Seven Ways to Earn Money through Writing in India By Namrata

 Writers write for many reasons. Writers – both seasoned and green – come to the Himalayan Writing Retreat Workshops with dreams in their eyes. Everyone wants to be a better writer. Some dream of fame. Some have a deeply personal story to share. Some simply have to get something out of their system.  Some seek riches through their writing. Everyone is driven by these forces, or some combination thereof.  And a few want to earn money from their writing, which is a natural outcome of all of the above. They want to make their hobby of writing into their career and earn from writing. They want to become professional writers. “Is there any way we can make a living from writing and earn money through writing online?”

 Professional writers come in many shapes and forms in India. Choosing the right avatar is a critical first step to make it work.

Many people ask us if they should quit their jobs and switch to writing as their career? They dream of a job where they only write books, short stories and poems and earn money through writing. “No!” we always tell them. Writing is a great hobby, but it can be a tough profession to earn money from. Besides, you must be exceptionally good at writing to make a living from it.

However, if you really enjoy writing, are determined to earn money online through writing and make it your career, there is a midway path. Writers get better by writing a lot. So instead of going for “full-time author” straight off the bat, pick a job or work as a writer in other shapes and forms. Let’s call this commercial writing. With your commercial writing you can pay the bills, while you also get better and can consider making your writing hobby into a full-time career.

Below is a list of possible roles you can look at as a commercial writer in India. Most of them are writing jobs while some are administrative in nature within the publishing industry. Please note, we have also highlighted the risk quotient in each of these roles along with a broad pay category one can expect from these roles. By risk, we purely mean the predictability of earning an income. In a proper job, the risk is low and with freelancing opportunities, it is medium to high.Since this is India-specific, the “Naukri.com Index” indicates the number of jobs available on Naukri.com for the particular profile. The scale for this index is 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest (most jobs on offer) and 1 is the lowest (no jobs on offer). The jobs which can also be called ‘work from home’ are tagged as remote in a location where you can earn money writing from home.

Hours have been segregated as fixed and flexi as a lot of these opportunities are contractual and/or freelancing in nature which have number of hours fixed on a daily/ weekly basis. In some cases, you are given the tasks with a deadline which can be done at your pace. As long as you meet the deadline with the correct deliverables, what time and for how long you work on it doesn’t matter. Such jobs are tagged flexi in nature while ones that have fixed timings (e.g. 9 a.m.- 5, p.m. or 10 a.m.- 6) p.m. are tagged fixed.

Table of Contents

1. Literary Magazine

2. Creative Writer / Contributor to magazines / Content Creation Websites 

3. Content Writer

4. Publishing House 

5. Create your own blog and monetize it

6. Author Assistant

7. Writer-in-making

1. Literary Magazine

​​There are many literary magazines and e-zines in India. These consist of a team of editors, readers (who choose which submissions will be accepted), content designers and social media managers. Working with a literary magazine helps one in understanding the minute nuances of writing, understanding the art of literary criticism and also learning through it. Apart from working with them at the backend, you could also write for them.

Some of the magazines also pay for the write-ups which include essays (Trending news and various topics), book reviews and other important topics which need coverage. As they say, a pen is mightier than the sword. By writing op-ed, you can actually write about things you truly care for – try to be the change you want to see in the world.

We have another blog where we have shared a list of India’s top Literary Magazines to submit short-stories, non-fiction and poetry. Some of these pay for the write-ups.

Monthly earning from writing: (Range) Rs. 5000-Rs. 8000/-

Hours (fixed Vs Flexi) : 15-20 hours/ week (Flexi)

Location : Remote

Risk level : Low

Where to start: Start by identifying your niches. Is it literary criticism, writing book reviews, author interviews or writing in general? Basis that, try creating a portfolio. Start by writing for smaller magazines or websites and add to your portfolio. Gradually start looking for active jobs in LinkedIn, on Twitter (#Litmag , #LiteraryMagazines ) or even Times Jobs. Facebook Groups are also a great place for networking amongst literary circles and working with literary magazines. Some of the groups recommended by us are:

Literary Magazines

Literary Voice

Literature or Language jobs

Guest Posting and Article Writing

Naukri.com Index : 6

Size / Competitiveness: The writing needs to be on literature though the topics can always be of your choice. From listicle to recommended reads, the topics that one can write on are many. The competitiveness is relatively high, so building a strong profile in your niche will help you stand out.. Creative Writer / Contributor to magazines / Content Creation Websites

This is one way to write articles and earn money in India. This also helps you build credibility as a writer because when you finally pitch your work to a publisher, you will have lots of writing visible online with your name on it.

Due to the recent surge in online reading apps, the content preferences of audiences have also seen a shift from the usual news to the unusual news articles. Online platforms like LBB, BPB, What’s up Life, Buzzfeed, Scroll, Huffington Post etc. have a huge demand for write ups on current topics which are not only about the trending news items but also other things like a latest movie, a new bestseller or a controversy that erupted on Twitter or other social media platforms. Entertaining and engaging content is always in demand in various forms. Gradually you can identify a niche and build a portfolio on it too. If your goal is to be a non-fiction writer whose books are based on a specific area of expertise, then this portfolio can also help you bag that much-coveted publishing deal. The next question in your mind is how to find online article writing jobs for beginners in India.

A lot of magazines and online portals share their call for pitches online with the appropriate pay that can be expected. This work is possible for Indian as well as international platforms. Here’s a curated list of Twitter handles and newsletters which keep sharing such opportunities on a regular basis.

Meher Mirza

 Joanna

It’s all write ( This is a newsletter by Joanna where she shares writing opportunities apart from tips from leading industry experts. It has both paid and free options. And I say this from my own experience – the paid option is worth every penny you spend on it!)

Job Opportunities – Started by noted journalist Rituparna Chatterjee as a sisterhood thread to share more opportunities for women, this thread is open for all and has some extremely interesting freelancing opportunities as well for content writers and creators.

Call for pitches – A curated list by a well-respected journalist who shares various freelancing writing opportunities from time to time.

Opportunities of the Week – Started in 2018 by Sonia Weiser, a freelancer herself, she shares the latest call for pitches every week on this newsletter which is priced at $3.

Monthly earning from writing : (Range) Rs. 15-20,000/-

Hours (fixed Vs Flexi) : 20-30 hours / week -Flexi

Location : Remote

Risk: Medium

Where to start: For any content writing job, a portfolio is a must. So the first priority should be to work on it. If not a portfolio, create a simple WordPress website where you can host some of your writing samples. Remember to highlight write-ups on a range of topics so that when you apply for assignments you do not come across as someone who can write only on one topic. Social media continues to be an effective tool in finding such job opportunities. There are a lot of Facebook groups which are extremely active in terms of sharing job openings. These groups not only help in finding a job but also in making contacts. Below we’ve shared a list of some of the Facebook Groups we solemnly swear by:

Media jobs/requirements

Media and Communication Professionals in India

Media Jobs

Journalism and Media vacancies

Media Jobs Daily

Media Jobs PR Freelance co-ordination

Naukri.com Index : 4

Size / Competitiveness: The content writing jobs are high in demand but at the same time, there is enough requirement owing to the amount of content being generated on a daily basis across various platforms. The competition is medium. If you develop a niche, you can cut through the competition very effectively.

3. Content Writer

This is different from Point 2 above, but is another way to write articles and make money in India. In this you write, but your writing may not get published in your name. It’s a great way to learn, but a Google search of your name may not throw up a ton of results. So while this maybe a good place to start, try to get at least a few pieces out on a regular basis as you get better.

To be a Freelance content writer all you need is a good internet connection, a laptop or a desktop and a decent command on English language which reflects in your writing.

If you are still confused about the difference between a creative writer and content writer, then let’s decipher that first.

A creative writer for magazines or online portals, usually the writer is credited and given a byline. The articles are on topics of your choice and you are expected to send a pitch before sending the full article. In most cases, you can also demand a price for the articles. While in pure content writing, you cannot choose the topic or the pay. And there are chances you might not be even credited as the writer of these write-ups. However, as long as you have strong research skills, a basic understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimization, which is like the God of the internet), and are able to write on any topic basis that research, you can be a good content writer and earn money by writing articles.

In this line of work, your borders go beyond India, and if you are comfortable writing for, say, the American or the European market, you can even earn in dollars / Euros.There are dedicated sites (shared below) with various job listings shared for short-term projects ranging from translation, transcription, typing, drafting emails to writing articles, research reports, and listicles. The topics also vary from programming and marketing to business and finance. On some platforms like Problogger, Freelancer, and Freelance Writing, you also get ghostwriting projects for novels. You can bid for any project that interests you and if your bid is the best, the project is yours.

Monthly earning from writing: (Range) Newbie Rs.8-10,000/-

                                                                                                Experienced Rs. 30-45,000/-

Hours: Flexi

Location: Remote

Risk level: Medium

Where to start: Start with websites where you can apply for freelancing projects. Some options of such International sites are:

Fiverr

Upwork

PeopleperHour

Freeup

WorknHire

Problogger

Freelancer

Freelance Writing

Some options of such Indian sites are:

Guru

Writer’s Labs

Thoughtful Minds Web Services Pvt Ltd

Outsource2India

My Writing Master.in

Assignment India

Project Guru.in

SEO Content Online

Content Writing Jaipur

The Professional Writers

You can also start from Twitter (Search for Hashtag #CallforPitches to find relevant results), Monster.com, Times Jobs, and Facebook groups. Topping the list of recommended FB groups is the Indian Copyeditors Forum. This group has a lot of freelance editors and copy editors as the name suggests, along with content writers and aspiring writers. This group is very well managed and they regularly conduct online workshops to train the members apart from sharing regular job openings, tips, and tricks on how to do it better and effectively, etc. Before COVID-19, they were conducting regular meet-ups in different cities too. The following groups share only job opportunities. Alternatively, you could also post your resume and seek projects:

Get Projects

Content Writers Needed

Freelance Digital Marketing, Content Writing, SEO

Content Writing Services in India

Content Writing (International)

Freelance Content Writing

Freelancing India

Freelance Writing Cafe

Content Writers

Naukri.com Index: 9

Size / Competitiveness: High. As mentioned before, all one needs to do this job is a good command of English, a decent internet connection and a laptop/computer. It is imperative that one creates a niche to demand exclusivity in both work and payment.. Publishing House

Publishing house is made up of many people. There are editors, sub-editors, cover designers, marketing and PR team, acquisition team etc. Each one of these departments have an important role to play in the making of a book. Depending upon your area of interest, you could consider working for any of these departments in a publishing house. A job in publishing can be a great learning experience.

I started my career working at a hybrid publishing house briefly. For a writer, the rejections, or the silence or ‘no reply’ from a publishing house might seem excruciating. But it is only when you work at a publishing house that you realise the reason behind it all. Working with this Indian publisher, I learned the meaning of the slush piles (Industry Jargon for manuscripts submitted by first-time authors which have to be read), and why some manuscripts may not get more than ten minutes. I understood the importance of editing, designing, layout and most importantly of marketing a book. Writing a great book isn’t enough today. One has to ensure all the other departments do their share to make the book reach the readers.

There are many editors of leading publishing houses of India who are also published authors today like Siddhesh Inamdar (The Story of a long-distance marriage, 2018) and Anant (Play with me, 2014) to quote a few. Interestingly, Toni Morrison also began her publishing career as an editor at Random House’s textbook division in Syracuse while Margaret Atwood briefly worked with a Canadian publishing house, Anansi, as an editor.

The tips and tricks of the trade that you will learn while doing so, can also be helpful when your book is ready. You can then finally turn your dream of being a published author into reality and utilize all this information by practically applying it all.

Monthly earning from writing : (Range) Newbie Rs. 10-15,000/-

                                                                           Experienced Rs. 25-40,000/-

Hours: Fixed

Location: Office

Risk level: Low

Where to start: An ideal candidate would be someone with a literature background who holds relevant qualifications too. However, if you are in the beginner’s category, you can always explore this possibility given that your language skills are par excellence along with a keen interest in literature. The best place to start with will be the official sites of these publishing houses which have a Work with us segment where they keep posting regular job openings in their organizations. Apart from that you can also try looking up Twitter (#JobsinPublishing).

Naukri.com Index : 3

Size / Competitiveness: From being an assistant editor to being the acquisition editors, the roles one can play in a publishing house are many. The competitiveness is medium.

5. Create your own blog and monetize it

Are you – or do you want to be recognized as – a subject matter expert in a niche area? Then blogging could be a great place to start with while you work on your book. This is a third way to write articles and earn money in India.

Say for example, you are working on a book based on the different forms of storytelling in India since ancient times. While your blog could talk about adapting storytelling as an important form of communication in various walks of life, you could also consider hosting workshops on storytelling.

Such blogs add value to your brand as an author as become a place to display your expertise on the subject and hence helps you create a loyal reader base which can help push book sales as and when you publish. Bloggers can earn good money and choose specific markets: they may focus on India, or look at non-Indian markets.

Also, blogging goes beyond just writing . Bloggers need to understand how pages rank on google, how to ensure your blog is in a strong niche so that it will rank and be able to make money. It is more like running a small business with writing as one of the operational components. In fact many bloggers land up outsourcing the writing bit.Brazen Self Plugin: Himalayan Writing Retreat offers a Blogging Workshop with Sumit Bansal which covers all the aspects of how to make money from blogging and creating a passive income through it. Sumit Bansal leads the Blogging workshop at the Himalayan Writing Retreat. Sumit has been blogging since 2013, and went full-time into it in 2015. The first blog that Sumit started was about Excel Spreadsheets.

Trumpexcel has become amongst the best Excel blogs in the world and enabled Sumit to quit his full-time job at IBM and live a life of freedom he always wanted. Sumit’s fascinating story was covered by Problogger podcast, IndieHacker, Ideamensch, Side Hustle School Podcast, and many other sites and publications. In 2018, CEO Magazine featured Trumpexcel as one of the “50 Emerging Startups to Watch in 2018”.

Monthly earning from blogging : Zero – multi-lakhs.

Hours: Flexi

Location : WFH

Risk level : High

Professional Blogging is entrepreneurship. It has all the risk that comes with a start-up. Even if you are driven and really at the top of your game, there is the chance of failing because of systemic things – like Google changing its algorithm, or Amazon reducing it’s affiliate fees etc. Besides, if you get into this full time, you may not have the time to write the book you dreamed of.

A blog can take years to make money, and even that comes with a question mark. Whichever niche you choose, you will need to master the skill, invest in tools (which can often be priced in US dollars) and put in a lot of time and effort. Take this – the Himalayan Writing Retreat blog – for example. We’ve been working consistently at it and it’s taken years of work for us to become strong enough on Google that you found us.

Where to start : Study professional blogging and understand it from Google Uncle. Sumit Bansal’s website https://craftofblogging.com/ is also a great place to start. Of course, you can attend the course we have so subtly marketed above. Details of the next workshop are at https://www.himalayanwritingretreat.com/blogging/ .

Naukri.com Index : 0

Size / competitiveness : You can blog about a lot of things. People blog and make money about bizarre things like Aquarium accessories and balcony gardens, so you can choose a niche but it takes a lot of skill and perseverance. It is a highly competitive space.

6. Author Assistant

As we know, writing is a lonely profession. However, as you grow as a writer, there are many other jobs apart from writing that need your attention. These include research, responding to emails, handling social media accounts, coordination for administrative jobs like printouts, sourcing books for research, transcription of notes etc. And this is exactly why an author needs an assistant: to handle all of these things. With a competent assistant, an author can do what they love the most- write. Working as an author’s assistant has its own perks – you not only get to closely watch the publishing world, you also get to make your own contacts along with a list of tried and tested dos and don’ts. This is one job which has many perks to offer even after you quit it.

Having been a virtual assistant to quite a few authors – both from India and abroad – since 2013, I can say this from my experience that this is one job without a single dull moment every single day at work. This job allows you to witness the making of a book as a closely as possible and as a bonus, you get to be a part of the post-release process too.

Monthly earning from writing: Rs. 30-45,000/-

Hours: Fixed and Flexi (Depending on job role)

Location : Office and remote (Both are possible, depending on author’s requirements)

Risk level : Low

Where to start: You can always start with well known authors whose work you admire and it falls in the line of work you intend to do. Say you wish to be a mythology writer, it makes sense to work with a renowned mythology writer to gain experience. You can write to them directly expressing your interest to work with them or get in touch through social media. If you are following them on social media already, chances are you will see their requirements for assistants from time to time.

Naukri.com Index : 0

Size / Competitiveness: Very few openings, highly competitive.

7. Writer-in-making

Last but not the least, you can try and make it as a writer. In all of the above you’ll have to write what other people want but if you want to make a living off your writing, then you can consider what some aspiring authors have done.

For starters move to a smaller city or town, which drastically brings down your cost of living. Thereafter, consider offering your services part-time in a manner that you earn a sustainable income while using the other half of the day in writing and research. Your services could include taking writing workshops, tutoring students and aspiring writers, writing literary thought-pieces for prominent websites, using your skills as a writer to provide critique to budding writers’ manuscripts and mentoring young and aspiring writers.

In the words of an aspiring writer who has been practicing this since the last five years, “It is advisable only if you are willing to become a minimalist in every aspect of your life. From socializing to spending habits, everything needs to be realigned to match your goal which is to write.”

Monthly earning from writing: Rs. 5-25000/- (for most except Ashwin, Amish & Co)

Hours: Flexi

Location : WFH

Risk level : HighSome of the most prominent authors in India are not full-time career writers. Twinkle Khanna is a successful interior designer apart from being a best-selling writer. Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee and Elif Shafak teach creative writing at leading universities while continuing to conjure heart-warming stories. Sudha Murthy is an engineering teacher along with being the chairperson for Infosys Foundation.

Kiran Manral was a journalist previously and is now an independent research and media consultant. While Anita Desai is the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, another prominent author who shares her name, Anita Nair, hosts an annual writing workshop at the famous “Anita’s Attic” in Bengaluru. See our list of writing workshops in India to know more.

Ravi Subramaniam is a banker who writes. Ravinder Singh has a publishing house of his own, apart from mentoring entrepreneurs and start-ups. On the other hand, we also have authors like Chetan Bhagat, Durjoy Dutta and Sudeep Nagarkar who have managed to make a career out of writing and earn decently well.

While Chetan Bhagat needs no introduction, bestselling author Durjoy Dutta is also a screenplay writer with many critically acclaimed television shows and series to his credit, apart from of course, his best-selling titles. A software engineer by qualification, Sudeep Nagarkar has recently made the shift to being a full-time writer and is currently working on his next book along with some screenplays in the pipeline. Internationally acclaimed award-winning authors like Neel Mukherjee and Amit Chaudhuri opted for academia while continuing to write on the side.

So choosing writing as a career and being a full-time author is a tough proposition. Let me share some simple math about how writers (don’t) make money.

1. Books published traditionally

Traditional Publishers give a royalty of 8% to a writer. Let’s assume that you write a book, and a publisher like Penguin Random-House or some such gives you a book deal. That itself is a big deal if you’re a first timer, as the industry has a rejection rate of 95% for manuscripts.

But let’s assume your manuscript is accepted. Further, let’s assume your book sells 5000 copies (which is higher than the industry average of 3000) and is priced at 250 rupees.

So you make 8% of 250 = 20 rupees per book. You sell 5000 copies, which gets you 5000X20= 100,000 rupees for your book. Now if your book took about a year to write and publish (most take longer), that works out to a monthly salary of 100,000/12 = approximately 8350 / month. This puts you in the same income category of your building security guard. In today’s India he may hold a PhD, but let’s not change the subject.

If you are thinking of the advances given to authors for their books, then here’s a perspective on that as well.