Are you currently building a freelance blogging or writing business?
If you are, great! It’s both an enjoyable and lucrative career. But it doesn’t have to stop there.
Adding additional services to your freelance toolbelt will make you more valuable to both your current and future clients. It also can keep your work fresh and interesting, and allows you to prospect for new clients in different ways too!
But what services does it make sense to offer?
Do you want to start getting paid to write online, but don’t (yet) have any samples?
Then you can’t get started, right? It’s one of those vicious catch 22’s, isn’t it?
Wrong!
A lack of samples is just another excuse. It’s fear masking itself as a reason you can’t get started or succeed.
So let’s bust through that fear today! Here are four ways you can build up samples – starting right now if you want to!
As a freelance blogger, you need to be keeping a business budget.
Budgets as a whole get a bad rap. People equate them with being poor, living paycheck-to-paycheck or needing to be on one due to not being able to manage one’s own money.
But the former financial advisor in me begs to differ.
Knowing your income and expenses (in essence, all that a budget really is) is essential in being a successful business owner. Here are five reasons why you need to be keeping a budget for your freelance writing business.
As a new freelance writer, it can be tempting to take on just about any client in the beginning. But trust me, you shouldn’t! And I’m going to share with you why.
I’ve done a bit of copywriting over the course of the last year and all of those experiences have been more than positive. It’s kind of my jam – meaning it’s something I’d do for fun (providing I had the free time of course!).
Have you been unsuccessfully bidding jobs via job boards? Then this post is for you!
Personally, I was able to land 90%+ of my clients in the first six months via job boards. Honestly, without them, I don’t know where I would be. I’m a fairly driven individual, so I’m sure I would have found another way. But job boards are where I got a successful start and somewhere I still recommend that newbie freelance writers look for work.
It doesn’t have to (or won’t be) the only way you source clients,
Want to be taken seriously as a freelance writer?
Of course, you do! We all do. If you’re anything like the “average freelancer” though, your friends and family might not get what it is that you do. That’s okay – they don’t have to.
One of the biggest things that hold freelancers back from success is a lack of confidence. If you question your writing skills or whether or not you can hack it in this business, you’re not alone.
Who wouldn’t want to earn more money as a freelance writer? Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Even though we all want to make more money with our writing, you’d be amazed at how many freelancers don’t track their freelance writing income regularly or know how much they really make. And I think they’re missing out!
Being a type-A individual (and reformed number cruncher), you could say it’s in my blood to track all things numbers – income included. This has been to my advantage and helped me to grow my freelance business from $0 to $4,000 per month inside of six months.
Want to know a secret?
Sometimes I don’t want to write.”
I feel guilty admitting this because I recently left work behind to do this writing thing full-time. Since I’ve been successful in establishing my passion as my business, I feel like I should want to write all of the time.
But it’s just not the case.
Now writing is my work.
Having a stellar pitch is what’s going to separate you from the pack. If you’re pitching jobs listed on job boards, you’re potentially competing against hundreds of other candidates.
My pitch has come a long way since I began sending it out a year ago. I bet it has gone through a dozen revisions or more! I used to update it near weekly trying to get it right – now, it’s more like once every month or two.
Part of the reason it has changed over time,