Useful Tips On How To Get Well-Paid Freelance Writing Job
Wondering how to get paid well for a freelance writing job? The first step is developing a stellar profile that demonstrates your skills, relevant experience (emphasis on relevant), and educational background (if applicable). You want to write about marketing? Highlight your marketing degree, that internship you did, and any relevant work experience. Stressing the criteria that makes you an expert will help set you apart from the fifty other people who are bidding for the same job. It will also make you an appealing worker for “hidden” clients (those who search for workers directly and privately offer them jobs).
After you develop an excellent and complete profile, you will need to start your search. Narrow your search as much as possible—by category, job type, budget or hourly rate, and deadline. Your search will probably turn up A LOT of job requests—but not all of them will be relevant to you or have reasonable timelines or budgets for the amount of work that needs to be done.
When you are sifting through the numerous jobs that pop up, you may start to get discouraged by the jobs that seem to pay little for a lot of work ($25 to proofread and edit a 400 page dissertation on the mating habits of lemurs, for example). It may take a while, but keep searching. There are jobs out there that will pay reasonably well for your hard work.
Don’t be put off by clients who list “unsure” as their budget. They may be excellent, well-paying clients hidden in plain sight. Know your worth and the qualifications that make you an ideal candidate, and write an excellent proposal to set you apart from everyone else. Also, demonstrate in your proposal that you actually read the job listing (all of it!). Sometimes clients will put code words in their job posts that they want you to include in your proposal. If you don’t put that word in your proposal, they know you haven’t read what they wrote, and you probably won’t get the job.
Now that you have found some jobs to apply to, written some proposals, and received some job offers, you need to consider what kind of worker you want to be: one who chases after countless jobs in a bidding race to the bottom, or one who develops a steady base of repeat customers. This leads to another important tip: develop good working relationships with valuable clients so they will ask you to do more work! Repeat customers are where you will get paid well as a freelancer.