Freelancing 101: Where To Start?

If you’re interested in finding work as a writer, whether as a freelancer or in a full-time job, you’ve probably come across sites in your job search that make some pretty sketchy claims about the money that can be made from freelance writing. In an email I received today, one reader summed up perfectly the anxiety that many, many writers feel:

So my school is finally forcing me out the door with my degree.  I have loved school for so long that I don’t want to leave, which is why I plan on going on to graduate school, but first I am taking at least one year off.  Truth be told, I want to be a writer.  But, who doesn’t in our area?  I’ve looked at some of these freelance websites, but it seems like a scam to me.  I don’t want to pay to do work.  Where should I start?  I have 3 months left in college, and I’m beginning to get nervous.

In my view, this writer is smart to be suspicious of the claims she’s reading on those sites. But if those companies are a waste of time, where should she and other writers like her look for work? From my experience, what I’ve found works best is following these four rules:

Get Specific

When you’re looking for work as a freelance writer, especially as one starting out without much experience under your belt, you need to have as concrete an idea as possible of the kind(s) of writing you want to do. Do you want to write feature articles for magazines and newspapers? Do you want to write advertisements for print or electronic media like radio and television? Could you be happy doing far less glamorous (but often far more lucrative) writing work like annual reports and other corporate communications?

Getting specific helps you focus your time and energy on finding, contacting and developing relationships with the people you’ll need to meet in order to do the kinds of writing you want to do. Think about what you’re good at, and the kinds of writing you really enjoy doing. When I worked as a freelance magazine writer in recent years, I absolutely loved interviewing people whom I’d never meet in my daily life, learning about their lives, and weaving together the stories I’d write about them based on my research.

On the other hand, you might find writing pithier, shorter forms of writing more to your liking, and you might like to brainstorm your ideas and material exclusively from your imagination. If so, you might find writing advertising copy a better match with your strengths as a writer. Think carefully about what you enjoy doing — not just the finished product, but how much you enjoy the process of writing it — to find out the area(s) of writing that might be the best match for you.

Get in Touch — Locally and Personally

When I say “get in touch,” I mean you should literally get in touch with people personally in your city, people like editors at local magazines and newspapers, creative directors at advertising agencies, and recruiters for creative-focused staffing agencies that can help you find temporary and/or part-time work in your local area.

Untold thousands of writers scour the Internet every day looking for freelance writing opportunities in far-flung places across the country, jobs they often get, but that end up paying them a relative pittance when all is said and done. Even worse, some sites try to get hopeful freelancers to fork over cash in hopes of landing work at some time in the future. While some writers say they’re happy with this situation, I see it as a recipe for lots of discouragement and disappointment as a freelance writer.

I encourage all aspiring writers to get to know the editors of their local magazines and newspapers and the people who head the creative sides of their local advertising and/or interactive (website design) agencies. You can do this by researching the names of editors in the masthead section of any newspaper or magazine, and inquiring with an email about freelance opportunities with them.

Most editors are overworked and underpaid, and their companies are often short-staffed, and will welcome help from freelancers whenever they can get it. (This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll pay you a lot, but if it’s mainly experience you’re after, that’s a secondary concern.) With agencies, creative directors are accustomed to fielding calls and receiving portfolios from aspiring copywriters, which means that writers need not be shy when trying to get their foot in the door.

Get Organized, and Get Your Act Together

When you’re ready to go looking for work, you need to have professional-looking writing samples ready to send to potential employers, editors and staffing agencies. That means you need to have done the kind of writing you’re asking someone you don’t know to hire you to do, or at least to prove you can do it.

If you’ve written for your college newspaper or alumni magazine, or have worked as an intern on writing-focused tasks, you probably already have samples that are ready to send to potential employers. If you haven’t, create your own mock-ups of an ad campaign, or write a feature article in which you interview someone as if you were writing a real article for a real newspaper.

This may sound like a lot of effort for nothing, but bear in mind it works: a friend of mine who years ago had never written a single advertisement in her life, created a mock ad campaign from scratch for her application to graduate school in advertising. The samples she created got her accepted into school, and she went on to a successful career as a copywriter for one of the major agencies in the advertising world.

When sending your work along, make sure it’s clean and free of typos or grammatical errors of any kind. If you’re sending electronic copies (which many people prefer today), make sure your fonts are crisp, clear and consistent throughout all the documents in your samples.

Get Real (About Your Finances)

I saved the spinach for last in this article, but it’s perhaps the most important thing you need to take away from it. Whether you’re seeking work in print magazines, which are going through colossal change right now, or are pursuing what is usually much higher-paying work as a corporate writer and copywriter, you need to have your financial ducks in a row.

When you work as a freelance writer, you don’t get paid according to the traditional two-week paycheck schedule. You get paid after you do your work and send in your invoice to your client, who sometimes will pay you 30 days or even more after you’ve completed your assignment. That means you have to budget your life and expenses accordingly, and perhaps scale back your expectations as well.

Freelance writing for journalism can be fascinating, challenging, rewarding, and is often just great fun. But it also can be difficult for many freelancers to make what I would consider a well-paid living. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it — if you have the desire, go for it. I just add this because it’s always a good idea to take on many different kinds of writing in order to make enough money to live the life you want to live, by complementing your freelance journalism efforts with writing for companies, writing grants for nonprofits or writing ad copy for ad agencies.