First time writers have a lot to learn about making a living as a freelance writer online, and one of the lessons that many learn much later than they should is that there is more than one way to make a living writing online. If you’ve ever had a job, you understand the normal concept of employment. Work an hour, get paid for an hour. If you’re salary, work a month, get a month’s pay. While this model does exist (and is most prevalent) for freelance writers trying to make a living, there is also another payment model that writers must be made aware of.

As a classic example of the “paid once” model: you write 10 articles and get paid $50. Another example would be to write a list of 50 fun facts for $1 per fact, or you get lucky and get paid $18 an hour, but then you’re only allowed to charge for “x” number of articles and then you’re done. Once you do this work, it’s done and over with and you never make any more money off of it. These are examples of one time payments, and the type of payment that most freelance writers are used to.

But there is another form of income that should be very appealing to freelance writers. In fact, it has spawned a whole new job category of “Internet Marketing.” There is the payment method that is called residual income, also referred to as “passive” income. The best example of passive income in the real world would be royalties, or some type of a system where you get a percentage of a referral’s income.

Residual income is the second option that a writer has. Unlike pay per job, residual income is when an article or some other bit of writing you’ve already done and finished. You won’t get as much money up front, but as opposed to one $10 payment for a single article, that article might make you $2 a month, every month, from now until the Internet no longer exists. Building a passive income is a major goal of many freelance writers because it grants a level of freedom that they won’t otherwise have with a more traditional freelance writing business.

Google AdSense is probably the most common form of monetization, but there are other ad providers, as well as affiliate marketing and even several “pay per view” websites that pay you based on traffic. With this method, as your articles or websites rank higher in the search engines where web surfers can find them, you continue to earn money on writing you finished years ago.

Online freelance writers are in a situation where they can actually earn both types of writing income: both passive and active. This is actually one of the best strategies that a beginning freelance writer can have. The one time payments help you pay the bills, learn your craft, and get an idea of how the markets work. Meanwhile, when you have sent out query letters or have all your bids out for online jobs, you can write for yourself and build up your passive online income. It takes a lot of time for passive income to grow, which is why it’s so important to have a writing strategy that uses both.

The combination of passive income and pay up front assignments can allow online freelance writers to make an excellent living. Many writers have a hard time with this, and the key is to be persistent, and to not give up. The more a writer sells, the better his or her portfolio is and the easier it becomes to get work. Far too many writers have given up in under a year, and so never learn the in and outs that could have made them successful business people, as well.

Whether you are a novice writer, or an experienced freelance writer who simply hasn’t looked at passive income yet, don’t wait another day to get started. Having two income streams like this is just smart business sense, and in a freelance world where the next paycheck is never certain, it’s always nice to know you have several hundred dollars or more coming in the beginning of every single month from your passive income.

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