Q&A: How to get paid for writing

As I recently wrote about PhD candidate with a side hustle, I received a follow-up question:

Good. I have read this article Eva and found it interesting indeed. In my case, I have undertaken part-time classes for undergraduate students in the Engineering department. I have found it enriching in improving my speech in english and writing well constructed sentences. I seek your guide on paid writing, a side hustle that I have craved for a while without getting how? Your assistance will be highly appreciated Eva.

The first step to get paid writing gigs is to build up a portfolio. For example, you can write a couple of guest posts for blogs for free, to have these samples of your writing in your portfolio.

The second step is then to get paid for writing. Here are a few ideas that you could explore:

1. Write for industry publications. An industry publication could pay you a small fee to carry out research (typically, a literature review) of the state of the art on a certain topic in your field, and write an article in accessible and practical language.
2. Write for magazines. You could send in stories or articles to magazines and see if they accept the contribution in the first place, and would be willing to pay to publish your content in the second place.
3. Write for blogs or websites. If you are building your writing portfolio, you may find that websites or blogs approach you to ask if you can create content for them for a fee. You could either be writing on topics related to your studies and career, or on topics related to academia and student life.
4. Write for your university. Your university also needs content creators, and they may have opportunities to outsource some of this content creation to their student body.

Have you landed paid writing gigs? How did you find these?