This leads some people to ask: how can I break into the writing world if I don't have any clips? Well, the answer is: you can't. However, for the writer, this is not much of a problem, because she can always create some clips. Writing jobs are landed on demonstrated quality of writing, not necessarily having been published before. After all, we are all unpublished at some point! But if you are looking at a writing job that does demand some published clips, why not submit those that you wrote for the university newspaper? Even what you had published in the high school quarterly can make for good examples of published clips. If you are coming over from another industry, you may have some well-written reports or some content for the company website that you can show. But it is very difficult to fathom that you just don't have any writing clips at all.
With the Internet and ''Web 2.0'' going strong, you can always start keeping a blog if you don't already have one. After a few blog posts, you've got some clips! There are some bloggers who make a good amount of money from their blogging, too, via the use of PPC (pay per click) ads.
For many writing jobs, though, you can just write up a sample piece and submit it to prove your abilities. It's best to write about things that you already know about or are interested in for yourself; this will make your writing flow naturally. But once you have yourself established you can always use your research powers to make yourself able to write about anything. After all, novelists have had hardly any of the experiences that they write so lucidly about.
But another one of the best writing jobs is that of ghost writer. Again, the Internet affords ample opportunities in this potentially lucrative career. Ghost writing sites that employ writers in a pay-per-piece scheme are cropping up as more Internet marketers realize the value of publishing articles to attract prospects and get customers. Many marketers aren't that good at writing. So they pay a ghost writer to write an article for them, providing the writer with research sources, notes, and possibly an outline of how the piece should be structured. In exchange for pay, the ghost writer completes the article and then turns it over to the client, who then has all copy rights and gets to put his name on the piece as if he wrote it. Since the writer doesn't get his name out there through ghost writing, it's not the most fulfilling writing job for many writers. But, it can provide steady work and pay; the chance to research a wide array of different topics; and the chance to build a substantial portfolio which can be used to find other writing jobs in the future.
