Going freelance is a step many of us have made, including myself, and, for me at least, it was very intimidating to go from a full-time job that offered security and a stable wage to following my passion for writing into uncertain territory. Thankfully, after a lot of hard work I have found some degree of success as a freelance writer. It is by no means an easy industry though and, having reached the two-year mark of my little venture, I have recently been looking back at the trials and accomplishments that I have experienced since making the jump
That line of thought is what has led to this article. I figured that some people may be interested in my personal journey into freelance writing, so you can consider this a sort of “how to” for getting into the industry. Of course, this is by no means definitive and I’m sure plenty of other people here have taken different paths in their own journeys, so this is more a way to talk about some of the things that worked for me and a couple of the mistakes I made along the way that those who are fresh to freelancing should try to avoid.
The Early Days
Freelancing wasn’t something that I had ever really given a lot of serious thought to. I had a stable job in online marketing and my career seemed to be going well. Then, in the space of a couple of months, my employer practically went bust.
This put me in a difficult position. Again, my first thought was on securing another job, rather than going freelance, but I think it’s here that the seeds of the idea were planted.
I found another job pretty quickly and tried to commit myself to the role. However, I found myself deeply unsatisfied with my position, even though it was fairly similar to my previous role. My mind was wandering whenever I came into the office, my productivity decreased and I was so unhappy that I dreaded waking up in the morning for work.
That’s when the idea of freelancing really hit me. I had already experienced some success writing about videogames for a large, independent website and a magazine in the United Kingdom, but now I thought it was time to really give this whole writing thing a crack and see how it turned out.
This brings me to my first step into the industry, which was contacting my very first employer. They are an SEO/Web Development agency, so I raised a couple of enquiries to see if they had any work knocking about that I might be able to help them with. They did and the decision was made there and then to take the risk and try this freelancing lark. The contacts you have developed during your working life may end up proving invaluable, so if you’re considering freelancing they should be the first people you speak to.
Building Up
Like I said, I had some prior experience with writing for websites and a couple of contacts that I could lean on, but that really only amounted to earning approximately a quarter of what I was picking up in my “proper” job. A good start, sure enough, but by no means enough to get by on.
My second port of call was to start signing up to some of the many freelancing portals that can be found on the web. Elance, which unfortunately no longer exists, was my first choice, and this led me to oDesk, which is now Upwork and, eventually, Freelancer.com. There are a few others floating around, but these are the ones that I’ve found work for me, though the recent changes to Upwork’s fee structures make me a little more hesitant on that platform. I set up more profiles and started applying for work.
I quickly found out that freelancing is all about building contacts and establishing a reputation for being able to develop content that is of a consistently high standard, often meeting tight deadlines in the process. As such, I bit the bullet a little and started taking on jobs that were really below my paygrade just to start building a bit of a rep on these sites. This may not be to everybody’s liking, but it allowed me to lay some foundations and I could soon start applying for more lucrative work.
Unfortunately, my first attempt to do this led to my biggest mistake as a freelancer…
The Major Blunder
Never accept contracts from suppliers who want to take work outside of your freelancing sites and onto Skype or somewhere else that doesn’t have the payment protection plans that such sites afford you, unless they are willing to pay upfront.
I, unfortunately, was daft enough to do just that and ended up writing thousands of words of content for a client who disappeared when it came time to pay up. It was a harsh lesson that cost me almost a month of my early career as a freelancer and it would have been all too easy for me to give up the ghost there and then.
However, after a day or two of wallowing in self-pity and chastising myself for being so stupid, I started to get a little creative. Seeing as all of the content I’d written had been published on various sites around the web, I started copying and pasting chunks of my work into Google to see if I could locate any of it.
I found quite a few of my pieces that way and started contacting web owners to let them know what had happened. Unsurprisingly, most just shook it off, which is fair enough considering they weren’t the ones who had conned me. However, a couple listened to what I had to say and, apparently impressed by the work I had provided, became regular clients of mine, some of whom I maintain to this day, two years later.
So really, this error in judgement taught me two things:
- Payment protection on freelancing sites is there for a reason, so don’t go outside of it unless you’re absolutely sure the client is legit.
- Getting a little creative may help you to make lemonade out of lemons.
It’s not a path I would recommend, but my first big mistake at least helped me secure some long-term contracts.
Dabbling With iWriter
As I started to broaden my horizons, I learned of a little site called iWriter, which works on a scalable pay system whereby you can earn more money as you build a stronger reputation on the site. It basically works on a five-star system whereby your average rating determines the level of contracts that you can take on.
Sounds ideal for anybody with a bit of talent right? Unfortunately I found that it wasn’t for me. The starting pay for articles is very low and the prospect of higher pay is a tempting carrot on the end of a stick. Unfortunately, one bad or middling review can derail your efforts enormously. Now that I’m established, I know that my work is better than some of the ratings I received and many of the clients on the site have very unrealistic expectations for articles that they are paying a pittance for.
It may work for some, but I found that I just ended up getting frustrated and started to doubt my own abilities, so I ditched iWriter and started focusing on the freelancing sites again. I picked up some more jobs and a few of them led to the long-term work that is now the foundation of my career.
Off To The Races
By this point I had started building up a decent body of work on freelancing sites, which seemed to make it easier to get people to pay attention to my proposals. Taking some of the lower paying jobs paid off in this respect, as it demonstrated my reliability and, to a certain extent, my talent.
This leads to another lesson, from my own experiences – always look to the long-term. Regardless of how boring you find a job to be, try to deliver to the best of your ability as a freelancer. You never know what opportunities can come from keeping your clients satisfied. They may send some more work across or could put you in touch with people who can offer you more.
The key is staying open to different types of jobs and being prepared to write about things that you may not find particularly interesting. I started out with a grand vision of writing about videogames, movies and the stuff that I’m interested in, but my early career tended more towards writing web content and articles. I still do plenty of this, as I’m sure most freelancers do, but I now have a few clients who pay me for writing about things I enjoy writing about, which only serves to up the passion and keep me motivated.
A Few Pointers
So now I’m stable as a freelancer, having built myself up and made a mistake or two across the way. Hopefully my story has proven useful to people who might be looking to establish themselves, but I’m going to leave you with a few pointers that will increase your chances of success.
- Always be open to criticism. You may feel like a piece you’ve written is perfectly fine, but you need to recognize that you must always improve as a writer to serve your clients’ needs.
- Listen to new opportunities and keep an open mind.
- Be prepared to work hard. In many cases, freelance content writing involves being able to churn out high volumes of content at speed. Get yourself into a routine and stick at it.
- Consider sites like Listverse and Whatculture, particularly if you have an interest in pop culture. They offer the possibility of higher paydays, plus you may get useful feedback from the site editors.
- Be communicative. It can be a little too easy to let emails sit in your inbox when you have a lot of work on, but this can lead to missed opportunities and angry clients.
- Once you have a few stable clients, put some serious thought into whether or not you want to commit your time to the lower-paying ones. Getting into a comfort zone with them could prevent you from finding better work elsewhere.
- Keep searching. There are loads of sites on the web that offer payment for content in a variety of formats. They may not work for you, but at least take the time to explore them.
- Most importantly, take time for yourself. Personally, I found it very hard to switch off from “the job” at first. Try to reserve one day of the week for you, so you can recharge and make sure you maintain a high standard with your work.
The Final Word
So where do I stand as a freelancer now? Well, I’m making a comparative wage to my previous “proper” jobs, which is what I’d aimed towards when I first started. Now it’s time to see how far I can take this. My body of work has allowed me to start attracting the interest of higher paying clients, plus new websites and networks, like Steemit, offer a bunch of opportunities. I think the key is to keep plugging away while keeping an ear to the ground so that you don’t miss out on new things, but right now I’m pretty satisfied with where the last two years have taken me.
My story is by no means typical and I’m sure plenty of people have different ideas or have taken different paths into freelancing. It would be great to hear from as many people as possible. Who knows, maybe we could share a few ideas that others, including myself, hadn’t considered.