How To Make Money As A Creative Writer – 9 Solid Creative Writer Jobs
Creative writers are always in demand, whether it be for television, advertising, or books. But it can be difficult to know how to monetize this skill set, especially in the competitive world of freelancing.
However, there are plenty of ways you can make money with creative writing. And some of these ideas even have full-time income potential or can help you start your own business!
Want to boost your writing income? Checkout:
- Freelance Writing For Freedom: My new course that outlines the exact steps I took to go from $0 to $100,000+ in writing income!
How To Make Money With Creative Writing
These are some common ways you can get paid for creative writing and turn your passion into an income source:
- Enter writing competitions
- Publish a book
- Start a blog
- Write on Medium
- Write for online publications
- Write newspaper snippets
- Write game and movie storylines
- Get into TV writing
- Become a copywriter
1. Enter Writing Competitions
It's sometimes hard to find steady work as a creative writer versus just regular freelance writing. Creative writing contests on the other hand…now these are pretty common!
Much like other passions and hobbies, there is an entire competitive side to creative writing, one which offers publicity and large cash prizes to those who dominate it.
A good place to start is Writer's Digest magazine. It runs several competitions throughout the year to cover different styles of creative writing, including poetry, e-books, short stories, and personal essays.
Don’t see your genre? No problem! Try entering their Annual Writing Competition, where anything goes!
The grand prize winner receives $5,000 cash and an interview in the magazine, and there are also pretty great payouts for 1st-10th place winners in each of the many categories.
Looking for more? Here are a few other competitions to checkout:
- Cabell First Novelist Award
- Short Fiction Prize
- John Gardner Fiction Book Award
- Nelson Algren Short Story Award
Tom actually won a writing contest or two back in school. So this is also a great side hustle for teens or college students.
2. Publish A Book Or EBook
While it might seem intimidating to take a crack at publishing your own book, you actually have a few options here.
For starters, you can always try the traditional publishing route or simply publish short stories.
Alternatively, you can take your best story and work to expand it into a fully-fledged novel. Amazon is one great selling platform for indie writers, especially if you know how to market yourself and make sales.
If your book becomes a hit on Amazon, you could be looking at some serious passive income while you work on your next writing project.
Note: if you go down this route and want to keep yourself afloat while trying to finish your book, I suggest looking into gig economy apps or considering a second job.
Extra Reading – 19 Ways To Make Money On Amazon.
3. Turn A Blog Into A Business
Another way to make money with creative writing is to start your own blog and to grow it as an income source.
Now, this is definitely harder than writing a niche blog, following strict SEO, and approaching a blog like a business. However, it's possible to make money blogging through a variety of methods, and you don't necessarily need thousands of monthly visitors to make money…a small and devout following that like your stories might be pretty powerful!
For example, WebMonkey makes $20,000 a month or more through a mixture of display ads and affiliate income:
The above screenshot is a snapshot of advertisement revenue for WebMonkey from Mediavine, a premium ad-network for bloggers.
This might be tough to reach with a blog that just focuses on creative writing, but you can make money with other sources like affiliate marketing, subscriptions, and selling your own book.
So, if you can be patient and work hard, there's money to be made from blogging, especially if you’re putting out good content and attracting the right audience.
My post on how to decide to start a blog also outlines what you should know before getting into this hustle.
Ready to start blogging? I suggest using SiteGround for your blog hosting because they're affordable and the same host I use (and love) for all of my websites.
4. Write On Medium
Making money on Medium is one of the easiest ways to dip your toes in the world of writing for income.
In a nutshell, Medium pays you when Medium members spend time reading your content. The top writers on Medium can earn five figures per month, which is insane.
You need to build a decent following and write stories with captivating headlines to get the ball rolling, but Medium is incredibly beginner friendly. However, Medium is great for creative writers.
Some categories with massive followings on Medium include:
- Human parts (humanity)
- Slackjaw (humor)
- Poetry (general topic that's popular)
- The Writing Cooperative (writing)
- Personal growth
- Better Humans (self-improvement)
In short, making money with creative writing is possible on Medium, and there are so many niches you can explore!
And if you have a story trend or stay at the top of Medium's rankings for certain topics, you basically make money on autopilot as the views come in every day.
Extra Reading – 6 Best Websites Like Medium.
5. Write For Online Publications
If you're looking for creative writer jobs with a bit more structure than blogging or entering writing contests, your best bet is to write for online publications.
There are so many online articles that you can easily find one geared to your interests or writing style. Cracked.com and The Onion will publish humour pieces, and offer a good platform to increase visibility as well.
Longreads accept well-written non-fictional stories that can be relatable for others, and they pay very well for publications.
There's even options to write about policy and foreign policy, travel, feminism, and plenty more. If you have a favorite online publication that you love to read, it may be worth checking if they accept submissions!
Extra Reading – Make $100 A Day With PayPal.
6. Write Snippets & Features
Some magazines will actually pay for submissions for smaller filler sections. Small written sections are essential to any printed subscription piece, from recipes, jokes, lifestyle tips and tricks, and just about anything else you can think of.
General lifestyle and conversational magazines like Reader's Digest are always looking for additional content, as well as the family sections of magazines like The Guardian.
Don’t let the length of these submissions fool you…there is still a professional rate to be made from this type of work.
It can be an excellent supplement to your income and also presents an awesome opportunity for new writers to step into the print world.
Extra Reading – The Best Ways To Write And Get Paid Instantly.
7. Write Storylines For Games
If you’re already familiar with game design or if it’s something that you would be interested in learning about, you could use your creative writing skills in the gaming world.
When it comes to game development, smaller teams usually place the storyline on the bottom of their priority list. However, the right gaming studio will know the value of having an actual creative writer to craft their storyline, and you can stumble across gigs for this sort of thing.
You can actually find storyline gigs online, or even on forums like Reddit For Hire:
Admittedly, this creative writing job is probably best for gamers who also like creative writing, but it could be a very fun side hustle if you enjoy playing video games.
Extra Reading – How To Make Money On Reddit.
8. Get Into Television Writing
Breaking into the world of TV writing is tough, but if you have a knack for it then it could be your chance at a big break.
Beyond your writing skills, it’s good to have extensive knowledge of television history. You need to be an expert in the genre you’re writing for and know why other shows in that genre either failed or succeeded.
There’s also a lot of work that you’ll need to do before landing a show. Take master classes, enter TV writing competitions, and network with industry professionals. All of these things will give you a leg up in the working world.
Once you feel ready, you should write a speculative script– otherwise known as a spec script– which is basically a script that is not commissioned by a network.
9. Become A Copywriter
One final way to get paid for creative writing is to get into copywriting, which is essentially writing for advertising.
There’s an end goal involved, which is usually to make a sale for a product or service or to tell a better brand story. Companies hire copywriters all the time for things like website redesign, advertising copy help, and creating brochures or marketing material.
The great thing about working as a copywriter is that you can work your way up to an insane hourly rate. I mean, checkout this copywriter salary data from Payscale.
The median hourly rate is awesome, but the top percentile of copywriters can make an amazing salary.
To get started, you can find gigs on freelancer marketplaces like Fiverr, People Per Hour, and Upwork. You can also check out FlexJobs since it has thousands of high-paying, flexible remote gigs, including copywriting ones.
It’s important to note that these platforms are super competitive, so you have to be good at selling yourself and be prepared to charge competitive prices for your work (which may be a lot less than you’re used to).
The upside is that once you’re well established in the community, you can be pickier with what work you take and will have the ability to manage your own schedule.
Extra Reading – Young Money Interview – How Araminta Became A Successful Freelance Copywriter.
Creative Writing vs Content Writing – What's The Difference?
Creative writing is often done for artistic purposes or for personal enjoyment, and is usually subject to literary themes and typical storytelling structures. Content writing, on the other hand, is intended to be consumable and persuasive to a specific targeted audience.
This form of writing has to be clear, concise, and easy for the reader to consume. Oftentimes, content writing jobs also require understanding SEO.
Because of this, it usually involves strict rules or guidelines to follow, in terms of tone and structure, with less room for creativity.
Typically, content writers are contracted to develop content for advertisements, blogs, branding, and more– with the general goal being measurable results in terms of visibility, traffic, and profit.
If you’re a more creatively inclined writer, you may be worried that you are confining yourself to a life as a starved artist.
Final Thoughts
There are so many ways to sell your skills online as a creative writer….it’s all about finding the right avenue for your specific talents and to find work that makes you happy.
While some creative writing jobs are definitely more lucrative than others, you can definitely get yourself some steady earnings if you devote your energy into any of the above options.
Regardless of what option you choose, the main takeaway is just to get writing.
Having a good portfolio– no matter what the contents are– will not only make you a more viable option when applying for positions, but it’s guaranteed to make you better at writing.
Hopefully, this guide has helped you figure out how to make money with creative writing.
If you want other ideas to maximize your income, you can also checkout:
