Advice from a Long-time Freelance Writer

Yuwanda Black wrote a two-part article sharing her 19 years of experience as a freelance writer. She shares wonderful insight that I’ve discovered in the past few years. Here is her list with my comments on some items:

  1. Staying abreast of technology is crucial: Lucky this isn’t an issue with me.
  2. Writing is a skill: I hear those “Duhs!” But we all write. We learned to write stories and reports in school, so that makes us a writer by profession? Sorry. No. It took me five years to get where I am today. Practice, study, learn, practice.
  3. Freelancing full-time is not hard: Start doing freelance work on the side — don’t just quit your day job cold. Instead, build up your business on the side. I did that for five years before I went full-time freelancing.
  4. Marketing is a skill that must be developed: This is where working on the side helps. I slowly added more clients without the pressure of wondering where my next paycheck would come. I always keep my eyes open for opportunities even though I hardly have room to take on more. Things fall through. Projects end. You may want to drop a client that’s more trouble than it’s worth. I believe that freelancers who cut difficult or incompatible clients are happier and end up with more assignments though it means losing some.
  5. Employers don’t like to hire freelancers for full-time jobs: No thoughts here. It makes sense in some cases.
  6. You can’t change your rates every year: Guilty. Not of changing rates, but my inability to quote projects. Some clients don’t have all the information or details of what they need me to do. I explain to them that since we can’t see exactly the work involved that I’ll have to quote by the hour. The problem is they can’t side aside a budget for writing work since hourly is ongoing. I’m still developing my skills in this area.
  7. You must develop a niche: I believe this is true and spent a lot of time thinking about this. But I’m happy with my variety and lucky I have a nice amount of work though it’s not in a specific niche. Sure, I cover a lot of tech, but I also cover B2B, web design, newsletters, and online marketing, education (not from a writing perspective) and games. Maybe it’s my nature not to fall into one thing. Since it’s working, I’m not going to go crazy working my way to a niche. If it happens, it happens.
  8. Patience is a virtue: Definitely. Five years before I left corporate America for Meryl Co.
  9. Retirement is not planned for: I’m working to change this. Investing in an IRA can help with taxes, too.
  10. Longevity pays: “The longer you freelance, the easier it gets,” writes Black. I find this work easier than I did as little as one year ago. Practice, practice, practice.