Retire With Pay

Retire With Pay Fill your retirement years with golden opportunities. Freelance writing opportunities, that is. Apply what you learned from your past career field (or fields) advertising, graphic design, technology, education, health, etc.- to your advantage. As a retiree you are in a great position to not only write on the technical aspects of your previous job, but on your workplace experiences those insights you gained into personalities and office politics, for instance, as well as those skills or capabilities you picked up, multitasking, leadership, organization, photography, social-networking savvy, etc.  Ã‚   If you had your own business, share your secrets for success. How did you get started? Was the business a family affair? What marketing strategies did you use? If you were in a specialized trade, carpentry, electrician, master plumber, etc., write about some of the tools of the trade. Did you have any special licenses or certifications? Were you a licensed, certified animal control worker, for example? If you were, you most likely have enough on-the-job training to write about animal behavior and training. Take advantage of fellow retirees’ former careers. If you have a solid relationship with the former chief executive officer of an environmental waste company, ask him how his company went about obtaining government contracts or restoring contaminated sites.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One way to uncover good workplace technical, experience, and skill, topics is to ask yourself what it is that you would like to have known when you started your career or what you would have done better had you been in a position of authority.   Writing about your past career is not the only way to cash in, however. Consider copywriting/editing for said former workplace; who better than a former employee already familiar with the business, to edit those company newsletters, annual reports, marketing brochures and other company publications? Call your former boss and ask if he needs someone to pick up some of those jobs. I have a friend who, after retiring from his job as Site Safety Officer for an environmental company, continued to write manuals for them for on-site safety procedures. Likewise, if you were in business for yourself you can offer your services as a copywriter for other small business owners. Small businesses typically don’t have time to write a daily or weekly blog, and if a small business has a newsletter, it may also need someone knowledgeable to put together a professional piece.    A word of caution: If you are writing about the technical aspects of a previous career, you must be careful to stay within ethical boundaries of what is or isn’t permissible for you to write about. Also, if you’ve been away from your former career for a while, you may need to sharpen up your technical knowledge. It is doubtful that you would want to write an article on Five Easy Steps to Mastering Shorthand. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But you get the point.    The same basic rules apply to writing about your past career as with any other kind of freelance writing. Mainly, you must be able to provide short feature articles covering specialized topics in your area or areas of expertise and be able to communicate that expertise to a specific audience. You also need to possess adequate marketing skills to discern a particular magazine’s exact needs. You don’t have to have a degree for the field you were in. Your on-the-job experiences are what are important.   The market for your articles in this category are wide open. You can submit to any number of consumer magazines (business, finance, health and fitness, inflight, retirement, etc.) and trade magazines (marketing and PR, electronics, energy, government, etc.) So sharpen up that pencil and get busy. Your retirement years can be your best years ever. Entrepreneur Magazine entrepreneur.com Pays $1 a word Horizon Edition Magazine alaskaairlinesmagazine.com/horizonedition/guidelines/contributor Pay starts at $450 for features; $100 for short pieces. E The Environmental Magazine emagazine.com/writers-guidelines Pays 30 cents a word.