What if you're just starting out and don't have a specialty? It's easy to get one. Just start writing. Contribute material to local newsletters, the local paper, and websites in your field. Notice I said "contribute." You increase your odds of getting published if you give this stuff away. That's good business sense because you need published clips.

Want to write about financial services? Start by writing anything and everything you can on the subject for free, save up the clips, and then prepare a letter and mailing with your best work to attract business clients.

Writing for business can be done for a flat rate or by the hour. A flat rate works well if you know the exact scope of what you're doing. Since many businesses can make changes on the fly, even changing the direction or scope of the project, an hourly rate is often used instead.

Where else can you sell your writing? Magazines, newspapers, and websites are all hungry for content. But don't just throw something at a magazine and wonder why they don't publish it.

Always analyze the publication before you submit or suggest anything. For instance, you wouldn't want to submit an article on "World's Worst Airline Disasters" to an in-flight magazine. If you can't get a handle on the magazine or newspaper, look at the other articles and the advertisers. If you see a magazine with lots and lots of cigarette ads, you won't get far with a piece on the dangers of smoking.

The better you can fit your offering to the publication, the more likely you are to make a sale. For instance, one of the first articles I sold was a story about how and where teachers could change careers. I sold it to a free newspaper published by a local employment agency. It sold not because it was some great literary masterpiece but it was a great fit. The newspaper was actively seeking people who wanted to get a new job. What better story than one aimed at disgruntled teachers seeking a new line of work?

You'll notice I have not mentioned writing fiction, poetry, or plays. J. K. Rowling notwithstanding, you can't make money writing those things. This is not to say no one makes money in those fields. Of course that's not true. But fiction and other forms of artistic writing are highly competitive fields. There aren't many publishers actively seeking new and unpublished writers. Your odds are better playing the lottery.

If your dream is to write a novel, that's great. But don't call it a business, at least not until you've sold your novel. I don't discourage such activities, but it is not the same thing as having a real business.

You can make a living as a writer. Actually, the Internet has opened up so many new business opportunities for kinds of enterpeneurs, but no one is better poised to take advantage of some of these opportunities than a savvy and adventurous business-minded writer. This means that a writer today can write something and sell it directly to his or her reader and not bother with the whole traditional publication ordeal.

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