Becoming a freelance writer is not as hard as several people assume. In fact, it is one of the easiest freelance skills to get yourself engaged with.
If you do not have any prerequisite knowledge and are asking, “Can I become a freelance writer?”
Yes, you can.
Personally, I did not know how to write, I mean write content and articles. I only knew how to read and write my class notes.
So, how do you become a freelance writer?
Relax! You do not have to worry yourself too much, as this article is just for you with the aim of giving you insights into how you can become a successful freelance writer.
Who is a freelance writer?
Whenever I have a chat with people and we touch on the aspect of freelance, they often ask, “What does freelance mean?”
Freelance, as a term simply means being self-employed while completing several tasks in a particular niche for different people or companies.
Now, you should know who a freelance writer is. A freelance writer is someone who completes writing tasks for different individuals in need of content service.
A freelance writer can write content relating to website content, blog posts, article writing, news writing, copywriting, and e-books, among others.
Areas of focus in freelance writing
There are different writing niche you can specialise in as a freelance writer. It is also possible to specialise in more than one writing area.
Below are some areas you can explore to find out the one that interests you most.
Content writing
Content writing is a broad aspect of freelance writing. It involves creating engaging and interesting content for purposes such as creating awareness for a brand, explanation about a topic, or even personal and lifestyle discussions.
Content writing involves knowing the rudiments of writing to create quality and plagiarism-free content.
Blog writing
Another area of focus that is similar to content writing is the writing of a blog. This simply involves writing blog posts on a blog website.
Most often, this type of writing aims at passing information across a wide array of topics such as education, politics, sports, and lifestyle, among others.
It is pertinent to understand the principles of editing when writing content for a blog to ensure that it has a great readability.
Ghostwriting
The third area that I will be talking about is ghostwriting.
What is ghostwriting?
I am quite sure you may already be inquisitive as regards getting an answer to this.
Well, ghostwriting simply involves writing content for a client without claiming ownership in any way. Most often, some clients will say that you do not have the right to include it in your portfolio or profile. Nevertheless, it is okay as long as you are getting your funds.
SEO content writing
I can sense that you are trying to figure out what SEO means. Do not stress yourself too much. SEO simply means Search Engine Optimisation.
SEO content writing means writing content with the sole aim of optimizing the visibility/ranking of a website on search engines like Google.
This type of technical writing requires that you have a basic knowledge of keyword research and SEO on a general basis. You necessary do not have to start as an expert just as a baby does not start life as an adult.
I remember writing SEO content for my website. The keyword density and writing quality were so watery even though I had good knowledge about writing. However, after studying and retrying, I finally achieved what I aimed for.
Copywriting
The goal of every business is to make sales. You cannot really make sales in your business unless you attract potential customers by gaining their attention with engaging content containing benefits and offers of that product or service you want to promote.
That is where copywriting comes in. The major aim of copywriting is to generate sales. Contents in copywriting are mostly known as Copy or Sales copy.
Becoming a copywriter requires learning some in-depth skills and principles that must be followed to ensure maximum results.
Challenges involved in becoming a successful freelance writer
Even though it is quite easy to become a freelance writer, there are some challenges you will likely face in the process.
In retrospect, I would not really call them challenges; instead, situations and steps to make you have a strong foot in the field of writing.
Let us look at some of these challenges below and solutions:
1. Not getting enough work
Definitely, when starting out as a freelance writer, you may not necessarily get groundbreaking jobs. This is one of the challenges faced by most newbies in freelance writing.
In addition to the fact that you have not created trust in potential and future clients, you probably may not have sample jobs to test your proficiency.
I understand all this well because I was in this kind of situation a few years back. I had no samples to show potential clients who were ready to hire experienced writers.
“So what do I do?” I am certain you may have asked this question yourself.
Here is what I did:
First, I worked on myself because no client is willing to give tasks to someone who will write error-filled content.
I also read several contents from established writers and studied writing principles. While I was doing that, I tried to look out for jobs that are willing to assign tasks to entry-level writers and use them to build up my profile and portfolio.
Having built up your profile and gotten sample writings, you can then begin to spread your wings and apply for better writing gigs while still improving your writing skills.
2. Not knowing what niche to go into
You may find it difficult to decide on what niche of writing to venture. Writing on its own is broad. I started by writing simple content.
Learning to write content on simple topics either on social media or for someone helps you to build some level of confidence in writing before finally choosing a niche.
Decide on the niche of writing you want to focus on, but that does not mean you should not have considerable knowledge about everything.
3. Time management
Now you have tasks assigned to you with a stringent deadline that you must meet up with alongside your other daily routines. You then begin to get weary because of the overload of tasks, which may sometimes result in poor content.
I will tell you this for free, many clients will only continue to assign tasks to writers that can meet up with the set deadline and if you do not properly manage your time, you will not be able to deliver quality jobs for your clients.
So, how do you properly manage your time?
Let me tell you about a sad experience that happened when I started freelance writing. I had become overconfident in my writing prowess and applied for several entry-level writing tasks.
Amazingly, I was assigned a good number of tasks to complete within a week. Well, I started steadily with proper research to ensure that I delivered quality content, but I lacked something, Time Management.
It was a day to submission, and I had only completed about half of the total tasks assigned. I had to rush things up and happily submitted them. The first set of contents I carefully wrote was accepted but the ones that were rushed came back with a poor result.
This is to let you understand that “rush-writing” is not accepted.
A strategic way to manage your time is to set for yourself, working hours. Decide on the number of hours that you want to use on each of the assigned tasks and ensure you abide by it.
If you easily get distracted when people are around, you can always go to solitary places to work and complete your writing tasks within those set hours.
4. Negotiating with clients for payment
Starting out as a freelance writer in Nigeria, you do not get to decide the price most times; rather the client decides for you.
This is normal because until you gain some significant level of confidence and expertise, your payment is often decided.
I understand how this may have sounded to you because you probably have envisaged billing your potential client a significant amount of money.
Do you know what I would say to this? At the onset, worry not about the payment you are offered, rather, deliver a quality job, and build up your profile and connection. Improve your writing skills and gain good grounds in writing.
5. Competing with other top writers
I understand it is quite frustrating to keep applying for jobs only to notice that the top writers in your field are hired for the jobs. Do you know? They were in your shoes some months or years back.
Rather than trying to compete, try to reach out to them, connect and let them show you the things they put in place to ensure such progress. In other words, make your competing writers your mentors in order to learn and find out hidden strategies from them.
Let me use myself as an example. I had applied for several writing jobs, but the top writers would have taken them up before I could even open my eyes. I decided to contact a top writer to link up with him and make him a mentor.
Do you now know what? I got some writing jobs from him while I learned some writing and editing techniques I never knew before. So you see, you always get to learn new things at the feet of your elders (smiles).
Things I wished I had known when starting as a freelance writer in Nigeria
Let me gist you on the things that I wish I knew before now and my expectations for writing as a career. I wish I had known the rudiments and principles of writing earlier.
Most people just write for the sake of writing without following rules and trust me, people, who want to hire you know these principles and expect you to follow suit.
Another thing is that research is a critical aspect of writing. When I started, I would just be writing “rubbish”. Research helps you to properly organize your content and ensure it meets the demand of the targeted audience.
The world is revolving around a consistent need for content. In years to come, it is sure that freelance writing services will still be in demand even if technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominates the world.
Success tips for newbie freelancer writers
How do you join the League of Writers and start to ensure some cash in your pocket? Below are some tips for becoming a successful freelance writer in Nigeria.
1. Develop and improve your writing skills
Personal development is the key to making sporadic growth in a particular niche. As a writer, if you think you know it all, you may be deceiving yourself.
Personally, I ensured that I took extra courses in writing niches to get better and the latest update about writing techniques.
2. Construct and develop your profile
Developing your profile or portfolio makes it easy to attract potential clients. It may not be easy to build up a profile as a beginner writer because you may not have previous content.
However, you can start small by writing quality content for friends and colleagues. You can then create a simple website portfolio for the contents to display your work.
3. Make yourself visible to the online space
Dear friend, nobody will know that you are a freelance content writer unless you publicize yourself.
Yes, you may be an expert in writing content already, but if you cannot properly make yourself visible to prospective clients, you may not get any writing jobs.
Social media platforms are a good place to start.
4. Join freelance platforms
Do you want to get jobs rolling in for you on a daily basis? Then joining freelance platforms is your best bet. Register on LanreWriter, Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, and other freelance writing platforms. In recent times, LinkedIn has proved to be a good avenue for getting jobs.
Even though there are thousands of jobs posted on these platforms on a daily basis, it may be difficult to land a gig, unless you strategically position yourself by building an attractive profile and portfolio.
