You will find as you follow me on my facebook page here, and as you join my Google Plus Page that I hardly ever discuss Freelance Writing anymore. The reason is simple! I have worked online as a writer for over four years. There is little about online writing that I do not know. However, I started and flourished as a freelance writer online because I have both training and experience in writing. I have found those two factors to be true for anyone in Kenya who is making money writing online including my fellow blogger +Walter Akolo.
Too many young people in Kenya read US blogs and imagine that writing for hire is an easy thing. They imagine if you could write a college essay, you can make money online from writing. With that serious misconception, hundreds in Kenya are currently losing money daily trying to make money writing because they read a blog someplace that says you can write and make money online. These well intentioned blogs, particularly in Kenya miss the point — writing is a SKILL learned DELIBERATELY.
Writing for Profit Online — the Next Internet Scam in Kenya
Hundreds, and possibly thousands in Kenya are putting in loads of time, effort, investing in data to stay online, and are cumulatively ending up poorer than they were when they started because our education system simply does not train us to write for economic gain. Writing for hire is soon going to be dubbed another online scam because people are losing money big time.
As usual, without any respect for language, Kenyans will dub writing online for money as a scam because we prefer to say rubbish than verify our facts. You can make money online from writing, BUT, and that is a BIG but, if you only scored the basic minimum of 40% in your essays in school, and did even worse in college/university, stay away from writing online for pay. You will lose money and you can take that prediction to the bank. As a friend recently told me ‘writing online ina wenyewe’. That is the best summary I’ve heard so far!
If you want to make money online or anywhere else for that matter, invest in good understanding of the industry you desire to go into. Too many people come into an industry with half baked information, blunder, lose money, and then call it a scam. Your lack of correct information is the scam, not the industry.
Start Something You Know to Make Money Online
There is only one antidote to failing online. If you want to write to make money online, start a blog on something you know. The problem many have when they come online with the intention of finding a means to income is they start things that they know nothing about simply because they heard someone is making good money doing it. Their only source of information is the grapevine and Google with the latter being heavily populated by writers in the US who recommend things that do not work in Kenya.
To be accurate, you may start something you do not know, but always start where the learning curve is easiest. If you sincerely desire to make money online, put up a blog or website in something you know and are knowledgeable about. Everyone below the age of 35 in with a hobby, sport, or skill they know about should start a blog and write on that issue. From there, monetize that blog or website.
There is no magic wand in monetization online except one; websites make money they same way shops do — they sell something. Commerce 101; to make money trade in a goods and/or services. Any blog or website can make you money if you have the right internet marketing tools to do your internet marketing. There is no secret formula to business success online or offline. The formula is one and it is in the public domain – the more buying clients you have the more money you make.
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