6 Tips for Freelance Writers

The 9 to 5 office grind is not for everyone; for writers, going freelance is an amazingly rewarding way to step away from that culture and redefine (on your terms) what it means to work. It is a pursuit of vigilance, resilience, and due diligence. The power to live off your words and voice on your terms is not an easy one; it’s a structure built on foundations of hard work, rejection and the occasional sacrifice (time especially). However, whilst at first freelancing might feel like a house of cards that could crumble at any moment; this phase will pass. Like the cowboys of old, there is work out there for a mercenary wordslinger; opportunities to be forged. You just need to be willing to walk the trail to get there. These simple tips are aimed at helping freelance writers find their feet and move past the initial daunting stages.

Know your Target Audience

It is easy to assume but surely you know that age old saying about assumptions and asses? If not, it might be one to Google. Regardless though, you get the gist. Whether a magazine or a website, a lot of work has gone into establishing and knowing their niche and so editorial will have a strong sense of what they will and will not accept. So, it will help a great deal to be on their level.

If you understand this too, it will go a long way to enabling your content to be published on/in their platform.

Do Your Research

The key to good writing is constant reading, both fiction and non-fiction. You grow as a writer then you take new things in and this process never stops which is great. Reading will help you refine your voice and find your identity and this carries over in all aspects of the craft. In doing so, you’ll never find yourself short of inspiration for content.

Naturally, research isn’t just for inspiration. When working on a piece, accuracy is essential. I don’t doubt you’ve heard the term “fake news” thrown about? Sometimes rightly so, sometimes as a garish political tool aimed to manipulate and influence. The thing is that as writers, we can inadvertently contribute to this due to misinformation and misunderstanding we receive too. In doing so, you might lose the trust of your client or reader. Use evidence, cite and link and investigate that evidence thoroughly.

Identify a Gap in the Market

Any and every platform has a target demographic; a niche they are going for. Whilst it is debatable as a blogger whether you need to focus on it, there is no denying that media companies themselves hinge their decisions on this information. Knowing and understanding this is important, so is working out what is the actual niche at the moment and what is just a trend within the niche.

Knowing this means that you can create content with the right audience in mind but add a unique angle or perspective rather than getting sucked into the trend itself. Especially as if you look close enough, you might see that a certain part of the demographic is falling through the cracks.

Plugging that gap will get you noticed and could inspire a whole series of content.

Stand Out

It could come from the blogging, but I don’t see other readers as my competition. I see them as my colleagues. We’re all shuffling to the same goal at our own pace and each gets there in their own ways. I read a lot of what other writers are putting out in magazines, websites and books then try to identify what makes me stand out.

Do they favour a particular narrative style? Opinion? Theme? What do I do that they don’t? Does my voice will meet the intended audience? Why? Why not?

Questions like this help establish what you are offering and why, this is both essential to your content and to pitching for work.

Know When to be Flexible and Adaptive and Not

On the trail to becoming a freelance wordsmith, you will undoubtedly receive feedback. Sometimes it will be helpful, sometimes it won’t. On occasion it will sting, it can even outright hurt; especially after the thousandth consecutive rejection. However, it isn’t always intended to do so.

Your voice shouldn’t be compromised, and neither should your passion. If you stand strongly for something then be resilient, shake it off and move on. When you can and are ready to at least. That said, sometimes it’s possible to stand rigidly behind a piece of work because the time and effort that went into it; not because of what it represents. It is helpful to recognise when this is the case and to ask yourself if making changes could benefit the overall work, help you grow and more importantly benefit the reader.

Blog

I cannot stress enough the overall importance of this to budding freelance writers out there, it is one of the most essential tips on this list in my mind. It builds a living portfolio. Not everything you write will be published on that big-name site or that magazine you love. However, you should constantly be writing content.

It is critical to develop your skills, to have a body of work to point to when pitching and to stay relevant. Blogging can help with this; in fact I would argue that in today’s online culture having some form of online presence is essential and blogging fits writers pretty damn well in my opinion.

Whether as a hobby, a professional tool or as a profession itself you’ll find a wide range of benefits to entering the blogosphere.