5 Tips for New Freelance Writers and How to Make Money Freelance Writing
An extra $1,000 a month doing something you love is great. Even better, is when it becomes weekly or more frequent. Freelance writing has been a great side income or business for me and I want to share with you how you can do it.
1. Do a Course
Freelance writing is not as easy as most assume. Especially if you want to write SEO rich content or for businesses. They want proof you can do what you say you can. There are writing tips for the layout of an article, size, what to put first etc. Doing a course before getting started enabled me to get paid work instantly.
Much of it comes with practice and the more you write the better you will be. A course will enable you to skip past some of the steep learning curve bad beginner writing is and jump straight to being a writer businesses want to employ.
The course I recommend is Earn More Writing. Created by Holly, she has had an incredibly successful writing career and her Facebook group for course users is amazing.
2. Create a Portfolio
Write, write and write some more. Practice makes perfect, as does having a good portfolio. The more you write, the better you get and the more content you have to use in your portfolio.
Places such as Medium, ScaryMommy and a few others accept content. You don’t get paid but it can be great to get your work out there and use that work in your portfolio.
For me, I had some content on those sites but secured paid work through Facebook groups. My first paid article happened because they saw my writing online and reached out to me.
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Charge
Yes, overseas companies will do articles for $5 but that doesn’t mean that is how little I will work for. I’ve written articles from as little as $50 but most are $150+. Know the going rates for the work you do. The more specialized your knowledge, the more you can charge.
As someone with a finance background, I was able to charge accordingly. The content my first client wanted written was 4 articles at 800 words and quite specific about finances. I charged $1,000 for that and kept them as a client for 1 year.
4. Promote Your Work
Share what you write on your own social platforms and anywhere you can. Be sure to share other content too but be proud of what you have done and vocal about it. The more you share what you write the higher your chances of other clients seeing your work and booking you.
From my first gig, I secured 3 more clients because they saw I was sharing the content as well as writing it. Sharing means their business gets shown to more people and it is better for their business.
5. Keep Pitching
Don’t wait for clients to pitch to you. On the back of my success with securing paid clients, I pitched more. I set up a profile on sites such as Upwork, I joined Facebook groups for writers and set aside time every week to pitch to clients.
Pitching needs to be tailored to the client you are pitching to and have a point of difference. With my experience and background, I was able to pitch to a variety of sites. Then, with these clients, I was able to get those articles syndicated across other sites for those clients. This was something clients loved and meant my services were more valuable than other writers.
It was an extra service I could offer and charge extra for. So keep pitching.
These 5 things helped me secure my first gigs and ongoing work as a freelance writer. What helped you? What questions do you have about freelance writing?
