Launching Your Freelance Writing Career

Do you envision a career that lets you leverage your talents as a writer while setting your own hours and picking your own clients? If so, then you’re picturing a career as a freelance writer. Becoming a freelancer doesn’t have to be a daydream. In fact, the difference between people who make a career of freelance writing and those who don’t is actually taking the leap. Getting started is the hardest part. After you take the first step, it may surprise you just how quickly your clients start lining up. Here’s what you need to know about launching your career as a freelance writer.

Let your interests be your guide.

To get started as a freelance writer, you will need some samples of your work to show to potential clients. Because this content should show off your best writing, pick topics that are of interest to you. Your hobbies, work experience, and educational background can all be starting points for creating content that reflects your skills and passion as a writer.

Your writing will be more confident and natural when you’re covering a topic that you’re deeply familiar with and that keeps you engaged. Although every assignment you get as a freelance writer won’t necessarily be about your favorite things, creating a portfolio of content around those topics will set you up to pitch for assignments that align with your interests.

Find the right clients.

There is a surprisingly large array of clients who need freelance writing work. Many of these jobs center around copywriting. Copywriting involves creating sales-driving content that helps companies nab sales for their products and services. Nearly every business requires copywriting in some form, whether on their social media platforms and blogs or for television advertising. Other forms of freelance writing include long-form articles for print or digital publications and even fiction writing, in some cases.

Picking the right clients often comes down to a combination of preferences and experience. In the early days of your freelance writing career, it can helpful to write for a range of different clients, on a variety of topics, in several styles. As you increase your experience, you may decide to target specific niches that you are most interesting to you.

To find clients looking for freelance writers, visit the websites of publications you think would be a fit for you and businesses you think could be looking for writers. An even better way to find potential jobs is to visit a freelance job aggregator platform that gathers job listings from across the internet.

Pitch for work.

When you find potential jobs, it’s time to make your pitch. Follow each potential client’s requests when completing a pitch. That way, you can deliver exactly what they want in the format in which they want it. For most pitches, you will need your writing samples. You may also need a resume or a statement about how you will draft the pieces they need. Personalize each pitch as much as possible. It shouldn’t seem like you’re simply approaching as many companies as you can.

As you start out as a freelance writer, pitching should be something you do daily. You may feel pressured to line up as many jobs as you can as fast as you can. However, it’s important to leave time in your schedule for pitches. A problem many freelancers run into is taking so many writing jobs that they don’t have time to look for clients. When that happens, you’ll be scrambling when your current batch of work is complete. The job of freelance writer involves both writing and pitching.

Build—and rebuild—your portfolio.

After you get your first few freelance writing jobs under your belt, it will be time to revisit your portfolio. Consider replacing some of the samples you wrote before you were published to ones that are now online or in print. Do this process periodically as you continue to succeed as a freelance writer. The more published samples you have, the more likely you are to attract new clients. You’ll be able to demonstrate that your work is good enough to be published by other companies and publications.

Even as you replace your unpublished samples with published ones, consider leaving samples of writing on topics that interest you in your portfolio. For example, if you want to get into travel writing and don’t have any published travel-related work yet, your sample will still be helpful as you approach travel clients in the future.

Writers Work is the partner you’ve been looking for to get your freelance writing career off the ground. We have all the tools professional writers need to establish themselves in the freelance world, including robust document creation, editing, and storage interfaces and an extensive job listing database with customizable search features. You can even create a writer’s profile to share with clients, manage your portfolio, and make pitches directly from the site. Sign up for your account today, and take the first step towards your new career as a freelance writer.