Work-life balance when working from home

When you say you are work-from-home writer, it is quite probable traditionally-thinking people won’t give much importance to your work. But here, I would like to mention that a working from home and getting success with your targets is quite challenging.  With advent of internet, many professionals like to have an option to work from home. In a traditional office set up, there are many things which keep us hooked to our job consistently. However,   to have work-life balance is very important when you are working from your home office.  You need to create some physical or virtual boundaries to achieve that crucial work-life balance.

Maintaining productivity is very important   for any kind of job. One problem is your personal life seeps into your work. When you are working from home, there are lots of temptations luring you from each corner of the house. Besides temptations, there are disturbances like playing kids, uninvited guests, phone calls, household jobs, attending to the handymen and the list goes on.  This is important to mention here that you need to have some sort of discipline and attend tasks in the order of their priority. Also, you have to maintain a timetable to follow. You can also take the helps of online productivity tools and exercises.

 Like maintaining discipline at work, you need to save a family time or personal,”me” time too.  Overwork can be damaging for your relations. It is very important as it save you from burnout. That personal time can be about anything which relaxes you. You can catch on your sleep or play with kids or have an evening walk or read a book or anything.

In my next post, I will discuss how you can maintain that work-life balance practically.

Genre of writing

Apart from the genres mentioned above there are many other genres you can choose for yourself according to your inclination.

 Essay/non-fiction Writing

This genre is more of descriptive kind. It includes memoires, anecdotes for persuasive or educational purposes. These are often long pieces of writing like a book. This genre can be in the form of journalistic writing, blogging, speechwriting or web writing.

Fiction Writing

 Fiction  writing means writing a creative piece. It is, in fact, Story writing. It can range from a paragraph to a long series of stories. It often overlaps with ghostwriting, poem writing or non-fiction writing.

 Ghost Writing

Ghost writing is not a special kind of genre rather it can be any writing which is done on the behalf of someone else. For this kind of writing, someone else takes the credit for your piece.

Technical Writing

 It is the instructional writing which includes the information and step-by-step instructions for a specialized field. It can be in the form of instruction manuals, white papers or other such documentation. It can be written in combination with business writing, copywriting or content writing.

Web Writing

It is just like content writing but just it can include writing online columns, for ezines or writing for search engine optimization.

Journalistic Writing

It is the most common form writing like you see in newspapers and magazines. It can be anything like features, articles, ezine articles, stories, news reporting.

Poetry Writing is all about writing creative verses.

 Script Writing is the writing for recoding or spoken word performances. This is done in the form of dialogues.

Speechwriting is writing for speaking in the front of live audience.

Choose the genre for freelance writing

When you decide to be freelance writer, it becomes important for you to decide which genre you write for. Genre means the recognized category of work which has the repetitive patterns and components. Freelance writers have option to choose from these genres. Here I am listing these genres for you to choose from and start your freelance writing career. I have divided this post into two parts. This is the first part of the series.

Content Writing

Content writing means writing for the internet. This kind of writing is more formal and static. You need to write for websites and this content for web may be in various forms such as articles, how-to-steps, columns, outlines and more.   Website can be two kinds or content based or selling some product. Aim of content based website is to provide information like at Wikipedia. Content of the website which sells product is in the form of articles about the product or service. Sometimes content writing can be the part of business writing, copywriting, and blogging, ghost-writing, web-writing or e-book.

Blogging

 Blogging is like writing a personal diary in which you are supposed to write in an informal tone and in a date-order. A blog differs from a website. In blog, blogger has to update the post regularly. Blog is interactive medium where you can communicate with your reader through comments.  A certain blogs builds a community of like minded people.  Companies hire freelance bloggers to maintain their company blog which indirectly promotes their products and services. Blog may use other genres like content writing, business writing, web writing and copywriting.

 Business Writing

As the name indicates, business writing is associated with writing for a business. Business writing may include writing press releases, newsletter, and company’s annual report, marketing brochures or preparing PowerPoint presentations. Business writing may take the form of blogging, technical writing, web writing and copywriting.

 Copywriting

Copywriting is a very familiar genre which means writing for marketing or promotional purposes. Copywriting is intended for selling something but it can include indirect sales also through press kits, informational brochures, white papers and more. Copywriting results in some kind of response from the reader. This genre may be the part of Content writing, blogging, business writing and web writing.

 Critical Writing

Critical writing means analyzing some product, movie or book or others. Critical writing is about reviewing anything. It is not for promoting anything rather it presents a neutral and honest review of the product in question.

So these are the some of the popular kinds of genres which freelance writers chose to write in. I am a content writer and blogger. I write for magazines also. So you can see you can get involve in more than one genre at a time.

How to Earn Money Freelance Writing Jobs

You can really earn money writing online. Many people are doing it and you can too do it if you love writing. If I can do it, you too can. You must know that there are numerous websites which need writers who can write quality content to update their websites. With increasing number of websites, need of writers is also increasing. Take the advantage of this situation and start making money. It is completely legitimate source of income.

Here we are going to discuss various opportunities you have as freelance writer. You can choose one niche subject and be proficient in writing about that. It is truly comfortable, work from home job.  This is true opportunity to earn right from the comfort from your home. Another advantage of freelance writing is it is you who   chooses what to write and what not. How much to write and what should be the price of your work? Isn’t it interesting? Freelance writers are in huge demand and they can command their prices.  But newbie writers may not be able to set their prices as high as the experienced ones but this is the case in every professional field.

 Types of Freelance Writing Jobs

There are many types of freelance writing jobs. Some of these fields require some additional knowledge or skill besides just writing. It is better to choose a writing field   which you are familiar with. It will help you know about the technical terms of that field and write better expressions. It will get you ahead in the competition as a freelance writer. You can consider one of the following common freelance writing jobs available.

SEO Writing for Websites

Web Content Writing

Article Writing

Medical Writing

 Technical Writing

 Press Release, Writing for Media

 Advertising and Marketing

 Resume Writing

Blogging

Resume Writing

Forum Moderator

Business Writing

Ezine Writing

 Entertainment Writer

Proof Reading

 Ebook Writing

Sports Writing

 Writing Translations

 Business Writing

Writing for Contest

Ghost Writing

You can try your hand at one or more than one fields listed here. While it is recommended to specialized in one kind of writing but you need to have experience of more than one kind of writings to sustain for long.

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How to create an impressive portfolio as a new freelance writer

One most important thing, you will always need as a freelance writer, is an impressive portfolio. A portfolio is a powerful tool to attract new writing work. When you are starting out as a freelance writer, you might not have a portfolio. When I started out, I did not have one because I just wrote papers in my school and college days but did not have a published work.  In the beginning I took up two full time jobs as writer. There I was supposed to write test samples to get the jobs but still that did not made to my portfolio. Again, during the job I wrote thousands of articles but with no byline; I wrote as   a ghost writer. If you are writing as a ghost writer, you are not creating portfolio of your work as, for getting portfolio, you need to have a byline attached with your writing. Let us see how you can create a portfolio.

Start a Blog

The first you can do for creating your original work is to start a blog of your own. (Though, I started a blog very late!) You can start a blog about any subject you like or about your own personal experience. Here you can have collection of your writings and you can give the link of your blog to the prospective buyer.

Writing for Article Directories

There are hundreds of article directories on the web. You can make use of them for creating an impressive portfolio for you. You just write articles about the topics you feel comfortable in and submit it to the article directories. They publish your articles with your byline. Though they do not pay for writing articles, but publishing your articles there creates credibility for your work. Believe me; it can do wonders to your writing career! Ezinearticles, Articlebase, Hubpages are some of the good article directories.

Writing for revenue sharing websites

When your sole aim is to create a portfolio, then use these websites as a platform to showcase your talent. You can submit your articles at websites like Associated Content, Bukisa.com and others to publish them with your byline. In addition to publishing your article, they pay you some revue on sharing basis.

 Writing Samples

Whenever you apply for a new writing job, some people ask for writing a new sample which they do not pay for. In that case, collect those samples and post them on your blog. It is good idea as writing for different people means writing for different subjects. A writing done by would never go waste.

While Ghost Writing

For me, even ghost writing helps you assemble a portfolio. How? When you write articles related to different topics, you gain valuable experience which is worth in gold. This is a worthy advice from my experience. You can send links of your published articles (ghost written) to your prospective clients. They can check your writing skills by that also. But be honest! It pays. In my case, it works. You too try it.

These are some of my experiences. If you have any thing to add or share, please feel free to comment. Your comments are very valuable for me.

Useful tips for newbie freelance writers

 

Do you want to be free from the drudgery of working 9-5 and come back home tired and get up next morning, get ready and going again to the office? (I hate it! Actually) Freelance writing is a viable career option for all those who either want to have full time career or part time career for earning few extra bucks. In both ways, freelance writing on web can offer you rewards. For becoming a freelance writer, it is not important to have a specialized degree but surely it helps if you want to be specialist writer. The most important qualification you need is to write mistake free English and access to the world wide internet connection.

I have learnt few lessons in self-taught manner in order to succeed as a freelance writer on the web.  I want to share those lessons or you can say tips which can be helpful for any person thinking of starting a freelance writing career.

 Tip 1:  The most important tip; take decision to write professionally

The most crucial point in anybody’s freelance writing career is to take decision about writing professionally.  You might be writing occasionally some letters to some institutions or organizations or you may have written for college magazine once in while; that was your hobby or necessity. But this is the time to take a serious decision as only this is going to decide further path for your career.

Tip2: Have confidence in your writing abilities

 To be a freelance writer for web, you need not be an expert in any field! All you should have good researching abilities and ability to compile related information. Then only thing you have to do is put that in your words. To do all this, one thing you will need in loads is confidence in your abilities.

Tips 3: Creating a writing portfolio is important

As in every other freelancing job, here too portfolio matters.  In the beginning you won’t be having any portfolio to show but you can consistently work to create one. To do that, you can write articles on whatever topics you are interested in like travel, health, culture, beauty or any other; the list is endless. There are hundreds of article submission sites which allow you to publish your articles for free with your byline and bio attached to a particular article. Though these sites do not pay at all but are great source to collect clips of your writings. You can put links to these articles in your writing resume which you will need to prepare before applying for any writing gig.

  Tip4: Prepare an impressive Resume

Once you are done with creating a portfolio, it is time to prepare an impressive resume. Your resume needs to give all the information related to your writing skills. Do not forget to put links to your writings you have published in various article directories.

Tips 5: Approach freelance writing marketplaces

The easiest way to find a writing gig is to register at one or more of the freelance writing job portals like Elance, Guru.com, GetAFreelance and others. Everyday scan through the jobs listed there and apply to the jobs you think you can do. In the beginning you can start for the smaller jobs and once you get credibility a good feedback for your work, you can start applying for bigger jobs.

These are the tips I followed myself and I assure you, these are worth give try. And the greatest tip is to take baby steps initially before running fast.

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How To Approach Web Masters to get writing projects?

Many times, many of my friends ask me how do you get these writing projects? I simply say, there is no set formula to get work. I just simply look for opportunities everyday. There are many websites which advertise freelance writing gigs.

Elance, GetAFreelancer, Guru, ODesk are some of the sites from where I got projects. I make a search on these portals. Also, I have posted my resume on the Job portals. Sometimes, employers too approach me on their own. One, it is not easy to get the call from any employer. Second, even if you get call, it is not always easy to get the project in your kitty. It is difficult to get any project on the job boards, where you have to compete with other writers. But it is not impossible. After all most of the freelancers are making their living by getting project from these sites. I have got many steady clients from these sites. Only thing is you have bid right with perfect writing samples.

Another thing, once you get the project, put all your heart and soul to make your writing a success, even if you are ghost writing. It goes long way in maintaing relatioanship with your client.

So to sum it up, you need to be hard skinned to get few first projects. Apply with your samples, be ready for rejections and if you get it, complete it with all your dedication and please always follow deadline as it is very important.