There’s an extremely high demand for knowledgeable and talented freelance writers out there. But, how do you know that your skills will actually translate to earning potential for you in a part-time or a full-time career as a freelance writer?
If you already have basic writing skills and are often complimented on the way that you communicate to others, you probably have all the expertise that you need and just need marketing support to help your freelance writing business get off the ground.
You have all the skills you need
Many people who want to become a freelance writer just don’t know how to land their first client, how to effectively market themselves, how to write a pitch or put together writing samples. But you probably already have the sellable skills you need.
Why?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret about business owners – many of them don’t have the time, confidence, or expertise to be able to write effectively. And in the digital age we live in, where everyone is making decisions based on what they know about a company before they work with them, content marketing and proper storytelling and communication skills are essential.
All businesses know this.
This is why they are investing time and money in their content marketing strategy. They need freelance writers to help carry out the strategy because their in-house teams are simply too stretched or don’t have the appropriate skill set and expertise to succeed in content marketing.
Outsourcing Is A Cost-Effective Solution
In many cases, these businesses know that hiring an in-house writer is not affordable. They don’t want the added expense of having to pay for that person’s benefits and having them in an office that has to be rented or leased every single month and it’s not an effective use of time. For a fraction of the cost of hiring an employee, businesses can outsource their writing needs to contractors.
That’s you, working at home (or honestly, wherever you want) in your pajamas, in your bed, at the library, in your home office. You can work from anywhere as a freelance writer.
A Real Demand for Freelance Writing
Many people truly underestimate the demand for freelance writers or they don’t really understand why a company would choose to outsource to a freelance writer to begin with. As I mentioned earlier, it’s all about leveraging their resources.
I’ve worked with many high-profile business owners and law firms. They may have the ability to write but it’s not a good use of their time. Their time is better spent focusing directly on one-on-one interaction with their clients and living up to the promises and responsibilities they have laid out in that contract. It’s not writing blogs or web content or press releases or whitepapers. They turn that all over to me so that they know it’s being handled by an expert in the field and so that it produces a positive, forward facing piece of content for their company.
Those pieces of content can be used in so many different ways:
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Opt-in eBook. You might create an opt-in eBook that’s used to generate traffic to a particular landing page, or encourage people to sign up for a service.
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Blog. You might create a blog that answers critical questions for your clients.
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Social Media. It might even be social media snippets.
There are many kinds of writers and the demand for each is strong.
“If you have a way with words and have often been complimented on your ability to communicate effectively, you have the sellable skills that it takes to become a freelance writer. ”
Why I Am Passionate About Helping You Become A Freelance Writer
As a military wife, I’ve moved seven times in nine years and every time my career as a freelance writer has followed me since I began it. That’s an amazing opportunity to know that I don’t have to pick up and set down new roots and try to find a job all over again. My job follows me. It also means I can work anywhere. I can go visit my family for four to six weeks and still get my work done because all I need is a laptop and Wi-Fi. How many careers can you say that about? That’s why I’m so passionate about helping people become freelance writers.
How I Got Started
I’m a self-taught freelance writer and those skills that I’ve learned and enhanced over the years have helped me to build a full time thriving freelance writing business.
That’s right. Month in and month out, money coming in, amazing clients I get to work with and extreme creativity over the topics that I write about. I love doing the research, writing and editing process and those are all highly sellable skills because you already know the value of effective communication in 2018 and beyond. It’s everywhere, it’s super important that companies be able to clearly communicate their message and their unique value proposition.
As a freelance writer, you can help them do that and get paid for it. Yes, even if you already have a day job and you’re looking for extra income on the side or if you’re looking to build your freelance writing career to the full-time mark. I’ve done both.
I’ve balanced my freelance writing career for a solid year before I launched and went full time. But when I went full time, my income tripled because of the new hours of resources I was dedicating towards growing my business. Since then I’ve worked with amazing companies. I’ve worked on $50,000 ghostwriting projects to edit somebody’s book, I’ve worked managing teams of freelancers for TrueCar and Microsoft and I’ve continued to grow my retainer clients along the way.
Now I’m passionate about helping other freelancers start their journey.
HI, I’M LAURA!
You’ll find all my best advice about building a fulfilling and sustainable business here. It’s where I’ll give you all the juicy details about building a strong digital team or using project management to stay on top of tasks.