Do you love watching movies, picking them apart, and making recommendations to your friends? Then, you may have already wondered about getting paid to write movie reviews. For many people, it’s a dream job, which makes it a competitive field to get started in.
But we’re here to show you the ropes. We’ll start by showing you how to write a decent movie review. Then we’ll explain all the ways you can start writing movie reviews for money.
Learning How to Write a Movie Review Online
When it comes to writing and publishing online, movie reviews couldn’t be much simpler. There’s some general advice you probably want to follow, which we’ll get into below. But so long as you approach each review as one friend advising another, it should come out well.
It’s good to open with a brief summary of the plot, before outlining what does and doesn’t work about the movie. Keep everything vague to avoid spoilers and try to build a strong argument for why that movie is or isn’t worth watching
Since you’re writing for the web, name-drop any major cast and crew members involved in the production to help your review appear in search results. Just be sure to insert those names and titles as organically as you can.
Tie everything up with a summary of your thoughts and a recommendation to the reader. You might say the movie is a “blast for action-lovers” or “not worth it for anyone who doesn’t enjoy the genre.” Anything that lets the reader know if you think it’s good for them or not.
Finally, give the movie a rating based on the system your website or publisher uses. This might be stars, letters, numbers, or anything else.
Now, let’s get stuck into how you become a movie reviewer online and earn some money.
1. Write Movie Reviews for Royalties
One of the easiest ways to get paid writing movie reviews online is to submit to websites that pay royalties for your content. The money you get paid depends on how many people read your review. It might come from subscription fees or ad revenue.
You might also hear these sites referred to as revenue sharing or pay-per-view sites.
There’s a range of different sites to which you can submit your movie reviews and earn royalties. They seem to change all the time, but the most popular ones now include:
All you need to do is sign up and start publishing your reviews. HubPages even has a movie reviews category you can publish to.
We want to highlight Cultured Vultures, a website that specializes in content like movie reviews. Cultured Vultures built its site with amateur writers in mind and strives to pay as much as it can for all its content, offering around $2.50 for every 200 views during the first week of publication.
Once your review is online, other folks can read or comment on it and you should receive royalty payments for the traffic it receives. It won’t be a fortune since it’s difficult getting noticed on these sites, but it’s better than writing for free.
What’s more, revenue sharing sites are a great place to start building a portfolio of your work. This is particularly important if you want to go freelance.
2. Become a Freelance Movie Review Writer
Most people can’t expect to earn a living off the revenue sharing sites above. But it is possible to build up a full-time income if you find out how to become a freelance movie reviewer online. When you’ve got a portfolio of high-quality reviews, all you need to do is start answering the calls for writers across the web.
Do a quick Google search for “write movie reviews for us” to turn up all the latest websites looking for a freelance movie reviewer. Of course, these results are bound to change all the time, but we found the following sites looking to hire writers:
There are plenty of other useful Google searches to try as well, for instance, “looking for movie writers” or “paid to write movie reviews.” Any of these are likely to turn up different writing opportunities. You can also set up Google Alerts with these keywords.
Another approach is to visit the websites and blogs devoted to movies to see if they’re hiring writers. Even if there isn’t an explicit ad, it’s worth your time to send an email of inquiry. Let them know you exist, then keep returning to the site to see if things change in the future.
And finally, don’t neglect the plethora of job boards and project sites devoted to helping freelancers find work. We’re talking about sites like Upwork and Fiverr or job boards like ProBlogger.
These sites run the entire gamut of subject matter, but there are clients out there looking to hire movie reviewers. Of course, you could always write for yourself instead.
3. Monetize Your Own Website
There’s nothing to stop you from building a new website to host your own movie reviews, then earning money from it through monetization schemes. This has proven to be an effective way for lots of people to earn a living across a range of different subjects.
Although that’s not to say it’s easy.
In fact, going down this route demands a lot of other skills alongside your writing ability, particularly marketing and research. It isn’t always easy finding out how to make money with a movie blog.
You can build a website at little-to-no-cost with services WordPress or Squarespace. Once you get up and running, find a way to drive people to your site through ads, word of mouth, or search engine optimization.
One of the most common approaches to creating revenue from your audience is by converting visitors into sales. This is a popular approach for any kind of review because you can use an Amazon affiliate link to encourage your readers to buy the product you’re writing about. All you need to do is sign up for the Amazon Affiliate Program and link your reviews to the Blu-Ray, DVD, or digital download for that movie.
Another great way to get paid for the movie reviews you write is to use Google Adsense on your website. These widgets work with Google’s enormous network of advertisers to serve up the most relevant ads to your readers. You can block ads you don’t like, choose where they appear, and pick the types of ads that work best with your site.
If you don’t want to go down the advertising route, you could always set up a Patreon account and ask readers to support you directly. A lot of writers feel more comfortable with this form of monetization.
Consider Starting a YouTube Channel Instead
Getting paid to write movie reviews is an exciting way to make a living. But remember that written reviews only account for a small part of the market, hundreds of thousands of people watch movie reviews on YouTube instead.
Consider starting your own YouTube channel to share video movie reviews. You could do this alongside the ones you write. YouTube is a great way to build your personal brand, earn some extra money, and find a passionate audience for your work.
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