There have been a lot of factors that have contributed to my freelance writing success. In many cases, it was the small details that have helped me to succeed along the way. Too many aspiring freelance writers get caught up in the large details that are on the surface, and in turn forget about the minor tasks that need to be taken care of in an efficient manner.
Here are five rarely thought of freelance writing tips. They are sure to help no matter what stage of your career you may be in.
1. First and foremost, you do NOT have to be a great writer in order to succeed in this business. Believe it or not, I do not think of myself as a great writer. Do I have solid writing skills? Of course. But this does not mean that I am better than everybody else. As long as you have a good command of the English language and can follow what your clients want, you should be just fine.
2. Your marketing skills are almost as important as your writing skills. Even if you are a great writer, nobody will know that you exist unless you also learn how to market yourself. Take the time to try out different marketing techniques ranging from starting your own service related website to cold calling.
3. Hard work will pay off when it comes to freelance writing. How bad do you want to start a career in this field? For me, failing as a freelance writer was never an option. I had no other job at the time of starting, and I needed the money to pay the bills. If you have a sense of desperation, you will be able to turn your freelance writing career into a successful one.
4. Do not worry too much about money during the early days of your freelance writing career. Does this mean that you should work for less than what you are worth? Maybe, maybe not. But when it comes down to it, you need to start somewhere; and for many, this is with low paying jobs. My first jobs only paid a dollar or so per article. I would never work for that rate now, but back then I was glad to have money coming in.
5. Guess what? Freelance writing can get boring. Even if you love writing, as I do, from time to time you are going to hit a wall. When this happens, it is always nice to have another project to work on. And that is why I have started several blogs over the past year or so. A blog combines what I like about freelance writing with other business related aspects.
Can you put these tips to good use? If you are a freelance writer, your answer should be yes. When it comes to freelance writing, the big things do not always mean the most.
Generally speaking, I see myself as a freelance writer. This is what I do, and it is safe to say that I wouldn’t trade this job for any other. But with that being said, I have become addicted to blogging, internet marketing, and internet business as a whole over the past six months. Even though I have several projects in the pipeline right now, this blog is definitely one of the most promising.
There are several reasons that I am confident that ChrisBlogging will continue to move forward with success. First off, the blog is moving in the right direction, month in and month out. I may not be making huge amounts of money, but that is not my main concern at this time. Simply put, I want to continue to build quality content and traffic. In time, both of those will begin to help when it comes to monetization.
If ChrisBlogging is to succeed in the future, several changes need to be made. First and foremost, a unique design is necessary for a number of different reasons. Mainly, a unique design will set ChrisBlogging apart from the crowd, while also helping as far as branding is concerned. Additionally, more monetization methods will be opened up with a new design. I have been working with a designer for the past week, and am excited about making my new theme live sometime in the very near future. In fact, I am going to give a preview very soon so that advertisers and potential contributors can get on board.Â
Another important aspect of future success is the continuation of quality posts. While I have only gone without a post one day since starting this blog, I want to ramp up production very soon. With so much to say about freelance writing and blogging, two posts per day would be much more suitable. Of course, this will hopefully lead to more traffic.
All in all, as long as I continue to post quality articles and help readers, I will feel like this blog is a huge success. And I don’t plan on changing either of those things in the near future.
One of the biggest issues of a career in freelance writing is finding new jobs. Not only can this be difficult due to the competition, but many of the leads that are floating around are “dead.†What is a dead freelance writing lead, you may ask?
I categorize a dead lead as one that has been posted for several days, and really offers no hope of converting into a job. Even though you may still want to apply for a job a few days after going live, your chance of getting a response is quite low. The reason for this is that most freelance writing job posters get bombarded with emails within minutes of adding their job to a popular website such as Craigslist or Freelancewriting.com. In the past I have posted smaller jobs on these sites, and over the course of two to three days received more than 50 emails. As you can imagine, the pool for the hiring party to choose from is quite great. This is why I say that a lead is as good as dead after a couple days.
Unfortunately, there are some leads that start out dead because the person posting the job has no intention on hiring anybody. If you visit a bidding site such as GetAFreelancer, you will see this time and time again. One of the oldest tricks in the book is for somebody to ask for a sample on the topic that they are going to “hire†you to write about. This allows them to get samples from several writers, in many cases 10 or more, and then never hire anybody. In turn they can collect a large number of unique articles without having to pay for them. And since every freelance writer is trying to win the job, the quality of the samples are usually good. There is nothing wrong with sending a past sample, but writing one just to have a chance at a job is a bad idea. More times than not, those asking for these types of samples are trying to get articles for free.
There are a lot of dead freelance writing leads floating around the internet. But remember, this does not mean that all leads are a waste of time. As you become more comfortable as a freelance writer, you will be able to quickly determine which leads to follow up on and which leads to ignore.
