Since the internet came into our lives, the market for short articles has increased greatly.  But is submitting an article to a website the same as submitting an article to a magazine? 

In short, the answer is no.  The main difference between the two is the time factor.  You can query an idea to a magazine, and even if you do so via email you may have to wait a while for a response.  Once the article is written it is commonplace to have to wait several weeks or months to see it published – and to receive your payment.

On the internet it couldn’t be more different.  You can query an article one day, write it the next and have it published online and the money in your PayPal account all in the space of just three days – sometimes quicker.  People are clamouring for fresh information online, and if you can provide good content and provide it quickly, you’ll find unending possibilities for selling articles.

Although the pay for internet articles is generally much lower than that handed out by magazines, there is far more work available to take.  If you are a reasonably good writer and you can write fast, people will soon start coming to you to ask for your help in supplying content for their websites.

Writing for the internet is an excellent way to speed up your writing, as you can’t afford to hang around when the work comes in batches – which it often does when you get jobs from the freelancing sites.  If you’re serious about online writing, you’ll soon find yourself doing batches of five, ten or even more articles within the space of forty eight hours or so. 

This is where the magazine market really falls down.  Apart from the fact that many magazines are now taking less freelance work and relying more on in-house writers to provide their content, you’ll need to be able to establish a stable of at least twenty magazines to write for on a regular basis to enjoy any kind of decent income. 

Personally, I have four or five markets and clients that I work for online, and that’s more than enough to earn me the same amount in my spare time each week as I earn from my regular full time job.  Online writing has allowed me to seriously think about giving up work and writing full time; a notion I never could have considered when I just wrote for magazines. 

Internet writing also has the benefit of taking away much of the responsibility of thinking up good ideas.  The client knows exactly what they want, so you know upfront that you will have to write five short articles on, say, planning a wedding.  And that leads neatly into the other benefit of online writing – you will broaden your skills and stretch yourself immensely, as you will be writing about many more diverse subjects than you would otherwise. 

So if you want to be a more versatile writer, and much quicker to boot, perhaps it’s time you started looking through the freelance writer job listings to see what’s available.  When I started, I bagged three jobs within my first ten days, and I haven’t looked back since. 

It’s easier than you might think – you just need to step up to the challenge it offers.

About the Author: Allison Whitehead has been a freelance writer for 17 years, and has had hundreds of articles published on many diverse subjects in both magazines and on websites.  She now works mainly for online markets and shares her experience and sources at http://www.squidoo.com/smoo_publishing