Most writers commit to the job knowing it’s not your average nine-to-five, but we all have expenses, which is why it’s important to diversify our income streams. Luckily, there are various ways for writers to draw in more income while doing what we love. Whether you’re looking for a side gig or another freelance opportunity, these eight less common writing jobs are great ways to make money.
Writing Greeting Cards
Everyone at some point has bought a greeting card. As it turns out, writers can make a nice amount of money writing them! Greeting card companies often outsource for freelance writers to supply verses, one-liners, captions, etc. for their cards, and it often pays more per word than other forms of freelance writing. Instead of cents per word, a company can pay you $5 to $10 per word — depending on the company. $20 to $300 is the typical range per submission, and they are fairly short. You probably aren’t going to retire on the amount you earn, but it’s a great opportunity for both new freelancers and those who may be looking to branch out from their usual gigs.
Some notable greeting card companies that are seeking submissions are: Blue Mountain Arts, Calypso Cards Inc., and NobleWorks Cards. As with any writing submissions, check the company’s guidelines and make sure the work you’re submitting fits with what they are looking for.
Writing Dating Profiles
A variety of companies provide professional dating profile writing for those who don’t feel confident in writing their own or feel that their profile could use an extra boost. For freelance profile writing, you can expect to make $20 to $50 an hour. Once you gain some experience, you can charge much more for each profile. The most time-consuming part of the gig is gathering information about the client for whom you’re writing.
To start, you can advertise your freelance services to review, write, rewrite, and/or critique their photos. You can also apply to be a profile writer at an established company like Dynamic Dating Profiles and E-Cyrano. For this job, you need more than just good writing skills. You must be gregarious, able to easily keep a conversation rolling, have a good sense of humor, and have sharp wit.
Writing Fortunes
This one is definitely on the more obscure side, but companies do occasionally hire freelance writers to write the fortunes that appear on the slips inside fortune cookies. While it’s often one or two lines about a person’s supposed future, writing fortunes is harder than it seems. You have to be vague enough so it can apply to any customer, and you can’t offend anyone.
Writing Podcast Show Notes
Show notes are essentially the episode descriptions that appear alongside the audio content. For podcast creators, show notes are a crucial step in the process of publishing their episodes because it helps listeners discover and explore the topics of their show before they listed. It gives people a summary of the episode, time stamps for main points, links to outside sources for further research or sponsorships, transcripts, and the cast and crew. While there are podcasting agencies that can do this, you can also do it freelance. You can advertise your services on Fiverr or Upwork.
Copywriting Speeches
This one is probably the trickiest, but it’s equally important. Prior experience in writing, public relations, journalism, communication, debate techniques, and rhetoric can be very beneficial in honing your craft and finding opportunities. While speechwriters you may know are probably the ones writing for the president or prominent CEOs, some are smaller scale and aren’t salary-based. Authors, business owners, and keynote and TEDx speakers are all examples of potential clients.
Copywriting Property Descriptions
Since property searches almost always start online, the text that appears with any listing is of utmost importance. Real estate agents may not want to take the time to write their own property descriptions or feel it would be better handled with a professional copywriter. That could be you!
Property descriptions are very short, typically capping at 250 words before they start getting dense. If you excel at tight, engaging writing that quickly pulls the reader in, try it out. Again, with any freelance work, it’s all about self-marketing. What’s great about freelance, similar to the jobs above, is that you can set your own rates. Don’t expect to be filthy rich, but depending on how you manage your clients, it could be a great side hustle.
Start a Paid Newsletter (Substack)
While it’s a lot easier said than done, many writers are flocking to Substack as an accessible platform that combines both newsletter and a blog-style writing into one. It’s also its own form of social media. Whether you are published or not, anyone can start a Substack and benefit from it. However, it’s more than just the platform; you need a solid content strategy in order to succeed.
Pick a niche for your Substack, create the content, and stay consistent. It’s free to create an account and post content, and you can create both free and paid content to entice readers, but it takes time to build an audience, so don’t be alarmed if it takes you a while to build up a reader base. Similar to Patreon, you can also set subscription tiers and offer different levels of content based on what viewers are paying. Keep in mind that Substack takes 10% of your earnings and Stripe takes another 3%, with 13% total being taken from your earnings.
Copywriter for Social Meida
If you have a knack for Instagram, TikTok, or any of the popular social apps, copywriting for social media posts might be right for you. On the job, you would be writing the messages companies post on their socials. This might involve storyboarding and ensuring the brand’s messaging through a stylized voice to drive more numbers and increase engagement.
We hope this gives you some idea of where you can start looking for your next paid opportunity as a writer. Of course, these are just a few options that you might not think of at first, but that’s the great thing about writing! There are so many ways to get paid to do what you love.
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