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| Photo by ThePrettyBlog.com |
When you're a freelance writer and sell any of your writing works - you have actually created your own job that you can call a profession. You might not get paid much in this profession, but rest assured that 95% of the money you make by freelance writing is yours. Plus, when your work is out here in the Internet world, you might not even realize that you are creating a name for yourself and when you're working from home on your computer getting noticed scores you more customers & more customers means more money. Not too bad, right?
On the other hand, Blogging is a whole other ball game. There's no competition to have a good "name" in the business. And, unlike in freelance writing you don't get paid directly for your writing. You may find a way to endorse, advertise, and monetize your blog, but majority of us don't charge to have others read what we write or to use it.
When you blog, you start out writing for yourself and slowly build up a community of readers where you find yourself writing for them as well. Freelance writing is writing sometimes for yourself and then selling your work and most times solely writing to please a customer or reader. Sometimes it can be both.
In my freelance writing and blogging journey, I learned that sometimes when you write something for a specific person or group of people, you learn more about yourself than you do when you just write about something that interests you on your own with no topic or purpose. Often times I find myself starting to write a piece for someone, but turning it into something I would like to post on my blog.
Tips for the Freelance Writer:
- Don't know where to sell your work? Check out Fiverr.com and start there! Need ideas? Check out my Fiverr profile.
- Write what you know and search what you don't. Always. Accurate information makes it easy to sell your work.
- Always hand in original work. Of course.
- If someone disapproves or disagrees with your writing work. Keep it for reference and ignore it. Usually the best writers are the ones who don't get too many approving faces. ;)
- Keep a folder or portfolio of all your writing works. I save every single one I write. If you looked at my portfolio you'd see many cheeky Christmas lyrics I wrote along with a couple of really sensitive love songs I had sold for Valentines' Day.
- Blog about what you know.
- Try to start as many conversations through your posts as possible. A simple "How was your weekend?" after a long post will be sure to spark up some conversations.
- If a picture is worth a thousand words and your blog needs a little color. Add one and you'll be enriching your posts with a thousand more words.
- Don't try to blog about what your favorite bloggers do. Keep it original and tailored to who you are.
- Have fun with it! You don't have to worry about being paid or not for the quality of your work so just do what you love and have fun with it.