Side hustles and writing

Typing away to get that word count in. Picture credits: Paola Bassanese

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I went full time as a freelance writer in 2016, just as earnings from writing started decreasing, so don’t ask me for stock market predictions or financial advice!

At that point I had already self-published a few books (this will be the topic of a future newsletter post). I was still living in London.

The way I was earning a living was through a combination of different projects, including posting articles on my own two websites and sometimes accepting sponsored posts; writing articles for outside websites that paid a small percentage to writers from their advertising revenue; posting on social media and writing articles for clients.

When I moved to Ireland in 2018, I spent the first few months thinking I was already semi-retired and I didn’t push myself to gain new business. That was of course a mistake.

Fast forward to 2024 and, alongside a couple of stable writing gigs, my work routine now is split between writing and side hustles.

Coffee is a freelancer’s best friend (a scone helps, too!). Picture credits: Paola Bassanese

Side hustles

I had already experimented with side hustles from 2015 but it hadn’t been a satisfactory experience, mostly because of the low rate of pay and the high competition from other freelancers.

One of the websites I used was the infamous Lionbridge, which I wouldn’t recommend at all. When I tried it you had to spend several hours learning how to do some online tasks from a lengthy and boring manual. Tasks were tedious and paid very little so I gave up.

I also tried a similar website called Clickworker and I lost my patience pretty much straight away.

Then there was a phase when I used a site for online translations called Unbabel but the issue with it was that the quality assessment process took too long, affecting your earning potential.

Peopleperhour is another site I would not recommend to anyone as you had to pitch to potential clients who were mostly interested in the lowest bidder for a project, not in a freelancer’s background and skills.

More recently, I gave Remotasks and Taskverse a go but they were both very disappointing. The hourly rates were absolutely ridiculous, as they were a fraction of the minimum hourly wage in the US (currently at $7.25).

Finally, after years of searching, I settled for OneForma, which is by no means the best website for side hustles, but at least it pays regularly and the earnings are reasonable. In fact, if you are curious to learn more about my experience with this website, I have written about it in a previous post.

Is writing enough to earn a living?