7 Steps To Leaving Those Low Paying Writing Gigs Behind

By Dan Smith

I enjoy helping other people. I don’t get chance to help others as much as I would like to, but I received such a large amount of help when I was first starting out as a freelance writer that I try to give back as much and as often as I can.

I’m pleased to say that the post I made in October, It’s Time To Give Something Back To The Freelance Writing Community, has been well received, as alongside the numerous comments on the post itself asking questions on freelance writing and business development, I’ve received a number of e-mails directly.

Of the questions that I’ve received by e-mail, one that caught my eye in particular was from Susan Hutchings, who asked:

A little over a year ago, I was in exactly the same boat as Susan, producing work regularly for a client or two who whilst quite happy paying me, weren’t paying what could be classed as a respectable rate, irrelevant of how long you’ve been writing.

When you’re in a situation like this, however, you find that you fall into somewhat of a Catch 22 situation — you can’t leave the client behind because you start to rely on the money you’re receiving from them, but you can’t start looking for other clients as you seem to be spending most of your time with that single client.

And although you do become annoyed and frustrated, you end up taking it for what it is and just sticking with what you know.

For Susan and anyone else reading this who can relate, there is a way out of this circle. It did take me a while to get out of the loop, but with the advice of other freelance writers, hard work and long hours, I managed it and the seven primary steps I followed are as follows.

1. You need to start writing for yourself

I’ve mentioned this time and time again, but I’m a strong believer in the more you write, the more you find your own tongue and the more you become involved in the freelance writing community, something which was integral to me starting to value myself properly as a freelance writer.

Your blog doesn’t have to be business related and it doesn’t have to have the goal of providing you with an income directly. Instead, it should be an outlet for you to write on what you feel passionate about. If it is something to do with your freelance writing career, great, but don’t worry about it if it’s not — as long as you’re writing regularly, that’s the key point here.

2. Be interactive

One of the major mistakes I made when I was looking to leave my low paying clients behind was that I wasn’t interactive enough with freelance writing community.

I’d read dozens of blogs and spent hours going through historic posts, but I’d very rarely leave a comment.

When I realised that I wanted to push my freelance writing career forward, I found that as I began writing more, I started to become more involved in the freelance writing community and it’s due largely to this involvement that I’ve managed to develop my career.

Over the last 12 months in particular I’ve met some fantastic people. Freelance writers, clients, SEO companies, small businesses, large organisations — I seem to have come into contact with hundreds of different people.

Whilst not all of them helped me directly, I took something away from meeting each of them, whether it was a tiny piece of information or a way to completely revolutionise a certain part of my writing career.

3. Get a social network presence

Although I wasn’t a writer a decade ago, from speaking to others who’ve been writing for years, I understand that you could have been a successful freelance writer easily with only an absolutely minimal amount of involvement with the internet.

With everyone and everything seeming to use the World Wide Web in one way or another in today’s world, however, it’s absolutely imperative that you have a social network presence if you want to climb the freelance writing ladder and leave the low paying gigs behind.

Twitter is the most obvious and popular choice, but don’t neglect LinkedIn or Facebook — and a look at Digg, StumbleUpon and FourSquare wouldn’t go amiss either (there are dozens upon dozens of social network sites out there and these are just the ones that I used to help me increase my rates and move away from the low paying clients).

And if you’re wondering why you need a social network presence, you’ll be surprised at just how many writing gigs circulate around these networks. I’ve also discovered that a lot of people ask for help on Twitter and LinkedIn in particular, something that could very easily end up with you taking on board a new client.

4. Start searching the job boards on a daily basis

This might sound like an obvious point to some, searching a number of different job boards, but I remember when I first started my development as a freelance writer, I was relying on just one website to provide me with a daily list of jobs.

This was great to start with, but things move so much faster when you realise that there’s about half a dozen quality blogs and websites out there providing you with different freelance writing jobs on a daily basis.

As a side note, spend some time looking at adverts in full, especially to begin with — there are plenty of low paying adverts out there that are a waste of your time and whilst difficult to spot at first, if you spend the time looking at the different adverts, you’ll soon see a pattern emerging and will be able to eventually skim over the adverts that are likely to be time wasters.

Not something you need to rely on solely, as you’ll find that once you’ve built up some high paying clients and have a broader portfolio you start being contacted for work or you begin to contact certain companies directly, but most freelance writers I know, irrelevant of their level of experience, tend to have a look on the job boards every now and again.

5. Don’t disregard your low paying clients

My largest client of 2009 went on to be my largest client of 2010, too — on a much improved rate.

To say I was nervous about talking to that client to discuss an increase in my rates was an understatement, even though I’d built up a particularly good relationship with them.

I mulled it over for weeks and after speaking to a few different freelance writers, decided to approach them about it.

And I really didn’t have to have any reason to worry — we not only decided on an improvement of around a 30% increase on the old rate, but they also increased the amount of work they gave me by almost 100%.

I’m not saying that everyone is going to have as great of an experience as I fortunately did, but don’t automatically assume that the clients you’re working with at present can’t afford to increase their rates — speak to them and you might just be surprised at what they can offer.

6. Learn how to write a query / introduction e-mail

Possibly the hardest thing I learnt — and to a certain extent am still learning — was to be able to write a query / introduction e-mail that was successful in at least receiving a reply, whether it was from someone I was pitching a writing piece to or a potential client who I believed could benefit from regular writing in the form of a blog, for example.

I started off by writing an e-mail that in hindsight was far too long and then I moved onto the complete opposite, providing too little information in my e-mails.

I’d then get frustrated and rush my initial contact, sometimes getting a few details wrong or making a spelling error and then after a few days of cooling down, the whole process would start again.

It took me a good few months to find a way to introduce myself and explain what I was contacting the person for without any of the mistakes I’d made previously. I did get there in the end and although my method isn’t perfect — some people just don’t want to reply — it’s successful enough for me at present.

And if you’re wondering what method I use, there really is no secret — I give a brief introduction of who I am and why I’m contacting them, follow it up with some more details of how I could help or what I could do, give a little information of my relevant experience and then sign off — easy to digest, informative and — hopefully — interesting.

7. Plan your day

There’s no two ways about it — planning your days and weeks is going to be the key to your success as a freelance writer.

You need time to progress and develop as a writer and if you don’t plan your time, you’ll find that you do a lot of nothing, when you could be working and developing.

For those of you who’ve read my posts here at Get Paid To Write Online or elsewhere over the last year, you’ll know that I still carry out some corporate work that isn’t writing.

The reason I’m mentioning this here is that before 2010, I would go to my corporate job, work eight hours a day and then come home, watch a bit of TV, write a bit, send a few e-mails, surf the internet, have dinner, watch some more TV and go to bed.

Although happy at the time, when I realised I that I wanted to move my career as a freelance writer forward, this all had to change and I needed to be more strict with myself.

I would go to work, come home and write for an hour or two solidly. I’d then spend some time checking my e-mails, reading blogs and interacting with the freelance writing community before heading down for dinner and then carrying out more networking and finishing off or getting ahead on any pieces of writing.

I was working 70 hour weeks and whilst I enjoyed the work, it wasn’t easy and I made a few mistakes personally that I had to fix immediately.

The planning and hard work did pay off and whilst I do keep finding myself working 70 hour weeks — I haven’t left the corporate role just yet — it’s always for a good reason and I know that the hours I put in are all working hours.

Becoming a freelance writer who can charge respectable rates isn’t something that’s based on luck and it’s down purely to how hard you’re willing to work.

There are plenty of progression opportunities out there and tons of writing jobs available, you just have to know where to look, who to talk to and how to ensure you are always moving forward in the industry.

Image: SolYoung (Flickr) — I thought we needed something a little festive seeing as it’s less than two weeks until Christmas!