3 Reasons Why You Can’t Ever Ignore The Basics Of Freelance Writing

By Dan Smith

Over the last 10 days, I’ve technically been on holiday. I scheduled a lot of work for the last week and a half to be published automatically, completed work ahead of schedule and although I did end up working a few days due to client appointments, I’ve been able to have a good few days away from work (no matter how much someone might love their career, everyone needs a break!).

Whenever I take a break from writing, the same thing usually happens and that’s I have a sort of light bulb moment whereby I either think of something particularly useful to implement to help develop my skills or career or I realise a certain piece of information that becomes increasingly important to know.

And after taking the time out lately, it’s given me the chance to be able to reflect on the last few years and it made me realise not just how important it is for any freelance writer to fully understand the basics of freelance writing, but how important it is for a writer to never forget these basics and these three points I believe give the perfect reasoning why.

1. The basics are what your customers will expect

When you’re having a new bathroom suite installed that’s particularly modern, you would expect the plumber to be able to connect the water pipes without any assistance, but you wouldn’t be surprised or concerned if they had to have a quick look at the installation notes for the all-singing-and-dancing toilet, due to it not being the norm.

If you were to call an electrician for advice on installing solar panels and linking them up to your home’s power supply, you’d be concerned if they knew everything about the solar panel but seemed extremely vague and not at all knowledgeable about connecting them to your home’s power.

No matter what occupation you’re operating in, your customers will always expect for you to be able to answer the most basic of questions and carry out simple and straightforward tasks without any trouble.

They won’t mind if you have to consult a colleague or a textbook if the question or task is out of the ordinary, but it sets more than one alarm bell ringing if you can’t fulfil the most rudimentary of needs.

2. Fully understanding the basics will allow you to offer more advanced services

Over the past few years, I’ve developed my freelance writing career continually, increasing my prices to reflect my knowledge and experience and adding and removing services dependent upon my circumstances at the time.

I’ve only been able to do this by fully understanding the basic practices and principles of freelance writing, something that I spent months and months on, lurking around blogs just like this one until I was confident enough to be able to offer a basic writing service to clients.

Without that initial time spent honing my basic skill set, I don’t believe I’d be in the position I am today and would most likely still only be offering cheap articles — there’s no doubt that this might be a good place to start for new writers, but it’s knowing you need to understand the basics and use them to progress that’s important.

3. Every single successful career is built upon solid foundations

One of the most frustrating parts of being a freelance writer is seeing and speaking to people who are trying to become a writer because they think it’s a quick and easy route to success.

I’m not saying that I see people every day going “Hey, I’ve heard writing’s an easy way to make money. I’m going to call myself a writer!”, but I do regularly see people making comments on blogs or starting threads on forums coming across as though they’ve been writing for years when their level of grammar is appalling and their general vibe towards freelance writing is completely wrong.

I actually think this is a misconception with a lot of careers that are — or can be — web based. Look at people who become famous for having a massively popular website, such as Twitter. It seems like they became an overnight success and when they entered the limelight, people wanted to jump on the bandwagon, thinking they could earn millions in a few weeks, but the reality is these people have spent months and years developing their skills and the one thing that made them rich and famous is just one project that has usually followed many others.

I like to try and keep things as simple as possible in life in general and I firmly believe that whether I’m writing a press release for a global company or preparing dinner at home, as long as I ensure I’ve got the basics down and stick to them first and foremost, everything else supplemental will come naturally.

Image: nettsu (Flickr)