If you are considering a career as a freelance writer or you have just begun exploring the field, there are a few things that you need to know to help you on your journey. Freelance writing is a wonderful job for so many reasons, but it can be tricky to get started. Here are a few tips to help you get off to a great start:

Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Freelance writing isn’t like many other businesses in that you likely aren’t going to find one or two clients who will be your main source of income. And in fact, it’s really to your best interest if you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak. With freelance writing, you will find that clients come and go, and you will enjoy more continuity of income as a freelance writer when you diversify your sources of income. It’s difficult to imagine having stable income as a freelance writer if you are just starting out in this job, but the fact is that if your income is derived from six or eight or even ten clients on a monthly basis, you will never have a panic moment if one of  your clients needs to take a break from your services for a few months, goes out of business, or anything else.

So that being said, it will take time for you to establish income sources from so many different areas. If you can establish one or two good new sources of recurring income each month, you are doing great as a new freelance writer. So you can see that it will likely take you several months to generate a stable income stream. If you are dependent on monthly income, as most people are, don’t quit your day job until you have enough reliable sources of income being generated on a regular basis. This usually means that most new freelance writers will continue to work at their old job while moonlighting as a freelance writer until their freelance writing gig gets up to full steam.

Nurture Business Relationships. As you can see, establishing a steady client base with multiple clients is vital if you want to enjoy stable income as a freelance writer. So one of your main goals as a new freelance writer is to find clients that you want to work with on a regular basis and really nurture those relationships. Even after those relationships have been established, you must continue to nurture the relationships if you want your business relationship to continue. This involves meeting deadlines, doing great work, being professional in your interaction with clients, and simply extending the offer of a continuing relationship by asking for more work.

Find a Balance. As a new freelance writer, it may seem like a distant dream that you would ever be “too busy” with writing projects. You are eager to make money in this business and are trying to take on as many writing projects as you can get your hands on. However, it won’t take long for you to reach a point where you are very busy with work, and  you may even get overbooked. When you work with multiple clients who each have separate deadlines they want you to meet, it can be difficult to find a work balance. However, when you take the time to really plan out your workload as you are trying out new clients initially, you will have a lot more flexibility to your scheduling down the road.

As you are trying out projects for the first time with various clients, ask  yourself, “How would this fit into my current workload if it becomes a regular gig?” If you are fine working in the project now by burning the midnight oil, you really don’t want to be locked into a recurring gig that requires you to work late into the night each and every evening indefinitely. You will find that you have more control over your schedule, including the ability to balance your workload, if you work on projects with a more flexible deadline. If you have clients who expect a constant turnaround of 24-48 hours after you get the work initially, this demanding deadline will leave you little flexibility. However, if you have clients who will give you a larger amount of work to do but at the same time give you a week or two to complete it, you will find that you will have an easier time managing your schedule in a way that allows for other projects to be completed and that doesn’t interfere with your personal life.

These tips will help you get off to a great start in your new endeavor working as a freelance writer!