What types of writing jobs can be done on a freelance basis?

Something that I have both done as a freelancer and assigned to freelancers as an editor: covering conferences. You get a lot of experts in a field all in one place, plus a press room to interview them and free education and networking. You just have to find a conference where you know something about the subject and a publication that won't have someone there, and send a query letter.

Anything. People are looking for every kind of writing you can imagine, all over the world. Creative writing jobs are becoming more common in the last couple of years. You can find a number of clients looking for ghostwriters to work on novels, usually based on their outlines. Unfortunately, many of these clients are also offering paltry rates. So you have to do some digging to find the good ones.

Like everyone else said, you can essentially do anything. Grant writing, technical writing, magazine writing, articles, copywriting, editing, ghost writing, blogging, copy editing, research, e-books, informational products, etc.

I strongly agree with the answers above, though in my case I'm something of a specialist having devoted a couple decades to writing about the restaurant industry. More to your point, I might look at a variety of trade publications (print and digital) to determine which rely on freelance writers. It's not terribly hard to come up to speed in the business world.

Here are the 7 examples of making money writing from home: Sell articles: Writing articles and selling the rights to people who want and need content. Make A Living Writing came up with this handy list of http://makealivingwriting.blogspot.com/2013/04/10-best-websites-to-sell-your-articles.html. Creating articles and putting them in a pool: You can give access to clients who want to go through themselves and pick whatever articles they want. You can charge a recurring fee or by the article. Create newsletters: Online or offline, good newsletters with a high readership are ripe for people who want to pay to advertise in them. Affiliate websites: Pick items you’ve purchased, OR (better yet) do research on the hottest selling items online. Write articles about them and put them on a blog. Create affiliate links to the products. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/landing/main.html is a very good example of affiliate links. If anyone buys, you get a commission. Ghostwriting: You write an article or a blog post and charge someone else for it. They can claim authorship of the article. This article called http://priceonomics.com/the-ghostwriting-business/ by Priceonomics focuses on novels and autobiographies, but the same can apply to high-profile bloggers, journalists and more. Think outside the box: Compose poetry for weddings, write scripts for commercials or videos, write ebooks and sell online, write a blog and sell ad space – the sky is the limit. Flip a website: Create a website, fill it with useful content, drive traffic to it and sell it. Depending on the website, you can sell them as high as tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, there is an entire website dedicated to flipping websites http://www.websiteflipping.com/. From http://www.lawrencetam.net/content-writer-for-hire-how-to-get-hired-now/

The most common route to start is through web copywriting. This is a never ending requirement for just about every business. This can include writing the articles for the client blog and then sharing the content for the client on social networks and forums. Try contacting local businesses first. Digital agencies tend to have surplus work from time to time. If you contact enough, you can find constant work. Try local agencies and offer to help write content for their clients: web sites, press releases, newsletters, social groups. I suggest looking at a blog I help update for more leads and sites for finding work. http://thewritejobtoday.blogspot.co.uk/