Remember that feeling you had as a teenager the first time you slid behind the steering wheel of your parents’ car?
You get in, fire it up, and grab the wheel with a white-knuckle-death-grip as you jerk your way around an empty high school parking lot.
You’ve watched other people drive for years — they make it look so easy — but knowing that the brake is on the left and the gas is on the right doesn’t make you an instant Dale Earnhardt.
You have to figure out how the car works when you’re in control before you’ll feel comfortable in the driver seat.
Becoming a freelance writer is a lot like learning to drive a car.
You see other freelance writers making it look easy, but you’re still trying to figure out how to get started. You also have to answer questions like:
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?
How do you make money?
Before you can drive, you need to understand the basics of how freelance writing works, so let’s break it down together.
What is freelance writing?
Freelance writing is the business of writing for other people as a self-employed person. You don’t have to commit to one company as a W-2 employee, and you’re free to take on as much or as little work as you want.
Image via FlexJobs
As a freelance writer, you have a lot of options for what you can write and who you can write for. It’s an amazingly broad profession that you can mold to fit what you’re great at and love to do.
People will hire a freelancer to write:
Blog posts
Website copy
Landing pages and sales letters
Advertising copy
Social media posts
Magazine articles
News reports
White papers
Ebooks
Case studies
Scripts for video or radio
Business plans and reports
Product descriptions
User manuals
Company newsletters
Marketing and sales emails
Press releases and media kits
You have a lot to choose from work-wise as a freelance writer, but don’t let the list overwhelm you. Choose a few options that you know you can knock out of the park and offer those services to people who need help.
Why do people hire freelance writers?
Now, you’re probably wondering why someone would even hire a freelance writer — why not either do it themselves or hire someone full time to take care of everything?
As a freelance writer, you’re offering your clients four things: expertise, flexibility, money and time — all of which make hiring a freelancer a great deal.
But what do these four things actually look like?
1. Expertise
When a company needs some writing done, they need a double expert — someone who both knows the subject and can masterfully write about it.
Sure, they may have plenty of people on staff that know what they do like the back of their hands, but most of them aren’t expert writers. Plus, it would take them away from their current responsibilities.
Instead, the people in charge can hire a freelance writer who’s already a double expert to write anything they need.
2. Flexibility
You’ve heard the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none,” right?
It’s basically impossible for a company to find a writer who can handle all of their writing needs — from emails to blog posts to website copy to instructional guides — with the same level of expertise.
Chances are, they’ll be great at one or two things and just average at everything else.
Instead, they can hire different freelancers who specialize in each type of writing, giving companies greater flexibility to match the perfect person to each individual project.
3. Money
Hiring a full-time staff member to write for a company is expensive.
A new salary, training, equipment and technology, insurance costs, retirement plans and other benefits for a full-time writer will add up in a hurry.
Instead, they can hire a freelancer to work only when it’s needed. Even freelancers with the highest rates save companies a ton of money by getting rid of all those other costs that come with hiring a full-time person.
4. Time
People are busy, especially those making big decisions for a company. They don’t have time to write something themselves and can’t sacrifice someone else’s time within the company to do it. (they’re busy too, after all.)
But they can hire a freelance writer. They only have to invest a little time getting the freelancer up to speed and checking their work so they can worry about their biggest responsibilities.
Finding freelance writing clients
You have to find work if you want to live and love the freelance writing life.
That work comes through relationships — with both people you want to work for and other freelancers.
Building these relationships will help you figure out what people need. Be observant. What kinds of writing do they struggle with? Where can you help them?
As you observe and learn, you can pitch your work. Every pitch should show the client what’s in it for them — how can you make their life easier and business better?
Once you have some work under your belt, you can also ask for referrals.
If you’ve made your past clients happy, you can see if they know anyone else who could benefit from your services. Also, if you’ve built relationships with other freelancers, you can see if anyone has overflow work or any leads that they can pass off to you.
I recently wrote about different ways to find freelance writing clients if you want to dive even deeper into it.
Getting paid for your freelance writing work
Putting words on the page for people is only half the battle to becoming a freelance writer. You have to put money in the bank if you want to make a career out of it.
Image via FlexJobs
You’ll need to be able to send and track invoices to clients and make sure you get paid. There are some great options out there that make it easy and keep your fees low while allowing clients to pay safely (and quickly!) via credit card. You should check out options like:
PayPal
Wave (this is the one I primarily use)
QuickBooks
FreshBooks
I will say, though: Figuring out when you get paid is a bigger conversation.
I know it can be intimidating when you’re new to freelance writing to ask for payment up front, but that should be your goal. You need money to live, and waiting for several weeks to get paid for work that you’ve already done will cause a lot of anxiety. I’m very anti-Net30 because I believe that writers should be paid when the final product is delivered, and also always require a 50% deposit before work begins.
Before you start a project, discuss when and how you’ll get paid with your client and be clear about your process so you can avoid any uncomfortable money conversations with them later.
Putting your name out there
You’ll burn out fast if you have to start from scratch after every freelance writing project.
Instead, start establishing your expertise and building your reputation as a freelance writer.
Social media is your best friend here. Chat with other freelancers on Twitter. Share your thoughts and articles that you’ve written on LinkedIn. If you build your relationships, work will eventually come trotting into your DMs and email.
Wrapping up
You can read about how freelance writing works all day long, but you won’t really get the hang of it until you jump behind the wheel and start practicing.
It might be rough at first, but as you build your relationships and learn how to show clients that you can make their lives easier, you’ll be on the right track to becoming a freelance writer who is in it for the long haul.
Want more insights on freelance writing? Sign up and get them sent right to your inbox every other Wednesday.