How I Earned My First Dollar Online (Through Writing)

Note: I earned my first $250 during my college for a WordPress research project. But this post is more about how I earned my first $5, purely with writing, which I honestly valued a lot.

‘5 Ways to Create Beautiful Nail Art Everyone Would Notice.’

The deadline was 2 days. The pay was 5$. The time was 2 a.m.

I had got my first ever gig and I was brainstorming ideas for a blog focused on how women can take themselves from a beginner to an expert level at makeup.

I’m a guy.

I don’t remember the last time I had thought about make-up prior to that. But I was writing about it. And I didn’t say that I can’t write about make-up.

I accepted the offer and wrote 25 post ideas instead of 10 after negotiation (that was my job — writing ideas for money. I invented that gig).

I was eager as I hadn’t earned as a freelancer before. I didn’t know why the customer chose me or how he found me amid the herd of other freelancers — but I wanted him to hire me.

He hired me after some conversation. I was happy. But … I exhausted myself.

What I thought might require nothing more than two hours, turned out to be a lot of work. I worked the whole night the first day as soon as I got the order and completed the remaining work in the afternoon after I returned from college.

I finally finished the draft which stretched up to 2232 words, edited it, and sent it to the customer.

I kept staring at the screen afterward and refreshed it several times that day until the customer requested for a revision before the deadline.

I typed as fast as I could and fixed the errors, revised the draft, and sent it again. The timer was on and a few minutes were remaining. I sent the revised draft a few minutes before the deadline.

The customer said that it was a nice template — “spot-on like that of Neil Patel.” That made me happy then (Neil was a big deal, you know).

After all, I had put in all my might through that night — searching for make-up blogs, finding how they could be improved, and listing down all my ideas.

Later that evening, I opened my Fiverr account.

The customer had left a review. I clicked on the link in the notification.

“Outstanding experience!”

Five start rating *****

I had my first $5 in my account.

This is how I earned my first ever pay through freelancing. After that, I could believe that making money online was possible.

The only unsaid truth about making money online

The internet is full of stories.

There are people who exhibit their monthly earnings, folks who profit online by teaching how to earn online, and the ones who claim to teach you to earn online although they’ve never earned a penny themselves.

But all this has almost nothing to do with you. Not until you’ve started earning online yourself.

All these stories flourish because they’re wrapped around just one fundamental question — can I make money online?

If you’re a beginner, the only answers you may want to hear are yes or no. If someone tells you a yes, your next question would be how? That’s when you get stuck in a never-ending loop.

The question you have isn’t whether you can earn online.

Rather, you already have an intention to earn online, and you also wish to get started somehow — either by freelancing, starting a blog, or taking surveys.

The unsaid yet apparent truth is that you won’t believe you can make money online until you make money online.

It happened to me. It happens to everyone. It can happen to you.

But for that to happen, you’ll have to try.

There comes a time when you have to stop thinking how the online world works, or admiring those make-money-online blogs, and actually step out to see what works for you.

• You might get you the first gig as a freelancer
• The sidebar ad on your blog may earn you your first dollar
• Someone might just buy your product when you have no idea about how you’d market it
• You may get a chance to become a full-time writer on someone else’s website

Lots of wonderful things can happen to you. Yet, it always seems impractical until it happens. You cannot really predict what might bring you your first paycheck. All you can do is keep trying until you accomplish your goal of making money online.

You can’t start earning online just because someone says “Yes, you can earn online!!” and neither after reading the income reports of Pat Flynn, Jeff Goins, Neil Patel, Copyblogger, Jon Morrow.

There’s just one simple step — start somewhere.

P.S.

All this was four years ago.

I earned an overall $108 during this time with that one gig. Not a huge amount, but the exhilaration made it worth it. I was lucky enough to have a mentor like Ramsay Taplin with whom I worked for a couple of years.

Then I completed my post-graduation in advertising and marketing communications college, and now I’m working as a strategist.

What’s next?

Well, you can follow me here on Medium or visit my blog where I post my perspectives once in a while. My pockets are full of stories that I spill here and there sometimes.

Finally, a question: How did you earn your first pay? I’d be more than happy to hear from you in the comments. Please leave your story below.