“I am very good at writing short stories and poems in Tamil. I am not good in English. I am looking for an opportunity to sell the product of my creative skills and labor through the Internet. Is it possible?” Bala asked me.

“You have two problems: content type and language. You are trying to sell something online that does not have great income potential. People may love to read stories online only if it free. They will pay you if you are a well-known author and deliver the book as a physical product. A few years ago, a world-famous author tried to sell one of his new novels online as digital content. But he did not succeed. However, it is possible to sell information products online. I think you must write non-fiction articles to earn money online and write poems and stories for offline media. When you create non-fiction content in your non-English language, you will find it difficult to market unless your target customer uses that language extensively online. At present English dominates the Internet and eCommerce. So, I think you will be able to earn online if you write non-fiction information articles in English,” I told him.

“My writing skill in English is not good,” said Bala. I replied, “If you think so, either you can improve your written English by practicing it regularly or by hiring a friend who writes well. You would first write in your Language and then your friend would translate your article into English. Then you can sell your content online. Any problem can be overcome by co-operation.”

“I think I can write articles in Tamil and hire someone to translate them into English. What topics are hot in the market? How I do market my articles? Who will buy them?” Bala fired many questions in one breath.

I replied, “Don’t be excited. You will have to do a lot of home work. First you will have to decide your business model. You can create your own website with your own content and attract people to it. You will make money by ad revenue and sale of content. But building paying traffic is a difficult task. You can search web master forum for work offers from website owners for freelance writers. They will pay you per article basis and they will own the content. This is a service business that will help you make a few thousands a month. If you want to own your content, earn money and also remain a self-employed person, you can create a collection of articles and sell them to other webmasters as a product.”

“I am interested in the third option. But why would webmasters buy content from me? Can’t they create their own or just copy others’ content?” Bala asked innocently.

“We are able to buy a copy of newspaper for a Rupee, even though the cost of production would be Rs. 50. Any newspaper comes to us at a low price or a Television program for free, because they are financially supported by advertisement. As providing high quality content is the only way to make readers happy, millions of websites that are supported by ad revenue are always looking for fresh content of high quality. Not all can write well. Besides webmasters are basically marketers. They are not creative writers. Copyright violation is a serious offence and you will not be able to run a website without being caught if you use stolen content. They cannot use free content like public news items because such information is available everywhere. So, webmasters actively seek original niche content. However, if you write something on a general or common topic, you will find it difficult to market them,” I explained.

“I’m very good in making handicraft products such as Tanjore painting and I know how to write step-by-step guide about each product. Will someone buy them?” He asked. I replied, “I don’t know about Tanjore paintings. You have to do a research on the web about niche markets, find out the niches that you are knowledgeable about, create 20 to 30 short professionally written articles on that niche and then market them through websites such as eBay. Keep introducing new packages every month. Overtime you will build a big portfolio of articles and also very trustworthy customers. The key to success is in finding the right niche topic that is in demand. ”

Bala actively sells his content through eBay and makes Rs.20,000 a month. He pays Rs.8,000 to the translators and makes a net profit of Rs.12,000. He spends an hour every day in improving his English with the hope of increasing his net profit to Rs,20,000 soon.