I have enjoyed writing since I was a child. What started out as a poetry writing and journaling hobby eventually turned into a skill that inspired and enabled me to get my PhD in social psychology and create a source of income for myself.
I am not going to lie and say that anyone can become a freelance writer because well… they can’t. To pursue a career or side hustle through content writing you need to have a few skills along with the passion and patience for working with words.
I have found that basic research and organizational skills are useful and nearly necessary for starting a writing business. You also need to be able to follow directions and have good communication and follow-through skills.
I love that freelance writing allows you to work from anywhere as well as at any time of the day. The flexibility is freeing and the financial reward can be freeing as well.
How I Got Started with Freelance Writing
I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a writing gig in a hobby Facebook group. This gig was very laid back and required only basic writing skills and topic knowledge. It also didn’t pay well but it did open the door to possibilities by giving me experience. I was receiving only $40 per article for this client but I was writing about running and other health and fitness topics so it felt more like fun than work.
I will be honest and say that I was lucky to stumble into another opportunity that was very lucrative. It was purely through luck that I got this opportunity and this is where things really took off for me. I found out my sister-in-law had been doing some freelance editing and asked her how she got into it.
She ended up connecting me with her sister who was a full-time staff editor for a large media company who, at the time, was overseeing content for ACTIVE. Her sister shared my resume, interest, and a few writing samples with the head of content and they brought me on board as a writer.
This was a very exciting opportunity and it paid so well I was shocked. The rate was $.40 per word with each piece ranging from 1600-3200 words. I was averaging over $100 an hour on these pieces. While the money was a huge plus, the skills I learned from this gig were ultimately the most profitable.
I learned about brand guidelines, SEO, article formatting, and e-commerce/affiliate marketing. I know, that’s a lot to take in but don’t worry about those things just yet!
Unfortunately, after about 3 months of writing for this website, they chose to lay off all freelancers and take everything in-house. Ultimately the media company let that brand go so my opportunity was gone but the valuable skills I learned were not.
It was about two months after this gig ended that I decided I wanted to search for more gigs and make writing a full-time thing. In January 2023 I formed Amber Nelson Freelance Writing Services, LLC, and began the hunt for new clients.
If you are wondering how I landed 4 retainer clients within 4 months of starting my LLC and made over $7,000 in my first month of freelance writing… keep reading.
3 Ways to Find Freelance Writing Opportunities
Okay, so how exactly do you find opportunities, or clients, as a freelance writer? There are honestly several approaches and I have tried them all and still use them all. There is truly never one right answer here and how and where you find your clients can depend a lot on the type of content you want to write and the platforms you are already active on.
As I mentioned, I essentially stumbled into my first two clients. The clients I brought on in 2023 took a lot more time and effort to land. Off the top of my head, the only way I could think to find clients was through Google search. At the time I was not much of a LinkedIn user and I was not an active member of the freelance community on any platform.
That being said, if you are not a LinkedIn user, you need to become one. There is a huge freelancer presence on LinkedIn and many people are offering tools and support for both new and seasoned writers.
Cold Emailing
This sounds boring and maybe even hard but I promise you, it is not. When I was looking for more clients to write for I started by going to Google and searching topics that I was interested in writing about. For example, I write primarily in the health and fitness niche and I am extra passionate about running. The first thing I did was open the Google search engine and type in “How to run a 5K.” This was a topic I knew was commonly asked about running and it seemed like an easy place to start.
After entering your topic into Google search you will want to scroll through the first page of results and do a quick overview of each website that appeals to you.
Once you find a website that publishes the type of content you want to create look over the website for an ‘about’ section to see who the website was written by. Sometimes you will find authors and website owners here and may be able to get emails or social handles but not very often.
The best thing to do is to scroll down to the very bottom of the website and find the contact tab. Typically in this tab, you will find an email to “contact the editors” or you may find a list of the writers and editors for the website and their emails may be listed.
You will want to email the content manager, content editor, head of content, managing editor, or editor. You could email another writer but typically people in editorial or content roles are the ones who bring on the freelancers.
You should send an email that is short and to the point. Tell them who you are, a short snippet of relevant information, and why you want to write content for their website. You can include a resume and links to any work you may have written. You then cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Here is an example of my first cold email that was responded to and landed me a gig that brought in $10,114.52 in 2023:
I’m reaching out because I am a freelance writer. While I’m currently a psychology PhD student, I really enjoy writing and have been working on growing my freelance writing business. I am hoping to work with more psychology/wellness, travel, and fitness websites as these are all things I’m passionate about. I have experience, both in life and writing, in many areas and my skills are extremely versatile.
I have done freelance writing for RunnerClick.com, Walkjogrun.net, and ACTIVE.com. I take a lot of pride in the words I put out to people when writing motivational and informative content. It’s important to me to make sure my content is factual and enjoyable. I believe I have a great writing voice and am really able to communicate big ideas and feelings with few words.
I would love the opportunity to chat about this writing opportunity. I’ve provided links to blog posts on my personal website where I’m working to build my blog, as well as links to some of my published works.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.
Amber Nelson
(I then provided links to previously written samples)
Job Board Search
This approach to finding a client to write for is pretty much as easy as it sounds and it is how I found 2 out of my 3 first clients after starting my LLC. I have been using Indeed.com for job searching for many years now and while it isn’t the number one place to find writing gigs there are some listed there. I find it especially common for people who are new to hiring freelancers to list opportunities there.
My most consistent gig from 2023 is one that I found on Indeed. The job post had actually been looking for a YouTube script writer for health and fitness content. I interviewed with the owners of the channel and while they found someone with actual scriptwriting experience for the role they had posted, they actually reached out to me for something else. It turned out that the woman who owned the YouTube channel also had a coordinating blog.
They hired me on as a ghostwriter and I wrote 1 article per week for 10 months at a rate of $.20 per word. In this case, my name was not on the blogs (also known as a byline) but I was okay with that. The blog owner had more credibility in the space at the time so they were able to pay me more if the content was published under her name.
LinkedIn also has a pretty decent job board although it is important to watch out for scams and sponsored posts that don’t ever actually hire anyone. I applied for a short-form social media copywriting role that had popped up and was lucky enough to land the gig even though I had no professional short-form social media copy experience (honestly I didn’t even know what it meant at the time). I shared some examples of my own social media posts (although they were nothing like what the role was looking for).
I ended up getting the gig and was so lucky because the guy who hired me taught me how to use ChatGBT as a tool and taught me the ins and outs of writing LinkedIn posts which ultimately became a tool I used for networking and finding more work.
Networking
Okay, let’s talk about networking. I have landed many gigs through networking via LinkedIn. There are many ways to go about this but I am going to try to keep it short. I started by searching the term “freelance writer” in the search bar and clicked follow on many profiles who seemed to be a part of the freelance writing space. Eventually, people started following me as well and I applied the skills I had learned in one of my gigs to write my own LinkedIn posts.
Eventually, this led to me seeing people in my feed who had posted about the need for a writer. I emailed someone who I had seen the post and landed a gig pretty quickly this way. Now I will say, over the past 1.5 years LinkedIn seems to have gained a lot of momentum, and landing a gig has gotten more challenging due to the level of competition but it can, and likely will happen.
It is a great idea to comment on the posts of other writers and editors and start building rapport within the community. You should also share your already-written work with the appropriate tags to get the attention of people who may be interested in working with you.
One thing I like to do is go to the search bar and type in “freelance writer” I then find the “posts” tab and click that. Next, I click the “sort by” tab and select the latest. I scroll through the posts (often multiple times per day if I am actively seeking new gigs) and look for anyone who may have expressed a need for the services I provide.
It is very common for editors and media staff to post freelancer roles like this rather than on an official job board. You can reply via comment as well as send a DM or an email if they give their email out.
I have landed many gigs this way and find it to be the easiest approach. However, cold-emailing typically has less competition and you may present the opportunity for help to someone who didn’t know they needed it and then build long-term relationships.
FAQs
How can I start freelance writing with no experience?
Like most new jobs, when you are first getting started you may need to take gigs that pay less than you would prefer and work your way up. I recommend that you revamp your resume and highlight any job experience you have that may be applicable to the type of writing you are hoping to do.
It’s also a good idea to start your own personal blog and write some posts about the type of content you want to get paid to write. This is a great opportunity to develop new skills as well as showcase the ones that you have. You can easily start a free blog on WordPress.
Can I make $1,000 a month of freelance writing?
Yes! You can absolutely make $1,000 a month writing. This will likely not happen in your first month, in fact, it could take 6 months or even over a year to make $1,000 a month in freelance writing but once you establish one of two repeat clients this is very possible.
Who will pay you to write?
There are many different people that will pay you to write. People pay other people to write their social media captions and even their blog posts. You can also get paid to write gift-buying guides or product round-ups for websites. Essentially, anything you can read online you can get paid to write online.
What type of freelance writing pays the most?
Health and medical writing tends to pay the most. People who write this content tend to have some type of credentials. E-commerce writing also pays very well because this type of content makes money off of purchases and some websites sell a lot of products whether through affiliate marketing or personal product sales.
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