How to Start and Sustain a Career as a Freelance Writer

Have you wondered how you can do a career writing books or articles for various publications? Or are you seeking a viable second financial gain possibility but do not cognize wherever to start? Well, freelance writing may be the right career for you and it can open a earth of profitable opportunities for you.

You do not need to have special qualifications to be a freelance writer and do money. What you need is the ambition, diligence in your craft and temperament to discover the necessary skills. Of course you need to be literate in a popular language especially English in order to communicate with a large audience and sell your activity widely.

Getting Started

Getting started as a freelance writer is easy compared to what it takes to enter different careers .You need to assess your skills to alter you to choose what to write about. What noesis or training do you have? Are there issues or facts you are more familiar with? What are your hobbies/interests? These and different questions if well answered will have set you on the path to being a writer.

However, it may be necessary to discover the art of writing from experts and this is why you should take a writing course. There are many a writing courses accessible and an appropriate search on the Cyberspace will reveal some, which may be suitable for you. Patch several courses are full-time and may require minimum entry qualifications you may find a host of others which are part-time and do not require any special qualifications.

A nice option is to take a distance learning course and you will find several in this category. These give you an possibility to study at house at your own pace. Notable among them are those offered by two UK based colleges and which are accessible to prospective writers worldwide. One is offered by the Writers Bureau of Manchester United Kingdom. The college offers a freelance writing distance learning course which leads to the issue of a certificate on completion and gives you an possibility to earn from writing patch you learn.

The different college is the London School of Journalism which offers diplomas and post graduate diplomas in writing. Many a areas of writing are covered by several colleges and it is better that you enrol in one of these courses to sharpen your talents and take advantage of the opportunities that go with perusing them.

In case you do not feel like enrolling in writing courses for any reason then all is not lost. There are brobdingnagian resources on the cyberspace and elsewhere which you can resort to for learning just about writing. You may see various essays on writing on the cyberspace written by fully fledged writers. There are many a of these and it’s only a matter of knowing how and wherever to find them. There are as well books just about freelance writing which you may order from book stores or direct from publishers. A visit to your local library may as well prove useful in unearthing useful information on writing.

Once you have embarked on writing you need to support a notebook or journal to record wild ideas as they move to your mind or patch reading various publications. To discover ideas for your writing you need to see wide magazines, newspapers, books, watch television and so on. Give the news and features a second thought, study them critically and ask yourself questions just about what is contained in them. Imagine what would-be have been the situation if the events cited had not happened. Since they have happened how can the situation be ready-made better? What are the effects of those events? Think more just about them. Dream and take notes.

WRITING YOUR PIECE

Now comes the hard part golf shot your ideas in black and white. This part may be difficult depending on your circumstances. You could be having so many a ideas that you are engulfed by the sheer volume of information you have collected. You are stuck with stacks of sheets of information you have jotted down that you do not cognize wherever to begin. Instead you could be having only a few ideas to fit only one page and do not cognize wherever to find information to write the rest of your book or article.

These are dilemmas that face writers at various points in time maybe they reflect lack of considerateness in handling theirs work. As a writer you need to do proper planning to avoid any of those two scenarios you need to have researched your market 1st before even as researching the subject.

This brings us to the issue of markets study. You need to study the audience to cognize what their requirements are. In the case of articles, you should study the writers/submission guidelines and a few issues of the publications to cognize your markets well. Many a publications have writers/submission guidelines on their web pages. Next you need to be familiar with the style guidelines. These are more or less the same as the writers guidelines but may include issues such as spelling, punctuation and different aspects of grammar.

It is important that you see their style guides to avoid you articles being rejected. In case you do not cognize wherever to find them then it is better to write to the editors for copies. Instead you may be find several in libraries and bookstores.

As important as the study of the market is the research on the topic you want to write about. Write down all ideas you have on the topic as they move to mind without piece of writing them. Turn them face down to move up with fresh ideas. Then decide on the angle and slant of your article.

The above exercise would-be have generated a lot of material, which may be used as a basis for your story. Then depending on the type of article you are writing you can do extensive research, taking notes as you carry on. The research could be on the internet, which is a nice place to start from or in publications found at the library. You may have to buy several books, which are not topically accessible or pay for photos from media agencies. Instead you may use the services of hired researchers or research agencies. A nice source of research documents is the British Library, which can for a small fee send you photocopies of requested material anyplace in the world. The US Library of congress has a similar service. You may as well search for experts in your local directory who may provide you with useful information. In sum there is limitless scope for research and only you may decide on the limit based on the requirements of the article.

Next, you should organize the ideas and information from the research into a apothegmatic and coherent order. This is the planning face wherever you decide the structure and format of your article, choose what is relevant and would-be advance the goal and spirit of your article. Choice ideas from the research information and not word for word copying. Be careful lest you be suspect of plagiarism of different people’s activity or infringing on their copyrights. Write several drafts until the complete article has taken the shape and tone you want, check on the spelling, punctuation and different aspects of descriptive linguistics and style in each draft to attain a well polished article. It is not a bad idea if you seek a second opinion from your peers before preparing the final draft. There are thousand of writing communities on the cyberspace which may assist you in that regard.

After writing the final draft type it and send it to the responsible editor of the publication.

The Contents

What goes into fashioning a eminent article? Well the answers could be varied depending on the scope and nature of the article. I believe there can be no standard way of writing an article. However, we can at least agree on several universal principles of what constitutes a nice article.

First, any article must be attractive to its intended audience or audience. Readers must be affixed to it and have the thirst to see it on until the end. They will see it twice, thrice and even as more or support it as a souvenir for days and years to come. This is the ideal article and if yours can reach that level then the better.

Your article must offer useful information, which the reader may use to his benefit or at least enlighten him on important issues. If it is a story it will give the reader temporary relief or inspiration on a particular issue. It will do him dream or be filled with imagination, which will give him a sense of relaxation. In brief it will entertain him.

How will you attain all that? By organizing the article in a logical and structured order. You will use words to convey ideas precisely; you will say what you mean and mean what you say. Choose the right words to convey the intended message. You swear not to use incomprehensible metaphors and jargon and if you do then you are certain that they are at the level that your audience is pronto familiar with. Use the right similes and aphorisms. Be apothegmatic in your use of language, do the sentences and paragraphs flow swimmingly with similar ideas ably classified and flowing in a logical and pleasant order. Paragraphs are short and measured.

All that is not easy to attain with the stroke of a pen and you will have to do more learning and imagination to attain that level. Hopefully there is an easy path to that objective. This is through constant reading especially of fiction books since they are a great resource of creative ideas and are models of language use.

Read them on a regular basis and take a few notes down. Do not finish with fiction books but do as well see magazines, newspapers and different non-fiction works. See what different eminent writers have done and follows the principles behind their writing success.

Let’s now look at the how part of writing. An article contains three main parts that is introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction may be aforementioned to be the most important part of the article. This is not to misjudge the different two parts or to say that we can have an article without the different parts.

We will rather to show its significance in engrossing your readers to want to see the article. This is exemplified with the 1st opening paragraph popularly best-known as the leader or lead paragraph. It is a strong paragraph which ably summarized the theme of the article. It will mostly likely be one sentence but no harm if it is split into two or three sentences.

The body of the article follows next after the introduction and is divided into many a paragraphs depending on the length of the article. The main theme of the article is developed here. Arguments and counter-arguments are made. Facts are spilled. Comments are made. Analysis is done. Without the body you have no eminent article or no article at all. Your believability as a writer will be judged on how you with success handled the writing of the body. You readers will have no regrets of having gone past the introduction and entering the body. If they find it satisfactorily written, suspense overcomes them until they reach the conclusion.

To conclude the article, the writer ingeniously in a few sentences summarizes the theme of the article. He does not recapitulate the facts cited in the body but gives the reader the sequel of the story. It all requires ability to write a nice conclusion that leaves the readers with nice memories of your article. The conclusion does not leave questions lingering the minds of your readers but gives a final word on the theme. In matters which are full of uncertainty the writer speculates on the most likely outcome.

Marketing Your Activity

Here comes the most important part. You have taken days or weeks aggregation information, gathering ideas, writing and activity your article and it is high time you gained from your sweat.

There are several approaches to commerce your article. Each has its own advantages but most experts are unanimous that querying is the better option. This is just because it is affordable and you get value for what you activity for even as if after a long time. It is hassle-free and patch not without its disappointments, it is comparatively less painful if you obtain a rejection.

Querying is the 1st thing you should do after you have formed a strong idea on the theme of your article. Check publications directories and on the cyberspace for addresses of editors responsible for acceptive freelance writers' activity and then write to them addressing them by their names and titles.

A query is a one page or so letter to a named editor of a publication asking for an possibility to contribute an article for publication. It contains a brief summary of the main theme of the article, it’s advisable length, once you are likely to deliver it if you are authorised to write it, the likely benefits the readers will derive from the article and why you are the right person to write the article.

You should put a lot of imagination in writing the query letter as this is your better possibility to persuade the editor of your ability to deliver on your promises. If you have a nice resume attach it or mention in brief relevant contents which does you stand out as the most suitable to write the article. Editors prefer fully fledged writers to novices and if you have what it takes then say so. Otherwise if you are a beginner avoid language so but include a few samples tailored to the publications readers taste. If you will use special or exclusive sources of information then don’t forget to mention that in your query.

How many a times should one query per article? As many a times as is practicable, just so long as you are able to deliver on your promises taking into consideration time constraints. In fact for your writing business to be viable you need to send many a queries to ensure that your potential earnings will be able to sustain you in your career. However you should be wary of a situation wherever you obtain several acceptances on the same theme and you send exact replicas of the article. Try to give a several spin and change the choice of words to suit several publications. Take activity according to your ability and capacity.

The different alternative to marketing your activity is to write articles for mass audiences imagining their necessarily and tastes and submitting to various publications. You target several publications in one category which you feel will be most suitable to accept the theme of your article. You may as well copy your article from your disk or computer and paste on virtual business communities websites or email your article to various editors. This is a quick and cheap way of fashioning multiple submissions of your articles.

We have mentioned virtual business communities websites and I feel we should explain in brief what they are. These are websites which accept articles or activity form writers and sell to various publications and pay you a modest fee. They are a nice starting point for the beginner as they provide quick results of seeing your activity published. To be frank it is difficult to win writing assignments without several writing experience or proof that you are a publicised writer. Such websites give you an easy way of proving yourself and as well earning thing from your work.

However, these type of websites may have their own pitfalls such as going out of business before you get paid or profiting from your activity and giving you little in return. A consolatory fact is that you still retain your copyright and you can sell your articles to different publications. Please regard these websites as sources of additional financial gain and not the ultimate markets for your writing work.

How do you cognize which publications accept activity from freelance writers or even as the names and addresses of magazines and newspapers editors? There are several route to do that and we shall mention a few here. A nice reference for finding freelance writing markets is the annual Writers Markets. This contains names and addresses publications which accept freelance work. You may order it from Amazon.com or you can check if there is a copy at your local library. On the web, you can use search engines such as Google.com to search for markets by mistreatment keywords such as “newspapers and magazines”. You will be astonied by the sheer volume of links that are accessible which you can browse slowly to look for the categories you want. You will find thousands of publications whether classified by country, subject or readership.

Dealing With Rejections

While doing your marketing you will experience several difficulties such as several publications which have gone out of circulation or editors who do not respond but more often you will obtain many a polite rejections. Several editors may give you suggestions they will you to consider before acceptive your proposal.

All in all we have to accept that rejections are a fact of life and we will have to live with them but you will be a lot wiser if you study the reasons for your rejections to alter you improve your futurity queries and submissions thus increasing your chances of deed acceptances. Patch several editors may not be interested in the theme you are proposing others would-be have been discontent with your level of experience to handle the articles you are proposing to write. It could as well be that the publication has received a similar query from another writer or has plans to write a similar piece mistreatment their staff writers. Probably they have publicised an article on the same theme recently and they feel they have thoroughly covered the subject and unless you have thing new or refreshing they are not acceptive any proposals for now.

Read what they write to you and discover from their reasons. Do not be discouraged but send more queries to different publications. Choose popular themes for articles and add more value in them such as statistics, photographs, expert comments and an objective assessment of the issues. With time and patience you will ultimately succeed.

Organizing Yourself

As you carry on with your writing you need to organize yourself to with success take advantage of opportunities as they move on and to ensure that you do not fail to beat deadlines. There are basic necessities such as writing paper including files for clippings manuscripts and photographs. You need to support track of your articles to cognize wherever they were published, once and follow up payments. You may need to draw up contracts, type up your articles, post or email them.

Prepare and follow a activity plan to alter you succeed in researching and writing articles. Deal with one assignment 1st before you go to the next. Dedicate as more time as possible to writing since this is the core function of your career. If you write less then the less you will earn and the less driven you will be to continue with writing.

You as well need to spend more time querying on multiple article ideas. This is important since you will be looking for futurity sales. Tho' specializing on one genre is good, you should at times look for different branches of writing and markets to maximize your chances of fashioning sales.

Manage your business affairs well so that you do not cripple your career, budget your financial gain and invest in books and different publications o support your ideas train moving on and on. Don’t forget to invest in savings and different profitable opportunities for the occasional rainy day.

Once you have a stable financial gain you may open a small office and employ staff to assist you in research, writing and different important tasks. This will alter you churn out more articles every month than if you handle everything yourself. Support expenses to a minimum and go for high paying markets.

You can build a career out of writing and earn yourself extra financial gain part-time or regular financial gain full time from freelance writing. However you need to study the art of writing, organize yourself and perpetually search for markets to stay afloat.

Don’t fear to take the plunge, the time is now!

About The Author

Abdallah Khamis Abdallah is a freelance employee and ghostwriter. To discover more just about how you and your business can benefit from infectious agent and believability marketing solutions visit his website at: http://www.qualitywritingsolutions.com.
quantumpro@lycos.com

This article was denote on Gregorian calendar month 17, 2004