At first glance, the job of a freelance writer may seem quite simple. In reality, mastering this profession can be pretty challenging. Freelance writing is a type of professional activity that can be handled by anyone interested in writing. This profession is excellent for dedicated and goal-oriented people who want to work with a reasonably accessible schedule and the ability to plan their workload. A freelance writer can create a variety of texts: helpful articles, blog posts, technical instructions, advertising materials, and others. If you have chosen a professional career as a writer, you need to know exactly what this profession entails and how to start developing in it.
This blog post will take a closer look at this profession and how to start a career. In addition, we have collected the most popular questions concerning the work of a freelance writer and provided detailed answers.
Table of Contents
A freelance writer works on various types of content for a reasonably broad audience of readers from different industries. Some professionals only create content in a specific niche. Some versatile writers create texts in various categories: technical, fiction, and others.
A freelance writer’s job does not involve working in an office at a specific location. The worker can communicate with a client or employer via phone, email, or other means. A fair number of freelance writers work remotely as independent contractors. There is also a reasonably large percentage of professionals who collaborate with other freelancers or full-time employers from different companies.
If you want to become a freelance writer, here’s a step-by-step guide to building a career.
Before becoming a freelancer, you must research the field in detail. You’ve already started exploring the area since you came across this article. It also doesn’t hurt to visit the websites of various freelance writers and read their biographies, how they got started in this field, study their articles, professional blogs about writing, and other helpful information. Many experienced freelance writers share valuable information on how to become a true professional in the field and build your business. Also, some share secrets about how to write quality articles, where you can find orders, and how much money you can take for work.
Also, to learn more helpful information about freelance work, it is worth looking at various online message boards that help freelancers get jobs. That way, you can objectively understand what’s going on in the job market, which professionals are most in demand, what the employer’s needs are for a writer, and how much a writing specialist is currently earning.
To succeed in freelance writing, a freelancer must have sufficiently developed organizational skills and excellent time management skills. The professional should monitor the work schedule and control which orders are in work, completed, and on hold. It is also essential to keep track of payments received and unpaid charges and to read messages from clients or employers. Some writers working in a particular niche make entire lists of article ideas and constantly replenish them so that they always have relevant topics to write about at their fingertips.
To perform essential work duties, you’ll need a personal desktop computer or laptop with particular word processing software, task management software, and graphic editing software since freelance writers often make an image selection for their articles.
Some writers create personal websites where they show examples of their work. It’s also a must to create a corporate email account, a video conferencing account, and a work phone number. Also, the writer should have a separate bank or e-banking account to receive money from clients for completed orders.
There are certain requirements for writers in each specific niche. For example, online writing involves adding links to other valuable articles and uses shorter paragraphs and lots of headings to make the text accessible for users to read. In addition, blog posts are pretty different from how academic articles are written.
Every freelance writer needs to know how to research each topic, find helpful information correctly, and find sources to create their material. You need to know how to capture the reader’s attention and make the article as attractive as possible and the narrative style understandable so that the person will finish the material.
Even excellent writers should work on their professional improvement. That’s why you need to keep reading different books. It also doesn’t hurt to learn how to build sentences and text structure correctly, expand your vocabulary, and avoid repetition. Read valuable material and updates related to your chosen professional niche and any other information for general development.
After you write your article, make sure you read it aloud. The more practice you have, the better you will hone your skills to perfection.
A freelance writer can create various content – writing business content, creating speeches, scripts, informative articles, doing copywriting, writing technical manuals, journalism, or choosing any other field for yourself. You can register on various topics: food, animals, architecture, science, comics, a variety of products, art, children, and more – the choice is almost limitless. In the meantime, it’s worth stopping at the 2-3 main topics you’re interested in.
Once you’ve built up some writing experience and can allocate your work time wisely, you can expand the list of niches for which you will create content.
A well-developed and well-crafted writing portfolio is essential to getting a job. Develop your website where you can showcase your work. Depending on your desires, the site could have articles from a specific niche or print content from various fields.
If you haven’t finished work yet, you can start writing various content that potential employers will like by publishing it on your site. Alternatively, you can create your blog and publish articles on topics that you are into.
Promoting your writing services is essential to almost every freelance writer’s job. A professional blog and a personal virtual portal will help your marketing plans. In addition, it pays to create and publish content regularly to raise yourself to the top of the search engine results rankings.
You can place on your website a page detailing the writing services you provide, a page about your qualifications, and be sure to add examples of your work. Do not forget the contact information so that the customer can easily and quickly contact you to clarify all the project details.
You can also use social networks and unique business portals where proposals are published to promote your writing services. Don’t forget to add links to your published articles and your blog in your ad. With the help of social networks, you can constantly stay informed about the latest developments in the professional sphere and keep track of the latest job openings. You can also write guest posts that will be published on other writers’ sites or post other writers’ texts on your site.
Virtual message boards offer a wide variety of jobs for freelance writers. Look for these sites online. Presented sites daily update job listings, so every job seeker can find the best employment option for themselves, depending on the amount of salary and job duties. You can also look for jobs on notable exchanges or social networks. Writers can also send their work to virtual magazines and print publications or send their resumes to particular agencies and companies.
Before responding to a job posting or sending out your articles, you should do an excellent job researching companies. In this situation, it is worth checking how often these firms hire freelance writers, and it does not hurt to read reviews of the company, as the employees themselves review it. In addition, it is worth reading the content on their websites to understand what style of writing they like best. Adjust your resume for each job, including appropriate sample articles, stating the job skills listed by the employer in the position.
A freelance writer earns about $51,668 per year. The salary varies from $39,896 per year to $72,354. The pay varies depending on the writer’s self-brand and how successful they are.
For example, writers of technical texts earn more than writers of advertising posts on social networks or novels. Also, the salary amount depends on how many orders the writer will take, whether they work as a private person or for a particular company. Before starting one specific job, it’s worth thinking about how much time you need to do the work: think about how much time it will take to research the topic and write the text.
In addition to the basic steps for building a freelance writing career, we’ve also broken down some of the most popular questions about the profession.
First, you can improve your writing skills and work on your knowledge of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It is also crucial to expand your vocabulary. After getting a knowledge base, you can explore in more detail what freelancing is and what opportunities it opens up. Also, it would help if you decided what topics you want to write on and create your portfolio of example texts. After that, you can move on to the job search. Examine the message boards, choose the most suitable ones and send out your resume. Most employers prefer to hire candidates with experience. At the same time, many pay attention to examples of work. If your writing samples are pretty decent, they might interest an employer, even if you have no experience.
A writer can create articles on entirely different topics. You can explore all the available niches and select the ones that interest you. Create examples of your texts and divide them into several categories in your portfolio. Study in detail the requirements of each job and precisely include in the standards of your work those articles that correspond to a particular niche. Links to your work examples can be found right at the end of your resume.
To become a true professional, it is imperative to have excellent writing skills, research skills to study a topic in detail, and exceptional grammar knowledge to write literate texts. In addition, a writer must have an excellent understanding of the different audiences. An equally important skill is understanding how to run your own business and manage your finances.
