People write books or articles, simply because they want to educate people – hence freelance writing jobs can be considered to be a business in the education industry. If you are a skilled and creative writer and you have enough time at your disposal, then you can earn good income as a freelance writer. There are loads of websites you can secure high paying writing jobs from.
Some of the sites where you can bid for freelance writing jobs are freelancer.com, upwork.com, guru.com and elance.com et al. From these sites you can get writing jobs that can comfortable pay your bills while you are in – between jobs or still schooling.
What is a Freelance Writer?
A freelance writer is someone who writes without belonging to any single company or entity but acts like a small business or an independent contractor. Freelancing does not relate only to writing but also to issues such as web development, graphic designing, data analysis and many other fields.
It’s very possible to become either a full-time freelance writer earning a living, or to be a part-time freelancer supplementing a regular paid income. Another role is to simply do it for fun or to build up a broader portfolio of skills. In this article, you’ll get the basics on what it takes to ease your way into freelance writing as a career or to be put properly, turn your writing hobby into a career that doesn’t affect your day job.
List of Niche ideas in the Freelance Writing Industry That You Can Specialize in
The freelance writing industry is not so very large, but it is large enough to have branches and niche. Here are still specializations in the field that can be considered;
- Ghost Writing
- Letter writing
- Speech writing
- Content writing
- Transcription
- Copywriting
- Editing and Proofreading
- Report writing
- Technical writing
- Translation
- Screen writing
- Lyrics writer
- Resume writing
- Biography writing.
Intellectual Property Protection and Trademark
If you are considering starting your own freelance writing firm, then you should consider filing for intellectual property protection. Filing for intellectual property protection for your firm is not only limited to your company’s logo and other documents, and but also protecting of course the name of your company.
Possible Competitive Strategies for Winning Competitors in the Industry
Winning over competition in the freelance writing industry is an easy process if you follow the following steps;
a. Read your competition’s bio. If this particular freelance writer has 30 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, and you focus on micro-business content for consumer magazines, move on. You already know their client list isn’t going to suit your needs. You need to find someone who is in your niche, or in a niche you want to occupy.
b. You should also check your competition’s portfolio and skim through their roster of clients periodically. This is a great way not only to find new clients, but also to figure out how big your market is. You might want to write exclusively about tennis, but may realize that all your competition works for the same three publications. With so few markets to choose from, it’s time branch out into other sports or industries.
c. You can also get enough ideas from competitors by reading through a few of your competitor’s clips to get an idea of what the client looks for. Many ideas can be gleaned from competition not just about new publications and ideas, but also about new markets. This is like getting into your competitors head as a clairvoyant to know what they are thinking.
d. Search for testimonials to see exactly why a client loved your competitor’s work. Every writer wants to get inside an editor or client’s head to deliver the best work possible. Testimonials can shed light on everything: how the editor loved your competitor’s fast-turn around, professionalism, ease to work with, wit or fresh ideas.
e. Review your competition’s list of services. Writers often moonlight as editors, fact-checkers or marketing consultants. Look at what publications or materials your competition edits to get new client ideas. But this step also reveals new types of services that you could charge for, like social media consulting, for instance.