How to Make Your First $1,000 as a Content Writer (2024)

When I first started as a content writer I made $25/1,000 word article.

I know, I know. But I was new to the game and aware that I had to work my way up to be able to make a full-time living as a writer. Without a huge resume, I had to take whatever job I could so that I could make my Upwork profile look like I’d been doing this for a while.

My strategy worked. I used Upwork exclusively to find clients for two years, between 2016–2017. In those two years, I worked with over 50 clients and wrote as much as I possibly could for each one. I didn’t make a lot of money, but I had a resume—and that’s all that mattered to me.

I started to cold pitch companies that I wanted to work with that I saw on my Instagram feed or online. I used my resume to land the clients and pretty soon I was in a place to never have to charge $25/1,000 word article again.

During those two years, I was counting pennies to try and make my first $1,000 as a content writer. The saying will never stop being true—hindsight is 20/20.

Looking back on those years, I realize that I made a huge mistake when aiming for my $1,000 goal.

I didn’t have a plan.

And this is the plan I should have had.

If you want to be a successful freelance content writer, you need to look at yourself as a business. And what does every business have? This is what I teach the members of the Content Writers Mastermind.

Okay—not really—but they definitely all have a place where their goals can be seen every day. Better yet (something I learned after working with 100+ clients), they have an oddly large amount of spreadsheets helping them reach those goals.

Time to make yours.

Your goal is to make $1,000, so you’re going to write that somewhere you can consistently see it. Then, you’re going to make a spreadsheet, for free, on Google Sheets with the following columns:

Now, you’re going to start pitching prospective clients on your services. I have an email template for doing this, which you can get for free here, but this is the general idea of your email:

1. Introduce yourself (1 sentence)
2. Tell them you want to write content for them
3. Give them 3 examples of articles you can write for them
4. Tell them you’re available for a quick call any day this week to talk further

Bear with me here, but you’re going to send this email to as many potential clients as you can. As a new content writer, statistics are your best friend. If you send 20 cold pitches, you’re bound to get 1–5 people to say yes to you.

Now, I’m going to assume that you’re a totally new writer and you don’t have a ton of experience. I would charge $50/800–1,000 word article, but the choice is completely up to you.

This means, that you need to write:

• 4 articles for 5 clients (4 articles x $50/article x 5 clients = $1,000)
• 5 articles for 4 clients (5 articles x $50/article x 4 clients = $1,000)
• 7 articles for 3 clients (7 articles x $50/article x 3 clients = $1,050)
• 10 articles for 2 clients (10 articles x $50/article x 2 clients = $1,000)
• 20 articles for 1 client (20 articles x $50/article x 1 client = $1,000)

Or any mix of article to client ratio that lands you $1,000.

Now, go back to your Google Sheet and start filling in your new income as you land new clients. It’s going to start looking like this:

This is how you’re going to see how on track you are to your $1,000 goal so you know what kind of project you’re looking for next. For example, if this was your spreadsheet, you would know that you need another $300 to reach your $1,000 goal.

This means you need to write 6 more articles at $50/article. Now, you can strategize how to do that:

1. Keep cold emailing prospective clients and land a client in need of 6 articles, or 2 clients in need of 3 articles, or 3 clients in need of 2 articles, etc.
2. Pitch 1–3 more articles ideas per client

Pretty soon, your spreadsheet will look like this:

And you’ll be able to cross of “Make $1,000 as a writer” off of your goal list.

This isn’t a financial strategy that you can only use when you first start out. This is a strategy you can use when you’re making $1,000 or $1,000,000. It’s the strategy every organized and systemized business is using to make sure they reach their goals every quarter and year.

And remember, as a freelance content writer—you are a business. It’s your job to make sure that business is as organized, systemized, and capable of sustaining you as possible.

Keep using this spreadsheet to go well beyond $1,000 and become a full-time writer.

There are a lot of writers making a full-time living.

And you’re allowed to be one of them.