Money Matters: Private or Public

I’m not the norm when it comes to money matters. I don’t really care if anyone knows what I make. I know others feel differently, of course. I think my laid-back position comes from the teaching side of my life. The whole world knows what I’m “worth” as a teacher since the rates are posted in cute little tables that have to be approved by the school board. One newspaper in my area even lets the public search an online database of teacher salaries to learn how much of their tax money is spent on administrators and teachers.

So when someone comes to me and asks me how much I make teaching, I can bust out my handy table and show that that with my Master’s degree and eight years of teaching experience I make an impressive $47,917 per year. But they don’t care about that – everyone knows teachers are generally underpaid for what they do. They want to know how much I make writing not because they are judging me, but instead are hoping that I’ll share the golden secret of HOW to make that amount working 3 hours a day. (They often forget I work 3 hours a day, six to seven days a week – without vacations.)

Sharing Income

I’ve seen a few blogs where writers disclose how much they make to others in hopes of inspiring new writers to drop the low-paid gigs and move up. A few of us who contribute to this blog played around on a joint blog once trying to reach six figures in a year. Others share their monthly income and project load to inspire others and show their improvement. I don’t normally do that. But I might now. Why?

• I have no shame.
• I really don’t care – the IRS already knows how much I make, or will on the 15th of next month.
• Too many people think making $500 or $1,000 a month is outstanding – which it is if you’re working at less than minimum wage.
• Writers are often discounted by webmasters and other professionals who don’t realize the difference between the pros and those who…aren’t.
• If I make a big post about how much money I make writing, I can just steer people here when they work up the courage to ask me how much “something like that writing thing pays.”
• I’m a bit proud of myself, really. I work only in the evenings after a very full day of other responsibilities and have done rather well for myself.
• Hell, maybe someone out there can see how much a WAHM can actually make when she markets her skill as a real service-oriented business.

Skip the drum roll.

In 2009, I made a net profit of $55,482.33.

Not bad for a little “part-time writing thing.”

I’m not going to go into the “how to” of writing e-books in this post. If you decide that e-books or reports are a good residual income stream option for you, be sure to check out the more comprehensive collection of posts from our previous 14 Day E-book Writing Challenge.

There are two main ways e-books and reports can fit into a freelance writing career, leading either directly or indirectly to more income for you as the writer:

Selling E-books

This is a no-brainer. You write an e-book or report, and you sell it. In most cases (and what I recommend), you’ll sell your e-book or report directly to end readers (as opposed to selling it once at a higher price for someone else to put their name on and earn an even bigger profit from).

You can write something as short as a 5-page report to a several hundred page survey / study in your specialty area. That’s a key to making decent money with this income stream though – specialization. While I won’t say that no generalist writers can make it work for them, e-book writing works best for specialists who can sell copies on their own authority status (and preferably existing niche audience).

Giving Away Free E-books

Free e-books can bring in income? You betcha!

While it may sound strange on the surface, free e-books and reports can actually bring in a lot of indirect income – they can attract prospective clients, give them a good feel for your work and style, and convince them to buy from you over your competitors.

There are two main things to keep in mind if you go this route:

1. The e-book has to be something that would interest your target clients, and
2. The e-book should include a clear call to action (to let them know you can fulfill a need of theirs, and to tell them how to hire you).

Your call to action can be a simple line in your footer (I do this in my press release writing e-book), or you can have a separate page at the end. It all depends on how much detail you need to go into, and the type of action you’re trying to provoke (visit your site to learn more? call you? email you?).

If you’re a freelance writer looking to add new revenue sources to diversify your income a bit, consider testing one of these methods with a short report or e-book to see if it’s right for you.

Different Ways to Flip a Website

There’s more than one way to flip a website. In some cases, the website is a long-term investment – you build an authority site or high-income site to sell at a high price. In other cases you’ll cultivate a website for a few months (long enough to build a bit of traffic and have income stats to show potential buyers). In a third type of website flipping, you build and then sell the website almost immediately on completion.

It’s the third way of flipping a website that is most relevant to freelance writers looking to build another revenue stream from their writing.

Benefits and Drawbacks of the Quick Flip

Some people look at quick flips as a bad thing. They assume a new site (with no real traffic or income to use as selling points) simply can’t make much money, so it’s always better to hold onto it for a while first.

That may be true for a typical webmaster, but it’s not true for you – a freelance writer. You have an added value in the sites you flip. You have your content.

That said, one of the biggest drawbacks of a quick flip is that, even if you can get a decent amount for the site quickly, you could probably get even more by holding onto it for a little while. Another downside of flipping sites (specifically for freelance writers) is that you’ll often get less overall than you would if you sold the content on that site separately (through unique and custom sales to clients).

Despite those two negative aspects, flipping websites can still be a great extra income source. Why?

• A quick flip can put money in your hands fast (often in a few hours to a few days).
• A quick flip doesn’t require much of a time investment in marketing (link-building, traffic generation, etc.) or monetization.
• You can create and flip website on your own time and in any niche that you want. While you can get more for a site where you’re offering expert content, they can be a good way to dabble in new niches as well. You don’t have client deadlines, or have clients deciding on the specific content – they buy it as-is.

Whether you have a slow day or two without much client work, or an extra half hour a day you’d like to start monetizing, you can flip a site and earn some extra income.

The Site-Flipping Process

We already mentioned that there are different ways to flip a website. Now let’s look at the easiest process when your primary value is your content (then we’ll talk about things you can do to increase the value to potential buyers if you want to).

1. Choose a niche. - Ideally, you’ll want a niche you’re an expert in to some degree as well as one with a solid potential demand from buyers (like a typically high-paying niche).
2. Register a Domain Name. - When building a site for authority value in the long run, I consider it vital to look for a brandable domain name. However, for quick flips I’ve had the most luck going with search engine friendly / keyword-rich domains. This tool may help you find one (use the word search tool).
3. Get Web Hosting. - You’ll need to host your website(s) before flipping anything. In some cases, you’ll transfer the hosting account to the site buyer. Personally, I don’t operate that way (just an added headache). I use one shared hosting account when setting up sites to flip (or new sites of my own being developed), and I transfer the files and database to the buyer for them to host on their own account. I find this easier and more cost-effective when flipping more than one site. But do whatever you’re more comfortable with.
4. Setup the Web Site. - You can set up pretty much any type of content site that you’re comfortable with, from a static site to something on a content management system (CMS). I always set them up on a self-hosted WordPress blog. It makes for a relatively easy transfer (and there are a huge number of templates / themes out there you can use). A blog format also means you don’t have to create a homepage in addition to your content pages – it’s dynamic. I also always use free themes when flipping a site. Why? Because the value is in the content – a custom design would be an up front cost that then also has to be accounted for in your selling price. I find it easier to base the price on the content (and sometimes the domain if it’s a particularly good one), and then let the buyer swap in any theme they want. That said, I try to make sure it’s a decent theme, not overly basic or over-used, and I generally make a few design changes (color changes, add a logo or header image, etc.).
5. Write the content. - Pretty self-explanatory, right? You know the niche, the site’s setup, and now it’s time to create the content. Write your articles. Make them unique. Make them worth buying. Make them on par with (or better than) your work for clients. It’s also a good idea to incorporate advertising into the site or blog when you add the content – even if it’s not earning money yet, you want buyers to see how it could.
6. Sell the site. - You can sell your sites anywhere you can find potential buyers. Personally, I sell them at a webmaster forum. You can set a price, or run an auction – I suggest running an auction (you choose the starting bid, bid increment amounts, and set a buy-it-now / BIN price for an instant close to the auction). Going this route, I’ve sold sites in anything from a few hours to a few days. It helps if you sell them in a place where you’ve already built a reputation.
7. Transfer things to the new owner. - When your sale or auction ends, you can choose to transfer files first or have the payment sent first. My usual policy is this – I’ll send them a copy of the files and database up front, but they don’t get the domain name transfered (and I don’t pull my site down) until they pay in full. This way, even if they don’t pay and try to essentially steal the content for their own site, it’s just duplicate content for them and there are things you can do to have that stolen content pulled down (I’ve never had this happen fortunately). The last thing to do is to transfer the domain name to the new owner (you’ll need to check with your domain registrar on the process – it’s a bit different with each one – know though that you generally can’t transfer to a new registrar if it was registered within 60 days, so you can only “push” it to an owner who has an account with the same registrar).

How Much Can You Make?

I mentioned that one of the drawbacks of flipping websites as an income stream for freelance writers is the fact that you’ll likely earn less per article than you would if you had spent the same amount of time on client projects.

However, quick-flips can be an excellent source of “filler” income – when you need to kill some time, just want to try something new, or simply want a break from your typical routine.

It’s tough to give you an exact estimate, but with the half dozen or so sites that I’ve flipped, I’ve sold them for anywhere from $75 to $450 (sites I spend no more than a day putting together between the site setup and content creation). I’ve seen many sell for less than $75 (generally from people who don’t have the luxury of putting added value on their content). The exact price you can get will depend on a few things, including:

• How much unique content is included.
• How old the site and domain are (traffic, revenue, etc. will play a role on the higher end sometimes if you’ve chosen to hold onto it for a while).
• How much you normally charge to write unique content.
• Whether or not you’re a niche expert / specialist.
• Your reputation in the community where you’re holding your auction or sale.
• Whether or not your domain name is good enough to add extra value.

Why would your normal freelance writing rates matter?

Easy – because people are looking for bargains. For example, when I was flipping a few previously, I charged a starting rate of about $.35 per word for most unique content in that niche. Many webmasters in that community couldn’t afford to hire me to write custom content for them. But because I offered a price on the site being flipped that would be a big discount on my normal rate, it became affordable. I didn’t earn as much, but they didn’t have the luxury of choosing the content, asking for edits, etc. – at the same time, I earned some money for sites I didn’t feel like keeping and maintaining on my own, and they got affordable professional content from an expert in a decent niche (which they couldn’t have otherwise afforded). That value completely outweighed the fact that the sites were relatively new, had pretty much no traffic, and no declared earnings during the auctions.

That said, if you normally charge $100 per article, you’re going to be able to get more for your flipped sites than someone who normally charges $10 per article. Let’s say in both cases, the writer is offering a site with ten unique articles. The asking price is $300. Buyers aren’t going to be attracted to the site by the lower-price writer here. Why? Because it’s still three times cheaper to hire the writer to put together exactly what they want instead. However, it’s a 70% discount over unique content from the first writer – that’s a more attractive proposition for the buyer (and relatively quick money for the writer – again, I suggest this as “filler” income and not a replacement for client work if you have a full schedule – do it during some free time or slow periods).

Adding Value

You can better your chances of getting a decent price for your quick-flipped sites if you do a few things:

• Choose a niche that’s in-demand.
• Choose a niche with high-paying keywords.
• Use those high-paying keywords in your articles (especially in the titles).
• Include on-site SEO (add meta descriptions and keywords, cross-link related content, etc.).
• Build some incoming links (you could do something simple like setup a Squidoo lens even – and include that lens with the article price).
• Don’t sell until it’s indexed by search engines (my sites are usually indexed in 2 – 3 days – if you want it to happen quickly, get links to it).
• Spend some time in a community with buyers before trying to sell something to them – the more they already know about the value of your content, the more likely it is they’ll be interested.
• Age the domain. While the site can be quick-flipped in the end, it can be a good idea to register the domain name earlier, and let it sit before building and flipping the site (better yet, let it sit with a page of content, and it may pick up natural backlinks, search engine traffic, and Google PageRank before you complete it for sale).

Have you ever flipped websites to earn some extra money as a writer? If so, share some tips of your own for those new to flipping websites and blogs.