I expect that no one wants to hear this, but… in the 3 years that I’ve been freelancing, sadly, I’ve never had a single employer ask to confirm my writing portfolio. That means I could have claimed to have written any web site, article, etc., that I wanted. Of course, I don’t recommend you do that, but be aware that undoubtedly others are. Knowing howmany people are desperate for income, and that at your age jobs are hard to find, I think God will forgive you for fabricating a portfolio until you have enough work to create your own.

Of course, you would not want to claim work of a quality that you are incapable of replicating.

2. While it may be unavoidable when trying to work with small local papers, if you are securing work over the internet, don’t mention your age. It doesn’t matter, and most people don’t care, but a few will, so why take the chance?

3. Be aware that the low-paying jobs you may first have to pursue are typically not looking for the type of writing I suspect you hope to provide. Many are looking for SEO articles, which, IMHO, are mind-numbing torture to write. These are not the type of articles you’ll show off to your friends, and may, in fact, dissuade you from a writing career.

4. BEWARE of scams and outright thieves. I’ve been taken a few times, and it hurts. Consider using the freelance job boards (Guru, Elance, IFreelance, et al) that offer escrow services, but still be wary. Those sites offer mediation, but they have an inherent bias towards employers. And make sure the entire project fee is escrowed before starting to write.

5. If you are finding work on the street, consider ways to protect your intellectual property from the con artists and thieves. I typically do not send content in an accessible format until I’ve been paid. By that, I mean that I usually send the first draft as a locked PDF that cannot be copied or printed. And I black out blocks of content so they can’t just re-key it. The idea is to allow the employer to see enough of the content to confirm that you’ve done the work, but not let them use it. That should allow you to get paid, or at least, to get a decent partial payment before sending them the source document.

But even that is not enough — there are readily available tools for cracking PDFs, and once cracked, they can remove the black out. So, I actually send only images of the content – I take a screen shot of the content (w/black outs) and lock that in the PDF. Even if they crack it, they still can’t copy it or remove the black out.

Good luck!

r

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