Best Tips and Leads For Freelance Writers

There is a wealth of information available for those who want to work at home as freelance writers. Web searches for freelance writing and work at home opportunities will return tens of thousands of results. So how does a freelance writer looking to create a steady stream of work at home income know where to start or whom to trust?

Online scammers consider those seeking to work at home easy prey. These are people who are obviously looking for an income, and often work at home job seekers have limited options due to experience, personal and family circumstances. When faced with the myriad work at home opportunities presented on the Internet, it is near impossible to determine what websites and offers are legitimate.

There is now sage advice on avoiding the scams, most of which nearly every work at home job seeker has read at least once, usually far more often. The standard warnings are to avoid any offer that costs you money. However, there are exceptions, such as legitimate Multilevel Marketing (MLM) companies and freelance bid sites that cost a nominal fee to join. One could research a given company with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). This is a frequent recommendation and the information is reliable if the BBB has any to give, but Better Business Bureaus only receive and report complaints from consumers that care to lodge them. People who have had bad experiences with a given company and not reported the issue to the BBB are not accounted for. This means a company could be horrendous, but no one ever bothered to lodge a complaint.

Forums and Blogs

So then, what is the answer? The answer is to make the rounds on freelance writer and work at home forums and blogs for the most reliable, first hand information on work at home and freelance writing opportunities. Testimonials provided by work at home and freelance writing websites should be met with some skepticism (after all, how do you know it was written by a real employee?), but testimonials posted freely on freelance writing blogs and work at home forums are far more reliable. These are posts written by fellow human writers whose intentions are to help their fellow freelance writers. Many of these freelance writers, in fact most, have been in positions very similar to that of their target audience and feel good about helping their peers.

This is not to say that there is never financial gain for the freelance writers and bloggers writing these posts. Many freelance writers make money with their blog posts. Others offer their expertise in the hopes of drawing hits to their blogs and websites, a kind of self promotion and marketing tool. This does not make the information bad, it is simply a means to an end.

Further, this is not to say that every forum and/or blog post out there is reliable, unbiased information. These are public forums where freelance writers and work at home job seekers are known to frequent. Certainly there is some abuse by disreputable work at home scammers, and certainly there are individuals with bad experiences that will 'talk down' a reputable work at home or freelance opportunity. However, the nature of the information given freely on blogs and forums can be checked repeatedly against that that is offered on other work at home and freelance writing forums and blogs. The more a novice freelance writer reads, patterns will emerge that will point a writer towards the freelance writing markets that are reliable and do in fact pay their writers. If a work at home job seeker questions the information they have read, it is easy enough for the person to refer to another freelance writing blog or work at home forum and find out what others are saying.

Case In Point

Using myself as an example, I'll present an informal case study.

I searched online work at home opportunities for a year. My time was spent on web searches that turned up many opportunities, but it was nearly impossible for me to trust any of them based on the information provided by the various work at home companies. Many sites wanted to sell a company or business opportunity that could be run from home and required an initial investment. Investing in these companies was not something I was going to do on their word, and I wasn't looking to run a business per se, I wanted to work at home. The two are entirely different things. Still, I persisted in my quest, sure that some of these opportunities must be real, and realizing that with four kids under six years old, working outside the home would not be financially or personally practical for a very long time.

One of the first work at home websites I consulted was BizyMoms.com. At the time, BizyMoms was largely geared toward mothers building a business from home. I wanted more immediate financial results. Eventually, BizyMoms brought on a host whose specialty was working from home. Through this host and by reading advice from other hosts and users on the BizyMoms forums I learned about freelance writing opportunities that even unestablished, novice freelance writers could participate in and get paid. Through Joan Vasquez at www.BizyMoms.com, I found links to writingup.com (a paid blog site), www.constant-content.com/, and Associated Content.

With nothing to lose financially on these sites, and only potential gain, I joined each of these sites and started my freelance writing career. As I spent more time on these sites, I was able to read the opinions, good, bad and otherwise, of those using the sites, and was able to form my own opinions and proceed with advice from seasoned veterans of the work at home and freelance writing career fields.

Eventually, I chose a few blogs and forums I grew to trust and frequent. Among them were Gracepub and Sharon Hurley Hall on writingup.com. Both of these women are successful work at home freelance writers, and offer invaluable advice for novice freelance writers on such topics as work at home, freelance writing, self promotion, getting paid to blog, and much more. What's even better is that Gracepub and Sharon Hurley Hall share their pitfalls as well, fostering confidence in new freelance writers from those who have 'been there' and succeed after it all.

Another blog I frequent as a budding work at home freelance writer is Deborah Ng's blog at writers row.com, 'Freelance Writing Jobs'; Deborah daily surfs the net for work at home freelance writing job postings and lists a multitude of opportunities for freelance writers on her blog. She was recently voted number two in the 'Top 10 Blogs for Writers-2006' at Michael Stelzner's 'Writing White Papers' site.

Once I started writing at AssociatedContent and Constant-Content, I joined the forums at these sites. The information from fellow freelance writers on these forums is equally valuable. There is a great range of information there, notably learning about other freelance writing opportunities and how to better use the respective websites among the best.

Since joining the three aforementioned sites, I have found a good amount of success. I'm not stopping there, though, and I'm not about to stop reading the blogs and forums I've found to be most reliable and most helpful. Gracepub, Sharon Hurley Hall, and many, many generous souls on the forums have much valuable information that I continue to rely on and reference as I look to grow my freelance writing into a reliable source of family income-in fact, a career. When I need to know where else to look for work, how to establish my freelance writing career, and what websites are legitimate and will pay a novice work at home mother like me, I return to my forum and blog friends for advice. It's information I couldn't have found reliably anywhere else.