10 Ways to Be A Successful Freelance Writer In 2021
3) Contribute to Traditional Media
There’s nothing more liberating then being your own boss. By definition, freelance writing is working on your own without being employed by a company or organization writing for money. Freelancers find work in many ways. Sometimes people leave their full-time job knowing they have made enough contacts to get work. Sometimes people find work through online gigs.
We all want the easy way to success, but success does not happen overnight. Sometimes it takes time and skill, but if you are good at what you do and have enough passion, you can make that dream a reality.
1) Start a Blog Website
Starting a blog site is the most common typical answer you will find out there, and with good reason too. Freelance writing is synonyms with blogging. A blogging website is a place where you can showcase your work portfolio and offer your services. Blogging enables you to reach hundreds of millions of users on the internet. Blogging can help promote yourself or your business. Users can find you much easier in a google search by typing a related keyword that you have on your website.
People with blogging websites can establish authority and credibility. People tend to believe something if it’s on a “professional website,” whatever that means. Blogs should have a testimony page to showcase the good reviews of you or your service/products. Testimonials from others should be used to help with your site’s credibility.
Blogs can offer a service or product to make money. Running ads through Google AdSense can also help monetize your website. Affiliate marketing is when you sell someone else’s product with affiliate links. The users click on the links and you get paid, if they purchase the product you get a piece of the commission. A place for your Patreon or donations for a cause can be linked or redirected. An online store can also be set up, the most common items are apparel and accessories.
Reputable website builders that will help you get started are, SquareSpace, Godaddy, WIX. If doubtful with your abilities, then you can hire someone to design one with a built-in feature.
2) Networking
Networking is all about connections, that’s the motto in the freelance world of writing. Expand your social media presence to expand your writing opportunities. The fact is that if you want to be a successful freelance writer in the modern 21st century then you must use technology to its fullest extent, that’s including social media.
Social media is all about producers and consumers. People are always selling something to someone. There’s a lot of marketing techniques you can use to sell yourself. Using keywords, finding niche groups, and directly interacting with people, is all about how to network through alternative media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
People who haven’t been on social media before will find it a new territory to inhabit. To get a better understanding of this foreign landscape requires the knowledge and assimilation to navigate it.
3) Contribute to Traditional Media
Contrary to public opinion, print media is not dead, they just moved somewhere else. Submit an Op-ed or any article you have as a final draft to traditional media outlets online. In most cases, the final draft will be reviewed by the editor and either accepted or declined, If it is almost what they are looking for, but not quite there yet then they may tell you to revise it more so that they can accept it.
Many media outlets will always consider stories by national, state, or local level by anyone that wants to share. You do not have to have to be employed by these media outlets to be a contributor, although there are staff writing jobs as well.
If you have stories you want to share, then become a contributor to these traditional media outlets for mainly experience and exposure, not primarily monetary. It will be harder for your articles to be accepted by the larger outlets, which is why local is your best shot at starting. Money is very little for contributors, but if you are consistent, then you can make more.
Making little money should not be a deterrent because you can always get notoriety, which can grow your website.
Options Below: Associated Press The Atlantic Seattle Times NY Times The Washington Post Wall Street Journal
4) Write List Articles
Since the dawn of the internet, list articles have been extremely popular. They are memorable pieces of information broken up into multiple parts, kind of like this one. People like lists because they are easy to follow and learn from. When it comes to music, tv, and film, they are cultural in learning about society.
There are sites out there that will pay writers to write lists like this one here.
Listverse
They’re covering a wide range of ideas for topics. Lists can range from Movies and TV to Business and technology to the straight-up bizarre and weird.
Payment: Every article that is accepted will be paid 100$ through PayPal, so make sure you have one it is non-negotiable.
Cracked
If you have a story to tell and can tell it in a comedic format then try Cracked.
Unlike Listverse, Cracked does not need to have a top ten format but it does need to be a list in any number from the top 4 to 27 ways to…
Payment: 100–250$ depending on quality if accepted.
AlistApart
They have a lot of business, writing, and code topics. Posts are mainly about the industry, and how it can move forward.
Payment: 50$–200$, depending on the quality and quantity.
More Lists:
5) Enter Writing Contests
Writing contests don’t distinguish between amateurs and professionals. Writing contests comes in all shapes and forms from poetry to fiction or nonfiction. There are free contests and ones with an entry fee. Entering writing contests is worth it. It can’t hurt you to try. Depending on how well you rank, you can get some exposure which can lead to other opportunities.
6) Publish an E-book On Amazon Kindle
A great way to get a passive income is by publishing an E-book online. The difference from writing lists or articles is they only give you a one-time payout, but here you get constant passive income without any work, except for the initial work.
You can publish your E-book on Amazon Kindle here. Recently Medium has just acquired the company Glose, which is a reader store similar to Amazon, based in Paris, France. With the main purpose of distribution of E-book from small-time writers.
It is a huge benefit to have a company like Amazon or Glose distribute your product since they already have millions of customers from around the world, your book would be more widely available.
7) Start With A Staff Job
Although you would be working for someone, there are benefits similar to freelancing. Depending on the job You choose you can still write about what you want. Working closely with editors teaches you the education in the business. Also just as important, it gets you connections that you can use to find more work including freelance writing.
8) Become a Copywriter
Not to be confused with copyright ©, copywriting is the act of writing text as content to advertise for advertising. m It is an Art of Writing Content to increase a company’s brand awareness and increase sales. It is how you specifically craft certain words so that more people will read them.
Like poetry, every word should have a specific purpose for its use. There should be no redundancies, this way you can improve your writing to be more persuasive.
8b) Content Site Writer
A Content Site Writer works like a Copywriter selling a website through the persuasive use of words. They specialize in writing content for websites using keywords for search engine optimization.
9) Practice, Practice, Practice
Write every day, Keep doing what your doing, make it a habit. Writing down your ideas and coming back to look at them later can help you refresh and get a new perspective.
Persistence is key to success. Once the ball is in motion it becomes like a bullet train, it’s impossible for the momentum to come to a stand-still.
All great entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs were persistent in their work and starting up their companies. They didn’t have all the answers when they started but eventually learned the ways.
Practice is an important step in becoming a successful freelance writer because it builds confidence in your abilities and passion. It builds strength in what you can do or knowledge in what is limited. Make it a daily habit and it will never feel like work.
10) Blogging on Medium
Ah, if that sounds familiar that’s because it is. With over 220 million users, Medium is on the same level as Spotify and Pinterest. Writers on Medium can write about any of their passions from fiction to nonfiction. Even if you don’t have an audience on social media that shouldn’t discourage you from joining Medium. Top stories get featured on the front page, publications can publish your work and daily email suggestions can reach a wider audience. It’s a great way to get started and in the habit of writing daily. It is a great way to build up a portfolio piece of your work to show to whom it may concern.
10b) Vocal Media
It’s very similar to Medium there are stats, story drafts, and published stories to access. Stories can be published by a publisher to gain more views. Payments are different.
Takeaway
Success doesn’t come down from the clouds, it has to grow from within. Freelance writing is a great way for more opportunities for income. If you have enough passion for what you do then nothing is impossible. You just need to be consistent and have patience. Take these different opportunities and see what works and learn from what doesn’t.