Important Tips for Freelance Writers: What You'll Need to Succeed

To make a successful living at freelance writing, you'll need some key basics in your arsenal. Some of them are tangible and others, not so much, but they're all necessary to making a steady living in the independent, creative, and sometimes unpredictable world of freelance writing. In no particular order, here's what I've found you need to succeed as a freelance writer:

Talent: This may seem obvious, but you'd be surprised. You don't have to be Shakespeare to be a successful freelance writer, but if you're not able to write in a way that is clear and interesting enough to not only keep people reading but convey a particular point, you'll have a hard time earning money through written communication.

I believe that everyone has the capability to be a good writer, while some have the potential to be great, but it would be wise to take an honest assessment of your skills versus those of other professional writers and see how far you have to go, if at all, and where your talents might be best suited.

Connections: Some say it's not what you know, but who you know. While I think this is an exaggeration, there is some truth to this statement. Because no matter how talented you are, if you don't have any connections and aren't able to form them, you won't be able to deliver that talent to an audience.

As a freelance writer it's important to create connections not just with editors at publications, but with anyone who can assist you in furthering your writing goals, whether that be fellow writers, networking groups, professional writing organizations, etc.

Persistence: This goes hand in hand with talent and connections; even if you have those two, if you aren't persistent in churning out new work as well as discovering and conquering new markets for it, it will be very difficult to succeed.

A planner/calendar for tracking work: As a freelance writer you may be juggling a number of assignments at one time. To avoid "dropping the ball," it's important to have a reliable planning system for your work that allows you to keep track of what you're doing not only this week, but for several weeks to come, so you can adequately plan for how much effort you'll need to put into securing more work along with doing the work you currently have.

I use a convenient, notebook-sized planner to keep track of most of my assignments as well as a large desk calendar that gives me a better visual idea of what I have coming up and where the peaks and valleys in my workload will be.

A spreadsheet to keep track of expenses: As a freelance writer you can write off most of your work-related expenses come tax time, but only if you keep records. I've found the easiest way to do this is build a spreadsheet in Excel and simply enter in the type of expense and what it amounted to on a daily basis (or as often as necessary), then save the receipts in a special folder. That way when April rolls around I don't have to pull my hair out digging through boxes of receipts and scrambling to add up all the past year's work-related purchases.

Business cards: A requisite for any professional, business cards are especially important for freelance writers, who rely more heavily on networking and promotion than a 9 to 5er whose stream of work is virtually guaranteed. Business cards should be simple and attractive with all of the necessary info: your e-mail address, phone number and website address. You can give these to friends, family and potential clients you meet at networking events and business groups, and you can also post them at coffee shops and other spots around town.you never know who might pass a bulletin board, see your card and use your services.

I use Vista Print for my business cards -- their prices are very reasonable and the cards come out great. But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, do not take advantage of their free cards that have the Vista Print logo on the back. Considering how inexpensive a batch of 250 cards is (usually around $10, including shipping) it looks incredibly unprofessional NOT to make that small of an investment in your own career.

A laptop with a wireless internet card: As a freelance writer this enables you to write and send stories to and from anywhere. Whether you want to work out of your home, the local coffee shop, on assignment or on vacation, as long as you have a means to write and send your work, you'll never be out of business.

Wireless internet cards are available from most cell phone service providers. Mine is from Verizon and bundled with my cell phone service on one bill. The card plugs into my computer and acts like a cell phone, picking up wireless service anywhere a cell phone would and ensuring that no matter where I am, I have access to the internet.

A cell phonewith e-mail access: This one is pretty self-explanatory. Communication is fundamental to any business, and a cell phone with the added bonus of e-mail access allows for communication anywhere, anytime. You won't miss last-minute assignments and you'll be able to take care of some of your work even while on the go.

Writing samples: Unless you have great connections that can get you writing work based on their word alone, you will need samples of what you've done in the past to get you work in the future. Ideally these should be centrally-located and easily accessible on your website. And they should be high-quality pieces that convince potential clients to work with you.

A website

In the process of building a freelance writing career, your website acts as your foundation: It houses all of your writing samples in one central place, it inspires confidence in potential clients that you are in fact an actual, legitimate writer, as evidenced by your bio, resume, portfolio and the picture on your site and it serves as an always-on promotional tool attracting new business your way.

I've had a website for the majority of my freelance writing career, but recently I did an overhaul. I purchased a new domain name, included a picture on my homepage, reworked the homepage content to be a brief but compelling intro to my qualifications as a freelance writer and re-worked my portfolio page so that each entry included not just a link to the piece as before, but also where the piece was published, when, and an excerpt of the piece.

Just by implementing these changes I've gotten more inquiries from my website in the past couple of months than in the previous two years combined. One has turned into an actual client.

So my suggestions for building a website are as follows:

Dos:

• Include a picture of yourself, preferably a professional, attractive one.
• On your homepage, make a strong case for why a potential client should work with you. Summarize your experience, indicate who you write for, provide a link to some of your work, invite potential clients to contact you and give them a way to do so.
• Include a bio or "About Me" page that provides info about your background.
• Include an online resume
• Include details about your pricing
• Include a portfolio that provides links to your work and includes where your work was published and when. Ideally you should provide an excerpt of your work on your portfolio page so visitors can get a feel for your writing without having to leave your site.
• Give visitors multiple ways to contact you on your site; include a link to your email address, your phone number, and a contact form.
• Use a domain that is as close to your actual writing name as possible.
• Include your website in your e-mail signature and business cards. (You do have business cards, don't you? OK, more on that later.)

Don'ts:

• Don't use your blog as your website. A blog is a blog -- a more informal place for you to share your thoughts about whatever you so choose. Your website is the online representative for your professional endeavors that should include the above info.
• Don't settle for a free website with a domain name like: www.yourname.freehosting.com. Frankly, I find this completely unprofessional and it instantly erodes someone's credibility in my mind, no matter how many impressive publications they're written for. It's hard for me to believe that you're serious about your career when you can't even invest $7 a month for your own domain name and website.

The service that I use for my website is FreeWebs . Don't let the name fool you, their services aren't necessarily free.

I love FreeWebs because their prices for a custom domain and hosting are very reasonable and you can update and maintain your website yourself. You simply purchase your domain name through them and set up hosting, choose from their templates or create your own, and update your site with an easy-to-understand "What You See Is What You Get" editor. Trust me, if I can do it, so can you!

Remember, a freelance writer's site doesn't need to have a Flash intro with dancing frogs and talking monkeys. It just needs to be a professional web presence that proves to any visitor that you're serious about your profession and have the credentials to prove it!