Getting Started In Freelance Writing

March 2, 2009 - PRLog -- To coincide with the online publication of “Starting Your Own Business” – a book about starting your own business – HowTo.co.uk takes a look at self-employment.

Starting a career in freelance writing for magazines, journals or any other medium, involves much more than just writing. It's a given that you should write every day, to hone your skills and improve your mastery of writing. However, if you want to be a successful freelance writer, you will need to let people know you are there. That means learning to promote yourself as a freelance writer.

Getting A Presence Online

The first thing you need is a place where people can find you online. That means getting a website or blog. A blog is dynamic, which makes it a better option for a freelance writer. With a blog, you can create pages that show your resume, your contact details and some personal information to bring you to life for your clients. You can also easily update the blog with examples of your writing and links to your published work. In the long run, it is better to buy your own domain name (perhaps based on the name you use for writing). However, when you are starting out, using a free blog on Blogger or Wordpress.com will work too.

How To Get Clips Quickly

The second thing to tackle is getting those examples of work. This can seem daunting to a new freelance writer. After all, most editors want to see published work before they will give you a commission, but how can you get some clips if no one will take a chance on you. This is another reason why it's good to have a blog. Pick some topics that interest you, do your research and write the best articles you can manage. Then post them on your blog.

Article Marketing

Another option is to use that same approach to do some article marketing. This is a form of promotion that relies on using articles to drive traffic to your freelance writing site. This is a win-win proposition for a freelance writer. When you submit articles to an article marketing site, examples of your work will be published on several other sites. In addition, your author bio, with a link to your site, will also be reproduced. When people search for freelance writers your name may come up, resulting in a writing commission.


Self Promotion

There are thousands of freelance writers out there, so you need to do one more thing to make yourself stand out. That's self promotion. There are many forums and blogs where other writers hang out. Pick a few to join and you will get job leads, career advice and more. You will also make contact with clients looking to hire writers, as many of them use these venues. Remember that any comment or posting you make may appear in the search engines and may be visible to potential clients, so make sure everything you write is a good advertisement for your writing services. This is not about a hard sell, but about making sure that your spelling, punctuation and grammar are correct and that your tone is professional.

Following these steps will make it easy for you to launch a successful career as a freelance writer.

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