How to Become a Freelance Writer Abroad

How to make a living by writing while living abroad.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A laptop computer, research skills, and maybe a digital camera

1. Decide what your personal writing style is. Keep a journal for a week and write whatever you want. Then examine your work and look for common themes. See if you are more like a restaurant reviewer, a journalist, an academic, or a tourist. Once you know your writing style, you are ready to look for clients who will pay you to write for their local websites, magazines, or newspapers.

2. Find clients, and set your prices. Look on Craig’s List in the writing gigs section for people who are looking for freelance writers. If you have some writing samples, send them, along with a letter explaining what kind of writing you want to do and how much money you hope to earn. You can get paid by the word, by the article, or by hour. It helps to think about the local economy when you are stating your price. You can ask for more money in Europe than you can in South America.
   
   Also do an internet search for blogs in your area written in your language. Contact the site owners to see if they need writers!

3. Network, and do whatever you can to make your business grow. Whenever you are out socializing, tell people you are interested in writing, and pass out a business card of some sort. Then get their contact information, and follow up a few days later. Over coffee, see if you can work out some sort of a contract, or a paid-by-article basis. And keep writing, every day! You can always write an article first, and then try to publish it by sending it to magazines or newspapers. Often they will give you feedback, and ask you to try again.

Tips & Warnings

• Write every day, and always think about who your audience is. Try different styles and themes, so you diversify your talents.
• Make sure you have an agreement before you write an article for a site or publication. The editor should tell you exactly what he or she wants if it's a big commission article. You can even ask to get paid first. Be careful that you don't waste your time writing for someone who isn't going to publish your article or pay you.

[cygnetbrown]

on 4/6/2009 Thank you for the article. My husband and I are looking for opportunities to meet people and to earn a living doing what we love to do. Thank you for the advice.

[Yuwanda]

on 2/22/2008 I've been a freelance writer for over 15 years, and this is something I've always wanted to do. Thanks for the window into how to break this rasig. Once I get a breather (practically never happens), I'm going to look into this, especially as I want to start to travel abroad more again.