How to Become a Freelance Writer

By eHow Careers & Work Editor

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Writing is only part of a freelance writer's career. You must also spend a lot of time marketing yourself and your work, paying careful attention to business details such as quarterly taxes, and staying ahead of ever-changing trends in all areas of publishing. There is also the matter of intense competition from many thousands of other writers, but don't let that stop you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

Step1
Be honest with yourself about the quality of your writing skills. Chances are excellent that a busy editor will not continue to read your submission if she sees lots of grammatical errors.
Step2
Take a writing course or workshop if you do not have an English, journalism or related degree. You need to hear writing instructors and other writers comment on the quality of your work, and you need the experience of having to write well on deadline.
Step3
Learn how to write an excellent query letter to an editor. In it you need to briefly propose your idea for an article, give your qualifications and make it all sound as though it is the most wonderful idea ever to cross the editor's desk.
Step4
Buy the current year's "Writer's Market," shown on this page as the featured book. In addition to listing numerous publishing houses and consumer magazines, it gives integral information that all writers must know - such as how to write a query letter - and an overview of the business end of a writing career.
Step5
Use Web sites for writers to further develop your writing skills and to peruse freelance job opportunities. A simple search for "writing" or "writers" at a major search engine like Google should get you off to a good start.
Step6
Contact your local newspaper or magazine and ask if you may submit a completed article "on spec." This means the editor is under no obligation to pay you for your work, but is willing to read it. Make certain you peruse back issues of the publication first to confirm that your idea has not already been covered.

Tips & Warnings

  • You need to develop a portfolio of "clips," photocopies of articles that prove you have experience as a professional writer. This is often a catch-22 situation: You need clips to show an assigning editor, but you cannot get a writing assignment unless you have clips to show. Fortunately, you can volunteer your writing services to community publications or organizations and use the resulting clips to build your portfolio.
  • Writing for online communities can be a good way to build a strong portfolio. For example, eHow has a section called wikiHow, which is an effort to build the world's largest free source of "how-to" information. Writing for communities like wikiHow on a volunteer basis can help you develop a tangible portfolio which you can show to editors. It can also give you valuable experience with the editing process itself, because your work will be edited by other community members.
  • Don't waste your time "chatting" with writer wannabes online. Spend your time studying the field, writing, sending query letters and marketing your work.
  • You must expect rejection and develop a thick skin when you experience it.
  • Very few freelance writers become wealthy. Many have other jobs to make ends meet.

Comments

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on 5/25/2008 life is so grueling sometimes it pinches until it becomes unbearable ,but every one still love the taste and tries hard to survive the moment........

Anonymous

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on 11/22/2005 I find that actually writing helps me a lot, so I use a blog. It's become kind of popular with my friends and they read it on a regular basis.

Anonymous

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on 11/22/2005 To make a full-time income as a freelance writer, diversify your writing. Don't focus strictly on magazines. Look for writing work (marketing material, newsletters, tech manuals, press releases, etc.) from businesses and public agencies. The pay is much higher than magazine work and can provide a very good income. Typical rates in my area of the country are $75 per hour.

Anonymous

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on 11/22/2005 Visit www.writeforcash.com. They pay in US Dollars for your articles. They are pretty strict on quality and reject a lot of your ideas. I write for them on a regular basis and have built up a good portfolio.

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 A great way to get clips is to become familiar with the style (content, writing, focus) of your neighborhood or weekly paper. Then, speak to the editor about contributing, or write a short filler piece (200-300 words) and present it.

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