How to Kick Start Your Career as a Freelance Writer: Tips for Newbies

chillibreeze writer — Neha Sharma

The precedence of the pen over the various art forms that the media adopts is inevitable. In today’s entertainment and knowledge industry the writer is the one who lays the foundation, binds the fabric, and provides crutches to ideas in their nascent stage. If not for the scriptwriter, journalist and the copywriter most of the essential industries would cease to exist.

The writer has become more of an indispensable asset than his previous role-play as an artiste mostly associated with novels and playwrights. Writing was not considered to be a reliable and lucrative career choice in the past and would perhaps raise brows if it were your only source of income. But today we see a paradigm shift and good writers are hankered after with a wide array of prospects they can lend their skills to. So if you are one who can conjure a prolific prose with the sleight of your hand, you could make a living of what you know best, writing.

Most writers do not wish to bind themselves to a typified profession in writing as it tends to take away from them the time and flexibility they would require to pursue the kind of work they would like to devote their writing skills to. Here’s where the writer resorts to freelance writing.

Now moving away from the peachy picture I have been successful at creating till now, we have to operate within a real world and writing when used as a means to earning bread succumbs to the same standards as any other job on various levels. As the lay man would perceive it, it might seem a leisurely act of making money off talent, but a writer knows best that it is much more than just that. Writing is a discipline which requires hard work, time, research and most importantly committing to mass appeal (now that you have brought money into the picture). A freelance writer does have the freedom to exercise choice but not to an extent you would imagine. You must remember, he still has to lend his services to a commercial world where the masses play king.

So you are a writer who has just widened his purview to the commercial sense of the term. Here are some pointers to make it a less bumpier start for newbies.

1. Firstly, nobody is going to come knocking at your door, you have to go out searching for opportunities and most often than not you will land yourself in something that is not exactly close to what you had in mind, this is where you have to smoothen your edges to be able to fit into the puzzle.

2. The first few accessible resources you have at hand are the newspaper, the net, and magazines (assuming your ignorance in the industry is in every sense of the term complete). By virtue of the fact that they are ubiquitous in nature and are the most frequently published form of the press available to the masses, newspapers should be one of your primary targets when seeking opportunities. Writing letters to the editor of newspapers and magazines in response to articles on issues that concern you are a good way of testing the waters and interacting with the press. Some papers such as ‘The Hindu’ invite unknown writers to write for a column of theirs which is always open to new opinions; tap such columns. All opportunities to write (even if devoid of any monetary gain) should be availed of as it is most important to make your presence felt as a freelance writer.

Some benefits of this sort of writing would be, acquainting yourself with a facet of the industry and the limitations followed by the same. Second, it increases your chances of being recognized by the publication if they appreciate your work to rope you in on a contract basis, thirdly and most importantly it adds to your credibility and reliability as a writer when approaching other publications.

3. Writing to editors and people of consequence in the writing industry after you have formed a sound ground is a good idea, asking them an opportunity to write for them. If someday you actually hit it big you might just end up earning yourself a column in the main paper.

4. Behold your new best friend, the internet. The internet is going to be one of your main areas of functionality and your primary resource. Getting used to using the internet to your advantage is extremely important as you would be extracting most of your opportunities from there and researching for most of your subjects from the same.

The web has a whole new world to offer for freelance writers from content writing, opportunities to writing for websites (playing the role of the internet press), national and international competitions held via the net, blogs etc. The internet is a whole new world in itself which you can cater to; you don’t need to move an inch from where you are sitting and work as would any other professional. With the growth of this industry on the internet we now have ‘freelance marketplaces’ on the net which you can join. They are one of the best sources of freelance writing work. Some of the most popular web sites are Elance.com, Ifreelance.com, simplyhired.com.

Creating a blog of your own is also a great idea to let your work get noticed and subject your work to public scrutiny so as to achieve a higher quality of work. Once you have actually kicked into the profession of freelance writing with full fervor and have had results come your way making you want to take it up in all seriousness, you should consider starting your own website. Wherein you market your writing skills to the prospective buyers, by putting your previous work, publications worked with, samples etc. in an impressive manner so as to attract the viewer.

5. Picking on the art of writing scripts and screenplays is also a good idea as it allows you to widen yours sphere of opportunity. If you could learn structure and format of such writing and it is something you can pull off you could make some attractive moolah selling scripts of course with your contacts in place.

6. Create a good network of friends and acquaintances. Join clubs and organizations created for writers or for artistes, as all these people are struggling in the same industry as you, you are bound to make contacts. You should try and reach out to not only writers but also people who are related to any form of art or media for example theatre, so you never know in which form your next big break may lie. Networking is therefore the primary step to seeing success in this line as is in any other form of business.

One more tip to keep in mind when you embark on this profession: Reading without a bias with the purpose to ‘know’ more can work to your advantage. Reading on politics, history, current affairs, economics, philosophy etc. to make yourself a knowledgeable and well aware person so as to be able to imbibe your knowledge and be prepared to write on just about anything. As mentioned before you won’t always get exactly the subject you’d want to write on and even a vague sense of knowledge on things outside your sphere of interest can work wonders while writing. So don’t get too selective, educate yourself all along.

Every artiste has to see struggle in the beginning, and this above has been attempt to prepare you better for the same. If you are sincere to your work and treat writing as a discipline sitting yourself everyday for a substantial number of hours everyday, kicking around for opportunity, wearing glasses the masses don, you shall surely reach your destination of establishing a position wherein you can exercise the freedom to indulge in complete creative freedom and the masses would start to wear the glasses you don by virtue of their trust in you as a writer.

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—About our writer:

Neha says, "I would take the liberty of introducing myself as a woman of words and notes, a writer and musician in my own right. Having pursued Economics as my academic discipline I guess I am one of those who needs something reliable to cling on to, but at the same time having written for the likes of India Today Aspire and Ht Next amongst others allows me to make my small claims at writing. My favorite time stealers – reading, writing, listening, observing and most importantly thinking."

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