Freelance writer
Many people contact me to seek advice on how to succeed as a freelance writer, or get more writing assignments consistently. I know it is very demoralizing for a person who quits his regular day job to work as a freelance writer hoping to earn a good income but could not achieve what they dreamt of. However, if you try to find out what’s going wrong with your freelance writing career, I am sure, you can fix it. Here are a few clues as to what might be going wrong in your efforts.
Avoid making following mistakes in your freelance writing career.
Do not have a portfolio
Before you start looking for writing assignments, the basic requirement is to have a portfolio or a collection of sample writings. Any new client would obviously want to look at the quality of your work. They want to judge if you can match their requirements.
THere are several ways to create your portfolios such as creating your own blog or writing blogs on other websites where you get credit for your work even if you have to write it for free.
Not providing quality content
The biggest mistake is not to provide quality content to your clients. This is the basic necessity to provide a flawless content because a satisfied client brings more potential clients for you. No matter if the project in hand is small or is not well-paying, your job is to give your best work.
Since quality is very important, make sure that your work is perfect in terms of uniqueness, grammar, and information. You can use tools such as grammerly.com, copyscape.com and more for quality check.
You do not write
When you want to become a successful freelance writer, you try to find writing gigs, spend time on social networking and do all sorts of promotion works (of course that is also an important task), but the most important thing you forget and start neglecting is your writing. Yes, you do not write as much as you should. Being a writer, it is your foremost responsibility to write something on a regular basis to sharpen your skills. Believe me, it is your only skill that will fetch you genuine clients.
Not upgrading your skills
Since writing is a knowledge-based field, it requires you to update your skills continuously. In fact, basic principles of writing might be same, but how do you use them according to the changing market demands is up to you.
Being a freelance writer for the internet requires having skills to write different kinds of content suiting the client’s requirements. There are different types of writings such as blog posts, SEO content, Press releases, Article writing, product description and more. You need to know how to write all such kinds of content types.
Not Paying Attention to Factual Blunders and Typos
Do you pay attention to details like spelling, punctuation or typos? These types of errors reflect your unprofessionalism. Before finally submitting any write-up, make sure that every word is spelled correctly, titles, names and URLs are correct. More importantly, take care of the words that are though spelled correctly, but you did not suppose to use them. Since your spell check will not alert you for the “actual word” typos, make sure to proofread your copies manually at least twice.
Not taking criticism in the right spirit
I have seen many freelance writers do not make success because they do not take criticism of their clients with the right attitude. If you have this issue, remember one thing that you are providing services and all your endeavors should be towards providing the best work that suits your client’s requirements. And secondly, you can turn every criticism into an opportunity to sharpen your skills or to learn a thing or two when it comes to handling your clients.
Letting your clients chase you
Here I would say it is the worst thing to put off your client if you give them a chance to chase you. It might be late submissions, or it might be a delay in your response to their messages. When you do not submit work on time, you are not only irritating them but also causing damage to their work schedules which might be depending upon your content. Secondly, not responding to their message on time will, without doubt, irk them to no end.
These are a few small things that you can handle easily without spending any extra time. But, yes, it will go a long way when it comes to getting new clients or maintaining old ones.
What do you say? Please share your views here.
Vandana Singhal 