Freelance Writers: How to Create Passive Income for Retirement

Freelance writers: do you want to comfortaby retire one day?

I'm in my 40s, so I think a lot about retirement. And, although all of us have to think about it, as a freelance writer of course, I bear a lot more direct responsibility for making sure that my income is allocated correctly so that I can comfortably retire.

Some Sobering Retirement Stats

"The median balance in 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts for workers in their 50s is just $60,000, which won't pay the bills for many years." [Source: Age 65 and Not Ready or Able to Go, WashingtonPost.com] When you consider that retirement income should last 20-30 years, how far do you think this will go? Scary!

By most estimates, you'll need between 60% and 80% of your final working years' income to maintain your lifestyle after retiring. . . . as you begin thinking about how much you'll need for a comfortable retirement, you may be startled to learn the impact of inflation. At an average inflation rate of 3%, your . . . annual income will need to increase each year even during retirement in order to keep up with the gradual rise in prices of everyday goods. [Source: How Much Do You Need to Retire?, Yahoo! Finance]

Fewer than half of American workers have estimated how much they’ll need to retire, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute. The biggest risk retirees may face is running out of money while they’re alive. [Source: How Much Will You Need to Retire?, InvestorGuide.com]

Reading all of this got me to thinking about how freelance writers can make sure that they (i) first of all, can afford to retire; and (ii) start setting up passive income streams so that they won't have to worry if they haven't exactly saved a whole bunch during their working years.

Ideas on Creating Passive Income

To that end, here are some ideas on how freelance writers can create passive income for retirement. However you decide to save for your retirement just make sure that it's on your mind if you're a freelance writer.

Will You Be Able to Afford to Retire? How to Figure Out How Much You'll Need

If you're in your 20s and early 30s, setting aside nominal amounts of money and work towards creating self-produced streams of income now will make retirement something you look forward to, not something you dread.

Have a great weekend everybody . . . and hey, how about taking a little time over the next couple of days, sitting down with a retirement calculator and crunch some retirement numbers.

Want to start a successful freelance writing career? Visit the Inkwell Editorial Freelance Writing Bookstore. And if you enjoyed this post, subscribe to the newsletter.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda Black, Publisher
How to Start a Successful Freelance Writing Career Newsletter
Contact: info *at* InkwellEditorial.com
P.S.: Want the liberty of working from home as a freelance writer in your PJs, getting assignments via the internet? Click here for more on How to Make $250+/Day Writing Simple, 500-Word Articles. All you need is a computer and an internet connection to get started.

P.P.S.: Did you know that InkwellEditorial.com is the authority site on freelance writing? From retirement to marketing to search engine optimization -- if it pertains to freelance writers, you'll find it here. Pass it on!
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3 Freelance Writing Money-making Tips

I've done three things in the past week that have made me more money -- two directly, and one indirectly. What are they?

3 Ways to Create Passive Income as a Freelance Writer

1. Amazon Store: I added an Amazon store to InkwellEditorial.com. To visit the store, click here. To see how it looks on the site, click here.

It was easy to set up as I blogged about here. The best part of it -- it's passive income. Now that it's set up, I don't have to do anything else.

2. New Blog: I set up a new blog, http://money-making-videos.blogspot.com. This came about because I do a lot of surfing on how to make passive income online. Many of the articles I read tend to have the same rehashed info. So, I started to view videos (on a fluke one day, I viewed one and was amazed at the detail it provided).

So, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a "channel," if you will, of just good videos showcasing how to make money online?" As blogs are easy and free to set up, it only took about 20 minutes (I played around with layout, font, etc. -- it could have taken a 1/3 of that time).

Did you know that you can post YouTube videos to your blog right from their site? Similar to sending an email, you just type in the info and wham, it's posted to your blog (no extra interfaces to go through, links to add, etc.).

Tres cool feature! Technology never ceases to amaze me. So, check out this money-making video channel; I hope you'll enjoy it.

3. Get Listed in Search Engines Faster: This is an indirect money-making tip I got from Paula Mooney's blog. I now submit each new page I create on my blogs and websites by hand to Google -- the instant I create them. Why?

They get indexed faster -- which drives traffic to my site faster (which ostensibly creates a sale faster).

Example: I created my money-making video blog site last Friday night (12/7/07). It was already showing up in results the next day (12/8/07).

Either Google is lacking info on this topic (it was light on results in this category which is one of the reasons I created the site), or the bots indexed my site Friday night or Saturday morning. Either way, I didn't have to wait days, weeks or, pray not -- months -- for it to start popping up.

The add your URL to Google link can be found here. Once you create your page, copy/paste it into the URL box on this page. In the "Comments" box, list keyword/label tags. In my opinion, ths helps to get your site indexed that much faster.

Practically every day I get up, I ask myself, what can I do to add passive income to my bottom line (I don't have many more hours in the day for non-passive income)?

Have some passive ways to generate income online? Send them along to info [at] inkwelleditorial[dot]com.
P.S.: Anxious to start making $50-$200/day as a freelance writer? Visit FreelanceWritingWebsite.com.
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Read Freelance Success Stories! There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell Editorial's newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest the phrase, "starving freelancer." Subscribe to read all previous issues.

Current Issue: How Much do Freelance Writers Really Make? This issue features a roundup of freelance writer income from around the web. Features salaries from a few hundred a month, to a website that earns over $30,000/month -- and the site owner doesn't even sell anything! Subscribe to read this inspiring issue.

Previous Issue. Ghostwriting: Want to know what type of work is out there in this genre? How much it pays? Where to find it? How to go about getting it? Ghostwriter Amanda Evans gives us the skinny on this freelance writing niche.
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