Today I’m answering the popular question of how to become a freelance writer expert fast.
Experience
There are a number of different ways you can become an expert and learn your craft, as well as a particular industry. What I recommend to become a freelance writer expert fast, is to take a look at the experience you already have. There’s a good chance that whether in school, in your job, in volunteer opportunities or your hobbies, you have specialized knowledge that can be used to translate into a freelance writing career.
If you want to become a freelance writer expert fast, you should capitalize on the experience and knowledge that you already have in the field. For example, when I first got started with my freelance writing career, I focused on writing for the legal and insurance industries. Why? Simply because I had been working in those industries as a day job for years, so I knew the common terminology. I knew the marketplace and the people who were likely to need the most help in those particular industries. That’s a really powerful way to give yourself a leg up. You instantly brand yourself as a niche expert and a freelance writer expert too.
Skillsets
Now, let’s talk a little bit about particular projects. Here I recommend thinking about your best skillsets that you bring to the table. Are you the type of person who really crushes it with long-term gigs and opportunities like writing huge papers for your college classes? Or are you a person who writes really punchy, funny social media quips? These are two different ends of the freelance writer spectrum. You want to choose the type of projects that most appeal to you and speak to your skillsets.
For example, I’m better with the sort of in-between projects: writing blogs that are between 500 and 1500 words. I can write them relatively quickly, I enjoy doing them and it’s just enough space to convey the information I need to about my clients. Writing longer projects and taking on bigger projects can be really difficult for me because I have to break those down into 40 or 50 smaller steps and milestones. For me, I found that the sweet spot is blogging. For you, it really depends on the type of projects you like working on most.
What Do You Want?
When you’re interested in becoming a freelance writer expert fast, the first thing you need to do is to think about what it is you want to see out of your freelance writing business. Most of us come into the freelance writing world as former employees, meaning that we have that employee mindset. We’re waiting for somebody else to tell us what to do.
But you’re building your own business here, so it’s time to think about where you will excel the most and where you have the most interest. If you can combine those two things, you’ll have an excellent idea of where to go forward with your freelance writing niche and you’ll be able to brand yourself as an industry or project-based expert.
I mostly take on writing blogs and web content for attorneys. I have niched myself by industry and I’ve also niched myself by the type of project I typically work on. I did that simply by figuring out what I was best at doing, what was the easiest for me to do, and where I had the most expertise or background.
Take Action
You too can become a freelance writer expert fast when you sit down and take action.
What I would encourage you to do, as your action step for this particular post, is to list all of the different industries in which you have had experience. Everything counts: volunteer work, time in school, hobbies, it all counts.
I also want you to sit back and reflect on the written pieces that you’ve done in the past that you enjoyed the most. Was it shorter pieces, was it writing an email newsletter, was it sending off a blog to somebody, or do you really enjoy the type of longer style pieces because you can get the most out of those? It really depends on you and what you find to be the most beneficial for you and right in your sweet spot.
Educate Yourself
The other thing I can recommend regardless of what niche or industry you choose, is to educate yourself. Absorb as many things as possible to become a freelance writer expert fast.
The way that I became a freelance writer expert fast, is I found other people who had built what I wanted to build – a full-time freelance business – and I learned directly from them.
Finding a mentor who has already done what you would like to do is a great way to fast-track your success. Not only does the mentor help you build your business that’s already a successful and proven business with somebody else, but they’ll also help you avoid a lot of the common obstacles and missteps that people can make. All the lessons that I learned trial-by-fire, I now help my students avoid as much as possible.
To become a freelance writer expert fast, it begins by thinking about what your greatest interests are and how you would like to proceed. Then educate yourself and absorb as much information as possible from people who have already built what you wanted to build.
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HI, I’M LAURA!
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