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How to make money being a writer

Updated on July 6, 2011
The home page of Englishland, most of my Adsense earnings come from this website
The home page of Englishland, most of my Adsense earnings come from this website

Writing on the Internet

I have been a serious online writer for more than two years now. I make money by monetizing my englishland website and my blogs with Google Adsense. Although it is not my main stream of income, from the previously not significant earnings, the amount of money I receive from Google Adsense is getting more and more significant. Now I can go to the Western Union counter at the nearby post office to withdraw money that I get from monetizing my articles. I usually write 1 to 2 articles per day. I do this while doing other job which is running my bookstore. So, I am able to make two streams of income simultaneously.  

How I became a writer

I studied journalistic writing from a senior journalist, Rudi Fofid, when I was still a student in Pattimura University learning Naval Architecture in Ambon city of Indonesia. I was a member of a student's organization where Rudy gave short courses in journalistic writing. Several months later, I tried to send an article to local newspaper. The editor who was a friend of Rudi published it. I was very happy to read my own writing on Suara Maluku newspaper. I didn't receive any honorarium at that time but I had decided to choose writing as my passion. Since then, I diligently wrote various articles to Intisari, a national magazine in Indonesia and to several other printed media in this country.

Creating Websites and Blogs

In 2001, I launched my first website about the promotion of renewable energy in geocities.com whose capacity was only 15 megabytes. Well, I considered the website as a way to learn the technology and at the same time as a way to build a community with similar interest.
In 2004, I started an English Learning website which I designed using Microsoft Frontpage 2000. Then I used the 2003 version. Although Microsoft does not develop Frontpage anymore, I still use it for writing new articles for the website which I named Englishland.
In 2007, I launched my diary blog and began monetizing the blog and my Englishland website with Google Adsense. Prior to Google Adsense I only wrote one or two articles a month. Now, I write at least thirty articles a month. It took more than six months before I got my first 100 US dollars from Google.
To understand more about affiliate marketing and SEO, I visited joelcomm.com, johnchow.com and problogger.net. I tried to follow all their writing tips and strategy which are meant to increase the traffic of my blog and website.
This year, I began writing for hubpages which I just registered in January. Actually, I have known hubpages since last year when searching on the internet on such keywords as how to make money writing and writer's success story. As a new hubber, I still need to learn alot about this great writing platform.

I am not a native English speaker

I was born an grew up in Indonesia. I have never been to any English speaking countries. But that does not stop me from writing in English. I learned English from school. But I knew it's not enough. To improve my writing skill, and my fluency in English I watch satellite tv programs broad casted in English. They are Channel News Asia, Bloomberg Asia, Aljazeera, Arirang, VOA, Euronews, France 24, and the last but not the least the Travel Channel.
My monthly earnings from Google Adsense is not high enough if compared to my main stream income. But I now go to the post office every month to withdraw my Adsense money that is transferred by Google using Western Union service. 

Main Stream Income

My main stream of income is from my home based Xavier bookstore. I can make around 1,000 to 1,800 US dollars a month. Unfortunately, I still cannot enjoy it due to my obligation to pay back the loan which I got from a bank. Every time I withdraw my money using Western Union quick cash in the local post office I always get more than the minimum amount that Google stipulates. If you read my blog, you will see that I have written a lot of posts ranging from scuba diving and coral reef preservation to water color painting and eco-tourism. People who read my articles send emails saying that they want to spend their vacation in Manokwari, a city in the tropical island of Papua where I currently live.
I am studying hard to improve the quality of my writings so that I can reduce grammatical errors. Well, that's my personal experience of making money from writing both on the printed media such as newspapers and magazines and on the internet media such as website, blog and hubpages.  

working

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