Sites for freelance writers to earn money

Thanks to the power of the World Wide Web today's freelance writer has more opportunities than ever to earn money. Gone are the days when a freelance writer had to be either lucky or connected to be successful in his or her career.

There are two types of sites for freelancers to earn money: article directories and marketplaces. Article directories are sites where freelancers submit their writing and receive remuneration. Marketplaces are sites where freelancers can go to find clients who will purchase their writing.

Some of the most popular article directories include:

Article directories are repositories of the work of thousands of writers. These directories each work a bit differently from one another. Some of these directories pay the writer up front for certain articles. Some directories pay based on a percentage of revenue that an article generates. Still other directories pay based on a number of page views for a given article.

The main portion of Helium.com is also an article directory. At Helium, a freelance writer is paid for his or her articles based on a formula related to how your article performs. In addition, Helium offers contests and promotions that can allow freelance writers to make additional revenue from those articles.

The second sort of site where freelance writers can earn money is a marketplace site. Some of the most popular marketplace sites for freelancers include:

Each of those three sites has their pros and their cons, and any given freelancer might do better on one than on the other two. Competition can be heavy for freelance writers on these web sites as there are freelance writers from all over the world, including many developing countries, who are competing for the available projects.

Classified ad sites, such as craigslist.org, would fall into the marketplace category as well. These sites offer more than just freelance opportunities, of course, and include products as well as other services.

There is even a section of Helium.com that fits into this category. The marketplace at Helium is a mechanism whereby writers can submit their writing to specific client-determined topics. While the number of available opportunities at the Helium marketplace tends to be smaller than it is on the other sites, the integration of the marketplace into the site itself provides added value for the freelance writer. Even if a freelance writer's article is not accepted by the client the article can still continue to earn performance payments.

Whether you choose to utilize article directories or marketplaces to earn money from your freelance writing is entirely up to you. Some writers do well with one and not the other; some writers prefer to use a combination of the two methods. If you fall into the latter category, you should consider sticking with Helium as it is the one site that has managed to combine the concepts.