Freelance Writing Archives - The Creative Writer

Maintaining Mental Health as a Freelancer

My mental health is very volatile at the moment. One moment I am calm and enjoying the peace, the next, I am feeling sad, then angry in a never-ending circle. Mental health is a very important issue right now because of the unusual times we are currently living in. Pandemics happen approximately once every 100 years and the living conditions that they impose on those who are living through them are not easy.

Here are some thoughts about how you can help to maintain your mental health in lockdown times.

Attitude of Gratitude

Try to find the positive thought. Although for many people, normal life has been put on pause, this has meant that people have suddenly found the time to catch up on many things in life. People are putting this extra time, that they have never had before, to good use. People are spending time with their families, they are cooking more healthy food and they are taking more exercise than they did before, because to do so, means that they can get away from the four walls for a while. Be thankful for what you have. Do you have your family around you? Be thankful. Have you been able to cook more regularly? Be thankful. Have you saved some money because you no longer have to travel to work? That’s a good thing. We have been blessed with this time, so enjoy it.

Acknowledge the hurt

There are some families that have lost a lot during lockdown and it is important to acknowledge that and if it is within your power to help someone then you should do it. Whether it is sending a card to keep in touch, a gift to remember a birthday or for some other reason, it can help you to feel better about yourself and it can help someone else to feel better too.

Everyone is having off-days at the moment. The most important thing to do is to own the feelings and allow yourself to feel sad for a while. The second most important thing you can do is not to wallow in them. There will come a point when you feel better and take pleasure in something again. Finding ways to comfort other people will help your own feelings too.

As a freelancer, you may have lost some clients as the lockdown took hold. Believe that you will be able to replace them with better clients. Keep reaching out, sensitively to potential clients, keep networking and following up potential leads.

Enjoy the time off!

Craft your way to mental health

Our family have enjoyed finding time to try new crafts. Our daughter, who has had to deal with the abrupt end of her second uni year, has crafted a paper sloth, done some colouring and doodling and this week we have tie-dyed some T-shirts. We have enjoyed finding new things to try and found it peaceful to create some craft.

Home-schooling to suit your children

Children who have had to find new ways to do their school work, will not have been the poorer for it. It will help their independence as learners to work out which way to revise suits them best, to have to ask their teachers questions about the work required and to manage deadlines. Although the UK Government is hoping that children go back to school soon, the fact is that many will not go back straight away, because of the reduced numbers involved and the importance of keeping them safe. I have enjoyed working with my son and encouraging him to get his work done. It’s hard to hide at the back of the class when it’s one-to-one.

Find new ways to connect

One of the best things to come out of this time, is the way that we have found new ways to meet up with others. People who are very unconfident with technology have found themselves able to meet up in Zoom rooms, virtual pubs and virtual pub quizzes have become a thing and churches and other religious organisations have had to find new ways to connect. My parents have successfully navigated the world of online supermarket shopping, but they have not tried FaceTime yet – one thing at a time!

Which new ways have you found to connect with others? My book group have met more regularly during the lockdown. We just talk about the books we are reading at the time. The church I attend has prayer telephone conference calls and services for download on YouTube via the website. We can also hold deacons’ meetings on Zoom. I notice that both Facebook and Google have started offering meeting options – more help for us to stay in touch.

Get in touch with Mother Nature

One of the most amazing things about this lockdown has been the weather in the UK – it has been gorgeous most of the time. You have to ask whether it would have been quite so nice, had things been normal!

The lovely weather has meant that it has been quite pleasant to get out for a walk every day. I am lucky enough to have a garden and have enjoyed having some time to go in it and do some work there. But what if you don’t have a garden and cannot enjoy going for a walk because you live in a city?

There is some research to suggest that even houseplants can enhance your living space, so do some research and find a plant or two that you can live with.

Now that we can go further away to exercise (in England), find a green space to head to and enjoy. Look for the unusual places, look on maps for small paths and ways to exercise away from the crowd, find some new favourite spots to go to. Think outside the box and find canal paths, disused railways, ride a bike, go for a run.

Find a way out

Some people are finding it hard to be in lockdown because their home is not a safe place to be. If this is you, then find a way to reach out. People are aware that this could be the case. Find a way to talk to someone about your worries and try to find a way out.

Some UK numbers for you:

The National Domestic Abuse Network can be called any time, day or night, by all women or concerned family and friends:

0808 2000 247

You can leave a voicemail and a good time to call you back. There is also support information available on the website.

If it is an emergency, call 999.

Plan your next move

As a freelancer, you should always be planning what to do to keep the jobs rolling in, but it can be too easy to lose sight of this when you are just trying to get the work done. Many people have had some jobs cancelled or slowed, but this time is not going to last forever, so look out for courses to enhance your skills, overhaul your website and improve the SEO and make sure that you continue to network online.

Now could be a good time to change tack, change what you want to do in your business or plan to take it up a notch. Planning for your business can only enhance what you offer and help you to reach your business goals.

What to do when your freelance business seems stuck in a rut

Ever felt like your freelance business is stuck in a rut? There seems to be no new work coming in, you don’t seem able to move forward with your work, or find any new clients. Perhaps you have been working for the same clients for some years and it’s feeling stale. You want to move forward as a freelancer, but you can’t see a way through. It’s time to think outside the box.

People in employment can feel stuck too. Perhaps they’ve been passed over for promotion, or they feel that their manager never gives them enough credit for the work they do. Either way, they feel stuck and unappreciated and wonder how to free themselves and feel better.

It’s important to understand that it is possible that your emotions will pass, and that all it’s going to take is a new freelance contact from a client, a new networking situation or even a project at work that has gone really well, but equally when you are feeling bored and struggling to get the work done though lack of interest then you need to take action.

Take stock of your situation

Give yourself some thinking time and some space. Choose a day when you don’t have a lot of deadlines coming up and write down 5 things that are good about your work, and 5 things that frustrate you. Be as specific or broad as you wish. What attracted you to your work in the first place? What has made it seem as though it is going wrong. Take a few days and add to the lists if you need to. See if you can work out where things are going wrong.

Decide to make a small change.

The worst thing to do is to keep on doing what you have aways done and expect the result to be different. Finding a way out is not easy, but it is worth trying to do. If you feel that you are fairly clear on where things have gone wrong, and you have an idea to try, then try it. You have nothing to lose and it may help. Decide to try it for a reasonable length of time and make a date in your diary to assess it and whether it has made any kind of impact on your freelance work or how you feel. Be prepared: this small change may lead to another small change and another. Make sure that you can assess what difference they make to your business.

Ask for help

This can be difficult to do, but it may be the only option. If you are struggling to see what is going wrong, or what you could do to change things, then you may need some help. If you have a friend who is able to understand what you do, and whose opinion you trust, then it may be as simple as arranging to go for a coffee with them to talk things through. Some forums have places where you can ask questions – look for one for people who do what you do as they are more likely to understand your problems. You may need advice from someone who is further along in their business or who has done things differently.

Be accountable to someone

Find someone who you can be accountable to when it comes to getting work done. It’s a way of making sure you get things done when you work on your own. You could also help them to be accountable to their own business. You can decide to check in with them weekly, monthly, or whenever suits you both.

Find a mentor or coach

It may come to the point when you feel that you need more specialised help – and that it’s time to look for a mentor or a coach. Don’t just jump straight in: get to know someone first. Hang around their groups, do something small with them first and see whether their style fits yours. The coaching has got to be within your budget, but it also has to have similar aims to yours. You can take recommendations, or you might just come across someone through another group. It will need to be someone you trust, if you are going to pay them for their help, and you have to feel that you are getting your money’s worth. See it as money that you are investing in your business and use it wisely.

Be prepared to walk away

In the end, it all comes down to whether you can make peace with your freelance business and get it going again. You need to be able to work out what has gone wrong and what steps you need to take to fix it. If you are unable to find your love for your freelance work, then you need to be prepared to walk away and find something else.

It’s not an easy decision to make, but sometimes it may be the right one. Before making such a decision, talk to everyone that it will affect, and make sure that you have taken all the steps you needed to in order to try to make the business work. Businesses fail all the time, the important thing to do is make sure that your mental health does not go down with it.

Have you got to the point where you have felt stuck in a rut and not known what to do? What was your solution to the problem?

Freelance Writing: 12 Ways to Promote Your Blog Post

Producing a piece of writing for a client who has commissioned freelance services from you, or for your own website should be a regular job because of the information and interest it offers to potential customers. However it is not enough to just write articles and web content, you also need to promote it, so that you will attract attention, readers and therefore possible clients or customers to your website. Offering blog and website promotion alongside blog and article writing enables the writer to offer a whole new set of skills to attract clients.

Here are 12 ways that you can promote a new blog post:

Post to social media. Rewrite the headline of your blog post to your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and any other social media that you have for your business. You can also promote your content on Pinterest and Instagram. Sum up your headline and add a link and a picture for the most interest. Schedule your blog post promotion to run regularly alongside other interesting relevant content.
Share on your personal social media profiles and tag anyone who you think might be interested
Share your blog post on relevant #hours on Twitter. A useful tool is to know when your local #hour is on. Examples might include #Brumhour, #Worcestershirehour and #Malvernhour. These time slots offer the chance to promote your business, which if you include the tag, will then be retweeted to other followers of the tag. These are particularly good for freelance businesses.
Tag possible infested parties when using social media
Leave an interesting and relevant comment on blogs that link to your business. Some blogs allow links back to your website in your name. Blogs that have a high ranking in search engines can return on keyword results for a long time after you left the comment. Make sure that the subject of the blog post you are commenting on is linked to the one that you are promoting.
Answer relevant questions on business forums, Linked-In groups or Facebook groups
Add a relevant post to Linked-In for people to like and comment on
Join Sarah Arrow’s 30 day blog writing challenge – there are normally a number of people doing it at once and it brings a number of blog readers with it. Of course you need to read and comment on other people’s blogs too. By the way, it costs just £1 to join!
Find some groups on Facebook who might be interested in what you are writing about and promote your blog post to them
When approaching potential freelance clients, include a link to your website and invite them to comment on the subject
Include the blog post in a newsletter to your clients on your email list
Include a link to your website on your CV, so that potential clients can check out your writing

Promoting your newly written blog post will help you to increase its readership and help to reach out to clients that you are hoping to freelance for.

What has worked for you?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch – should you write for free?

Actually, there is such a thing as a free lunch! My church put on a free lunch on the first Saturday of every month. They offer soup, fresh crusty bread and cakes, and it is very popular. Some of the homeless people in the town are waiting eagerly outside, at 12 pm, ready to come and eat and stay until the end, at 2. I have known people who are struggling, who are down on their luck, or just not making ends meet that month, come and enjoy a free hot meal. Not even a collection is taken – it is completely free.

However, when you are setting out as a writer, where do you find opportunities to write, if not for free? There are job ads everywhere, offering internships, voluntary positions, or even, the old chestnut, more paid work will be along soon! How do you know whether this is a position that will give you good experience and bring along better things, or whether you are just being taken advantage of? Here are three opportunities, where you might consider offering your services for free, and three where you would be well-advised to stay clear.

Take it!

A local charity is looking for someone to help with writing some articles for the magazine. It is a subject that you know something about, and you would like to write more about. Yes – especially if you are looking for some clips for a portfolio. This kind of thing is fine, especially for smaller, local charities. The only time I would be hesitant, would be if this were for a charity that could afford to pay. Also, make it clear that it would take second place to paid work, and limit how much you produce for them.
A friend is starting up a business and wants to set up a website. They are looking for help to put content together. You agree to write some pages for them, if you can link to their website on your portfolio. Yes – but with provisos! Not everyone chooses to work with friends – it can be a fast way to lose a friendship! Decide on the scope of the work before you start – how many articles, and know how long it is going to take you. Again, free work should only be done after paid work is done.
You decide to join an article-writing website. The article titles are chosen by you, so you can write about what you want, and the website puts advertising on your articles. You can collect the money for the advertising, once it reaches a certain amount. Your articles are passed by an editor before being published. Again – a qualified yes! This is something that I did, when just starting out. I liked the idea that the article had to be passed by an editor, so that meant it had to pass certain style guides. It taught me how to write a headline and how to write for the web. I made a little money out of it – but don’t expect to get seriously rich from this kind of set up! Also do some research before joining such a website – some are better regarded than others. It’s best to check out reviews first.

Don’t Touch it!

A company posts on a job board, looking for writers. They suggest that the opportunity will be great exposure and experience for a writer – but they can’t afford to pay yet. They say that there may be payment somewhere down the line… no! The problem is, that you don’t know the person and you have no idea about their circumstances. They may be telling the truth, but they may not. Stay clear or be taken advantage of!
You are emailed by a person you don’t know, out of the blue. They offer minimal compensation, but ask for a free trial of your writing to check whether you are up to the right standard. Not recommended! If they receive enough writers willing to do a free trial – will they need to pay at all? They may have emailed you, but you have no guarantee that this work is going to be worth your while. I have occasionally sent over a trial piece – but on the understanding that if they want to use it, I want to be paid for it!
You offer an article to a publication that pay for print and online pieces. Their reply tells you that they won’t be paying you because your piece will published as a blog post. You are a new writer, looking for clips – what do you do? This happened to an experienced freelancer who pulled the piece rather than give this publication free work. They would not have offered the work if they had thought that they would not be paid. This feels like a scam – and you should value your work too much to be taken in by it. If something doesn’t feel right – then walk away. There will be other opportunities.

How to start using Twitter as a Freelance Writer

One of the main things about becoming a freelance writer is the need to network and connect with other writers and clients. How successful you are in connecting with people is partly dependant on getting to grips with social media and learning to use it to your advantage. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your social interactions.

Do you use Twitter?

Do you use Twitter personally? What is your attitude to meeting people through social media. It is easy to be wary and restrict interactions with friends when it comes to our own personal accounts, but the whole reason for using social media for our business means that we need to reach out to others that we will not necessarily know. You may need to change your mindset in order to use social media effectively.

Where do your clients hang out?

I can remember attending an interview for a builders’ merchants who were looking for a social media person to build up their Twitter accounts. I didn’t get this job, but I still wonder whether builders actually have time to hang out on Twitter and pick up their offers. Most businesses these days offer email, many send out newsletters and have a website, usually developed by a third party, but Twitter and Facebook are very personal choices that not everyone wants to use. Check whether potential clients that you want to contact are choosing to use the method of social media that you are planning to use.

Where do you begin?

Choose a username that reflects your business. All the social media make it very easy to set up an account and the hardest thing can sometimes be finding the right name that has not already been taken.

Set a profile picture and a cover picture too. Most social media accounts also give you the option to reach out to people from your contacts list, so that you have a ready-made list to start connecting with. It is best to set up your profile as fully as you can.

Write your first post and publish.

Check in with your account regularly and monitor the activity. There are tools available to help schedule posts to help save time, depending on the form of social media.

What to post?

Social media is great for promoting your blog posts, website, offers and promotions, or just for sharing an article that you found useful or news. Decide how often you want to post. Posts should never just be self-serving promotions but full of useful information for others. Keep in mind the people that you want to reach and what they might be interested in reading about, or the knowledge that they might like to acquire. When you post, include a link and an image if possible.

You can also share videos, podcasts and infographics. You can curate news to post, writing the headlines in your own words and including a link. This can be a useful way of posting more often. Keep it relevant to your business and make it useful to your clients.

Social interaction

The most important part of social media is the social bit! Each form of social media has its own way of interacting. Twitter allows likes, replies and retweets. Retweeting other people’s tweets is a good way to begin your interactions. Follow people and their tweets will show on your feed. Look for people and companies that align with the people you are trying to reach. Thank people for following you and use hashtags.

Hashtags enable your posts to be found by interested parties. The most popular hashtags will appear when you start to type a word after a hashtag. Choosing one of the more popular ones will help people find you. Post regularly and follow up when people try to contact you. Some companies set up automatic replies to people who follow them, to let them know that it is appreciated. This can be a good idea, but make it a thank you and possibly a freebie that you offer rather than a hard sell.

How to work at home and get stuff done

Working from home sounds like the ultimate dream – no motorway car park to negotiate, no need to wear tight uncomfortable clothes – you can even work in your PJs if you want and you have 24 access to a fridge! However in order to stay focused and get your work done, you may have to be a little more organised.

Here are some top tips for getting on with work when you’re working from home.

1. Have somewhere to work. You need a clear space of desk, kitchen table or laptop stand to work. You need to be able to keep the things you will need close to hand, and you need to be able to use your printer or scanner when necessary. This means that you will also need access to plug points. It can be somewhere like the kitchen table where things get cleared away each day, or you might like to create a work station that can stay as it is for whenever you have some work to do.

2. Find a comfortable chair. Try to set up your workspace as ergonomically as possible to suit you and your needs. Make sure that you are not straining joints like wrists, that you are sitting with as good a posture as possible and that you take time to walk around at regular intervals.

3. Take time to exercise. There are a number of studies that point out that sitting still all day is not what the human body was designed to do. Do some stretches, go for a walk (or walk the dog) or take some other form of exercise.

4. Remember to shower and change into clothes. Tempting as it sounds to stay in your onesie all day, it does not help to put you in a work mood. In order to get work done, sometimes you have to take care of yourself and then get on with the day.

5. Check emails only once or twice a day. Three times if you’re addicted. Remember to turn email notifications off so that you can work undisturbed.

6. Turn social media off too. Social media managers get some leeway on this – it’s part of the job! However remember to keep on the client’s social media and away from your own unless you have scheduled it in.

7. Organise your paperwork. One of the most important things about working from home is to keep track of your income and expenditure, keeping paperwork filed and organised for those all-important tax returns.

8. Keep on top of your invoices. Set aside time to make sure that you generate and send invoices out. Don’t forget to chase any late payments.

9. Try and set aside definite times for work and times for housework. It can be hard to work with a pile of washing up behind you, so either get it done before you start work or agree with yourself a time to get it done. Sometimes I enjoy the fresh air and hang up the washing at the same time. House work can be done in small chunks as a way of getting away from the keyboard for a bit.

10. Connect with like-minded people through social media and find your own ‘watercooler’. It can seem lonely at home on your own if you are used to being in a busy office. However the internet is a great place to find other people who are doing the same thing that you are doing. Find your people and swap ideas.

Finally, the best thing about working from home is the flexibility. If the day is clear and you want to go out for a couple of hours and take your camera, you can do it! You choose your hours and as long as you get your work done, you set the pace and the schedule.

Freelance Writing – How to Write Great Product Descriptions for a Website

One of the many freelance copywriter jobs available is to write product descriptions for a website.

Writing Tools by Pete O'Shea on Flickr CC — Writing Tools by Pete O’Shea on Flickr CC

This is a description for each product on an e-commerce site which describes the product, gives a potential customer information on the product, often including dimensions and colour choices as well as materials that it is manufactured from. There can be some scope for creative writing as you describe the product to enable the customer to make a buying choice. A product description will be required for each product on the website, so this job could potentially last a long time, especially if more products are added to the website.

The first product description writing job I got was in the early days of my freelancing career. I was required to write descriptions for a sports and workwear clothing company. The descriptions were written in an Excel spreadsheet which was useful to enable me to know if I had used the exact same description before. There were about 800 products to describe, so it was time-consuming and I had a deadline to keep. I managed to make the deadline, but only by getting up early in order to finish the writing. The vendor was pleased and I was glad that I had managed to finish, but it was hard work.

More commonly these days, product descriptions are written straight into a content management system or CMS. The person who hired you will tell you what they want in each field, so you should be given instructions as to what to write. The information can include a product number or SKU, a product name, manufacturer, and a description.

The description is usually what takes the time. Each description should be unique. It’s not enough just to copy and paste the same description over again. This product information is seen as updating information by Google – new content which encourages the search engine to search the website, so rewriting website product descriptions can be helpful to your search results. The descriptions should not match other similar websites so the more unique the content the better.

However customers need to be able to match the information to what they are looking for. As much information about the product as possible needs to be included such as dimensions and colour choices.

Using Photos

You might be asked to collect and upload photos. You need to make sure that the website owner has the right to use the photos as they may be copyrighted. You may need to own a copy of an image manipulation programme as many websites have been optimised to suit a particular size of photo. This may also mean always using a landscape-orientated photo as opposed to a portrait photo.

It takes time to get into writing and uploading product descriptions, but once it becomes second nature, it can be a great job. You will quickly find yourself becoming knowledgeable about the products that you are writing about. You will probably be asked to upload a few descriptions and have them checked out before continuing with the work. This is a good idea as you can check that you are doing things correctly before getting too far into the work.

It can take a little time for your boss to check over your work and let you know that you are good to go. They may have some suggestions for you to improve your work. Try and follow them as much as possible and if necessary, have them check over your work again. It is better to get it right from the start than find that you have been doing it wrong halfway through the work.

Pricing

Some companies are looking for a fixed price while others want to pay by the hour. Certainly by the hour will give you a more true idea of how long it will take. Some bosses will want you to achieve a certain target number of product descriptions an hour while others will want to negotiate a price for the whole project. Don’t undersell yourself. Writing product descriptions is hard work and slow going in the beginning while you are getting used to what is expected of you. Your hours will almost certainly be more than you expect.

So, DO

negotiate price before you begin
make sure that what you are doing is what the vendor wants
include the time it takes to resize photos and upload them
make every description different
act professional in your dealings with your boss

but DON’T

be late delivering your work. If a problem comes up then talk to your boss and let them know.
just plough ahead without checking that your work is ok
get upset if you don’t get things right straight away. Everyone needs to know whether what they are doing is right and this is particularly important in copywriting
expect it to be easy straight away

Four More Qualities of Successful Freelance Writers

Some people just find writing hard work. The physical effort of putting pen to paper or fingers to keypad just does not do it for them. They are unsure that what they are doing is correct and they find the very act of writing a chore. Other writers love it. They enjoy the physical act of writing, whether it’s on a computer or with a favourite pen and paper. They love the feeling of the words flowing out from the brain and onto the page.

Does that mean it’s always easy? No. Writers’ block is very real and it can sometimes be difficult to find just the right word for the sentence, or to work out exactly what it is that you want to say next, but the enjoyment of the physical act of writing just doesn’t go away, no matter how many words you write. If this is you, then you have the potential to be a freelance writer. Here are some more qualities that you will need:

You enjoy learning about new and different things

If you want to write for a living and get paid for it, then you learn to write about many different things. Sometimes Writing Gurus suggest that the best way to get paid is to find a niche and become an expert writer in that niche. If in a previous life, you were an accountant or an insurance agent, then you might well have a niche if you can blog about your knowledge in an accessible way. Most of us do not have that background, however, so we need to discover what we enjoy writing about, and most importantly, what we can write well about. The ability to discover new, reliable sources as knowledge for what you have been asked to write is a very important part of being freelance writers. A future niche may grow out of that work, if you are engaged to write a lot of material in that area.

You have confidence in Your Writing

Writing confidently is part of writing well. Knowing what you want to say and making sure that it reads well is important to a freelance writer. Offering your work through an editor can help you gain confidence in your writing. It is important that you let others read your work, as they can spot errors that you might not.

You can Proofread Your Writing

On the subject of errors, it is important that you can spot simple grammatical and spelling errors. Spellcheck is a great tool and even those freelance writers who are confident in their writing, use it, but sometimes it will miss a homophone, or a word that sounds the same, but is spelled differently and has a different meaning.

You can Take Criticism

Most freelance writers who have had any clients have not always produced every piece of work perfectly. Quite often a piece of work will be returned with requests for revisions. It’s how you take it which is important. Your client knows what they want, and if you are lucky, they will ask for it. It’s your job to write what they want so no matter whether you disagree with them or not, you should write to their specifications. Always be professional and polite because these clients are paying you to do a job. Always turn in the best work that you can do.

Could You be a Good Freelance Writer? Part 1

If you think that you have to be a perfect writer to be a freelance writer, then think again. Many of the most successful freelance writers do not consider themselves to be perfect, just good at what they do. Many of them bring other skills to their work, such as the ability to network or to research quickly. So what skills do I think you need to become a freelance writer?

Persistence

Persistence is the number one attribute a freelance writer needs. You need persistence to finish a blog post, you need persistence to keep reaching out to people and companies who need your services and you need to be able to keep going when it seems that you are getting nowhere. You will never know where your next job is going to come from. Persist and you will eventually break through.

Good sense of voice (or able to write consistently in one voice)

This is important if you are going to sell your work. Your ‘voice’ is the tone in which your work reads. Some books are very literary in tone – they use long descriptions, unusual words and it can take a long time for any action to happen. This is a style which some readers like and other readers don’t. Other books can seem easy to read: the action bounces along in quick succession, the characters are sketchily drawn and they do not always take the trouble to draw the characters thoroughly. Neither is right nor wrong and most of us fall in the middle. Both kinds of writing draw readers.

Where do you think you are?

Read a piece of your writing and see if you can discover where you are on this scale. The most important thing is that your voice is consistent – it’s no good starting out literary and ending up friendly and jolly. Developing a consistent voice will help you as a freelance writer.

Grammar and Spelling

Contrary to popular opinion, your grammar and spelling does not have to be perfect, however it is useful to have an idea of how it works. Word processing can pick up most of the problems, but it is not always helpful if the spelling is right, but the word has the wrong meaning, or you don’t know which of the options to choose.

If you are very under-confident in using spelling and grammar, then make sure that you always have a link to a dictionary such as Merriam Webster. Don’t be afraid to google sentence structure to make sure that you are getting it right if you need to.

The best way to make sure that you are getting it right is to ask another pair of eyes to look over it. Even the best writers can make mistakes and we all need someone looking over our shoulder to check that what we are producing is right.

The best advice that I can give to a freelance writer starting out is to suggest that they undertake some writing assignments either on a website or real life which requires an editor to check over their work, before it is published. It is the best way to learn writing styles and to ensure that your writing will be polished and ready to sell when you start taking on clients.