Great Books Club

Freelancer is someone who pursues his/her profession without any long-term commitment to the employer. The fields that are common for freelance writers are journalism and any form of writing. The reason why many people opt for freelance profession is that they can choose their work schedule, unlike those who work in full-time jobs. Freelancers also have the privilege to choose as many clients as they want, as long as they are providing quality service.

As a freelance writer myself, I can say that there are many benefits in doing this. But of course, it has also its downside. When I first started as a freelance writer, I had experienced not being paid for the articles I had written. I no longer heard anything from my estranged client, and my long hours of working in front of the computer were a simple waste of time.

Of course I was disillusioned with that unfortunate experience. Because of the informality of my work relation to my client, it was hard to make any legal move.

Also, during my first few projects as a freelance writer, I was disheartened to know that most clients were only looking to pay under market value for my writings. The competition is so thick in the world of freelance writing that it seems almost impossible to get paid fairly, but in essence those small budget jobs is what helped me excel as a freelancer. I took on the projects knowing that it wasn’t paying much, but soon enough I got my name out there which lead to bigger and better projects which lead to me eventually getting paid larger sums. I am now able to charge higher for my work because I have a brand name, many samples of my work to point to, and many clients who I use as references plus my clients bring me a fair share of work and new business. It all worked out!

One thing I can advise to people who aspire to be a freelancer is to always be prepared to encounter swindlers (those looking to get over on you). When I apply for a client who is looking for a writer, I send him/her only my sample articles that have already been published. At least, if ever the person attempts to use my work, he/she may be penalized for plagiarism.

Freelance writing is all about building trust between you and the client. You trust him/her to give you the agreed payment; and the client trusts you to provide quality service, and not a mediocre one.

I have a professor in literature who told us that the best thing about being a writer is that people will pay you for something that you can easily do. She may be right for saying this, albeit it is easy for us, it still takes a lot of time and effort to come up with a good story.

Online activities have increased by numbers during the recent years defying the genuine purpose why the Internet was developed. But things just can’t stop to get better and better. Through the Internet, people are able to earn decent cash while doing online writing jobs and staying at home. There is real money with freelance writing jobs and everyone is invented to witness how to make it real.

Let me share to you some tips useful in finding freelance writing jobs that can guarantee you good money. Just a precaution, be sure to prepare yourself to take little risks in order to gain more. Here are some tips:

Do a thorough research about making money online through freelance writing

This is the very basic thing that you need to do in order for you to find freelancing jobs. Replete yourself with enough knowledge on what the business is all about and grasp only the things that you need to learn. Also, by doing a research, you will be able to find legitimate sites that can offer you freelance writing jobs.

Join social networking sites

Some social networking sites have special sections for freelance writing jobs. You may find forums, ads listings, and even blogs that offer online writing opportunities that you can take advantage.

Visit legitimate and proven money making sites

Register and be an active member of money making sites that have sections for writers. Some of these sites include elance.com, getafreelancer.com, and hundreds of other sites that you may encounter.

Improve your membership profile

Being a member to these money making websites does not guarantee you an instant writing opportunity. You must remember that there are other people interested on a single client and you need to be competitive. Improving your membership profile can give a client an impression to what you are capable of producing.

Read Relevant Ebooks about Freelance Writings

Most ebooks about writing contain real life experiences from authors who have made their fortune of our writing. Reading their experiences and taking their advices will allow you to follow their footprints and guarantee yourself that you will be able to find writing jobs just like them.

Promote your service

Promoting your service does not necessarily mean paying or investing a lot of cash to advertise your offered service. Instead, you can use free ads listing on several websites. Site such as craigslist.org is a good place to start promoting your service.

Create a portfolio

A portfolio is very important when one decides to shift to a writing career. Every client requires a good portfolio for them to judge the quality of work that you can do. It is more than just a collection of your works, but will also serve as your voice to your clients.

Know how to bargain

Writing is a trial-and-error scheme. You are not guaranteed to produce the best quality product on your first writing assignment, but you can try. Offer review copies to your client in order to build confidence and gain their trust.

Familiarize yourself with the technology used

To be versatile, it is recommended that you accustomed yourself with the trend of making money online. Some clients prefer to provide assignments to people who are capable of doing other things aside from writing. You can study on how to create blogs and include that on your profile.



Provide a solid Curriculum Vitae (CV)

People who are in need of long term writers for their businesses require CV’s from interested individuals. Provide them with an exceptional CV containing experiences and expertise that you can contribute to their success.

These are just simple tips on how to acquire freelance writing jobs the easy way. Implementing these techniques will give a boost to your writing career and will earn you more cash from writing.

You may or may not have heard this before - On the Internet: Content is King. Or to put it another way: the websites that deliver the most up-to-date and relevant content also tend to be the most popular. And if the website(s) in question have a commercial aspect to them, which is most of them; then popularity goes onto equate with increased income for the website owner.

The explosive growth of the Internet and the attendant growth of Internet related commerce has created an unprecedented demand for written content. Now the fact of the matter is that is very rare for webmasters to go about each day creating this content themselves. They simply don’t have the time. What you will find is that they source the content from elsewhere and are happy to pay for it.

You can see where this is going, can’t you? If Webmasters are happy to pay for outsourced content then there is an obvious opportunity for freelance writes to create that content and get paid for it.

It gets better: Not only is there a demand for freelance writing skills but some specific online markets have sprung up that allow freelance writers to present their wares as it were. Webmasters know to go to these markets to secure outsourced content so it really streamlines the process of selling your writing skills.

It gets better still: The constantly evolving nature of the Internet means that new avenues are continually springing up - all of which are in need of new content. If it’s not website owners that need sales copy, then it’ll be bloggers who need fresh content for their blog readers. And if it’s not blog owners that need content, then it’ll be article directories looking for more content so that webmasters keep coming back to them. And so on and so on. If there’s one thing the Internet is not: it is static. Opportunities abound wherever you look and content creation is one of the biggest of them.

Two of the biggest and most popular online auction sites are Elance.com and Guru.com. Webmasters know that they can go to these central resources, create a job description, and then have freelance writers bid to do that work. It works like a dutch auction with the lowest bidder usually, though not always, winning the bid and securing the job. Of course once you’ve done good work for someone once, they may opt to bypass the bidding process the next time around and work with you directly.

The beauty about selling your freelance writing skills these agencies is that not only do they provide an efficient marketplace for you to sell your skills but they also act as a governing body to ensure that your invoice is paid within 30 days or sooner. People that do pay you late on these sites tend to get kicked off. In that respect it is very similar to the eBay auction system except that you are dealing with writing services instead of “shipped goods”.

If you’re a writer looking to make an income by writing online then it behoves you to make yourself visible where the buyers of content all go to shop. Elance.com and Guru.com are the best places to start.