Freelance Writing Job Opportunities: How To Achieve Success Working From Home
It’s easy to understand why more and more people are turning to freelance writing as a way to make a living or to supplement their income: it allows you to work from anywhere and set your own hours. But achieving success at it take a certain set of skills. The good news is, these are all skills that you can cultivate.
Follow these easy tips, and you’ll be making a living from your home in no time.
- Put together a good portfolio-- Most freelance websites allow you to upload a portfolio. It is a great opportunity for you to show prospective clients both the quality and the range of work that you can produce. When putting together a portfolio, be sure the highlight your best work, and try to show different kinds of work, from articles to research documents.
- Play to your strengths—Because you can find freelance writing work in practically any kind of writing discipline, you should be able to find opportunities that are well suited to your strengths and experience. It is best to focus on these strengths. This applies not only to topics of articles or subject sensitive pieces, but also to the kind of writing. For instance, if you have grant writing experience, specializing in just grant writing can give you a leg up on the competition.
- Build your rates up over time—Freelance writing can be very competitive. And because most of it is bid-based, you may need to start out charging slightly less than you normally would in order to build experience. Then, over time, you can build your rate up.
- Plan ahead—One of the hardest parts for many freelancers in making a stable living from it, is the fluctuating income. It’s easy to find yourself in a feast or famine situation with your income. You can help to offset this by planning head. If you have several jobs going at once, anytime you get ¾ of the way through one, you should be applying for new jobs. That time, by the time the first one wraps up, you’ll have something else lined up.
- Cultivate repeat clients—Finding stable, recurring jobs can also be very helpful in making a successful, stable living off of freelance. Weekly articles or copyediting jobs will ensure that you have a certain amount of income each week, so that even if you find yourself in a lull, you won’t be without any income.