Starting out as a freelance writer can be difficult when you have little to no experience in the field. Once you start building a strong portfolio of written freelance pieces it becomes easier to get higher paying and more frequent work in the future. The importance of experience means that, sometimes, you need to take whatever freelance work you can get in order to have your chance at higher-profile jobs.
The types of jobs you will have to take starting out are far from glamorous and the wages you’ll receive will most likely not be enough for you to live off. By doing the work no one else wants to do, you will gain experience working for clients, meeting deadlines, researching areas unfamiliar to you, and experimenting with different mediums of writing.
Google is one of the greatest resources for freelance writers. The types of jobs you take don’t have to be in your area of expertise as long as you are confident in your Google navigating abilities. If there’s a job posted to write a 500 word article on “The 5 best exercises for stronger legs and abs,” then write that article whether or not you know anything about fitness. If you have the ability to do deep enough research, finding factual information for the article won’t be an issue.
Being your own boss and getting paid to write is what freelance writing is all about. The problem is that you need consistent and decent paying jobs in order to make a full-time freelance career viable. At first, you are going to need to take low paying jobs that hardly feel worth it for the money in order to gain enough experience to get more work in the future. Normally you wouldn’t take a job that pays less than $.01 a word, but when a job comes along to write a 100-word Halloween costume description for $.007 a word, you’ll want to take it. Sure, that comes out to only $.70, but you just wrote something that can be added to your portfolio.
Taking random, low paying jobs isn’t just for creating a better portfolio. When you show motivation and strong writing skills to clients, you are networking with someone who could give you more work in the future. Creating a well-written 300 word article on yoga poses for a client may not seem like a big deal, but if the client likes it, you could build enough trust for them to give you a higher-profile freelance job down the road.
Ample networking mixed with a strong portfolio/resume is important for finding work throughout most fields. It is especially important in freelance writing since finding day-to-day work is how you rely on getting money to put food on the table and pay your bills. The work you do at first may go unnoticed, but if you keep taking the jobs no one else wants, you will have made a name for yourself enough to have higher-paying jobs offered to you. Eventually this will lead you to finally making a career out of freelance writing.
