Writing Blog

This is an absolute must. When you make a commitment, a week’s deadline is just that – a week. Better still, 6 days. Not 10 days, two weeks, maybe never? If you don’t honour deadlines, you are going to be leaving a lot of disgruntled clients in your wake – and that means so many fewer job opportunities. When clients feel they can trust you to be responsible, they will always come back. 

Make sure you check your copy well before you send it off. Keep your Spell Checker on and run through it twice after putting your ‘Zoom into Page’ at 150%. That way, the errors will jump off the page. Then put your work through a plagiarism checker. There are two free ones I use: PlagiarismDetect and articlechecker. Of course, the ideal thing to do when you have started writing and making a few bucks is to go join up the paid service of Copyscape.

I’ll club this and having a sense of humour together as they are really two sides of the same coin in this game. They are also absolute essentials in your freelance finding crusade. Don’t get disheartened – so many others have walked down that same path and they are doing so well today! Don’t let just a handful of crazy clients spoil your day. Don’t let snooty established online writers frighten you away either – there’s place for everyone who can write in this ever-expanding world of cyber opportunity. 

Learn to laugh – at the things that happen out there on the internet and at yourself. Do that and you’ll survive – and well at that. The road to freelance writing can be tough but it always feels better if you walk along it with a smile and maybe even a chuckle or two.  Just savour the thought that once you break into those hallowed ranks, you’ll have so much work, you’ll be saying No to people. Go join a few writing forums ad you’ll find that it helps to vent a bit about clients and low paid jobs – or maybe even the fact that you aren’t getting any. People are so helpful and I’ve had 19 and 20 year olds guide me to all the right places where you can find a lot of work. They still pop by to see how I’m doing – in return, I offer to proofread and edit their web sites for them – it’s the least I can do for these sweet young kids.