10 MORE Reasons to Become a Freelance Writer
Have you ever thought about becoming a freelance writer?
There are tremendous benefits to a freelance writing career including being your own boss, setting your own schedule, and working from home. It can also be quite scary, especially if that becomes you’re only income, because then you’re fully responsible for making your own money.
Here are 10 reasons that you should consider when you’re thinking about becoming a freelance writer.
You are independent
The coolest thing about being a freelance writer is you don’t have a boss to answer to every day. Sure, you do have customers, and they have to be satisfied with your work, but it’s very different from having a boss. Clients aren’t staring over your shoulder, give you yearly reviews, and finding excuses not to give you raises.
You don’t have an HR department to answer to, and you don’t have to worry about what the managers think. In a way, your customers are your managers, but they are at a distance, especially if you work remotely.
Useless meetings become a thing of the past, because when you are a freelance writer, you charge for meetings (except for the occasional free consultation needed for presales). Because of that, clients tend to be fully in agreement to meetings that are short and to-the-point.
As a freelancer, you can say goodbye to micromanagement. In fact, if you’re the kind of person who needs constant supervision in order to get things done, then you’d be best advised not to become a freelancer.One of the reasons why freelancers get hired is they get assignments and are expected to complete them quickly without lots of supervision. Your job is to make your client’s life easier, not more difficult.
Of course, being independent comes with a few risks. When you work for company as an employee, you bring home a consistent paycheck. On the other hand, when you’re independent, you create your own paychecks by engaging with potential clients to get them to pay for your services. It can be stressful, but it’s a far different kinds of stress than that typically put on your shoulders by a boss. That’s because you’re in control. If you fail to get business, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough or do the right things to get the customers to sign up for your services. In that case, your job is to change direction, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and get those customers to pay on the bottom line.
And let me tell you, it’s a great feeling when that first large payment from a clients land in your bank account. Knowing that money is something that you created with your own efforts, following your own rules, and delivering a service or product that you created is a wonderful feeling. It’s much more fulfilling than just having a paycheck direct deposited into your bank account regularly.
You can do freelance writer jobs from home or wherever you want
As a freelance writer, you usually work from home or from a place of your own choosing. That’s not totally true, because sometimes clients prefer that you work on site, but I found these to be very rare. That’s because one of the main reasons why freelance writers (and other types of freelancers) are hired is because they work off-site.
Working from home is a completely different experience than working from an office. There are many distractions that can get in the way of getting work done, and those have to be managed. The temptations of having the family close by, the wife and the kids in the next room, can be overwhelming.
If you’re going to be a freelancer working from home, you absolutely must quickly learn to keep those distractions under control. If you don’t, you will lose a good portion of your productivity each day. Lost productivity means less income for you.
You get to determine what to write
When you work for a company, your boss usually decides what you’re going to do, either by setting goals, or, in some cases, by micromanaging you.
When you are an independent freelancer, you get to decide what kind of writing you do, and what you write. Your decision could be as simple as, “whatever the customer pays for” or more restricting, such as “computer security”. You decide what kind of writing you’re going to pursue and what markets you want to access, and that gives you control over your destiny.
You get to pick your clients
When you first start out as a freelance writer, generally you take whatever client you can get. That’s because you need the money, and you’re not experienced enough to have learned how to demand higher rates of pay.
As you gain more experience at dealing with clients, your reputation grows, and your confidence gets higher, you’ll find that you can charge higher rates and be more selective about which customers you choose. That’s different from when you work for a company, where your customers are often chosen for you.
The first time you make the decision to turn down a client is incredibly empowering. It can be scary, because you might need the money, but there is nothing like the feeling of having a choice about who to work for.
I recently was approached by a potential client who wanted me to ghostwrite him a book for him. This was going to be a very high-paying project, but I had to turn them down. It was obvious during the first meeting that he would be very difficult to work with, and the project would be very upsetting. Like I said, he was offering a lot of money, but in my mind there really was no choice. I knew that working for him would be frustrating and very stressful.
You get to decide where to publish your work
Many freelance writers accept jobs from clients. Jobs such as blogging, ghostwriting, and social media writing typically are client based. But it’s also common for freelance writers to write articles and stories which they self-publish, traditionally publish, or sell to magazines and other markets. In these cases, the freelance writer decides where they will be submitting their work for publication, or, in the case of self-publishing, they’ll just do it themselves.
If I want to publish a science fiction story, the choice of where to submit my work is mine. If there are certain magazines or websites that I prefer to avoid, then I can avoid them. I also have the choice of targeting those that are more in line with my own integrity and beliefs.
You can make a good income as a freelance writer
I know from experience that when you’re first starting out as a freelance writer it can seem like that there are no good paying jobs and that money is hard to come by.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The number of clients that need good writing is beyond imagination. Finding those who will pay top dollar instead of chump change is just a matter of filtering the kind of clients that you accept.
The secret to finding and engaging with top paying clients is:
- Being thoroughly confident in your abilities.
- Understanding that you’re worth the rate that you want to charge.
- Being willing to walk out on a project if the customer won’t pay your rate.
- Being able to negotiate.
- Gaining the experience and the credibility.
- Learning to talk and communicate your confidence, skills and experience in a way that impinges upon potential clients.
For example, if you aren’t willing to turn down projects where the client won’t pay your rates, then you’ll consistently accept low-paying projects.
If you don’t have the confidence to ask for higher rates, then you’ll be stuck with low-paying projects.
You see how this works? In addition to the experience and skills, it’s just as important to be confident in your abilities, and to be able to communicate clearly and precisely to sell yourself to your clients.
Freelancing can be a second career
To become a freelancer you don’t necessarily have to quit your full-time job. You can take on freelancing jobs on the weekends, evenings and even at lunch if you want. This is a great way to earn some extra money, and perhaps even start a second career. As you gain confidence, reputation, and experience you can make the decision as to whether you want to pursue freelancing as a full-time career.
You don’t need any special training
Assuming you know how to write, you don’t need to have any other training to be a freelance writer. The important things are that you know how to manage time, how to estimate projects, how to write extremely quickly, and how to communicate to clients. That’s not to say that specific, targeted training won’t be helpful – but it’s not absolutely necessary to your success.
In other words, don’t let the lack of education or training stop you from trying to be a freelance writer. The important thing to do to be a writer is to write. The second most important thing you need to do is write quickly with high quality. To make a living as a freelance writer you must be able to write fast enough and good enough to sell enough of your writing to bring in the money that you need.
In other words, speed plus quality equals income. On top of that, you have to be willing to get out there into the world and communicate with strangers that you’ve never met.
You can set your own schedule
Another great thing about being a freelance writer is that you set your own schedule. You decide when is the best time for you let those creative juices flow and get those words out from your mind and onto paper or into your computer. If you are a morning person, then you can set your writing times to be in the morning. Conversely, if you’re more creative in the evenings, then you can schedule your time to write after lunch or even after dinner.
Of course, the demands of customers may require you to make some minor modifications on your schedule. You’re still in control because you get to choose your clients and work with them about when and where to work.
There are many opportunities for a freelance writer
There are opportunities to write all around you. Everything from your local newspaper to multi-billion-dollar, multinational companies need writers. Virtually all of these will hire writers on a freelance basis because it’s far more cost-effective for them than trying to find and retain in-house employees to do the writing.
All you need to do is define your market and your audience, figure out what kind of writing you want to do, and get out there to find it.
You have the options of self-publishing books that you write, selling social media posting to companies all over the local area, writing articles and stories and selling them to magazines, and even selling the words to songs, scripts for movies, and sayings for greeting cards.
So what you waiting for? Isn’t it time to get started, and create yourself a career as a freelance writer. Isn’t it time to get the freedom that you want?Wouldn’t you like to be your own boss?
The time to get started is now.
Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He’s written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 40+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.
