From Zero to £1,000: My Journey as a Successful Freelance Writer

Tenacity and consistency are everything in the writing game.

Taking the plunge into (serious) freelance writing has been an interesting challenge, but one that I’ve enjoyed nevertheless.

The purpose of this post is to detail the steps by which I made my first £1,000 (which equates to about $1297.03) as a freelance writer. It isn’t much to many but I know that there are some who are starting out that would love to make such an amount directly from the words that they put down on a page.

I started out writing as a hobby, writing blogs on things that I enjoyed — music, society, entertainment, etc. But after years of not making a penny off my work, at the end of 2019, I figured that it was time to make something off my hobby. It was time to get paid. I didn’t know how much I would end up making or even if I would make anything, but I knew I was going to make something no matter what.

Here are the steps that I took which if you follow, I trust that you will be able to go in a positive direction with your freelance writing career also.

Build Your Portfolio

The first thing I knew was important was getting my portfolio together. If I was going to get work then I needed to have work that demonstrated my skills.

Across the board, it’s more or less the same. It’s very hard to attract paid opportunities in your direction without some sort of portfolio or track record of previous work to show your quality.

So I dedicated some time to gathering all the written work I had done over the years and putting it together in my Linktree, which is a great tool for putting all your online work in one place. I made sure to bolster this portfolio with additional unpaid written work done just for the benefit of boosting my profile.

From what I read from other freelance writers, it’s widely agreed that it’s hard to build your portfolio at the start without doing some unpaid written work if anything just to build your voice as a writer. The good thing about platforms such as Medium is that they allow you to do this while making some money in the process.

Once I had a decent enough body of work to where I was confident enough to start pitching for work, I started the next process.

Pitch Yourself Relentlessly

I looked for publications that posted written content in my niche and interests, made a list of them, and pitched. Relentlessly.

At the start when you don’t have a big name as a writer it’s highly unlikely that people will contact you directly to start writing for them, hence, you will need to reach out to them.

You will need to introduce yourself to them — whether that’s by finding the contact email on their website or by finding the editor on Linkedin, Twitter, or elsewhere on social media. However you can, you need to open the lines of communication with them.

Let them know who you are, what your main areas of writing are, and what you have to offer them as a freelance writer. Send links to your portfolio so they can see it. It’s important that you have an idea of exactly what you can offer the publication/brand and why your portfolio is even relevant to them because they need to know why they should give you an opportunity over someone else.

They may have a brief of the types of pitches that they take. Or they have a specific type of content they produce. Your job is to tailor your pitch to what you think they are looking for in new writers for their platform.

The harsh reality is that you may not get any replies to your pitches. You may simply get a reply saying they aren’t taking pitches or new work right now. That is the name of the game. Keep going. Keep sending your pitches out.

I was lucky in that in my first month of seriously pitching myself as a writer, I pitched myself to a connection of a known platform — Black Young Professionals Network (BYP), with who I had a rapport due to my support of her brand for some years. I made it clear what I wished to offer the blog publication and I showcased my passion for delivering quality work to them.

I was given the opportunity to deliver a trial piece of work for the publication and see where it went from there.

Show Up And Deliver

When you get the opportunity to deliver your work to anyone, you must deliver quality. No excuses. The better you do, the more chance you have of securing further work down the line.

I delivered during my trial period and from there, I was taken on as one of the regular freelance writers for the platform. Over the next year, I have been delivering consistent written work to the platform and got paid in the process.

Even when I have not been in the mood to produce, I have had to do so because if you do not produce, you can’t get paid.

The consistency I showed in writing for this one client is what has allowed me to earn well over £1,000 as a freelance writer. If anything, this tells you that no matter how many pitches you send out, all you need is one yes to change your situation.

Continue Looking For Future Opportunities

In my career as a freelance writer, I’ve seen that even when you secure work, it’s important to always continue to look for new opportunities where possible. Even though I’ve made upwards of more than £1,000 as a writer, my bigger plan involves making much more than that. I’m looking to 10x my income on a month-to-month basis and for that, it requires building my portfolio even further so I can secure and attract greater opportunities my way.

The values and disciplines I’ve learned during my start as a serious freelance writer, as well as the work I’ve done, have allowed me to continue to pitch to bigger and bigger publications and allowed me to get opportunities to write for brands like Huffington Post. This has boosted my income further and has put me on an upward trajectory in my career as a freelancer.

You Can Do It Too

If I can do it then you definitely can. The steps are quite clear — build your portfolio, know what you have to offer, find out where you can offer this, pitch yourself wherever you can, get the opportunity to deliver quality work consistently and when you do, use the opportunities you get to leverage yourself into further opportunities.

Eventually, you will get yourself where I am trying to get myself, where people are looking for you rather than you looking for them. But that is a process that takes time and work.

But I can tell you this, getting paid for your writing is honestly a great feeling. I wish you well on your own journey of making it happen for yourself. Let me know how it’s going for you.

For more posts about writing, make sure you check out Jeff the Content Profit Coach, and Akhita Tayal who each have made posts that have helped me out in my time on Medium.