Freelance writing involves creating website and/or marketing content for other professionals or businesses. It also includes writing articles for magazines and other publications, creating video or television scripts, and more.
One of the benefits of this particular career path is you can literally work from anywhere. As long as you have an internet connection, you can do your research and keep in touch with your clientele.
But how do you get into freelance writing if you’ve never done it before? Here are a few tips.
Stick to What You Know
When you’re first starting out, it may be tempting to pick up jobs writing about anything and everything. However, in trying to be a “jack of all trades,” you ultimately become a master of none.
Taking the opposite approach and sticking to what you know not only makes your content more relatable because you can speak with some authority and experience, but specializing in certain areas also enables you to command higher prices because you’re more proficient—thus can create more effective content—in that area.
Compile a Portfolio
Trying to sell yourself as a writer without a portfolio is similar to trying to sell yourself as a painter without any pictures of past projects. It’s near impossible. This is where a portfolio comes in handy.
If you’ve written at all before, just use those pieces as examples. However, if you’re new to freelance writing entirely, draft a piece or two to give prospective clients an idea of your writing style. Show them what you can do.
Be Clear on Project Details Up Front
There’s not much worse than sitting for a few hours as you struggle to craft the perfect piece of content, only to have a client ask for a total rewrite because you didn’t know enough about the project up front. Ugh!
That’s why it’s always important to ask the questions from the very beginning. Questions such as how long they want it to be, whether there are any keywords they want included, and any points they want to ensure it makes. This helps reduce the likelihood that they’ll ask for an entirely new piece.
Think Big Picture
When considering taking on new clients, think about the big picture, or what getting the job could potentially do for your career.
For instance, if you know the client wants a total of 40 articles or is looking for a long-term freelance writer, you might want to offer to do the first piece for free. By having no obligation, what do they have to lose by giving you a chance?
If they didn’t like it, you can each go your separate ways, no hard feelings and no question asked. Yet, if they like what you created, they are more likely to hire you for the rest. It’s a small trade-off that can land you lots of great accounts.
Working from home as a freelance writer is a great career to have. Follow these basic tips and you can have it too!
