So you want to become an online freelance writer. You are reasonably good at writing and you wonder just how hard it can be to get a break into that world. Take it from me – very hard initially. I know a few lucky ones who’ve strolled into the virtual world and landed plum assignments without trying too hard. By and large, though, most people who want to make a break into this world find it extremely frustrating and very often just give up. Here are a few tips to make the going easier. Becoming an online writer is easier if you know how – and it can be infinitely satisfying.
First, you need to gear up and here are a few things you need as part of that gear:
- Persistence
- The ability to write if not very well, at least correctly
- A thick hide
- A sense of humour
- A great work ethic
- More persistence, with large dollops of patience
Persistence
You’ll need to keep applying for those jobs. Don’t let anything get you down – not those reject messages, even worse, no messages. That silence can be killing but you have to move on if you want to make it. Keep your nose to your keyboard and keep posting those bids. One day, sooner or later – pray sooner than later – some kind soul who’s also a client (no, they’re not a mutually exclusive species) will give you a break. Hold onto that slender thread of hope and climb your way to a freelance writing paradise – it’s there all right, much as you might think otherwise sometimes.
Writing Ability
If you can’t write, don’t. You’ll be doing yourself and everyone else a favour. Seriously, if you don’t know the difference between ‘its’ and ‘it’s’ or ‘there’ and ‘their’, go write a blog and express yourself. It would be unfair to write for a client and expect him to pay. (That is not to say your blog won’t make you rich and famous – if you have something to say that people want to hear about, never mind what your grasp of the language is, they’ll come and read. Look at many of those technical blogs out there – they could maybe get someone to proofread and edit them but the fact remains that they have a hold on those virtual eyeballs.)
However, if you are going to get paid for your writing, make sure you can write. At least passably. No one’s looking for an Ernest Hemingway on the Internet - but you have to realise that bad writing can distract a reader from the actual content that needs to be communicated.
A Sample Kit
Pack up all those samples in your virtual sample kit bag and you’re all ready to go. You will need 3 to 5 samples – you do not need to include more – clients usually don’t have time to read. The ideal thing to do would be to write five samples - these could deal with a varied lot of topics – then take each first paragraph or maybe two paragraphs and put them together. What the client would like from your samples is to get a feel of your writing style. If you want to put your samples up online, go to weebly.com or lycos.com and set up a free site for your samples. They have user-friendly tools and you’ll find it’s so easy to set up. Or search the Internet for any other sites that allow you to put a free website up. Then all you have to do is to add a URL to that site so the client can go take a look.
Do not allow yourself to be taken for a ride by scamsters. They do abound – even on the writing sites. They advertise and ask for bidders to do a test sample. Say they get 25 bids on the project they have posted. Five are rather bad so they are left with 20. They ask each bidder to do two samples, making sure they give all of them different topics. At the end of the day, they’ve gotten away with 40 well written articles while you’re left wondering where on earth the client has disappeared to!
And where is he? Gone to set up his website that deals with the latest ‘hot’ keyword with his spanking new articles. These scamsters rarely do it to the regular writers knowing full well that you can find out where they have been posted up – what they do is pick on the newbies. So if he asks you for a sample, don’t do it.
