Is your freelance writing career broke? Do you feel that there are some things that need to be changed at once? If you answered yes to one or both of these questions you should consider what you can do to fix your career. After all, you are in a good place for the most part. You are a freelance writer, and you have the potential to make a good living. But if some aspects of your career are broke, you will not be able to move on full steam ahead until you find a solution.
Here are a few common career mistakes, and some ideas on how to fix them:
1. Not being organized. Over the years I have found that many freelance writers begin to face issues when they get disorganized. They don’t know what jobs need to be completed first, when the next project is due, or what is working in terms of marketing. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Do yourself a favor and make it part of your daily job to stay organized. This is something that will help you better your career.
2. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Many freelance writers want to go from no income to $5k per month in a snap of a finger. Guess what? The industry does not work like this. You need to pay your dues, build your client base, and learn a lot about yourself and what is going on around you. This will take some time.
3. Giving up before you give yourself a real chance to succeed. The potential to become a successful freelance writer is right in front of you. But if you give up before you have a chance to succeed you are going to regret it later on in life. It is never easy to start a new career. This is particularly true if you are going to work for yourself. Giving up is easy, but it is also the quickest way to kill your career and find yourself in yet another rut.
These are three common mistakes of freelance writers, and some thoughts on how to avoid and/or fix them.Â
Are you considered a freelance writer if you only deal in online content? This is a question that showed up in my inbox three times last month. As of late, more and more people are getting involved with writing online content and nothing else. They feel that these jobs are easy to find, and that the pay is okay for the most part. In my opinion, you can consider yourself a freelance writer if you only write online content. You are working for yourself on a freelance basis, and even though online content is only one facet of the industry, you are writing.
With all of that in mind, you should remember this: if you only deal with online content you are missing out on a world of opportunities. Have you had success as an online content writer? If so, what makes you think that you cannot branch out into other areas? I know many freelance writers who started out writing only for the internet, but eventually got involved with feature articles, sales letters, marketing brochures, and much more. It may be more difficult and time consuming to find these jobs, but in the long run they pay well and are fun to get involved with.
I strongly believe that writing online content is a good thing. I have many clients that deal strictly with the online world. At the same time, I write for many off-line clients as well. Having a nice mix of work, both online and off, will give you the ability to earn more money and complete a larger variety of projects.
In short, if you only want to write online content you can consider yourself a freelance writer. But do keep in mind that you are leaving other opportunities on the table if you don’t expand into off-line markets.
Many people are under the impression that they should only discuss business with their freelance writing clients. This is true to a certain extent, but you should also remember that your clients can be friendly on a personal level as well. Even though I am not good friends with any of my freelance writing clients, I do speak with some of them on the phone from time to time and thoroughly enjoy doing so. Sure, we speak a lot about work but at the same time other things come up such as sports, travel, etc.
You cannot become friends with a client overnight. This is something that comes after many months or years of working together. After all, you have to learn a lot about somebody, and speak to them often, before you can really get to know them. I have found that it is much easier to spark up a “personal†relationship with a client by speaking to them on the phone. Email communication is fine, but this is far from personal.
Of course, you need to be careful that you do not cross any lines. You can be friends with clients, but you don’t want this to put a damper on your business relationship. If this is a problem that you have had in the past, you may want to distance yourself in the future to ensure that it does not happen again.
Over time you may begin to develop a personal relationship with business clients. There is nothing wrong with this in most cases. In fact, it is a great way to make new friends while also giving yourself the chance to break up the loneliness of being a freelance writer.Â
