Before you become a freelance writer you might be thinking of it as the utopia of a location-independent business. You just wake up and you make your coffee and sit on the deck with a beautiful view and just write whenever you want, and the money just comes rolling in and you can work from anywhere doing whatever you’re making so much money. Is that actually the reality of being a freelance writer? Maybe, maybe not. Take a note of these freelance writing tips, which sound worthy in your writing journey.

Today I’m going to share with you 10 things, not five, 10 Things I wish I knew before becoming a professional freelance writer so if you are thinking about diving further into the world of freelancing, then you’re definitely gonna want to stay tuned to get these freelance writing tips.

I will guide you in detail on how to build profitable writing businesses online, whether it’s freelance writing, whether it’s through blogging, affiliate marketing, content writing, and so on. If you want to make money with your words on the internet then this post is for you.

So, without further ado, let’s jump right into the 10 Things I Wish I knew Before Start Freelance Writing

1. It’s Not As Difficult As You Might Think.

Alright, first off, and this might just be the most important one out of the gate is, it’s not as difficult as you think it is.

Yes, building a successful freelance writing business takes time. It takes effort, it takes persistence, it takes consistency, but the work itself is not difficult. If you have a basic understanding and a basic grasp of the English language, you can become a freelance writer, so many people get hung up with the technical side of creating portfolio websites or how to get jobs or how to pitch or do all those things.

All that stuff’s easy. The hard part is getting you to the realization that it’s actually not as hard as you think it is. So as you read the rest of this post, you get the rest of these points you’re gonna see that it further back up my case that freelance writing isn’t a difficult thing to do, but you got to do it the right way, there are a few things you should know, and we’ll talk about it today.

2. You Don’t Need To Be An Expert Writer

All right, number two, most freelance writers suck. Seriously, in my head when I started freelance writing, I was thinking, everybody that’s a freelance writer is like a Pulitzer Prize-winning master toting journalist that I have to compete against, but the reality is, most people that are doing that aren’t very good writers but more importantly, even the people that are writers, they don’t know how to properly get work, they don’t know how to build relationships, they don’t know how to pitch, and that is the thing that’s gonna set you apart from everybody else.

So if you learn how to put just a little tiny bit of effort into getting jobs and building relationships in the right way, you’re going to vastly increase your chances of becoming a successful freelance writer.

3. You Don’t Need To Focus On The Niche Too Deeply

Number three, you don’t have to niche down right away, so when you start freelance writing everyone’s preaching that you got to find a niche, you got to niche down, like that’s what you have to do. The reality is, You don’t, you can start out as a generalist, like most of my freelance writing career at least the first three or four years, I was a generalist, I wrote about home decor, wrote about interior designing, about gardening, business, finance and so on.

I wrote about all sorts of random stuff did I know anything when I started about any of those topics?

No, I didn’t, but you can learn.

Here’s the secret.

Here’s one of the greatest skills you can learn as a freelance writer if you can learn how to quickly learn and digest information, and then relay that back in the form of an article, and do that about just any topic, you will be invaluable to basically anybody looking for a freelance writer. Take a topic you know nothing about, learn it quickly, write articles about it.
If you can do that, you’re going to be successful.

So yes, it can be helpful and beneficial and lucrative to niche down, but don’t feel like you have to do it from the beginning, you can make your entire career as a freelance writer, just as a generalist, and make good money doing it.

4. Ask Yourself “WHY” You Want To Be A Freelance Writer?

Alright, here’s a big one that I learned early in my freelancing career. And that is, you need a “WHY”. Why do you want to be a freelance writer, why do you want to do it? Because it’s going to take a lot of work to get this up and running, Like I said, the work is not difficult, but you’re going to probably send hundreds of pitch emails, you’re gonna get hundreds of Nos that can be demoralizing, that can be frustrating. So what’s going to keep you going throughout that whole process?

Why do you want to do this?

For me…

I hated my day job. Suit and tie, a banker, like that’s not for me, I left that job, started my own small business for a living, along with freelance writing for myself and doing my own thing and a huge part of that is due to freelance writing.

I don’t want to go back to a day job, I know what my “why” is. I want to continue to be able to have this lifestyle of freedom, flexibility, and being able to help people start their own businesses.
That is a very intrinsic valuable “why”. So why do you want to do it, you won’t be able to travel more, you won’t be able to spend more time with your friends and family, so you want to be able to spend more time with your kids?

Do you just not want to work for somebody else and have more freedom and flexibility? Really truly ask yourself why you want to do this, and I bet, it’s going to make starting that much easier.

5. Freelancince Writing Is A Numbers Game

Number five, it’s a numbers game. I just told you above, you’re going to be sending hundreds of emails but this is the thing most new freelancers don’t realize and this is one of the things I struggled with early on, is you send like 10 pitches and you’re like, sweet, I just sent 10 pitches, I’m gonna get so much work this can be great. And then, not a single one of those people, emails you back, or they might but not a single one turns into work, and then you send 10 More, and then 20 more after that. Maybe you get a couple nibbles but maybe you don’t.

It is a numbers game.

The more pitches you send, the more likely it is you’re going to get a job, also with every pitch you send, the better you are getting at pitching. You’re learning things every step of the way, you might be trying different tactics and different techniques and some of those might work well.

So then you start doing more of those in the future, which is going to make it more likely that you get jobs. So with every pitch you send, you’re also creating a relationship with every pitch you send, so even if you don’t get a job from someone right away, maybe six months down the line they hit you up and they’re like, hey! remember you emailed me about the freelance writing thing well now we’re looking for a writer.

So once you’ve sent hundreds, Maybe even 1000s of pitches, you can greatly increase your chances of getting work.

6. You Need To Track Down Your Pitches

Alright, this next one, I learned the hard way, and that is if you are not tracking your pitches, you’re leaving a lot on the table. So early on, I would just, you know, find people I create my list of people email and I would email them and if they didn’t respond, then I just left it at that.

But what you should be doing is tracking them, if they don’t respond in four days, send a personalized follow up if they don’t respond, a week after that send another follow-up and keep following up until you get a yes or no, I’m the first person to tell you sometimes I legitimately interested in something that people are emailing me about, but if it’s not a high priority, I might not get to it until a few weeks down the line, so it might be on their fourth email that I finally respond and I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s interesting.

Let’s do that.

So I recommend using a tool called Streak for Gmail, they’ve got a free version of it, it makes it really easy for you to track every single person that you reach out to their contact information if they said yes or no.

And it’s just a great tool for freelancers that are looking to do a better job of tracking their pitches. If you don’t like that you can just use a spreadsheet to track your pitches as well.

7. Don’t Hesitate To Charge For What You’re Worth

Listen to me on this one. It is okay to charge what you’re worth. Say that again. It’s okay to charge what you’re worth. So many new freelancers, they are afraid of asking for money they’re afraid of the sales aspect of it, and I get it, that’s uncomfortable, but you’re going to be much happier if you agree on a price upfront that you’re happy to do the work. If you underbid it just trying to get the job, and then down the line, you’re like oh my God, I spent so much time on this but I’m not getting fairly compensated for it.

Now, When you’re first starting out, this might be a hard pill to swallow, also understand, you might not be worth all that much, understand and be honest with yourself about your writing abilities. If you have a master’s degree in writing or marketing or something, then yeah, you’re probably gonna charge a lot more money, but if you’re just starting this as a side project, you haven’t really done much writing over the last few years, then you might not be making as much money. So be upfront about that and be okay with that.

But also don’t be afraid to charge more just because you don’t want the confrontation that comes along with it.

Charge what you’re worth, and then don’t be afraid to continue raising your rates over time as you build up a bigger client base, that are worth more money.

8. Consider Yourself a Brand

umber eight. you’re not just a writer, you are a “Brand” and the more personality you put into your brand, the more opportunities are going to arise.

And the whole reason they’ll reach you out is that you’ve built a brand around your personality. I put it on my blog so I’m not saying every Freelancer should have a blog, but I’m in a firm belief saying that most doors that have opened up for me lately as a freelance writer have been because of Blogging Regime, my personal Blog Site. Because I put myself out there and established myself as someone who’s both knowledgeable about a specific topic, and a competent writer, so work on building your brand.

Don’t make it this super stodgy, like, Hello, my name is this, and I am a freelance writer and I provide professional business services. Nobody cares about that. Be yourself, inject personality into your website, be a little polarizing.

Not everybody is going to be a good fit for you, so give somebody something to have an opinion about, maybe some people are gonna like you and some may dislike you, but some people are going to love you.

9. Don’t Reinvent The wheel

Number nine, don’t reinvent the wheel, the process of getting freelance writing is not difficult. Honestly, we’ve helped many people get their first freelance writing clients and when I was first starting out I was trying to get a little too cute or a little too creative or I thought too highly of myself, and I wasn’t just sitting down, finding people that are probably a good fit, sending them emails, following up.

I mean that’s basically the process of being freelance writing work, so I was not doing a very good job of that.

So don’t try and reinvent the wheel, the process of starting a freelance business, really it’s not difficult, as I’ve said over and over and over again.

10. Connect To The Like-minded Community

And finally, that brings us to the last thing I wish I knew before I started freelance writing, and that is a community of supportive, like-minded people, which is probably more valuable than anything else.
For a long time I looked at freelancing as a solo endeavor, I was a solopreneur, but really there’s nothing solo about, you need people in your corner to bounce ideas off, to critique your work, to help you find new work to celebrate the wins and also commiserate in the losses. Having that community is absolutely valuable when you’re starting out as a new entrepreneur. I bet you it will be easier if you find a community of other people that are doing this, there are tons of freelance writing communities out there literally all you have to do is search freelance writing a bunch of them will come up, but a great place to start is on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. There is some great freelance writing communities.

So just go to hashtag freelance writing and you’re going to find a lot of positive people that are doing a similar thing as you.
So don’t do it on your own. Don’t reinvent the wheel, go find people that are doing the same thing, go find people that have had success doing what you were trying to do.

I believe it will make the whole journey, not only easier, not only more profitable, but it’s going to make it more enjoyable in the process as well.

That’s all I got for you today. Read these 10 points again (if you need to), and apply them to your writing career. It’s gonna help you a lot and make your work easier than ever.

Cheers!

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