Even the busiest and most successful of freelance writers hit a dry spell from time to time. These dry spells can hit you unexpectedly, or you may see them coming a few days or even weeks ahead of time. During these times, you may enjoy the chance to have a breather from your regular fast-paced work schedule, but most freelance writers will eventually start worrying about where their next paycheck is going to come from. As an independent contractor, you certainly want to make every effort to drum up some more business as soon as possible to your financial worries can fall to the wayside. Here are some tips to help you find more work fast:
1) Keep In Touch. Are there a few clients who you worked for regularly but haven’t been in touch with recently? Now, you probably don’t want to call or email clients who you haven’t been in contact with for a year or longer, but if it’s only been a few months since you last worked for them and they enjoyed your quality of work, by all means reach out and re-open the lines of communication. They just may be pretty happy to work with you and have a project that you can get started on right away!
2) Quick Finds. You can use websites like Elance.com, Freelancer.com, and others to find quick projects to work on. While some of the projects on these sites may be long-term in nature (which wouldn’t be a bad thing for most freelance writers), many projects are smaller in nature and you may be able to complete them in just a day or two of time to generate some quick cash. While you are on these sites, you should keep your eyes open for those recurring projects that are in high demand and that can add some stability to your income.
3) Web Content. Writing web content can be lucrative, or it can be a waste of time if you aren’t writing for the right clients. However, there are several web content services online that are constantly looking for new writers, and most have a simple online application that you need to complete. Then you can enjoy receiving regular work and regular pay while you wait for your other work to pick back up. With most web content jobs paying on the low end, you may not want to continue writing web content all day every day, but you may want to keep these relationships open to fill the slow parts of your day and add some stability to your income, too.
4) Your Own By-Line. There are other websites, like AssociatedContent.com and others, that allow you to get paid for self-publishing your own work. You can pretty much write whatever topic strikes you as interesting at the moment and get paid for your efforts. There are also other sites like Constant-Content.com and others which allow you to post your articles for direct clients to buy. While you can write content of your choosing on these sites, generally your by-line will not be published with your work.
While some of these options are not necessarily how most freelance writers want to earn a living on a day in and day out basis, they all provide you with a great way to generate some extra cash on those slow days or even slow weeks as a freelance writer.
