The mills of my life.

Ayer Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts

My life has always been influenced by mills of some sort.  I was born and raised in an old mill town. I moved 1300 miles away from home and landed in a 106 year-old townhouse built by the very mill I had left behind. Now I'm back home and writing for content mills.

Websites need content and content mills provide just that.  Blogs, websites, ezines, posts, tweets and ads all need content.  The Internet is growing and so is the demand for good content.  Content mills capitalize on that by selling articles and other content to anyone who needs it, at super low rates.

Most professional for-print writers do no like what they feel content mills are doing to the writing and publishing industry.  Content mills pay cheap and sell cheap which means more and more publications and businesses are buying their articles from content mills or content mill writers directly, cutting into the published print industry.

Content mills are not so bad, freelance content writers earns an up-front fee of anywhere from $2 to upwards of $200 per article they submit that get accepted and sometimes will also earn residual income (income over time) based on the amount of views or ad clicks the article has on their site.  The average article written for a content mill only generates the freelancer $4-$15.  Traditional freelance for print writer earns from tens to thousands of dollars per article, averaging somewhere on the couple hundred range.  Freelance content writers also write for private and print clients.

1909 Mill Girls

Why do I write for content mills? Because I have yet to hear a single one of my bills ask where my articles where published.  I really enjoy having a roof over my head and the ability to pay for my medications means the difference between life and death for me.  In today's unsteady and unsure economy, you have to earn where you can.

I also like the experience that comes from writing for content sites.  With those sites if you want to earn then you have to write well and write a lot.  They have editors that can help guide you as you learn to become a better writer and as you gain experience you gain quality and speed.

As long as you practice good writing when writing articles, like following the AP Style guidelines and using good checkers, then you can earn decent cash.  The trick, or so I hear, to earning big with content mills is to learn to write good and write it fast.  Knowing when to upgrade from a low-paying content mill to a higher paying one is another key step in reaping the rewards.  Content writing won't create a fortune overnight but over time it can turn into some serious revenue.

I guess I'm a mill girl after all.

WRITER MUST HAVE RESOURCES...

Freelance Article Writing

Freelancers write online for all sorts of mediums, be it blogs, news, fiction or freelance article writing.  I used to do the type of freelance writing that was and still is called freelance article writing.

Freelance article writing online is where freelancers write articles for blogs, content sites, internet magazines and websites.  Be it their own websites and blogs or elsewhere. 

From 2007 to 2008 I worked from home as a freelance writer and occupied 90% of my time freelance article writing.  I wrote for content sites such as Helium, and kept a few blogs on various topics.  Freelance writing helped pay the bills for quite a while and I really enjoyed doing it.  I stopped for a few years as I became ill and as took on various offline jobs. 

In the years that I did not write, I missed it terribly.  Writing for me has always been a way to share information and express myself.  My favorite topics were health and business related, my top earning articles were travel related.

I decided recently to dedicate myself to freelance article writing again. The financial need is there as is the need to work from home due to my health but overall there is that need to write. I missed the freedom and creativity of being a freelancer and the challenges of writing articles for content sites as well as for blogs.

I've created this blog so that I can share my journey in become a freelance writer again.  Freelance writing and more specifically freelance article writing online has changed greatly since I left it, I have a lot to learn and hope to share the things that I learn so that others can learn how to freelance too.