Build a Freelance Writing Career In No Time

Starting a freelance writing career can be fun, rewarding and exciting; however, the hurdles to making that dream possible can be quite high. Writers often find themselves only making enough money to buy a gallon of gas, let alone pay their bills and a house note. While it can be quite hard to get into the writing industry, it really is all about marketing yourself and putting yourself out there. There are many writers who earn a full time income even though their writing skills are mediocre. There is also the case of the professional writer who can’t get any clients. In other words, it is all about your marketing skills, not your writing skills. Here are some ways to get started in the writing industry:

Get a website- I always tell writers to create a website. Virtually, no business can survive without one. You could use free websites, but if you are serious about gaining clients and making them trust you it is better to purchase a domain. You should have a list of things to put on your writing site:

·         Writing Samples- This is going to make or break your business. Because there are so many scams associated with the writing business, clients may be skeptical of buying articles from any website. Showing writing samples or links to published work is a good way to gain trust for the clients. It will also show your writing capabilities and styles. You can sign up with Associated Content or a free blog at Blogger.com to publish your writing samples.

·         Stamps- Verified stamps are also a good way to gain the trust of a potential client. These could be in the form of a Paypal Verified stamp (which is free to get if you have a Paypal account). Some people also use BBB.org stamps. Anything really is a good idea to gain trust of clients.

·         Testimonals- There is still people who look at testimonies when determining if they should purchase a product or service from a third party. A lot of the reasons for this is because people are not as comfortable purchasing things online because of all the scams. If you don’t have real testimonies, you can offer to do a free article for a client in return for a real testimony.

Now that you have your website, you have to go for marketing yourself. There are multiple ways you can go about doing this. This is going to be the rough part (you have been warned). You are going to need to advertise online and offline. In fact, many new writers have found more success marketing offline.

Print out about 500 business cards for free or at Kinkos. Cut them out and hand them to businesses that may own a website. Even if they don’t own a website, they might need to use your writing services anyway. Some business may need you to write business letters use you for editing services. To advertise online, use article marketing, free classified ads and forums to get started.