Once or twice a day I usually receive an email from an aspiring freelance writer. In most cases, they all have a similar question based around what it takes to make a full-time income. I have said time after time that I really didn’t do anything special to get my career started. Generally speaking, it took a lot of patience, hard work, and maybe even some luck.
Outside of the basics of being able to write, there are three things that every aspiring freelance writer should have in common:
1. Dedication to your craft is very important. If you are going to be successful with your freelance writing career you need to stick with it, day in and day out. There are going to be times when you feel down and out, or want to give up because nothing is going your way. You must treat every client and every project with a high degree of respect. When you are dedicated to your work, it will pay off largely as time goes by.
2. Having the right attitude is essential to starting a successful freelance writing career. If you are not in the right frame of mind, you might as well save your time. The right attitude consists of taking pride in your work, not being afraid of failure, and staying positive at all times. It is not always easy to keep a good attitude, but to be a success this is crucial. If you are negative all the time and are simply working to make a buck, this will show through in your work. And guess what? When that happens, your clients will catch on and you will be out of a job.
3. You have to realize that freelance writing is a business. No, you are not shipping products or making sales calls all day, but this is a business nonetheless. By treating your freelance writing career as a business you will find it much easier to act professionally. Remember, there is a big difference between having a freelance writing business and writing as a hobby.
When I was starting out as a freelance writer, I hung my hat on the three points listed above. And even though I am no longer new to the industry, I still rely on dedication, a good attitude, and a professional approach to my career.
Over the past couple of days, I have been asked by a few readers if I am still using Associated Content. The answer to this question at this time is simple: no. Simply put, I have not had the time to write for them over the past couple of months. Even though I believe that this is a great way to supplement my freelance writing income, I have too many other projects lined up at this time.
The bad thing about Associated Content is that you have to write blocks of articles for it to be worth your time. And of course, writing a block of articles can take an hour or so. With my current workload, taking an hour out of my day to write these articles is not worth my time. Could I make time for this? More than likely. But as of lately, I have wanted to spend more of my day on developing projects outside of my freelance writing career.
For those of you who have not read my Associated Content posts in the past, check them out for detailed statistics. You may be surprised to find out just how much you can make with this service.
To answer the question of how much you can earn with Associated Content, you will have to try out the service for yourself. With that being said, through some estimates and simple stats, I can show you how much I would make if I were to devote more time to the service.
Through past experience, I get offered just around $5/article; sometimes more, sometimes less, but this is average for the most part. Additionally, writing five articles per day would not take me more than an hour most of the time. As you can see, this would work out to $25/day from Associated Content. Over the course of a week this equals $125, or approximately $500/month.
Sometime in the near future when things settle down, I hope to get started with Associated Content once again. It would be really nice to add an extra $500 to my monthly total.
The more freelance writing jobs that you have in the pipeline, the more money you are going to make. So wouldn’t it be nice if the clients that you currently have would start to offer you more projects? Well, there is a simple way for you to turn one freelance writing job into another and so on. The secret of doing this is easier than you may think: all you have to do is ask.
To illustrate this, let’s take a look at one of my business clients that I have been working with for more than a year. The first job that they ever asked me to complete was 100 keyword articles. While these are not the largest percentage of my business, I do write them from time to time. I figured that accepting the job was a great way to get my foot in the door with a mid-sized firm. Not to mention the fact that they were willing to pay nearly $20/article.
Once the first 100 articles were complete, the client expressed how pleased they were with the work. Anytime that a client tells you how good of a job you did, there is a good chance for more work in the future. Immediately upon hearing their feedback, I offered my press release writing service to them. From reading their website I knew that they were distributing press releases on a regular basis, but that they were not as well formatted as they could be.
By simply asking to become their press release writer, I received another huge project. The client hired me to write two releases a week at a rate of $50 for each one. Although my rate has since increased, the company has kept me onboard nonetheless. It has been many months since I started working for them in this capacity, and each week they send me a couple hundred dollars for these press releases.
Set a goal of trying to turn one job for a client into another. By doing this, you will have a better chance of retaining clients month in and month out, while also giving yourself the chance to increase your freelance writing income.
