On Writing for the Long Term and the Short Term

Various Aspects to Consider when Writing Content for Sale Online

This piece is all about time. Specifically, it's about writing for the long term and writing for the short term. By adding both to your online income basket, you'll be more financially stable and slowly begin to build enough online real estate of your own to make a living and then some. If all goes well, someday you'll be able to hire others to do the work and, hopefully, continue to grow.

Writing for the long term

If your goal is to make your living online, this step could be thought of as planting your online garden. You know how to write great content. Good. These days, it's really simple to set-up websites, even interactive ones that allow communities to form (goldmines found on your online real estate and worth a lot of money for their stickiness.) Over time, your websites, if the content is one step ahead of the sea of other mediocre content out there, you'll begin to attract readers and links. Both are important for any good long term plan.

The problem with this method, though, is that it takes a lot of time. Success with content online doesn't happen overnight. Not in my experience anyway. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. While you plant a few seeds of your own on servers you control, there are other ways to make money online as a writer.

Writing for the short term

Unless you have a day job or are independently wealthy, following the plan above will require that you have a source of income. To help with this, you can write for the short term by spending time developing content but selling it instead of keeping it for yourself.

Depending on the content, there's no real way to tell which way is worth more, although I imagine the long term philosophy, because it continues to increase in value with age (like a fine wine) and goes on til the end of the Internet or a more minor problem takes the site down.

While writing for the short term, you want to make sure you don't sell yourself short. Your time, especially if you're creative and can craft content in your dreams while you sleep at night, is valuable. Don't ever forget that.