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kbc501
Community Member

Freelance writing questions

Hi, 

 

I'm not particularly new to Upwork, but I haven't gotten legitimate paid work here since I've been a member, despite putting in several proposals. I'm all of out of "connects" for this week, so I guess I should take a step back and try to figure out what I'm doing wrong. 

 

Before I became unemployed and signed up for vocational rehabilitation training, I was an English teacher. I think my writing skills are fairly decent, and my past job would transition nicely to freelance work, but I don't have any writing samples, and I've been leery about just linking to my personal blog. I'm tired of being solicited by scammers and students who think I'm an essay mill. I think I'm going about this wrong, and clear specific advice would be much appreciated. Thank you. 

14 REPLIES 14
reinierb
Community Member

Kendra,

I would suggest you remove the "write about anything you might need" bit from your overview. Clients generally do not like generalists- what they are looking for are specialists in their fields, so what you must do is pick a niche or subject area you are good in and focus on that. 

 

Make clients believe that you are the absolute best choice in that particular area, and use your profile overview to tell them what you can for them specifically. Address their needs, and explain how you can fulfil those needs. 

 

As for a portfolio- you can include anything you were not paid for. If you were paid for a text, you need the copyright owner's permission to include it, so just write something (articles, blog posts, essays and such) and post them in your portfolio. All clients are interested in is how you do what you say you can do, so keep that in mind when you create portfolio pieces.

 

Hope this helps, and good luck!   

mystudiomke
Community Member

Agreed with Reiner comments.

Also, your profile summary needs major work.  Explain further about skills and how you can best assist the prospective client. Take a look at other fellow writers profile and see different ways they are marketing themselves.

 

Best,

Lila
petra_r
Community Member


Kendra B wrote: but I don't have any writing samples, and I've been leery about just linking to my personal blog.

 So why, in all the weeks since this was first discussed, haven't you managed to simply WRITE a few samples?

kbc501
Community Member

I'm fairly critical of my own work. If I write my own samples, who is going to judge whether my work is good or not? Wouldn't it be better to try to get something published elsewhere and then just post a link to that? 

 

I've been trying my luck with other websites to see if they will let me write articles for them, but, so far, nothing productive has come of it. I guess I'll keep trying until I have some measure of success. I'll have more time to look, as I can't apply for more jobs here this week anyway. 

 

Apparently, it isn't that hard to find writing opportunities like that. Someone I went to school with was doing this kind of freelance writing while she was still in college. 

Kendra, if you aren't confident of the quality of your own writing, what makes you think other people will (or should) pay you for it? Here is something fundamental you need to understand about freelance writing: You must be prepared to self-edit through as many rounds as it takes to ensure that every draft you submit to a client is camera-ready, i.e. what they specified, formatted cleanly and to requirements, with zero typos or grammatical errors. There may be open questions about specific passages and/or structural issues that you mutually agreed to address following the initial draft. But if you can't edit and do quality assurance on your work, then you aren't ready to do this professionally.

 

That said, I looked at your profile and think you might find some traction here if you narrow your focus. I'm a generalist, too, but clients don't want or need to hear that. I recommend you spend time browsing Upwork writers, by every specialty you can think of, to see who seems to be succeeding and how they are doing it. How do they describe themselves and what they do? What kinds of projects are they doing? How much do they charge for projects that seem to conclude successfully (or continue for long periods)? Pay less attention to how many projects a writer does, because many only work part-time on UW and have other balls in the air. Figure out a niche where you can learn to stand out.

 

Also, be careful about your Skills section. It should represent your strongest areas in terms of capability and experience, the areas where you're 100% confident of delivering beyond a client's expectations, every time. I see nothing in your background suggesting you have experience writing Business Proposals. That is a specific niche. Sometimes a client simply needs someone to write the narrative portions of their proposal. Often, however, they are looking for someone to spearhead production of their organization's response to a complex RFP--work with the sales team and maybe several functional areas within the organization that provide budget, timeine, methodology, and other content that has to be assembled into a final document and maybe a presentation deck. If you haven't done that role within an organization or as an outside consultant, at least, then don't bill it as one of your skills. If an inexperienced client did hire you for it, it's almost certain it would end in tears. Re. Short Stories: have you written many short stories? Published any? If so, highlight it but if not, think about leaving that out.

 

Re. portfolio: in addition to looking for pro bono opportunities to write, find friends and family who need their website copy written or refreshed or other writing tasks that will generate docs you can use as samples.

This isn't impossible for you, but I repeat the advice I offered on an earlier thread: go read about freelancing in general, and about freelance writing, to get a better understanding of what you're trying to do.

 

Good luck!

So far, I've updated my profile. I think I'm going to focus more on tutoring and market myself based on that. Yes, I'm sort of a "jack of all trades, master of none," at this point. I guess I'll go back and look at my profile and continue to make changes.   

 

 

Sorry for posting all of this. I appreciate the help, but I feel like I should have looked elsewhere for this and not bothered all of you with it. 

petra_r
Community Member


@Kendra B wrote:

Sorry for posting all of this. I appreciate the help, but I feel like I should have looked elsewhere for this and not bothered all of you with it. 


 You're not bothering anyone and I doubt there is a better place than this.

It seems the thing you lack most is confidence.

JUST WRITE, Kendra.

Write about a topic you are interested in, feel passionate about.  Then hone it, and stick it in your portfolio.

Then do it again.

And again,

and again

and.....

 

You won't gain traction, or anything else, unless you start writing. You won't improve, you won't get more confident, you won't have more to show unless / until you sit your bottom down and put pen (so to speak) to (digital) paper and write.

 

Want to be a writer? WRITE SOMETHING!

 

dbalmir
Community Member

thank you to everyone who responded to Kendra B.  I am new and still working on figuring it out.  Reading your responses helped give me some perspective!  If someone can take a look at my profile and provide feedback, that would be great.

 

Take care,

Dhalia


@Dhalia B wrote:

thank you to everyone who responded to Kendra B.  I am new and still working on figuring it out.  Reading your responses helped give me some perspective!  If someone can take a look at my profile and provide feedback, that would be great.

 

Take care,

Dhalia


 _________________________________

Dhalia,

What has already been written regarding Kendra's questions also applies to you.  You need a portfolio, and your profile would look better to clients if you did a few relevant tests with at least an "above average" rating. 

 

The first three lines of your profile are what the client sees initially so don't waste them. No client is interested in stories you wrote in grade school. They want to know what you can do for them now, so you could start by saying you have experience in business  writing such as  contracts, proposals, policies etc. And then add a portfolio to show that you can deliver what you offer. 

If it's not a problem, could some of you look at my profile and see what I need to change / improve? I've attempted to update it, but, if nothing else, a lot of it just doesn't really sound like "me." I guess I'll link to my personal blog for writing samples, even though I haven't yet optimized it for SEO or gotten the articles published somewhere else or anything like that. I've heard that writing for SEO takes quite a bit of work. 

 

I don't really understand the logic, to be honest, and I think leveraging social media platforms that you're aleady active on is a better strategy than trying to trick a search engine, but I've seen a few people asking for people who knew how to write for SEO, so I guess it's a skill I should try to demonstrate that I have. Right now, though, I don't have it, and I'm working on this blog to see if I can get any good results. 

tlbp
Community Member

Outside academics, people will only pay for written work when it is profitable for their business. So, yes, your work needs to be shareable, optimized for the client's keywords and formatted in the manner that web content is expected to be formatted. 

 

To freelance, you must not only be a writer but a business owner who markets her business. This means you need to understand your target clients' needs and address them in everything you do. Solve their problems in a cost-effective way. 

 

Also, while you need to be able to craft compelling content without assistance, you don't have to be your own proofreader to succeed as a freelance writer. I pay a proofreader to review my work. Outsourcing this step saves me time and leads to a better final product for my clients. Of course, you need to consider the cost of any services that you outsource when setting your fees. 

 

Finally, you can link to your personal blog in a proposal but you cannot link to your personal blog on your Upwork profile page if any information on the blog would allow viewers to reach you without going through the Upwork interface. 

SEO writing isn't about "tricking" a search engine. It's about writing in such a way that search engines can easily understand that your content is relevant to their user's search query. As it happens, writing for SEO usually makes it easier to read for the audience. Writing for SEO is a long-term investment.

As long as the site is up, the client has that content to share. How long does a Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram post remain relevant? Not nearly as long. A client can share a blog post or article with their email list, but they don't usually share social media posts do they (context matters of course)? 

Social media is just another pillar in a solid content marketing strategy. It has it's place, but it doesn't TAKE the place of another pillar. 

The basics of SEO writing aren't hard, and the writing gets easier as you adjust to the recommendations. SEO writing was one of the first skills I added to my freelance writer arsenal when I first got started, and look at me now! 🙂

Thank you! Very helpful.
tlbp
Community Member

Dhalia, 

Your profile might be useful if you were looking for a friend, but it will do little to attract clients. 

Kendra,

Your profile shares your opinions and tells clients what you want, how does that help them? 

 

From line 1, your profile should tell the client WIIFT (What's In It For Them?) What can you do for the client and how will it solve their problem. That you love your work or how you discovered your career destination is of no interest to them.

Primary client concerns:

What can you do?

How well can you do it?

How much will it cost?

When will it be done?

Can you get the work done reliably and without drama?