website.

Or...

2. Your Own Money-Making Blog.

As I'll explain in a moment, writing for print magazines has become harder to break into and far less profitable for writers than it used to be. But a money-making website or blog is like having your own magazine, where you're the boss. You can write what you like, when you like, with no rejection. Best of all, with a top-ranking site you could earn a steadier, higher income than most magazine writers. And you could gain a bigger readership too.

Notice that the key word here is “money-making.” Lots of writers have blogs and websites, but very few actually make money writing them. That's no reflection of their writing talent. You could write terrific articles, but just throwing them up on an inexpensive website or blog is no guarantee readers will find them. In fact, they're more likely to languish in obscurity among the 10,000s of other blogs and websites.

(And don't fall into the trap of buying ads to promote your online articles. Most of the time, they're a waste of money.)

The way to make money writing is to design a site that will automatically draw large numbers of readers each day.

If you want to make money writing articles for  your own website or blog, the best tool I know of is a product called Site Build It. Hundreds of writers have used it, and sites created with Site Build It regularly score in the top 0.5% in terms of daily readers. I used this product myself over a decade ago to create this website.

But let me tell you why this is such an important route for aspiring writers...

As you know, millions of people search the Internet each day looking for information. People read far more articles on websites than they do in magazines. It's a safe bet that many of them are looking for information on subjects you would love to write about.

If you can write articles for your own site or blog that get top rankings on the major search engines, thousands people will start reading them. And as long as your articles deliver the information people want in a style they like, they will return again and again.

Once your readership (or as they say on the Internet, traffic) passes certain goalposts, you can turn your site or blog into a money-making business by adding income-generating features. For instance, you could...

  • Rent adspace on your site (which is easy and effort-free).
  • Generate clients for your freelance writing/editing/other business.
  • Sell your own books and other written products.
  • Or you could use over a dozen other money-making strategies.

You can stick with passive money-making strategies and spend most of your time writing, or you can choose more active strategies if you like. It's entirely your choice. The point I want to make is that having such a blog or website using Site Build It is an easier and more secure way to make money writing than selling articles to magazines. Here's why...

Why It's Harder Than Ever To Make Money Writing Magazine Articles.

SBI!

Traditionally, many nonfiction writers have preferred to make money writing articles for magazines. For one thing, it's a lot easier to write articles ranging from 500 to 1,500 words each than to write 80,000 word books. Another reason is that you get paid faster for magazine articles. And the top magazines might pay as much as $1 per word or more. This sounds pretty good, until you consider how much effort and risk are involved.

For instance, let's say you have an idea for a magazine article.

First you have to research the article. You might spend a few days doing background reading on the topic. Then you would have to find experts willing to speak with you and arrange interview them. You might even have to do field investigations yourself. This can take many days.

Next you have to spend a number of hours organizing your notes, writing the article, and polishing it. Then you have to shop the article around to various magazines, hoping that one of them will want to buy it. This could take weeks as you wait to hear back from each editor in turn.

If you are lucky enough to find an editor interested in your article, chances are he or she will want revisions. He might ask you to take out the interviews you've done and instead interview a different group of experts. He may want you to completely change the slant of the article, or change the length or the structure. Any of these scenarios might constitute a complete rewrite.

All in all, you could invest weeks or even months on a single article, which makes $1 a word seem like not much money – if you actually get that much.

Worst of all, you might not find an editor willing to buy your article, which means you get nothing for your effort.

The reality is that it's difficult to make money writing for magazines, and a lot of great nonfiction writers today struggle to earn a professional income. And that's not even taking the Internet into account...

How To Make Money Writing In Today's Internet-Based Economy.

In some ways, the growth of the Internet has made it even harder to make money writing for magazines. With most people turning to the Internet to get the information they want, magazine subscriptions have fallen drastically – which means magazines don't have as much money to pay writers. Good luck getting $1 a word today!

Plus, it used to be that when a magazine bought your article, it would only buy the first publication rights. You kept the rights to subsequent publication. That was handy in case you later wanted to publish your collected articles or essays in a book or even online (and make more money).

Today, many magazines want you to give them the exclusive right to publish your article online as well – where it can stay forever. This is good for the magazines (because they can sell ad space on the webpages where your articles exist). But it's bad for you, the writer, because you don't get paid any extra, no matter how many millions of readers peruse your words.

Personally, I think that if your articles are going to be available online, then you should be making money from them – not someone else.

Fortunately, the Internet has also created new, more reliable ways to make money writing nonfiction articles, provided you forget about magazines.

When you publish your articles on your own website or blog, you are in complete control. You are free to write articles on subjects that interest you, and in the way you think they should be written. You can't get rejected. The readership is yours -- you don't share it with a magazine. And all the profits your site earns belong to you.

What's more, you are building an online showcase of your work that establishes you as an expert on your chosen subject -- which can be very helpful when it comes to other projects, such as writing books.

You Only Need 3 Things To Make Money Writing Online Articles

SBI! Toolse

Here's what you need to be successful with your own money-making website or blog...

1. You need reasonably good writing skills. You don't need to churn out Pulitzer-worthy material, but you should know how to organize information into coherent, grammatically sound articles that people will enjoy reading. Fortunately, as a writer, this is a skill you already have.

2. You need a good subject to write about. Ideally, you should choose a subject that many people want information about, but one that's not already served by 1,000s of other websites – a niche topic, in other words. You also want to choose a subject you're passionate about (so you'll enjoy learning and writing about it). Chances are, you already have a few interests or hobbies that you could turn into a good website or blog.

3. You need to build your website or blog the right way in order to attract enough traffic from Internet search engines, such as Google. Fortunately, this is much easier than it sounds. Site Build It is a powerful system that's been used by 100s of writers for over a decade to create top-ranking sites and blogs. It's affordable, comprehensive, and best of all it's easy-to-use.

You don't need to be a whiz at information technology to use Site Build It. In fact, you don't have to know the first thing about IT or the Internet. You certainly don't have to know html, coding, search engine optimization, website design, ecommerce, or any of the other jargon you'll come across. Everything is provided for you and made super-easy.

(Incidentally, I used Site Build It to create this website in 2008. I still know almost nothing about the technical side of things, but that hasn't stopped me from gaining a steady second income and a lot of satisfaction from helping people with their writing projects.)

Site Build It's core is a 10-Day, Action Guide.  This is a step-by-step program that takes you through the process of creating your website or blog in a way that lets you make money writing. (You don't have to do it all in 10 days; you can take as much time as you like.)

Along the way, Site Build It provides you with every tool and service you need to succeed. In fact, you'll get free access to more resources than you'll probably ever use. Each step is thoroughly explained, and you get plenty of help and support at each stage.

The Action Guide gives you both information and concrete steps to take in areas such as...

  • Understanding what makes a site or blog successful.
  • Researching and choosing a niche topic with solid money-making potential.
  • Designing your site and writing articles your readers will like.
  • Attracting a big audience of readers.
  • Putting money-making strategies into place.

It's a system that has been proven to work for 100s of writers for over a decade. In fact, websites built using Site Build it regularly get into the top 0.5% of all websites in terms of their readership.

If you want more proof, take a look at these case studies of real writers who have built top-ranking sites using Site Build It.

Site Build It is so effective, many colleges and universities now teach courses on how to build an online business using Site Build It.

I'm giving you all these links so you can see for yourself that Site Build It really works and offers you a powerful opportunity to make money writing about topics you want to write about.

Everything You Need to Make Money Writing in One Comprehensive System

You get so much help and support with Site Build It that it's hard to describe it fully without making it seem overwhelming. But let me give you some sense of what Site Build It is and is not...

  • It's not just market research – but it includes powerful tools that will help you choose a topic with solid money-making potential that addresses a large readership.
  • It's not a blogging platform, but it integrates seamlessly with a Wordpress blog. Or you can create a website with an RSS feed or an ezine that readers can subscribe to.
  • It's not just “domain registration” and “web hosting” – but it includes these at no extra cost.
  • It's not just “website design” – but it includes a powerful website design tool that's so easy to use, anyone can create an attractive and reader-friendly website in a few hours with no training (or, if you are a techie, you are free to use your own design).
  • It's not just “search engine optimization” – but it incorporates all the tools you need to get top search engine rankings – which means a large readership.
  • It's not "social media," but it can help you grow your readership by integrating with sites like Facebook and Twitter.
  • It's not just ecommerce, but as your site grows, it can help you implement any type of money-making strategy used on the Internet today.

(Want more specific details? Here's a full list of the many tools that come with Site Build It.)

In fact the only thing Site Build It can't do is actually write the articles. That's the special thing only you can provide – your passion for a subject, your unique voice, and your ability to craft informative and entertaining articles. 

And the best part is...

You Can Try It Risk-Free For 90 Days!

When choose to make money writing articles through the power of Site Build It, you will have 100% ownership and control over your website and your words. You will not have to beg editors to buy your articles. You will not be dependent on clients to send writing jobs to you. You can write what you want and retain all rights to your work. You will own your own domain that can provide you with a steady income for years to come. And your writing career will be completely under your control.

What's more... the more quality articles you write on your chosen topic, the more traffic your site will attract, and the bigger results you will get from your money-making strategies.

I really think this is the easiest and most reliable way to make money writing nonfiction.

And Site Build It comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee! You can purchase a subscription today and have almost three months in which to work through the 10-Day Action Guide. You can get your site up and running, and start making money writing articles within just a few short weeks. And if you decide within those 90 days that nonfiction writing is not for you, you can get a full refund. Not only is it a risk-free proposition, but it might even pay for itself before the guarantee period is over.

If you'd like to learn more about how to use Site Build It to start making money writing nonfiction articles simply click on the image below...

SBI!

OR if you would rather learn about creating a money-making WordPress Blog, click on this image...

SBI!

OR maybe you would like to ask a specific question about Site Build It from the company itself (in which case click here for an answer).

Either way, I think you'll be impressed by how easy it is to make money writing articles for your own blog or website.

Two final thoughts...

1. Did you know that when you approach publishers with a nonfiction book proposal, one of the things they look for is whether you have a large established readership (i.e. a platform). Creating a high traffic website or blog is an excellent way to build a platform and make money writing while you're doing it. And a big readership often translates into higher sales once your book is published.

2. As I said, I personally have used Solo Build It to create this website. I can recommend it in good conscience because I know it works. But in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that Solo Build It will give me a small commission if you purchase it after clicking on one of the links on this page. If that bothers you at all, I suggest you check out Solo Build It thoroughly before buy. Considering the wealth of features and support it offers, I think you'll find that it's well worth the price.