When I began freelance writing, I started sorely under-prepared.
I got my first freelance writing contract (a content mill), just before I graduated from college. It was a dream come true. After applying for hundreds of in-person jobs over the past several months, I finally had the promise of work. Plus, it was flexible, remote, and didn’t require any long onboarding process.
I enjoyed writing. I double-majored in psychology and criminology, so my research capabilities were strong. It seemed the perfect match. I was ecstatic.
The blinders stayed on for several years.
It wasn’t until I started looking for additional contracts that my delusions came crashing down around me.
My writing and research skills weren’t the issue. In fact, I had a lot of the skills that freelance writers need. Those skills made me a great candidate for many of the other contracts I was pursuing. But, I lacked several business habits that established writers had already figured out.
Don’t waste your time learning those lessons the hard way. I already did — and so did a lot of other freelance writers.
Looking back, I can see where I went wrong. Here are 8 things that successful freelance writers do differently.
They Specialize
At the start of my career, I didn’t have a niche.
I took on any writing job that suited my capabilities. So, I naturally marketed myself as a broad writer.
My experience grants me plenty of familiarity with a lot of subjects. I’ve written articles about paleontology a few times. Some about dentistry, fishing, financial planning, retirement, child custody, and more.
I have written in several writing styles and voices. I’ve written art tutorials, interviews, newsletters, and case studies.
Since my experience was so varied, I believed that was a strength. And I believed it was enough for attracting new clients.
But new clients didn’t care that I had a lot of experience in a lot of subject areas.
They cared that I had experience in their field.
I began marketing myself in the areas I was more familiar with. I put myself into a niche.
That didn’t take away my varied experience. But it made me a stronger candidate when getting contracts related to my strengths.
Without having a niche or an area of specialization you remain a subpar candidate in everything. With a niche you highlight your strengths. And that makes you more desirable as a candidate for certain contracts.
If you are more desirable, you have a better chance at landing a new client.
They Think Strategically
Experienced freelancers don’t have the mindset of “if I can write, I’ll find work.”
It’s not as simple as that.
Though, I wish it was.
Possessing strong writing and researching skills does not guarantee work. It didn’t for me. And it won’t for you.
If you want long-term success, start thinking beyond your capabilities.
Consider your pricing models, for instance. Professionals often do not charge by hour or per word. I did this with my pricing models for a long time. But, I found it didn’t work.
The reason it didn’t work was because I would frequently end up blending the two charging methods. I used them as a rough guide for new projects, but I was charging based on the value. Not based on the word count or the amount of time I spent on it.
The amount of time you spend on a project, along with the word count, is relatively unimportant. I say “relatively” because it’s still a good factor as you make your final price. But, they are far from the only factors worth considering.
A strategic mindset puts you in this state of thinking.
What else does strategic thinking do?
Well, it means that you consider the long-term. You have a niche and a reputation to uphold. That means you take on clients that promote your niche and reputation. Not that you take on every paying client.
It also means that you make decisions about the kind of content you write.
One of the content types that I will never write are essays for college or high school assignments.
Initially, I didn’t care. If someone was going to pay me for work, then cool.
But the brand I was building was not one of a person who caters to those sorts of clients. Doing that work would have weakened what I was building. It would have brought in money, but at the long-term cost of reducing my brand and professional growth.
These are the sorts of considerations successful freelance writers think about. They have a strategic mindset, so all their decisions are based on strategy. Not on emotion.
They Ask Questions
My work at the content mill did not require this.
I got instructions. I was told the required formatting for each piece, the number of keywords and where to place them, and the expected word count. All I was responsible for was finding a subject that pertained to each client, then finding good sources for the articles.
It was simple work.
But it didn’t set me up for success.
Great freelance writers aren’t getting instructions. They are getting a broad list of client expectations.
But that leaves a lot unanswered.
- What voice does the client want?
- What publishing timeline are they looking for?
- Who is the target audience?
- What is the goal of the content?
- What has worked or failed in the past?
These questions are not answered via instructions. They are answered because experienced writers are asking them.
Sometimes, the answers are not found by directly asking the client. Great freelance writers look at past content and website content so they understand the existing brand voice. They check publication dates and, at most, confirm whether the client plans on maintaining or changing publishing times.
Depending on what the freelance writer is doing, they have access to a site’s analytics. Through those analytics, they can determine the company’s typical audience.
Certain things do require information directly from the client.
Either way, strong freelancers are asking questions. They are not waiting for instructions. They are coming up with a gameplan and doing the research they need for finding the answers.
They Build Systems
Establishing a habit as a freelance writer is easy.
You wake up every day and then get to work.
That’s all I did for a long time early in my career. I took on other contracts in addition to my original one, but I still wasn’t planning my days.
Every day was wholly unplanned. I was just hoping for the best. I would get as much work done as possible during my “working hours.” Sometimes, that would look like $25 for the day, if I was lucky. Other times, it was closer to a few hundred for the day.
The days I made a few hundred were great. I was happy and hoped for more of them. But I never organized myself enough. I checked my emails compulsively throughout the day. Whenever a piece needed editing, I dropped what I was doing and took care of it. Even the editing and revisions were sloppy because I didn’t want to spend too much time on them since other stuff was on hold.
It was a miracle that I didn’t have constant problems with turning in content late. Though I was often rushed with my writing because I had waited until a day or two before it was due.
Relying only on a writing habit crippled my work. My writing was sloppy, my editing needed work, and my income was massively variable.
It wasn’t sustainable.
Eventually, I developed more systems for my day.
It wasn’t just waking up, working, and hoping for a profitable day. It was waking up, checking my email first-thing and responding to clients. Content that needed editing was placed on my list for that day or the next day, depending on my availability. And I informed the clients of that realistic time-window.
I set aside time for finding new clients and pitching new ideas. One of my contracts had monthly meetings, so I set aside time for those.
The best part?
I wasn’t hoping for the best. I wasn’t losing time and losing work. I was being productive, efficient, and delivering stronger results for clients.
That’s what successful freelance writers do. They create systems.
When you are first starting out, you may not have a lot that needs including in your system. But establish the system, nonetheless. As you grow, that system is already in place. That makes your life easier as you adjust and adapt to a changing work load.
They Are Proactive
Ah, proactivity.
I briefly talked about my lack of proactivity in an article about building a freelance writing career without constantly pitching.
I didn’t start off pitching. I never cold emailed clients or sent in submissions for blogging sites. My work was through a freelance website. I would occasionally apply to projects there. But that was it.
I got lucky and pulled quite a few contracts through that site. It worked well for me and I never saw any reason for changing.
Until I tried finding work outside of that site.
When I got involved in the general world of freelance writing, my career floundered. I wasn’t familiar with pitching or cold emailing clients. I didn’t know how people wrote pitches.
It was a mess and it took me a few years before I got back on my feet. Partially because of my stubbornness and partially because of my lack of knowledge.
Writers who thrive long-term don’t wait around until the work comes to them. They are out there building their client list in varying ways. They are networking, pitching, and asking for referrals.
What they aren’t doing is sitting on the sidelines.
This need for proactivity is seen in many areas of freelance writing, too. For instance, it comes up when communicating with clients. Don’t wait until the client reaches out. Be proactive and give them an update about the status of the project. Be proactive about payments that you are owed.
Being proactive starts out scary. At least, it did for me.
I went out of my way to only reach out to clients when they needed me.
This resulted in some unhappy clients who weren’t sure of their project’s status. And it also resulted in me losing quite a few payments. Don’t make that mistake.
Whether you are scared, or not, make a point of being proactive.
They Focus on Outcomes
Each client has their own idea of success. Not everything works for everyone.
I spent a good part of my career thinking that the same “strategy” worked for every client. I believed that the repetition of publishing would improve SEO. I employed keywords and key phrases sometimes. But I didn’t worry too much about them. I focused more on just writing about subjects that pertained to clients.
This plan didn’t improve their online visibility much. It did a little bit because publishing more content does improve how often your things get viewed online. But not much. And, it isn’t a good long-term plan if you want any sort of real outcome.
No matter what the client wanted, I gave them the same thing: content. One client wanted SEO, and another wanted more leads. Both of them received the same solution: an article. It was well-written and relevant to their field. I thought that a high-quality article was enough to get clients to the outcomes they wanted.
I never bothered asking clients what success looked like to them. I never asked what outcomes they wanted.
I just wrote.
As a successful freelance writer, you can’t treat every client the same.
Each client wants different things. And different things work in varying amounts for each client. It isn’t a cookie-cutter profession.
When you focus on outcomes, you recognize this.
You understand the process. So, when clients have different goals and histories, you adapt those skills to their needs.
It isn’t one-size-fits-all. Don’t treat it that way.
They Offer Value, Not Words
Great freelance writers aren’t selling just content.
Is content part of the package?
Duh.
But words are easily strung together. In fact, if all you do is offer words, you’ll end up taking a pay-cut or pricing yourself out of the competition.
That happened to me once.
This was years ago, when I had a per-word rate of $0.10. It wasn’t a bad rate for the time. It was normal for freelance writers who had a few years of experience.
I was mostly working through the freelancer website and marketing myself as just a writer. All I offered were words. I was competing for those words with writers from around the world. Many of these writers came from countries that had a lower cost of living than where I lived. If they got paid $0.01 per word, or less, they enjoyed a comfortable life.
In my conversations for one project, the client asked me what my rate was. I confidently told them $0.10 per word. The response I received back was something along the lines of “$0.10 per word is way too high. You’ll never find someone to pay that. Most freelancers are charging $0.02 per word.”
Was the client right?
Maybe. For people from developing countries.
I knew the client was wrong for my locale and my experience. Still, it damaged my belief in myself. I spent several months doubting my prices and wondering if I was in fact charging too much.
Turns out, I wasn’t.
What I had done was price myself out of the running for “just words.”
Successful freelance writers aren’t selling words. They sell value.
They sell more clicks on a client’s website. They sell brand exposure and strengthening, more leads, or an increase in revenue.
The goal is improving a client’s marketing strategy. Words are a part of that, but freelance writing is so much more. You position yourself as a trusted partner in your client’s progress toward business success.
That is what you are selling.
They Always Stay Professional
There are a lot of situations in the freelance writing world that you can take personally.
Rejection is probably the most obvious. That is something that is easily taken personally. And it’s something that stops many people from pursuing freelance writing as a career.
It almost stopped me, actually.
There were quite a few times that I got rejected early in my career and I stopped trying altogether for months. I barely worked most of those days because I felt so negative about my own capabilities.
Through those experiences, I learned I couldn’t take rejection personally. It still hurt me for a while, though. But not as bad.
I had to stay professional. That was the only way through it.
And it wasn’t just staying professional in how I treated myself, either. I needed professionalism in my dealings with clients who rejected me, as well.
There were many times that I wanted to respond to a client who had rejected me and tell them that they were wrong. That client who said my rates were too high? I definitely wanted to say something to them. I wanted to explain how my rates were the standard for my area while also making a dig at them for looking for cheap work in developing countries.
But, that wouldn’t have been professional.
Look, there will always be situations in freelance writing where you feel wronged. You’ll want to plead your case and make the client understand what it is that you offer.
In truth, you wouldn’t want that client, anyway.
That’s not to soften the blow of rejection. Rejection can come from fantastic clients; clients you are excited about working with. But sometimes it is the truth. If a client doesn’t recognize the value you offer, don’t spend your time making them see it.
Recognize the loss and focus on clients who see it all on their own.
This is all a matter of professionalism. The way you handle rejection and the way you talk to clients relates to professionalism. And it applies to your follow-ups on project progress and requests for payment. How you schedule your day and manage multiple clients at once relates to professionalism.
Professionalism means responding thoughtfully, not emotionally.
So, when something happens that gets your emotions high, don’t react with your emotions. Take a breath and react deliberately.
Successful Freelance Writers Think Like Business Owners
When building a long-term career as a freelance writer, you need the right skills and mindset. I’ve written about the essential skills freelance writers need, so if you’d like to assess your own strengths, be sure to check out that article as well.
Mindset goes beyond that, though.
Great freelance writers operate like a business owner. They ask the right questions, they stay professional and proactive, and they are goal-oriented. Skills alone are not enough.
I believed that skills were enough. I spent many years operating under that assumption. My career trajectory took a big hit.
For a while, things seemed fine. I had several contracts and new opportunities kept coming in. Then I hit a plateau. New contracts stopped appearing, my client list dwindled, and eventually the only work I had left was my original content mill work.
At that point, I stepped away from freelancing for a while and got a different job. I talked briefly about this in a post on my LinkedIn.
It was a big hit to my ego.
But I got my motivation back quickly and went back to freelancing in my free time.
The progress was slow at first, and required that I delve into what mistakes I had made. My discovery was that I didn’t have the right mindset. The skills were there, and they delayed the inevitable slowdown of my career. But the mindset is what makes a freelance career sustainable over time.
When you think like a business owner, and you have the writing and other skills necessary for freelancing, you position yourself as a competitive candidate.
That is how you find clients who will pay more because you are offering value, not words.
That is how you establish and maintain a client base.
That is how you find success.
If you are looking for writing services that bring you value — not just words — from a writer who learned from her past mistakes, I’d love to hear from you! Let’s create content that is worth your investment.