Freelance writing seems to be becoming more and more popular as a profession, and there are certainly quite a lot of benefits that draw people to it. With writing as a career, you can always choose your own hours, and write about the themes you enjoy, and there is the plus of being your own boss too. There are also difficulties: it takes a lot of long, hard work to get anywhere, and it can sometimes feel thankless. On the whole, however, it’s a worthy freelance profession.

So how can you get into it? In this post, we are going to take a look at what you can do to build up your own freelance writing career. All of the following ideas should help considerably in one way or another, and you will find that you are able to develop a career quickly enough if you follow all of these vital steps.

Start Today

The first thing to say is that you can start writing for money today, without any experience or contacts. All you need is an ability to put words together and the willingness to work hard, and you will be able to find a client to write for within the next couple of hours. But you’ll have to have the hard working gene, and if you are not sure about that, you might not get very far. A lot of people want to be writers, but few actually put the necessary hard work in, and so they don’t get anywhere. Don’t make that mistake. Start today and write something, and you’ll find it can all build on that.

Say Yes

For the first year or so, it pays to just say yes to every opportunity that might come your way. It might seem like the kind of work you don’t want to do in the long-term, or that the pay is not quite what it should be, but that’s okay for now. Just say yes to everything. The trick here is that you are essentially developing a huge contact list of clients who will always be keen to work with you again, as long as you produce good work, while also getting tons of practice in for your actual writing skills. So you are going to find that a year or so of just saying yes to everything is one of the best things you can do for your career early on.

Build A Portfolio

Of course, all of those pieces can also form a portfolio, and this is one of the most important things that you need to make sure you have as well if you want your career to shine. A portfolio is something you can show potential clients to show them just how good your writing is, and possibly to show off knowledge you have in a particular niche or subject area. These days, it’s easier than ever to build a portfolio, with online wizards helping you to do exactly that, so this is something that you might want to think about doing as soon as possible.

Design A Freelance Website

You should also have a website that you can draw people’s attention to. Having such a site will mean that you have somewhere you can show people who are interested in potentially hiring you. Of course, the quality of the website matters, and you need to make sure that you are doing all you can to make it look professional. That includes having a good brand for it, laying out the pages properly, and incorporating a few professional stock photos where necessary too. The better the site, the easier it is to attract clients.

Figure Out Your Rate

It’s good to have a rate of pay that you have worked out for yourself, so that you know what to quote people when they approach you about some work. It’s important that you don’t undersell yourself. If you look online, you can find free guides for freelance writers, and they will always recommend a certain amount per word or per piece that you should quote at minimum. As you gain more experience, you can then increase this too, so that you are earning more and more over time, as you should do.

As you can see, there are a few things to think about, so make sure that you have considered these if you want your freelance writing career to really get off the ground. You’ll be amazed at how much it helps you out.