I spend a lot of time writing now that I’ve chosen to become a full-time freelance writer. I try to explain it to people who ask about what I do and I guess I’m either not doing a good enough job of describing my specific tasks or maybe it’s a job a lot of people don’t realize exists. I started out purely by accident in January 2014.
My first concern when I started bidding on writing contracts was whether or not I could provide the kind of high level writing that I thought was required. I mean, just by reading some of the preferred qualifications listed for most of the contracts I thought I was very much out of my league. As it turns out, I was wrong and discovered this early.
I approached my first series of bids as me flooding the market for work hoping that in the crowd of proposals I submitted there would be someone interested in my work. I did not consider myself a professional as I was actually a ‘newbie’ at freelance writing. By the time I started to pick up writing jobs I learned a few things.
1 – Write What You Know
I concentrated my high volume of bids on jobs that sounded like they were on subjects I either knew something about, or could learn about quickly and still sound somewhat knowledgeable. It was the most helpful step in the entire process for me.
2 – Bid A Bit Lower At First
As I was new to this whole bidding for writing jobs game I determined I needed to find a way to stand out from all the other bids. I chose to ‘low ball’ the numbers where I could so I could snag a few jobs. It worked for me almost instantly and earned me some work.
3 – Beat The Deadline
My final tip is to get the work done faster than expected. In addition to the ‘low ball’ bids, I was able to finish jobs often days before they were due. These two components worked together to build me a client base of regular customers which provided ongoing work.
These are really simple ways to get your foot in the door when it comes to freelance writing. They were not ideas I pulled from somewhere else, either. I tried a few different approaches and found the three listed here as my most successful. They may produce the same kind of results for you as well…but you won’t know unless you give them a try. Good luck!
My first concern when I started bidding on writing contracts was whether or not I could provide the kind of high level writing that I thought was required. I mean, just by reading some of the preferred qualifications listed for most of the contracts I thought I was very much out of my league. As it turns out, I was wrong and discovered this early.
I approached my first series of bids as me flooding the market for work hoping that in the crowd of proposals I submitted there would be someone interested in my work. I did not consider myself a professional as I was actually a ‘newbie’ at freelance writing. By the time I started to pick up writing jobs I learned a few things.
1 – Write What You Know
I concentrated my high volume of bids on jobs that sounded like they were on subjects I either knew something about, or could learn about quickly and still sound somewhat knowledgeable. It was the most helpful step in the entire process for me.
2 – Bid A Bit Lower At First
As I was new to this whole bidding for writing jobs game I determined I needed to find a way to stand out from all the other bids. I chose to ‘low ball’ the numbers where I could so I could snag a few jobs. It worked for me almost instantly and earned me some work.
3 – Beat The Deadline
My final tip is to get the work done faster than expected. In addition to the ‘low ball’ bids, I was able to finish jobs often days before they were due. These two components worked together to build me a client base of regular customers which provided ongoing work.
These are really simple ways to get your foot in the door when it comes to freelance writing. They were not ideas I pulled from somewhere else, either. I tried a few different approaches and found the three listed here as my most successful. They may produce the same kind of results for you as well…but you won’t know unless you give them a try. Good luck!
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