How to Land Freelance Writing Jobs: 3 Critical Steps

I was recently contacted by an acquaintance who was wondering how I made my living online. One of my primary methods is writing for other people who own blogs. How do you go about starting this yourself? Here’s how you can land freelance writing jobs.

3 Critical Steps for Landing Freelance Writing Jobs

Keep in mind that the following tips will take you a long time to implement if you’re starting from scratch. But if you stick with it, you’ll soon be earning some nice extra income you could use to pay for groceries or maybe more . . . .

1. Build a solid foundation of work (write for free, for yourself).

Unknowingly, when I launched The Christian Dollar in January of 2010, I had no idea that I’d be making money writing for other people. Instead, I thought that I would be making money on my website from the start . . . I didn’t. While I do make money on The Christian Dollar through advertisements now, the majority of my pay at this point comes from working for others online.

The funny thing was that I was unknowingly setting the stage for landing freelance writing jobs by building content over here at The Christian Dollar. I was laying the groundwork for a revenue source I never saw coming. Pretty cool stuff, huh?

You can do the same thing. If you’re wanting to become a professional blogger, don’t quit your day job yet. Instead, go get yourself some web hosting and launch your very own website. Over here at The Christian Dollar I use WordPress (you can install using SimpleScripts within your hosting account), but there are many other platforms you can utilize for writing posts.

Write on a regular basis. Notice I said regular basis, not necessarily every day. The readers of your website will want to see that you can do consistent work. I haven’t always been the best at this, but I’m working on it.

2. Get your name and brand networked.

Alright, let’s say that you’ve been blogging for a few months and you’re ready to take the next step. What do you do? You have all this great content on your website but you’re not sure if people will recognize you when you ask them for work.

There are a couple of worthwhile things you can do to get your name and brand out there:

• Get a page on Facebook.
• Get a page on Google+.
• Join LinkedIn.

If you’re regularly updating your readers with your blog posts and things you have to say, you’ll eventually gain some notoriety. Network with other people who are writing what you’re writing about! Who knows, they might beat you to the punch and ask if you’ll write for them!

3. Ask for freelance writing work.

Yes, you have to ask for work sometimes . . . actually, most of the time. Usually it doesn’t fall into your lap. Make a list of maybe five or so websites that you admire (that also hires contributors) and ask them for work. When you email them, be sure to include who you are, some writing samples (they can be links to your website), and your work request.

You don’t necessarily have to ask for a certain amount of money, try keeping the dialogue open and vague at first. Bloggers typically know exactly how much they can afford, and typically they can’t afford any more than they’re paying other people. They’ll tell you what they can do. But once you’ve written for several sites, you might be able to ask for more money from other bloggers.

When you receive your response back, you’ll get a feel for their budget. If you can’t work for that amount of money, thank them and tell them that you were looking for a bit higher pay but will consider writing for them in the future. No hard feelings! Who knows, they might come back with a better offer!

There you have it! That’s freelance writing in a nutshell. Now why not go out and make some money? Oh, and if you’re looking for writers, you could always contact me instead.

Have a question about freelance writing? Ask a question below and I’ll meet you there!

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