The Web is one of the biggest markets for your writing skills. Are you ignoring this enormous market? With hundreds of thousands of merchants online, someone has to write their material. It could be you.

Web merchants need:

* Direct selling sales pages;

* Mini-Web sites (often called "Buy, bookmark or leave" sites);

* Content for Web sites;

* Autoresponders (an autoresponder is basically an automated email message with its own email address. When a message is sent to the autoresponder's address, it sends its message in response. Autoresponders are often created as a series of messages, comprising from two to several dozen messages. These series can be written as e-courses.) and

* Basic copywriting help.

To get work writing for Web merchants, also known as Web marketers, you need to understand what these merchants are trying to do. Selling online has a lot in common with mail-order marketing. Every word you write has to sell.

This may be a psychological block for you. It shouldn't be. Copywriting students have said to me: "I can write, but I can't sell --- can I still write copy for businesses?"

My answer's simple. OF COURSE YOU CAN! Everything you write is a sales job. You're vying for readers' attention, so whatever you're writing, you're selling.

=> Research Internet marketing on the Web itself

Internet marketers, those merchants who own online businesses, are the people who need your writing skills, so you need to research their needs. Type "Internet Marketing" into any search engine, and you'll be inundated with material about Internet marketing.

I've listed a couple of sites to get you started:

Michael Fortin is a well-known Web writer. Reading his site is an education in Internet marketing:

http://successdoctor.com/

Web Marketing Today also has good information:

http://www.wilsonweb.com/

The next step is to create a (small) site of your own. Please don't be intimidated at the idea of this. The entire process shouldn't take you longer than a weekend, at most. All you need to get started is to create a home page for the site, which in the beginning will only contain a bio, links to your portfolio (writing samples), and a price list.

=> Pricing your writing services for online marketers

Copywriting for the online market pays very well. For example, for an online sales page, you can charge around $1500. An online sales page is a simply long, highly informative advertisement.

If you're asked to write a page which is longer than around 1,000 words, you will of course charge more. Some copywriters charge a percentage of each sale made from pages they've written.

There you go. If you're serious about making money from your writing skills, learn how to write for the Web. The Web will be around for a long time, and you'll always have eager buyers for your work.