Make Money
You Don’t Need to Be a Great Writer to Make Money Writing
That’s because making money writing isn’t really about being a great writer
Paul Wakefield · 31 August 2026 · 11 min read
I used to think you needed to be a brilliant writer to make money from writing.
Perfect grammar.
A huge vocabulary.
Beautiful prose.
The ability to write sentences that make people stop, stare out of a window and contemplate the meaning of life.
Thankfully, I was wrong.
Because there are plenty of people making very good money from writing who aren’t going to win the Booker Prize.
And that’s because making money writing isn’t really about being a great writer.
It’s about being useful.
It’s about solving problems.
It’s about knowing what to say, who to say it to and why it matters.
And once you understand that, writing suddenly becomes a very different business.
Let me tell you a story.
Imagine Sarah.
She’s 34.
She has a full-time job, two children and a mortgage.
She’s been thinking about starting a side hustle for years.
She’s good at writing.
But she doesn’t consider herself a “writer”.
She wouldn’t call herself creative.
She certainly wouldn’t describe herself as a copywriter.
She has never published a book.
She doesn’t have a journalism degree.
And she has absolutely no interest in spending three years writing a novel that 17 people buy.
But Sarah is good at explaining things.
She’s organised.
She’s reasonably good with words.
And she’s spent the last eight years working in HR.
One evening, she starts wondering:
“Could I actually make money from what I already know?”
The answer is yes.
In fact, Sarah has something far more valuable than being a “great writer”.
She knows something other people don’t.
Who could Sarah write for?
This is where things get interesting.
Because when most people hear “make money writing”, they imagine becoming a freelance journalist.
They picture writing articles for magazines.
Maybe getting paid £50 for 1,000 words.
Maybe £100 if they’re lucky.
That’s one way to make money writing.
But it is a tiny part of the opportunity.
Businesses need writers everywhere.
Think about the number of businesses you interact with every day.
Restaurants.
Hotels.
Accountants.
Estate agents.
Recruitment companies.
Gyms.
Dentists.
Financial advisers.
Law firms.
Tradespeople.
Consultants.
Coaches.
E-commerce businesses.
Software companies.
Marketing agencies.
Property developers.
Recruiters.
Restaurants.
Retailers.
Startups.
Professional services firms.
The list goes on.
And every one of these businesses has a problem.
They need words.
They need words on their websites.
Words in emails.
Words on LinkedIn.
Words in advertisements.
Words in brochures.
Words on landing pages.
Words in sales presentations.
Words in proposals.
Words in newsletters.
Words in social media posts.
Words in books.
Words in product descriptions.
Words in customer communications.
Words in case studies.
Words in blogs.
And increasingly, they need people who can take all of that messy information and turn it into something people actually understand.
That’s a business opportunity.
You could write for a plumber
Let’s make this ridiculously simple.
Imagine a plumber called Dave.
Dave is brilliant at plumbing.
He’s terrible at writing.
His website says:
“We provide plumbing services across the local area. Contact us today for more information.”
Not exactly Shakespeare.
But Dave has 20 years of experience.
He knows the questions his customers ask.
He knows what goes wrong with boilers.
He knows why pipes freeze.
He knows what homeowners should look for before hiring a plumber.
He knows how much common mistakes can cost.
He has stories.
He has knowledge.
He has expertise.
What he doesn’t have is the time - or inclination - to turn that knowledge into content.
That’s where you come in.
You interview Dave for an hour.
You ask him 20 questions.
Then you turn that conversation into:
10 LinkedIn posts
5 Facebook posts
3 blog articles
1 customer email
1 website FAQ
1 case study
You didn’t need to know how to install a boiler.
You needed to know how to extract information and communicate it clearly.
That’s a very different skill.
You could write for an accountant
Here’s another example.
An accountant has 500 clients.
Every January, they answer the same questions.
“When is my tax return due?”
“Can I claim this expense?”
“What happens if I submit late?”
“Should I operate as a sole trader or limited company?”
Instead of answering those questions individually over and over again, you could turn the accountant’s knowledge into content.
You could create:
“The 20 Questions Every Small Business Owner Should Ask Their Accountant.”
Or:
“5 Tax Mistakes Small Business Owners Make Every Year.”
Or:
“Sole Trader vs Limited Company: What You Need to Know.”
The accountant provides the expertise.
You provide the words.
And the accountant gets something incredibly valuable:
content that can attract customers.
You could write for a CEO
Now let’s move up the value chain.
A CEO might have 20 years of experience.
They’ve built companies.
They’ve raised investment.
They’ve hired hundreds of people.
They’ve made millions.
They’ve made mistakes.
They’ve learned lessons.
But they don’t have time to sit down every morning and write a LinkedIn post.
You can.
Or, more accurately, you can turn their thoughts into content.
You could interview them once a week.
They talk.
You listen.
You ask questions.
You find the interesting stories.
Then you turn their conversations into content.
Suddenly, the CEO has:
LinkedIn posts
Articles
Emails
Thought leadership
Case studies
Videos scripts
Website content
And you’re no longer selling “writing”.
You’re selling expertise extraction and personal brand content.
That can be worth considerably more.
Here’s where the money gets interesting
Let’s say you start small.
You find one local business.
You offer to write 8 LinkedIn posts a month.
You charge:
£250/month.
One client.
£250.
That’s not life-changing.
But you’re not trying to change your life with one client.
You’re learning.
Then you get another.
£500/month.
Then another.
£750.
Then another.
£1,000.
Now you’ve got four clients paying you £250 each.
£1,000/month.
You’ve created a side hustle from writing.
And you haven’t written a novel.
You haven’t become a journalist.
You haven’t won an award.
You’ve simply solved a business problem.
Now increase the value
Imagine you become better.
Instead of selling:
“I write LinkedIn posts.”
You sell:
“I manage your LinkedIn content and turn your expertise into a personal brand.”
Now the package might look like:
Weekly interview
12 LinkedIn posts
4 thought-leadership articles
Content strategy
Editing
Publishing
Monthly analytics
Let’s say you charge:
£750/month.
Five clients?
£3,750/month.
Ten clients?
£7,500/month.
And here’s the important bit.
You’re not necessarily writing ten times more.
You’re simply selling a more valuable outcome.
Or go in a completely different direction
Perhaps you don’t want clients.
That’s fine.
Writing can become a product business too.
You could write:
An ebook.
A guide.
A paid newsletter.
A course.
Templates.
Checklists.
Reports.
Industry research.
A membership.
A book.
You could even build an audience around something you know.
Imagine you know everything there is to know about golf.
You could create:
“The 30-Day Golf Improvement Plan.”
Sell it for £19.
If 100 people buy it:
£1,900.
If 1,000 people buy it:
£19,000.
The writing creates the asset.
The internet gives you distribution.
And unlike freelance work, you don’t necessarily have to sell the same hour over and over again.
And then there’s ghostwriting
This is one of the opportunities I think is massively misunderstood.
A ghostwriter doesn’t need to become famous.
In fact, you’re often paid specifically to not be the person getting the attention.
You might write for:
A CEO.
A founder.
An investor.
A coach.
A consultant.
A doctor.
A lawyer.
An author.
A politician.
A public speaker.
An entrepreneur.
They have the expertise.
They have the stories.
They have the opinions.
They have the audience.
You help them communicate it.
And the reader doesn’t necessarily know you wrote it.
That’s the point.
You’re behind the scenes.
So what about Sarah?
Remember Sarah?
The HR professional who didn’t think she was a writer?
She starts by helping a small recruitment company.
They need LinkedIn content.
She charges them £300 a month.
She spends around six hours a month doing the work.
That’s effectively:
£50/hour.
Then she finds another client.
Then another.
She now has three clients.
£900/month.
She spends roughly 18 hours a month servicing them.
That’s still:
£50/hour.
She decides to specialise in HR and recruitment companies because she understands the industry.
Now she’s not just “a freelance writer”.
She’s becoming:
The person recruitment companies hire to turn their expertise into content.
She increases her price.
£500 per client.
Five clients.
£2,500/month.
That’s:
£30,000/year.
And she’s still doing this alongside her job.
Eventually she gets confident enough to leave employment.
She gets eight clients at £750/month.
That’s:
£6,000/month.
Or:
£72,000/year.
And remember how this started?
She didn’t consider herself a writer.
This is the secret nobody tells you
The writing itself is often the easy bit.
The difficult part is understanding what people will pay you to write.
That’s the difference between having a writing hobby and having a writing business.
If you sit down and say:
“I’m a writer. What can I write?”
You’re starting in the wrong place.
Instead ask:
“Who has a problem that writing can solve?”
That’s where the money is.
Here are just 25 things you could get paid to write
You could write:
LinkedIn posts
Email newsletters
Sales emails
Website copy
Landing pages
Blog articles
Case studies
White papers
Ebooks
Lead magnets
Product descriptions
Social media posts
Video scripts
Podcast scripts
Sales presentations
Proposals
Recruitment adverts
Job descriptions
Customer stories
Founder biographies
Books
Ghostwritten books
Speeches
Newsletters
Thought-leadership articles
And that’s just scratching the surface.
You don’t need to be the best writer
You need to be:
Reliable.
Curious.
Good at listening.
Good at asking questions.
Good at researching.
Good at understanding people.
Good at simplifying complicated ideas.
And, yes, you need to become competent at writing.
But competent and brilliant are two very different things.
You don’t need to write like Shakespeare.
You need to write something that makes somebody say:
“That makes sense.”
Or:
“That’s exactly what I was looking for.”
Or, even better:
“Where do I buy?”
That’s what businesses pay for.
AI hasn’t killed writing either
In fact, I think it has made good writers more valuable.
Why?
Because producing words is becoming incredibly easy.
Knowing which words should exist in the first place is much harder.
AI can generate 50 LinkedIn posts.
But who decides what the founder should actually say?
Who knows which story matters?
Who understands the customer?
Who knows the company’s positioning?
Who can interview the expert?
Who can spot the interesting idea buried inside a 60-minute conversation?
Who can tell when something sounds like generic AI rubbish?
That’s where humans still have enormous value.
The future probably isn’t:
Human vs AI.
It’s:
Human + AI.
The writer who learns to use AI properly can potentially produce more, serve more clients and build more assets.
You can start with what you already know
This might be the most important part.
You don’t necessarily need to learn something completely new.
Look at your own experience.
What do you know?
What have you spent years doing?
What industries have you worked in?
What problems have you solved?
What do people ask you for help with?
What could you explain to someone else?
Because your existing knowledge might already be your niche.
A former accountant can write for accountants.
A fitness professional can write for gyms.
A recruiter can write for recruitment companies.
A salesperson can write sales content.
A property professional can write property content.
A teacher can write educational content.
A marketer can write marketing content.
A business owner can write business content.
You don’t always need to start from scratch.
You can monetise what you already know.
Writing is one of the strangest businesses
Think about it.
You can start with almost nothing.
You don’t need an office.
You don’t need stock.
You don’t need a warehouse.
You don’t need employees.
You don’t need expensive equipment.
You need a computer.
An internet connection.
A brain.
And the ability to communicate.
You can find your first client locally.
You can find your next client on LinkedIn.
You can work with someone in London.
Then Manchester.
Then Dubai.
Then New York.
Your market isn’t necessarily your postcode anymore.
It’s the internet.
And that’s why I created Make Money Writing
I’ve spent decades in business.
I’ve written books.
I’ve written marketing.
I’ve advised businesses.
I’ve sold.
I’ve built.
I’ve started again.
And one thing I’ve realised is that writing is one of the most underrated ways to create an income.
Not because everyone should become a professional writer.
But because writing sits underneath almost every modern business.
Businesses need words.
Experts need words.
Founders need words.
Creators need words.
Products need words.
Sales need words.
And someone has to create them.
That someone could be you.
You don’t need to be a literary genius.
You don’t need a degree in English.
You don’t need 10,000 followers.
You don’t need to wait for someone to discover you.
You need to learn how to turn writing into something people value.
And then learn how to sell it.
Your first £1,000 might be closer than you think
Here’s the challenge I’d give you.
Don’t think about making £100,000.
Don’t think about quitting your job.
Don’t think about building an agency.
Don’t think about becoming the next famous author.
Forget all of that for a moment.
Just aim for:
Your first £1,000 from writing.
Find a business.
Find a problem.
Offer a useful service.
Get paid.
Do it again.
And again.
£250.
£500.
£750.
£1,000.
Suddenly you’ve proved something to yourself.
Writing isn’t just something you can do.
It’s something you can sell.
And once you understand that, everything changes.
Because you stop thinking:
“I’m not a good enough writer.”
And you start asking:
“What can I write that someone will pay me for?”
That’s a much better question.
And it’s the question I’d start with.
You don’t need to be a great writer to make money writing.
You just need to become useful.
And learn how to get paid for it.
Welcome to Make Money Writing.
I’m going to show you exactly how.
Turn your words into income
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