Freelance Writing about Cats

Freelance Writers – Earn $10 Or More For Every Word You Write

Fillers are short written pieces, such as jokes and mini-articles, readers’ letters and household tips. They are required in their millions every day by publications all over the world. They are easy to write, they require no special writing skills, so how come so few people actually earn their living writing letters and manuscripts comprising as few as 100 words a time? The answer is probably because they consider such high rewards are only payable to really top notch writers, perhaps they consider themselves highly unlikely to interest any editor with their own very basic writing skills.

Nothing can be further from the truth because few, if any, writing skills are required to earn a really good living as a freelance writer of such short written pieces.

However certain writing techniques do apply to filler writing as for any other writing form.

Writing skills and techniques depend on the kind of filler you specialise in. Writing letters, for example, involves different techniques to those used for creating crosswords and verses for greetings cards. And there’s a certain skill involved in writing humour and knowing what kind of joke or feature is suitable for your target magazine.

First task in the filler writing process is research. You must collect facts for your filler, be it just a sentence in reply to a letter already published in your target magazines, or a list of several little-known snippets about dogs or cats for a short article in some popular pet publication.

Once you have the facts for your filler, they must be assembled in the order they will occupy in your finished piece. This means deciding which pieces to include and where to put them in your filler: beginning, middle or end. Take a few back issues of your target magazine and turn to published pieces similar to those you want to write. Study the number of main points included and what obvious editorial preferences exist. Do most pieces start with quotes, for example, or does the editor seem to prefer anecdotes? For longer fillers like personality profiles and mini-articles, notice how many words there are and what is the most common length for sentences and paragraphs.

Go back to your research notes and make your selection based on a careful study of your target magazine. Arrange these in order, again sticking as far as possible to the format of published features.

Now start writing, concentrating on content rather than style for the time being. Continue writing until all your research material has been covered, without unnecessary duplication.

Now check your facts again, making sure everything is accurate and up-to-date. Count the number of words and check them against the average wordcount for your target magazine. Where wordcount is too low, include more facts or look for ways to expand on those already included. Without waffling or unnecessary duplication!

Careful editing can reduce wordcount considerably without removing impact or cutting essential data. Editing also cut down on clutter and ensures that every word does its job.

And that basically is all the skill anyone needs to earn a good living as a freelance filler writer. Does this sound good to you? Of course it does, so why not get started on this new and lucrative, also very regular writing source.

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