3 Things You Must Do Before You Start Freelance Writing

You have a full-time job. You have a little one to take care of also, but you want to start freelance writing. You know theres more than just having a blog to finding high-quality freelance writing jobs and landing profitable clients. But, where do you start? What are the most important things do you need to start freelance writing as a side hustle? There arent enough hours to work full-time, take care of your child and house AND grow your side hustle freelance biz. You have to streamline, maximize and optimize your time and tasks. So, to prepare you on this amazing journey of freelance writing and having the freedom to live the life you want (I know it sounds dramatic, but trust me when I tell you, the other side is ah-mah-zing), here are the three most important things you must do to start freelance writing right away. 1. Create Samples Youre going to have a tough time proving to prospects that you can write if you dont have any writing to show them! So, the best way to do that is to create samples or find samples. Its as simple as creating a Google doc of a mock blog post, newsletter, white paper, resume or whatever type of writing you want to do online and getting a  published link. Now you have a link to share in your pitch email when you share your samples. Having a live link is 100% better than uploading a PDF of your newsletter or blog post. Pro tip: You can create a shortened link with your shareable Google Doc (instead of a long stream of letters and numbers like http://docs.google.com/document/1/dkrien2340fmsd) by going to bit.ly and creating a short  link. How else can you create a sample? If you have a blog, then you can use that as a sample. Now, before I go into that, make sure you show your best post and the most relevant post on what your pitching. For example, if you are pitching to a company or job ad in the pet industry, having a post on what you feed your twins is not relevant. But, if you have a lifestyle blog and theres a beautiful post on how you teach your children to wash the family pet, then thats something to share as a sample. Make sense? On my Twins Mommy blog, I have posts on email marketing and content marketing that I can use as a sample, if for some reason, I dont have any relevant samples in a particular niche in the digital marketing industry. So, heres the big question, what if dont know your writing niche? OMG!! Theres absolutely NO way you can be a freelance writer then!! 🙂 I joke. You can totally rock it as a freelance writer if you have no idea what you want to write about. Pick a couple of topics you enjoy or have knowledge or experience. So, if you have a pet, well maybe you can write for pet companies. Similarly, if you are diligent with natural health, even better. You can write about health topics for blogs, medical companies, doctors or even in the pet industry (natural pet food products?). So, before you create samples, look real hard on the topics you want to write about and see if you can marry them together. You dont have to. It just makes it better to find that one niche you can market. 2.  Have a Home for Your Samples Okay. So, say you drafted up several samples on Google docs. You can totally use those links in your pitch, but to make this whole thing more credible, its best to have a place to house your samples. This is your portfolio. Now, if you dont have a website (which is the best  place to house your portfolio and your freelance writing service), you can get away with portfolio places like Contently. Heres mine: If you are pitching, you can just link to your portfolio as well as samples so that a prospect can see how great you are a as a writer. Pro tip: Contently even lets you upload PDFs! How great is that!! But, still think about getting a website for your freelance writing service as this is the ultimate professional way to show how credibility as  a freelance writer for hire. I have a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a website if you need help! 3. Multiple Ways to Contact You This is the time where you cant hide under a rock and cross your fingers that someone will email you for content work. If you want to write online, you need to make it easy to find you and contact you. I recommend having multiple ways to find and contact you. What does this mean? It means having a social media presence, a blog, guest posts, Skype Id, email address and any other way to contact you! For me, I get inquires on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (aside from prospects emailing me). For example, here is what my contact form on my writer website looks like: So, a prospect can look at my social media presence, email me or use the contact form. The goal is to decrease the barriers for prospects to hire you. If they have to search all over your website for a contact button, then theyll just move to the next writer. Get Started Today Youre  going to have  many excuses fill your head and not take any action to start freelance writing. But, Im hoping that if you break it down, the  basic things you need are samples, a portfolio and a way to contact you. From here you can pitch and get going. Over to you – are you ready to start freelance writing?