Working at home is not as easy as it sounds
With the flood of signs on street corners that tell you "Work from home! Easy money!", advertisements in magazines and newspapers, advertisements on television and countless ads strewn across the Internet - how do you know what work at home job is right for you?
How can you really make easy money working from home?
I get my brothers and sisters and anyone else I know constantly asking me "Sandy, how can I do that?" They see me make some money and all they know is that I sit on my butt in front of the computer all day when I am not helping my parents (I'm a full-time caregiver first, a writer second). I tell them exactly what it is that I do, and it has not yet failed. Every time I tell them how I make money, they get this disappointed look and go, "Oh... that sounds hard..." and are no longer interested.
And what is it I tell them? To make money I work. Hard. I love to write, I can't imagine not writing. When I am not working, when I want to do something for fun, I am writing. My job is to string words together into 50, 100, 200 sometimes 300 word articles on products that people want to have advertised. I work my fingers to the bone writing content for my websites, trying to build them up from scratch to websites that people will want to visit and then return to.
It's not easy. I have to work nearly every waking hour on it and often go without sleep until 4, 5 sometimes 6am or even for 48 hours straight on more than one occasion (more than a dozen actually). I have worked at improving my ability to write (you should have seen it back in 1998), I have worked to build up my websites and understand how to program in HTML and Java and several other languages with at least passing understanding of what I am doing.
I subscribe to several writer's magazines, buy writer's books on a regular basis and read them cover to cover, subscribe to a wide range of newsletters on writing, the Internet, marketing, website design and assorted other subjects and listen to podcasts from other writers about the profession of writing.
It is insane and difficult work, and then I get to start working. I get to find places that have jobs I can take on, have to complete those jobs to specification within the agreed upon time frame and I have to keep the customer happy. What happens if the customer is not happy? Best case I don't get paid for that particular job. Worst case, I never get any work from that person ever again. You don't want to go to the worst case. You won't be in business for long if you don't make the customer feel they have got their money's worth.
And that's what I do. I write voraciously and do my best to give the people I write for their money's worth. Do I always succeed? No. I'd like to say I can keep everyone happy all the time, but it has long been proven that you can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but it's just not possible to please all the people all the time.
I have managed to come out of ten years of working toward being able to earn a living writing with a few gems that I can take on into the future with me.
First: my God, has it really been ten years???? Time flies fast, faster when you are on a deadline.
Second: Any problem with writer's block can be solved by tossing the person that means the most to your lead character into a cold dark ocean filled with giant serpents.
Third: Working at home is the hardest job anyone can ever try to do. It is filled with stress and procrastination and long periods of not being able to afford to look for a real job. If you are going to work from home, do something you love above all else and forget what anyone says about not being able to turn that into a way to make money. Find a way, and keep at it and never loose your desire to keep doing what you love to do. Then you can make it succeed and then you will start making money. Maybe not enough to survive, but that will come. (I hope)
Fourth: Normal work hours and sleep cycles are for the people that want to work on a set schedule. If you are working for yourself set whatever hours work best for you as long as you can get the work that you need to get done in a day done by the end of that day (or at least finish it all up by the end of the week).
Fifth: Backup. Backup. Backup. Save. Save. Save. You will never be able to write that story as well the second time through, so make sure that you are not going to loose it after the first writing. Save often and back up what you have done just in case your computer decides that it does not want to go on another day.
Sixth: Stay home as often as you can get away with, it's great for catching up on missed work, but be sure that you can also get out and be with friends and family just as often. It is the moments that can never be recaptured that mean the most when the years are passed, not the extra ten dollars that you managed to make when you skipped out on lunch with your best friends.
Seventh: (Because seven is my lucky number I had to take this to seven) - Interruptions will happen. When you work at home you can not avoid or evade them, so learn to roll with them and hone your skills until you can easily come up on the other side of the interruption with only a marginal slip in your step.
How can you really make easy money working from home?
I get my brothers and sisters and anyone else I know constantly asking me "Sandy, how can I do that?" They see me make some money and all they know is that I sit on my butt in front of the computer all day when I am not helping my parents (I'm a full-time caregiver first, a writer second). I tell them exactly what it is that I do, and it has not yet failed. Every time I tell them how I make money, they get this disappointed look and go, "Oh... that sounds hard..." and are no longer interested.
And what is it I tell them? To make money I work. Hard. I love to write, I can't imagine not writing. When I am not working, when I want to do something for fun, I am writing. My job is to string words together into 50, 100, 200 sometimes 300 word articles on products that people want to have advertised. I work my fingers to the bone writing content for my websites, trying to build them up from scratch to websites that people will want to visit and then return to.
It's not easy. I have to work nearly every waking hour on it and often go without sleep until 4, 5 sometimes 6am or even for 48 hours straight on more than one occasion (more than a dozen actually). I have worked at improving my ability to write (you should have seen it back in 1998), I have worked to build up my websites and understand how to program in HTML and Java and several other languages with at least passing understanding of what I am doing.
I subscribe to several writer's magazines, buy writer's books on a regular basis and read them cover to cover, subscribe to a wide range of newsletters on writing, the Internet, marketing, website design and assorted other subjects and listen to podcasts from other writers about the profession of writing.
It is insane and difficult work, and then I get to start working. I get to find places that have jobs I can take on, have to complete those jobs to specification within the agreed upon time frame and I have to keep the customer happy. What happens if the customer is not happy? Best case I don't get paid for that particular job. Worst case, I never get any work from that person ever again. You don't want to go to the worst case. You won't be in business for long if you don't make the customer feel they have got their money's worth.
And that's what I do. I write voraciously and do my best to give the people I write for their money's worth. Do I always succeed? No. I'd like to say I can keep everyone happy all the time, but it has long been proven that you can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but it's just not possible to please all the people all the time.
I have managed to come out of ten years of working toward being able to earn a living writing with a few gems that I can take on into the future with me.
First: my God, has it really been ten years???? Time flies fast, faster when you are on a deadline.
Second: Any problem with writer's block can be solved by tossing the person that means the most to your lead character into a cold dark ocean filled with giant serpents.
Third: Working at home is the hardest job anyone can ever try to do. It is filled with stress and procrastination and long periods of not being able to afford to look for a real job. If you are going to work from home, do something you love above all else and forget what anyone says about not being able to turn that into a way to make money. Find a way, and keep at it and never loose your desire to keep doing what you love to do. Then you can make it succeed and then you will start making money. Maybe not enough to survive, but that will come. (I hope)
Fourth: Normal work hours and sleep cycles are for the people that want to work on a set schedule. If you are working for yourself set whatever hours work best for you as long as you can get the work that you need to get done in a day done by the end of that day (or at least finish it all up by the end of the week).
Fifth: Backup. Backup. Backup. Save. Save. Save. You will never be able to write that story as well the second time through, so make sure that you are not going to loose it after the first writing. Save often and back up what you have done just in case your computer decides that it does not want to go on another day.
Sixth: Stay home as often as you can get away with, it's great for catching up on missed work, but be sure that you can also get out and be with friends and family just as often. It is the moments that can never be recaptured that mean the most when the years are passed, not the extra ten dollars that you managed to make when you skipped out on lunch with your best friends.
Seventh: (Because seven is my lucky number I had to take this to seven) - Interruptions will happen. When you work at home you can not avoid or evade them, so learn to roll with them and hone your skills until you can easily come up on the other side of the interruption with only a marginal slip in your step.
posted by Sandra at 10:43 PM
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