Heads up, you Web-savvy readers out there: working from home isn’t a scam. I mean, not always. You’re probably not going to make a decent living spamming message boards or selling weight loss shakes, sure. But there are better options.
Options like freelance writing. It’s what I do for a living, and I haven’t had a ‘traditional’ job for going on two years now.
How does it work? Think of all the web sites you view on a daily basis, including this one. Think of all the products you buy and instruction manuals you read. Think of every pizza, book, and video game you’ve ordered online, well, ever.
All those products had someone writing the copy you read. And increasingly, employers are turning to the web to hire one-off writers to put this stuff together. It costs less than hiring someone full-time, so the gigs tend to pay pretty well – especially after you’ve put a little experience under your belt.
These four tips are not intended to be a comprehensive guide. Instead, they’re just a good start towards launching your own freelance writing side business (or, if you want to get really dedicated, career).
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section. I love talking about my profession and will gladly answer anything you need to know on the subject.
One other note before we get started: this article assumes you have some interest in writing (obviously) and, more importantly, you have some level of skill through practice or natural talent. The barrier to entry in the freelance field is actually a lot lower than you might think, but that doesn’t mean freelance employers will hire anyone.
1. Establish your brand early – and buy some software
Branding is important in so many industries. (Image via Jose Segura from Cartagena, Spain, Flickr)
Why is a personal brand important for aspiring freelance writers? Simple. It shows your prospective clients you’re serious about what you do. You can really work on your branding as much as you want, but for the purposes of this article (and in the interest of getting started quick), I suggest starting with three basics: choosing your two to three ‘brand colours’, designing a website using that theme, and designing your resumé in the same colours and theme as your web site.
For those design purposes – and I’m writing this assuming you know a little about the fundamentals of design – you can’t go wrong with Adobe’s Creative Suite. If you’re planning on getting serious (and you’re interested in offering design as one of your services), you can pick it up for around $20 a month if you’re a student.
I’m sure that, even if you’re not a student, you know someone with a .edu email address. (This is where I’d wink at you if we were talking in person. But we’re not. I’m freelance writing – getting paid to do this. How sweet is that?)
If you don’t want to go that route, the Office suite includes Publisher, a powerful little desktop publishing platform. The problem is web design – which is why I mentioned Creative Cloud first. With it, you get InDesign and Muse, the tools I personally used to build my own branding stuff.
Word’s Web design tools mostly boil down to creating something in Word and, trust me, you don’t want to do that.
Regardless of what you choose – and I promise I’m not an Adobe shill – having a resume and other ‘paper’ branding at the least is critical. The more professional you look, the more likely people are to hire you.
That brings me to my next point…
Resources: Colour choosing guide
Creative Bloq resume design guide
Adobe Creative Cloud (AU)
Telstra Microsoft Office 365 (AU)
2. Find clients
The Web is full of people looking to hire writers for one-off gigs and recurring engagements. It’s all about knowing where to find them – and knowing how to talk to them. You can find a list of my favourite job sources at the bottom of this bullet point.
In the meantime, let’s talk about writing that resumé.
Believe it or not, a lack of writing experience will not totally block your entry into the world of freelance writing. I’m sure my journalism degree and newsroom experience helped me land my first couple jobs – but I’m also sure it wasn’t a deciding factor, considering it’d been five years since I’d written professionally when I dusted off the ol’ keyboard.
The trick is to skirt around the issue by finding job responsibilities that match the position you’re applying to. Have you done high-end retail or professional work? You’ve probably crafted emails to clients and superiors – use that. It all depends on what the job you want requires and how the job you used to work at – or are working at – matches those things.
Remember: people can see you’re a decent writer from your cover letter and resumé. They want to know how well you can ‘BS’, how well you can learn about concepts and make connections between them on paper. That’s a big part of the freelance writing game, after all.
Finding a thread between your job as a fry cook and a blogging position you’re applying for will be pretty impressive. At least if the person reading the resumé knows how to spot a good BSer (and the value of one, for that matter).
To be fair, you aren’t going to be doing hard-hitting, big-paying work to kick off your freelance career without some form of professional writing experience under your belt. That’s part of the reason a lack of experience isn’t the end-all-be-all of your early career.
While I don’t know exactly what Australian freelance employers pay on the low end (I live in the US), I know folks on the Yankee side pay anywhere from $20-30 per article.
Believe me when I say it gets better than that if you advance your career. How do you do that? I’m glad you asked – see you at the next numbered item.
Resources: Freelance Writing Gigs
ProBlogger
BloggingPro
3. BE DEPENDABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
You might have noticed I put that last subhead in all-caps and put twelve exclamation points behind it. That’s for a reason. Besides writing ability (of course), your success as a freelancer will depend on one other crucial factor: how reliable you are.
Obviously, hitting your deadlines is an important part of any job, but it goes beyond that in freelancing. This is a world full of flakes and moonlighters. More often than not, people hiring freelancers have done so in the past, and they’ve been burned in the process.
If you can prove you’re a dependable, reliable worker, you won’t only earn your clients’ praise – you’ll keep getting asked back.
So be dependable. If life gets in the way – and it will, oh how it will – explain to your clients what is happening instead of flaking out and showing up late with your work. Stay in contact with your clients throughout your writing process if necessary.
One tip I’ve picked up over time is to underpromise and overdeliver. It sounds like old business exec speak, but applied conservatively, it can work wonders. Think you can be done by Tuesday? Tell them you’ll have it in Thursday, then shoot for your original, internal estimate. You don’t have to do it every time, and I certainly wouldn’t advise going more than a day or two over what you really think you can do, but it can do wonders in the reliability department to turn in an assignment early every now and then, especially if the place is a one-piece-a-day blog or something like that.
Finally, I’m a big proponent of using calendars and reminder services to make sure your deadlines are hit. I never, ever used a calendar app in my previous careers; now, I rely on them daily. I’ve linked to a few of my favourites in the resources. Feel free to use them or seek out ones that better match your work (and procrastination) habits. Everyone’s process is different.
Resources: oh, don’t forget (free calendar/texting service)
Google Calendar
4. Keep track of your finances
Working all day every day doesn’t matter if you don’t watch your money.
This is absolutely crucial, even if you’re just moonlighting and making a few bucks here and there as a freelancer.
As an American, I’m not so up-to-date on Australian tax code. I assume, however, that self-employed writers need to pay taxes on their work – because that’s how pretty much every country in the world works. There is a link to the ATO’s site in the resources section for those in need of help getting their self-employed service set up the right way.
But this all goes beyond taxes. As I said, responsibility and professionalism are huge parts of being a freelance writer. Keeping your paperwork good and proper makes you feel like a professional, which will help you feel more organised, which in turn will help you improve the quality of your work.
If it sounds a little new-agey or hippieish, well, it is. But it’s also the truth. Despite the tortured-artist image, a good, uncluttered mental space is key to writing in the professional world. You’re not producing art, after all. You’re producing content.
I’m a big fan of PayPal for accepting payments and invoicing. They help keep track of all your financial transactions (including giving you full end-of-month and -year reports), and you can even apply for a debit card that links directly to your account.
If you’re a PayPal hater, you might want to rethink your dislike: A ton of my clients deal exclusively with PayPal, and several others offer it as an option. If you’re like me (i.e. impatient) the difference between getting paid immediately and waiting a couple weeks for a cheque is all the difference in the world.
Resources: PayPal Debit Card
Wave (awesome accounting/self-employment finance app)
So there you have it. If you’ve always wanted to take your writing to the next step but have wondered what to do, or you just wondered how other freelancers got their start, I hope this is of service to you.
There are a lot of other intricacies to the field (so many that I’m in the process of writing a 150-plus page book on the matter), but keeping these steps in mind is a good start to any freelance writing career.
Again, if you have questions or comments, please fire away in the comments section. I’ve been nerding out on the topic of freelancing for years now, and I love discussing it with other people – whether you have a question to ask, a point to argue, or a hot tip of your own to share, I’d love to hear what you have to say.
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