How Do I Get Started as a Freelance Writer?



One of our readers left this comment on our 31 Free Online Writing Courses post and I thought it was a great question.

What would you suggest would be the first step in starting towards freelance writing? I keep thinking I should get some sort of degree or something, but looking at your list, I may not have to do that. Where should I begin?

Let me start by saying that if you are asking the question, “How do I get started?,” you are getting a bit ahead of yourself. A better question is to ask yourself what kind of writing you want to do and what your goals are.

If you are starting your writing career on a part-time basis while you are working elsewhere, your needs will be different than someone who is writing full-time. You may be interested in doing content writing or blogging, or you may want to focus your attention on pitching stories to print publications.

There are many, many choices available to people who want to do freelance writing. It is worthwhile to do some homework about the type of work that people in this field do and get an idea of what interests you and where your talents lie. Once you know “what” you want to do, the question of where to start will be much clearer for you.


Please follow and like us:
Facebook0
Facebook
X (Twitter)65k
Visit Us
Follow Me
Instagram6k

Posted

in

by

david

Tags:

, , ,

Comments

4 responses
  1. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    That’s very good advice. I have gotten ahead of myself and focused too much on landing that first gig than focusing on what type of writing I excel at. Thank you for that. Also, you made a typo. Where you wrote “Who do I start?” I think you meant “How do I start?”

    Reply
  2. Jodee Avatar
    Jodee

    Robert,

    Yes, I did make a typo. Thank you for letting me know – I’ve corrected it.

    Reply
  3. Zahra Brown Avatar
    Zahra Brown

    I also jumped the gun when I started. I love writing but the thought of doing certain types of writing 9-5 everyday put me off. Just imagine writing a certain product for a certain audience every day until you retire. If you feel good, great. If you feel dread, choose something else. There’s so many niches out there, so there has to be something.

    The best way to get started is to start. Read around and do something, anything, to get your feet wet. If you wait for the perfect moment then you’ll be waiting forever.

    Reply
  4. hadadi Avatar
    hadadi

    there is no best crucial surviving in the forfeiture and the ostrasizing of the printed formal papers. great many of very bulky books have been duilt up, yet the accubation of the huge effort outcomes has been the result. the swinging vacilating question lies on the position where to situate the act of writing let but alone the reading process.thus, writing is not there at random but it is associated to the one’s accustomes to the reading process. it is through writing that you can becreative after having probed deeeper into a certain high level in reading. finally, endeavouring to write a simple humble text (svo) is better than two words , the latter is better than one and eventually writing nothing is better then not to even think of writing at all. teacher of english Morocco

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

Subscribe