A money making project

Dear friend so distinguished as to stumble this way,

I'm facing a plight that an absurd number of liberal arts students share.

For most of my life I have wanted to see if writing could work as a professional activity. Unfortunately the economy is sub-par and I am hardly alone. People seem to love the concept of being a writer, it is borderline cool to say at cocktail parties, it indulges fantasies of leaving a lasting monument on the world, and it appeals to the inner voice in all of us, telling us that we ought to be doing something with ourselves. American culture (and probably others, I'll have to see) holds a thinker in high regard, and that kind of self esteem is a non-monetary wage that attracts tons of people, including me, to writing. It doesn't hurt that it is also more fun that most other work.

But how to make writing pay? There are millions of people who want to be paid to write, many in countries where wage rates are much lower, and there are thousands on thousands of Americans who have written more than us college students and aspiring writers. My strategy in the face of this is just try, and hope it works.

I have the luxury to do this because I am still in the protective womb of collegiate academics. Studying in Spain I have slightly more free time than at Whitman, my home school, and so I will try this writing thing now, and if it fails, the fallout will at least be minimal.

Given my awe inspiring professional credentials(No paid work in writing), I am starting with freelance copy writing and content writing since both of those things are accessible. The basic idea is that everything on the internet has been written by someone, and most of the commercial site content was written by a professional writer. There is a big market for this, and a place for someone who is not particularly initiated in the industry already.

It does look like there are a few things that help out a prospective web writer a lot though. Basic knowledge of all the blogging tools, ability to write SEO (Search engine optimized, or google cheating) articles, and enough HTML familiarity to set up pages and layout all are huge pluses.

When I get time away from this fantastic country, I will be working on these things. Hopefully it works out! If you are in a similar place to me in terms of goals, I'd love to talk and share observations.

Enjoy the lovely weekend day,
Tim