How To Jump Start Your Freelance Writing Career
Freelance writing is an incredibly rewarding job. The freedom to do something you love doing while you are earning a living simply can’t be beat. Add that to the ability to choose your own hours and work on assignments that you enjoy doing, and you’ve got a winning combination. This article is the first in a series of three articles designed to give you an in-depth look at what steps you can take to enjoy an exciting and rewarding career as a freelance writer.
To be a great freelance writer and earn a decent living wage, you need to have a good work ethic and great writing skills. But even people who have these qualities often find it difficult to get their foot in the door. If you are looking for great ways to get your freelance writing career off to a fast start, read further.
Writing Samples. Whether you are trying to write for a newspaper, a magazine, the web, or any number of other areas where quality writing is needed, many people will simply not hire you for a job until they have seen a few examples of what you can do. Put together some great writing samples that are illustrative of the type of writing you want to do. For example, if you want to write well-researched articles for a newspaper, put together a package that includes several articles of this type. At the very least, you should have several articles or other types of writing samples saved in a commonly used format, such as a (protected) .doc format. To create a professional image, you can even put together a simple website that includes your samples.
Always make sure your writing samples are free of any type of grammatical errors and typos. It’s pretty hard to get a writing job when you are trying to sell yourself on samples that are riddled with errors.
Beginning Jobs. You can’t expect to land a gig for a top newspaper or magazine without a significant amount of experience in the field. Even companies looking to contract you on an on-going basis will usually want to see some evidence that other people have had good experiences working with you. To accomplish this, you likely need to pick up some very basic jobs to get your feet wet and build a list of referrals. Consider looking for short-term or quick turn-around jobs, such as a project that includes writing just a handful of articles. For each of these jobs you complete, ask your client to write a short recommendation for you if he or she is satisfied with your work. Most people are usually happy to do this for you if they are happy with your work.
With a few beginning jobs under your belt that have generated great references combined with some winning writing samples, you will be ready to begin looking for regular clients that you can work for on a stable, continual basis if that is your goal. Having regular clients that you write for helps to ensure a stable income.
Where To Look For Jobs. All you have to do is run a Google search for “freelance writing jobs” or something similar, and you will find that there are many websites that are devoted to connecting freelance writers like you with potential clients who are looking for your services. These websites often feature jobs for everything from web content writing like blogs and SEO-rich articles designed to get picked up by the search engines to marketing materials, technical writing, ghost writing for books and e-books, and even resume writing. The list of possible jobs for freelance writers is almost endless. You can check out websites like Elance, Prospect Solution, Freelance Writing Jobs Network, and others.
The other option is to write your own articles or even a book or e-book, and then try to find a magazine, newspaper, or other publish to buy your work. There are some online websites like Yahoo Voices, Constant-Content, and others which are great sources for selling your articles on-line.
Many freelance writers eventually find success and fulfillment in writing both for their regular clients as well as writing their own materials and trying to sell their work through various sources.
Most people have heard the old adage, “Write what you know.” This saying holds significant value for most freelance writers looking to maximize their earning potential.
Why It’s Better To Select A Niche (or Two) For Freelance Writing Gigs
Many would-be freelance writers get hung up on the prospect of being forced into the situation of writing about something they have no interest in or knowledge of. After all, when you are writing for money, you need to take the jobs that you can get, right? As you are getting started in freelance writing, the truth of the matter is that you may need to take some jobs that don’t really interest you. This may be to get some experience under your belt, for the money, or for a combination of both of these. However, after you have a little bit of experience under your belt and some great references, you will have a lot more control over which assignments you choose. At that point, you will want to begin focusing on one niche of the market, and I’ll tell you why this is important.
Standing Out From The Crowd. While there are plenty of writing assignments to go around, there is also a lot of competition for these assignments. This is especially the case with good assignments, where you may be bidding against dozens of people. To make money as a freelance writer, you need to spend your time writing and not just bidding jobs. There is no money to be made in bidding on jobs. Money is earned by completing projects. So, ideally, you are trying to land jobs with minimal time and effort, and focusing the majority of your time actually working.
If you want to stand out from the competition and get noticed by potential clients, you need to have some sort of edge that the competition doesn’t have. One of the best ways you can stand out from the crowd and get noticed is by having experience in the subject matter. Many people can write error-free text, but it’s hard to find someone who has knowledge and experience in a subject – better yet, passion about that subject. Think about how you would stand out from the crowd when competing for a medical research assignment if you had a background in nursing or medicine. Or consider how likely you’d be to make the final cut for ghostwriting a book about college athletes if you had been a college athlete yourself.
Make A List Of Possible Niches. Many writers have led very unique lives and have plenty of life experiences under their belts. Others have had unique jobs, taken special courses, or even have college degrees in unique areas. Think about all of your interests such as camping, gardening, traveling, parenting, movies, video games, or just about anything else you enjoy doing. Put all of these things in a list or simply store them away in your memory, along with your job experiences, education, and other life experiences. These are all possible niche areas for you. When you are searching through possible job assignments, consider applying for these jobs first. Be sure to write a compelling job proposal or cover letter to accompany your portfolio of writing samples, detailing your specific experience, education in this area. Your proposal or cover letter should clearly illustrate your passion for and expertise in this area.
Becoming A Niche Writer. As you continue to focus on writing projects that fall within your unique niche or niches, over time you will build up quite a bit of experience writing in these area. Think how easy it will be for you to land assignments on gardening when you can say you not only have experience as a home gardener but also that you have written extensively on gardening for many years. Once you reach this stage in your freelance writing career, you will have very little trouble getting the jobs you want and earning a great living writing about subjects that interest you.
You may think that focusing on a few niches will limit your job possibilities. However, with so many writing assignments available, you will have no trouble finding enough assignments to keep you busy within a few select niche areas. Finding your niche should not be considered limiting to your career options but rather a step toward furthering your freelance writing career.
As you work on developing experience in your key niche areas, you should also begin working on establishing a solid client base. As discussed earlier, there is no money to be made by simply applying for or bidding on freelance writing assignments. You will maximize your earnings as a freelance writer by spending most of your time writing.
Maximizing The Benefits Of A Solid Client Base
For most new freelance writers, the ultimate goal is to get to a point in their career where they don’t need to worry about making ends meet from month to month. It can be very stressful to worry about earning the business of several new projects from month to month. After all, it doesn’t matter how many projects you try to get. It matters how many jobs you are awarded and complete in a month. But add that stress on to slow-paying clients, and even a new freelance writer who started the job with a big savings account as a fallback plan can end up stressing about finding money to pay bills after a few months. The key to making stable money in the freelance writing business is to establish several good clients that throw you repeat projects on a regular basis.
Look For Stable Clients. Finding clients who need your services on a regular basis is easy for some freelance writers and more difficult for others. As you look through available projects and apply for the positions, keep your eyes peeled for positions that offer the opportunity to continue on with similar projects if the client likes your work. Apply for several of these positions, and do your best work possible. At the end of the project, make sure your client knows that you are willing and able to continue on with other projects. Sometimes in the world of freelancing, you have to create your own opportunities, so don’t be afraid to ask for repeat work. The worst they can say is no.
Manage Your Time. Over a few months’ time, you can likely find several good clients who can work for on a regular basis and who generate a consistent source of income for you. If you need to pick up additional jobs to fill the space between your regular clients’ jobs, you will find that this is easier to do as you gain more experience in the industry. That being said, make sure you stay on top of the projects for your regular clients, as these are essentially the bread and butter of your livelihood on any given month. In most cases, you won’t have a contract with your clients, so they are free to pull their projects from you at any time if you are staying on top of the work or if you start turning out shoddy work. So be sure to manage your time with a priority given to your regular clients.
Expand Your Horizons. For many freelance writers, getting started on new projects often has a learning curve. Even the most experienced writer who is working on a project with familiar subject matter will work at a slower pace on new projects at first. After several weeks or months working on a project on a regular basis, you will find that you can turn out the same high quality work but at considerably less time than what it once took to complete. What this means for the freelance writer who has an eye to their pocketbook is that there is an opportunity to make more money here. When you find you have some free time to complete additional projects, look for another project or two to fill your time with money-making projects.
Getting started in freelance writing can be an intimidating prospect, but it really is quite simple if you have a strong work ethic, good time management skills, and are a great writer. I hope the tips in this article have proven useful to you.
