How To Escape The Per-Word Trap And Make Real Money As A Writer

I have been paid per-word or per-hour for about five years now. In my previous bouts of freelance writing, dating back decades (I’m old), it was the same. For writers, the two options are the most obvious and easy way to work out how much your work is worth.

I used to calculate my hourly rate based on my per-word rate. So if I charge 20 cents per word and spend three hours writing an 800-word article, then it works out to $160—or around $50 an hour. This has worked out fine, but after a while, I found myself hitting a wall.

The problem is if you put your prices too high, the amount of work you get might drop. So if you want to earn more, the only option to make more money is to work harder.

Things like AI and cheap writers on places like Fiverr are now doing all the more generic ‘content’ companies want. I don’t know if this has led directly to there being slightly less demand for more expensive writing, or maybe it is just the niches I work in. Either way, there isn’t much work around.

Of course a significant factor in lack of offers is down to the fact that I have turned down nearly all writing gigs for the past six months or so. The work is just too dull and disheartening.

Despite my having worked my way up the Fiverr rankings to hit 200 five-star reviews, I no longer work on the platform. It was good for when I first got made redundant at the start of the pandemic, but I grew to hate the work.

On the plus side, I got a lot of clients from Fiverr, so I am not slagging it off. Recently, I had a year-long job where I had a team of writers to edit and help. Consequently, I have switched from being paid per-word to being paid per-week, which is still not ideal.

The main problem is that you will reach a point where you can no longer scale even if you somehow increase the amount you write. There is a maximum you can charge and only a certain amount of hours in the day. I’m pretty sure the pay isn’t rising in line with inflation, so it is a poor approach. Also, if you work this way, the moment you stop working, so does your pay.

What are the options besides working per-word or per-hour?

There are a few options depending on your skills and what you want to do. The key is to create a product that keeps on selling. Unlike per-word or per-hour work, these keep paying, even when you have finished working on them. They might pay less initially, but over time they can build and scale.

There are three main options I can think of off the top of my head.

1/ Teach and sell courses.

This is a very popular option. I might do a teaching course or something in the future. You put in a lot of work, but only once. From then on, the course (hopefully) starts to make money. As more reviews come in, the more it will appeal. A lot of creators and writers make damn fine livings out of this. This is something I might contemplate further down the line.

2/ Outsource work and turn content into a business.

I know people who do this. They churn out content using cheaper writers as a business. I am head editor of one such business. Typically, they use writers from India, Eastern Europe, and Africa. All of whom produce some pretty decent writing, that they check with Grammarly. Like AI, the content can be pretty bland and generic, though. This is something I am trying to extricate myself from.

3/ Create content like e-books and sell it.

This is the route I am going down. It appeals because I really enjoy writing, and I get to write about topics I find really interesting. Moving forward, I will be focusing more on fiction. I have talked about this before. But I will also be compiling some of my more popular Medium stories into a book and will publish that too. So far I have some short pieces published – two non-fiction and two fiction.

The non-fiction are:

• A book about Thai folklore called Haunted Thailand – think ghosts, spirits, demons, and local beliefs. I’m a journalist and have lived in Thailand for 12 years. My editor got me to write an 800-word article about Thai ghosts, and I was hooked. This expanded to a book. In relation to this post – the book has already made more money than the per-word pay that I got for the original article.
• Three travel stories from various points in my life. I had written these for a travel magazine and also a competition, so chucked them together. It is light-hearted travel writing from trips to Australia (I picked fruit), Morocco (I almost died in the Atlas Mountains), and Thailand (I got stuck in a pub during a military coup).

The fiction books are:

• The Uneven Passage of Time – These are three short stories I had written that were loosely connected by the theme of time. I mostly published this to see how Amazon self publishing works. The stories are pretty good though, especially the last one, and hold up well.
• Cooperworld – This is a short science fiction novellete. Or long short story. It is a fun sci-fi tale set in the near future that explores reality and the possibility we are living in a simulation. I plan to expand this into a novel.

Sorry if that all sounded like a massive plug for my work. It is a bit, but it reminded me of how much I enjoyed writing them. I have consistently been paid (a pittance) for each one.

And that is the main point. Passive income beats time-for-money every time. It just takes a bit longer.