About Freelance Writing

Originally published on Entrepreneur; reprinted here with permission.

This year I decided to try something completely new. I jumped face first into the world of independently driven web writing. In a short amount of time I’ve been able to develop and maintain numerous organic writing relationships. On top of that, I’ve learned a lot about the entire process. From emailing websites for the first time, to guest contributor applications, down to the writing undertaking itself.

Trust me, I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way. Which is why I believe that any new web-writer will benefit from these lessons I’ve learned.

Be genuine

Step one to a successful new writing endeavor is making sure that you genuinely care about the topic and websites you are exploring. Nothing makes your writing shine like pursuing an idea that is captivating to you personally.

It doesn’t hurt to ask…

It doesn’t hurt to ask; the worst they can say is… well, nothing.


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Finding freelance writing jobs has certainly gotten easier since the advent of the ‘net and this post is mostly about that.

But first I want to tell you how I found the resources listed here. Long before the ‘net and The Google, there were libraries. Back in the day, libraries had card catalogs that had a cards on each book. They cards were sorted into categories – title, author, and subject. Many books had more than one subject card.

These cards were collected into wonderful wooden drawers, held in place by a long metal rod that passed through the hole punched in each card. When you wanted to find something on say, writing, you’d pull open the drawer marked Wh-Ws and thumb through one-by-one until you found what you wanted.

There was a magical feel about pulling the correct drawer out. You could, if needed, remove it completely and rest it on a built-in shelf so you could get to the very last cards.

Card catalogs meant serendipity

One of the great joys of this process was finding the unexpected. For example, if you were looking for something about writing, you might stumble into books about writ which is a legal term, or find something on the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust (WRIT). You just never knew what might show up.


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I don’t understand why excellent customer service seems to be a mystery to many companies. This came strongly to mind when I arranged and paid for an airport shuttle to pick me up at 4 am for a 6 am flight. It was a new company and I found them through their perky almost navy blue powered by CNG which I saw on the freeway and followed most of the way home.

I was able to find their website not by their name, which is, imo, awkward, but by their slogan. There’s a marketing lesson there. Their website looked good and it was easy to schedule the rides to and from the airport. I figured I was all set.

Cancelled at midnight

I had set an alarm to wake up at 3 am, giving me plenty of time for the final packing, a good cup of coffee and a play session with the cats if they wanted to get up that early. I hardly slept and was up by 2:30 which also gave me time to check my email.


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Making sure you communicate with your freelance writing clients is important. There are, however, times when it’s more than important, it’s crucial.

For example, these four times illustrate when you simply must communicate with your freelance writing clients:

• When you’re going on vacation.
• When you’re confused about what you are writing for them.
• When you’re going to miss a deadline.
• When you haven’t been paid as promised.

Of course these can also be the more awkward kinds of communications you’re apt to have with your writing clients.

Let’s take a look at each one.

When you’re going on vacation

Yes, even freelance writing entrepreneurs are entitled to take some time off. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a formal vacation. For example, tomorrow I leave on a four day business trip for my real estate education business.


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“How do I find my freelance writing voice?” I get this question often.

Let me tell you how I really found mine.

Years ago I created a newspaper column called, I think, Successful Single Parenting. I sold it to three newspapers, giving me the beginning of what I hoped would become a massive syndicate paying me millions.

It was a Q & A patterned after either Dear Abby or Ann Landers, or maybe both. Each week I’d make up two or three questions, answer them, send them off to the three newspapers. Occasionally I’d get a question from a reader. I think I made something around $30 a month, maybe a tad less.

Magic happened

To my surprise I got a call from what was then one of the largest newspaper syndicates in the country. The call was from a seasoned editor there – yes, it can happen that they call you. He had been reading my columns and maybe even gotten ahold of the book I’d written which was published by a small publisher in the midwest.


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I first ran into the 80 percent rule over at MarksDailyApple… an excellent site about the Paleo diet. The idea there is that if you follow the eating plan 80 percent of the time you’ll be way ahead of the game.

I loved it because I knew I could do that. It allowed for transition time, a learning curve, mistakes and just plain old resistance. It’s worked for me. I now follow a low carb diet with, for the most part, real ease, way more than 80 percent of the time and am getting the results I want, slowly.

It turns out that the idea behind the 80 percent rule is the observation that 80 percent of our results come from 20 percent of our efforts. I don’t know how scientific that is, but it’s one of those notions that feels right. It’s based on the Pareto principle, sort of. In business, for example, it is said that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your clients. Which isn’t exactly the same as I understood it in relationship to diet.

The 80% rule and freelance writers

How might this apply to freelance writers? Although some say we get 80 percent of our work from 20 percent of our clients, that doesn’t seem to fit me. Besides, my first question is, even if that’s true, how did I get those 20 percent that send me 80 percent of my work? Obviously I had to be doing a bunch of marketing to find them.


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Ever feel like you’ve got way too much to do and not nearly enough time or energy to get it all done? That’s what I call freelance writing overwhelm. It’s an unpleasant sense that I’m never going to get any time to just be.

And, in my case, it’s usually not only about the writing I need or want to do. Other things in life start to pile up and if I’m not paying attention I’m soon in overwhelm.

For example, my current to do list includes:

Adding a specific code to my ebook sales pages – which turns out to be way more complicated than I thought and there’s a hard deadline.

I need a cocktail or dressy dress for an upcoming conference and haven’t a clue what I want or where to get it.

I have yet another draft of proposal for a client that didn’t give me complete information to start, and I didn’t realize I needed. As a result, I’m way behind.

Two more blog posts for a regular client – wish I’d done them earlier in the month, but I didn’t.

My house needs a cleaning, really from top to bottom, and I better get some laundry in today or I’ll be out of clothes to wear by tomorrow or so it seems. And these are just what I think of as the biggies. (Off to start laundry right now… okay, laundry started.)


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Proper use of freelance writing hashtags allows you to signal to social media users that your content is of interest to those in the freelance writing field.

Hashtags are those search words or phrases preceded by the number or hash sign (#) that’s found on top of the number 3 on most keyboards. Originally used by programmers to call out something specific. They began to creep into public awareness with the advent of Twitter and their decision in July of 2009, to link hashtag tweets. It was during the Iranian election protests of 2009-2010 that the upsurge in hashtag use really took off.

Hashtags are no longer limited to Twitter – you’ll find them and can use them on almost all social media including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and more.


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I often hear from freelance writers who are having trouble getting paid. It turns out many are actually afraid of asking for the money that’s owed them. Could this be you?

It used to be me.

For the longest time I thought  it was rude to ask for the pay that I had earned as a freelance writer. I don’t really know why. When I had jobs I expected to get paid and the one time I didn’t – I was waitressing and the paycheck bounced – I had no trouble in insisting on cash and getting it.

But when someone didn’t pay me for writing when I had expected it, or even worse, actually stiffed me, I rarely took any action toward getting paid. It was as if, on some level, I didn’t feel I deserved to be paid for something I enjoyed doing so much.

I had no idea how rare the ability to write is

It took me a long time to realize that most people don’t love to write the way I do. Nor do they find it, well, almost easy. Words flow out of my fingers onto the page and sometimes it feels like magic rather than work.

Just in case you feel even a little bit like that, let me suggest that the first bold step you need to take toward getting paid is to recognize you have a skill than most of the world doesn’t. Don’t believe me? Widen your blog reading. Pick something other than writing or blogging as your topic – cats, gardening, hair care, fly fishing… anything. Google up some blogs on a variety of non-writing topics and the chances are you’ll see several that are poorly written, and yet they’re out there for all to read. You know you can do better and that’s exactly why you got hired.


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