Websites/Tips for the Newbie Freelance Writer

I've been writing online for just the past 7 months or so, but I continue to have jobs available to me and I'm quite pleased with the residual income that's come as a result of my efforts.

Probably the hardest part to starting a freelance writing career (although in my case I would not yet suggest it is a career) is to find projects and/or clients.

There are a number of websites you should check out that are legitimate and (most importantly) free to join. These sites will either directly or indirectly get you potential clients and/or projects.

Get your Freelance Feed(s)

The first is to check out freelancewriting.com. Several months ago this site was not so highly ranked in the search engines, and it took me awhile to find it. This isn't the case anymore: a simple search for "freelance writing" in Google will give you their site for the first hit.

In any event, this site is linked with several job feeds for writers (both online and offline jobs). You ought to be able to find at least a couple of prospects within an hour or so of researching. I've found two of my most highly paying opportunities here (one for an MMO-related startup and another involving academic and interest research/content development)

Get your foot in the door

The second place to check out is www.associatedcontent.com. This site will pay you for submitting content on virtually any topic. Sounds great, but do realize that in terms of the industry standard for freelance writing, the initial payout is somewhat low. The authors who make any kind of significant money from this site are individuals who market their articles and write extremely keyword-dense articles. (That's the rule, but there are exceptions) They end up receiving high performance bonuses (based on page views). While this strategy is viable, you're probably going to have to say goodbye to creativity to the extent that keyword density affects it; be prepared to devote a lot of your time to marketing and creating backlinks to your work.

I use associated content for basically quick cash if I just want several bucks, and (more importantly) as a place to display the kinds of articles I'm capable of writing. It's not a scam at all, just realize we're not talking about writing for TIME magazine here.

Sell it Direct to Webmasters/Content Developers

Third, go to the Digital Point Forums and head to the "buying/selling" thread. There are stories of individuals selling heaps of their originally-written articles for a hefty sum. If you go this route, you'll probably want to sell your articles categorically or by topic name. Again, because most if not all of your potential buyers care about search engine ranking above intriguing, articulate, and/or novel content, you'll have to tell your educated and/or formal self to back off a bit.

FreelanceWriting.com, should have the majority of your prospects. Associated Content is great for getting your foot in the door, but there are many other opportunities, especially once you focus and specify the kinds of markets you want to write for. Note that FreelanceWriting.com is itself a directory of sorts, not a place that directly provides clients and/or jobs. It's just that Freelancewriting.com offers the most legitimate and, in my opinion, the best job and job feeds for beginning writers.

Finding Writing Markets

After you've successfully completed a couple of projects, you should start doing more research about the kinds of markets you want to gain experience in. I'm pretty much at this stage. There are a couple of legitimate online sources for paying markets. Most of the sources I consult are included in Freelancewriting.com's comprehensive job feeds. Sometimes I've found additional prospects at writersweekly.com just be careful, many online resources for freelance writers will attempt to sell you products or services they are affiliates of.

A comprehensive list of markets is available at http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1489.asp, but note that embedded within several legitimate, useful listings are products and/or services that the author of the site seems to be an affiliate of. If you see a link containing the words 'ref=' and there was no clear indication from the author that she was endorsing a particular affiliate program, then my recommendation is for you to not click on that link, or at the very least approach it with caution.

Lastly, you can visit http://home.snafu.de/gadfly/a-c.htm. It has the most detailed list of markets that I've seen online and there are no (apparent) attempts to drive you to an affiliate site. Not all of the information is current, but the descriptions and the contact information is generally sound.

Never stop searching for opportunities

In my mind, one of the hardest parts to being a freelance writer is the unending research it entails. You must be disciplined about checking these and any other sites, especially seeing as how the best opportunities come when you least expect them! At least, such is the case in my experience. If you have additional resources that I have failed to cover here, please feel free to share them below.