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Starting any business with no experience is no easy feat, not even for an aspiring freelancer. It’s worse in societies that don’t want to give a newbie a chance.
Although they say, the best way to learn a thing is by continuously doing it – people who hire writers seek results. This is a classic case of debating if the fowl came before the egg or the egg before the fowl.
Well, there’s hope and you don’t have to go through all these hassles to start earning even as a not so experienced Freelance Writer.
The good thing about not being the first to go through an experience is the singular fact that you can learn from others.
This article X-rays the route and tips to become a freelance writer with no experience producing results.
I was once an inexperienced writer and as a freelancer then no one wanted to even touch me with a stick. I felt like a leper because of the way the treated me.
Breaking free from that stereotype wasn’t easy, but I had to do it for my sake, your sake, and for the sake of the client I’d meet after that phase.
I will be sharing the steps I took with you In this article.
The step is for everyone. Whether you have gone to university for journalism, taken a freelance writing course online, or have never written anything since high school; everyone has the ability to become a successful freelance writer.
In this post, we are going to give you tips that would help your career as a Freelance Writer.
How To Become A Freelance Writer With No Experience: Tips
I have compiled my experiences into a few steps and I hope they help you as much they helped me.
#1. Find Your Niche
A health-based content writer wouldn’t write the same way a science and technology writer would. So before you start off your journey as a content writer, define your niche.
This will help you in mastering your writing skills. I also advise you to choose a niche you’re really passionate about.
#2. Develop Some Writing Sample
As a writer with little or no experience, you have no identity, not even a published work to your name. Frankly, you might not have any unless you create one for yourself first.
Anyone looking for a writer might want to see what you’ve done before now, so make up some faux but quality content around your niche, write and publish to help grow your portfolio.
You could start your own blog, or become a guest blogger and reap the benefits of guest blogging.
#3. Contributing As A Guest Writer
While you are still trying to build a portfolio for yourself by writing as a guest on other blogs, treat whatever assignment you get as if it were from a client.
Do your best while writing these posts, will improve your writing skills and help build your writing portfolio.
You wouldn’t want to do a shabby work that you can’t refer to, will you?
If you want to sign up as a writer, click here.
#4. Become Visible
In this time and age, you have a lot of digital tools at your disposal to make you more visible. Start sharing your content on your Facebook pages and on Instagram and your LinkedIn Page.
These platforms should serve as the world’s window to your work. Moreover, you are most likely to find gigs online. So putting yourself and your work out there is a giant step towards meeting your clients.
Additionally, you must join relevant online groups either on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Instagram. There are also relevant writing groups on Slack, utilize such groups to your advantage.
Furthermore, there is LinkedIn, a professional way to connect to colleagues and clients alike and it is a good idea to set one up.
If you have employed all these strategies and still have what it takes to set up a website, I encourage you to do. It will be a place to show-off your freelance writing services and skills.
Doing this will set you apart from other writers and give you another stream where your potential clients can contact you.
Finally, visibility is one of the ways of becoming a freelance writer, even with no experience. So get visible.
#5. Use Every Networking Opportunity You Get
While you have become very visible online, you must build yourself a robust network of contact to compliment your efforts.
Attend classes organized for writers, mingle while you’re in those classes. Most time, it is the contacts in your networking circle that gives you your first job.
You can start by helping them fix a content to meet deadlines, to getting your own gigs.
Utilize your online presence to connect with people and network.
Identify professionals in in your niche they are part of your potential clients.
A strong network will help you get noticed, give you support when you need it, and develop lasting, beneficial working relationships. So start building one.
Your networking ability can play a huge role in how fast you become a freelance writer with no experience.
#6. Pitch Without Fear
There are good writers out there that are not freelance writers. Not because they are not good enough, but because for some reason they mess up their pitches when they get the chance.
While it is scary to pitch yourself to a total stranger, it is something you must do to get the job sometimes and that you must do with all confidence.
There’s no point reminding your client how much of a newbie you are when it comes to freelance writing. I’m not saying you should lie about your experience, but if he or she is not asking, don’t answer.
While trying to pitch confidently. be straight-forward in what you can offer the client. Do not beat around the bush in an attempt to cloak your nervousness.
Additionally, you must research your potential client. Finding out about their interest and how they run their business, will help you connect with them easily. It also will help you know how and where to showcase your passion as it concerns their project.
You want to become a freelance writer with no experience, this is how. Be confident and give that pitch.
#.7 Getting Paid
There’s an adage from the Igbo tribe in Nigeria that says “Onye Oru Nwere Ugwo” what this means when translated literally and as found in the holy book is that “A labourer has his or her wages”
In this case, every writer deserves his or her pay, and most inexperienced freelance writers often wonder how to get their pay or how much they should even charge for a job.
What you charge ultimately depends on you, however, your client has a say. To determine how to charge, you first need to understand how your clients would want to be charged.
Some would prefer to pay a price per article, why others would want to pay by the number of words they request from you.
Understanding what your client wants at every given time will help you understand how to charge them.
For instance, a client that pays ₦2, 000 for a 1500-words article, would definitely pay more if he wants more words. Use your discretion to know when to charge by the number of words and when to charge per article.
Sales copies may involve less number of words but it requires a culmination of all your skills to produce results. In such situations, it is paramount you charge per article.
Gain this clarity to avoid being underpaid for your skill set. Although you are a newbiew, don’t short change or devalue yourself.
How Do You Receive Payment?
How you get paid depends highly on who your client is and of course where he or she is.
As someone who intends to be a freelance writer, you have to be open to online payment methods which there are numerous of them out there.
Create or open an account with the platform that best suits you. Nonetheless, you must be flexible, if a client wishes to pay through another platform that you’re not on, get yourself on such a platform if it’s a legit platform.
For most people PayStack Does the magic for them, and frankly they are reliable.
Finally
I’d like to think that this article was helpful to you, take the steps as I have outlined above, and in no distant time, you will be sort after.
And if you can really write the skies will be your starting point. Remember, there are Apps that can make you work faster as a freelance writer, Get such plug-ins and see how fast and neat your work becomes.
