Work From Home Creative Writing Jobs

It can be difficult to make a buck from your passion but if you're looking for creative writing jobs you might just have some luck.

The demand for freelance writers has grown specially by companies that need help with forming narratives to sell their products or services. Platforms for creative writers who prefer to focus on their own artistic self-expression, such as poetry, short stories or even novels, have also grown with the boom of the internet, and similarly so have creative writing jobs that you can do from home.

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Below are six rewarding forms of this artistry that will allow you to focus on your creative side while you're juggling one or two tots.

Ghostwriting

As a ghostwriter, you would be hired by a client to write a number of final formats – like a novel, non-fiction such as a how-to-guide, an autobiography, short story, or novella.

Your client may not have the skills or time to cohesively present something to readers, but they do have an idea, an outline and/or expert knowledge on the subject.

In fact, many websites hire ghostwriters to keep their content coming regularly and so if you're happy to be this type of writer you may be hired for such websites by a company. For any of these scenarios, the publication would be under your client's name, whether that they're an individual or a business.

In these creative writing jobs, your role is to bring cohesion, flow, and structure to the piece and execute these well to create the final product.

There's plenty of these creative writing jobs online often on a freelance basis. And like many vocations, the rate of pay is dependent on your experience, your skills, the client and the amount of work to be done.

Here's what they make on average according to PayScale.

Hot Tip: Since you'll be doing the work writing, look into getting an advance of the payment and a percentage of the royalties.

Editing

Editing is another job creative writers often get into though with this role you would do much less writing and instead review the writing of others.

As in many situations, people need the assistance of an objective professional, and a number of self-published authors go the route of hiring a professional editor.

Your client might hire you to edit their novel, short story, or you may be hired as an editor of a magazine, newspaper or a website. Great responsibility comes with your role as an editor who is often in charge of the entire publication.

A good editor would have unparalleled attention to detail, in-depth knowledge of grammar rules and computer skills plus the added knowledge of publishing tools.

Freelance work is more common for project based work, where companies tend to have full-time editors on staff. An important tidbit of information is that being an editor can be quite lucrative especially if you work for a well established organization.

Here's what they make on average according to PayScale.

Scriptwriting

As a scriptwriter, you'll often be writing for media, in particular, your scripts could be for a myriad of mediums such as films, TV, YouTube videos, or even games. Those who are starting out might choose to build their career as a scriptwriter by writing company training videos or for a web series.

Creativity wins here and, to start, you must have an engaging story idea for your medium to then build sequencing, create scenes, work in the dialogue, then revise it and revise it again.

Although it's similar to writing a novel since you're essentially telling a story, the medium is on-screen and rather than on a page and this adds nuances such as cut scenes, transitions, actions, movements, and placement. So not only will you need to have good writing talent but you'll need to be able to merge both your strong writing skills and visual skills together.

Here's what they make on average according to PayScale.

Short Stories

Those who get paid for their short stories are often required to write about 2,000 to 10,000 words on average. And apart from being paid for it, it's also great practice for creative writing if you plan to get into novellas, novels or scriptwriting.

There are a lot of freelance opportunities online since many people and websites alike are looking for writers with a knack for storytelling in both the fiction and nonfiction areas.

Creative writers who write short pieces are hired regularly to contribute to websites blogs and other online publications. Some companies are also happy to pay for a short story that suits their needs.

The benefit of going this way is you don't have to go through the entire publishing process yourself and it's not ghostwriting so it's also a great stepping stone for becoming a more accomplished creative writer.

Many short pieces are published in an anthology or collection which means ongoing financial benefit as long as there's an interest in the storyline and characters from within the market.

The pay range for short stories is vast – from $10 to $2,000 depending on the length of your story, the quality and, of course, the publication.

Poetry

For those rare creative writers who have a flair for writing artistry and are able to stir imagination and emotion, are skilled in rhythm, meaning, and sound – you know who you are.

In all honesty, it's difficult to make anentire living from writing poetry unless you have a collection to publish and that becomes successful. Although, there's a good chance for you to get paid for your creative writing work as a poet – what you'll need to do is find the publications that publish poems in your style and that take submissions. It can be difficult but if you're skilled you could earn some decent coin.

Have a look at Tahoma Literary Review, Rattle or Palette Poetry to start.

The range of pay for each poem is pretty wide-ranging from $10 – $200 per poem or even $20 per page.

Novellas and Novels

If you're an in-betweener, read: one who likes to write stories longer than the short ones but they aren't quite novels, then you'd be happy to write something between 7,500 and 40,000 words.

Over 40,000 words mean you're on your way to becoming a novelist—and as many of us know — this is no small feat. It requires a lot of patience, imagination, research, character development, structure and finally — mental preparedness to get to the point of a final manuscript. And that can take years.

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After all of that — all you need to do is get published, phew!

Most professional writers find an agent who promotes their work to major publishers. However, these days you can also self-publish using services such as Kindle Direct Publishing*, Barnes & Noble Press, and Apple Booksto name only a few.

There are also many helpful writing tools that can make the process easier for these creative writing jobs, like Squibler. This is a novel-writing software that aims to help you write and publish your book in 30 days.

In this line of work, fortunately, your talents as a creative and engaging writer can pay fairly well. There can be very good money in creative writing jobs like these — dependent on the value and popularity of the work.

Here's what they make on average according to PayScale.

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