Should you use a pen name? It depends.

by Dusten Carlson

January 31, 2021

Can you build a writing career on a professional pseudonym? Yes. But is it a good idea?

It’s a question I hear a lot (and see a lot online). Should I use a pen name for my writing career, or my real name?

Everyone has their reasons for wanting to use a pseudonym.

Some writers may want to conceal a side gig from their primary employer. Others may wish to write in less-mainstream niches (i.e. cannabis, adult fiction) without risking reputational damage.

Maybe you just think a pen name is kind of sexy. “I’m a writer, after all…” you say as you tighten your ascot.

Should you use a pen name?

While the appeal of a pen name is understandable, it doesn’t really confer any sort of career benefit to use one. In fact, there might be a number of downsides you should consider as you make your decision. Still, whether or not you should use a pen name is ultimately dependent on your broader life and career goals.

As you’ve gathered by now, there isn’t really a straightforward answer to this one.

So let’s take a look at this question from a few different angles.

Why you should use a pen name

Maybe you’re thinking, “what’s the harm?” Most writers work remotely and turn in their work via email, Dropbox, or publish it on WordPress or in a client’s CMS. What’s the harm in a little extra anonymity?

Preserving some sense of anonymity is probably the best reason to use a pen name. Like we mentioned in the intro, there are practical reasons to want to remain anonymous as a freelance writer, or to be known under a different name altogether.

If you have a normie day job, there are a number of hypothetical scenarios wherein you might not want your boss discovering that you moonlight as a writer.

Maybe your employer has a policy against additional employment. Whether it’s enforceable or not is another matter. But I once knew a writer once who got in trouble at a daytime marketing job for writing listicles about superhero movies on the side.

(It was me).

Maybe you write about controversial political topics, or in a less mainstream industry like the examples listed in the intro. This kind of content could reflect poorly on your employer and result in trouble for you.

We’d never advocate anyone get in that kind of trouble. Even if you hate your day job, it’s a lot smarter to keep your head down until you can build up to full time as a freelance writer (assuming that’s what you want).

So in this context, writing under a pseudonym might make sense.

I’ve also known writers who want to keep their SEO “uncluttered.” Let’s say you have some kind of job that requires some level of a public persona, like an insurance salesman or a lawyer.

The same way you wouldn’t want potential clients seeing your Cheap Trick tribute band first when they Google your name, maybe you also don’t want your number #1 Google Search result to be a listicle about Zack Snyder’s Justice League that happened to rank.

It’s also possible you have an extremely common name, or share a name with a celebrity. If you’re “Michael Jordan”, then you’ll probably have a hard time outranking the other Michael in anything you ever do. (I believe in you, but it’s Michael Jordan…)

God among plebes.

So far we’ve got a handful of pretty persuasive reasons to write using a pen name:

Avoid hassle with an employer
Work in less-mainstream niches
Keep SEO around your name “clean”
Avoid confusion with a common/celebrity name

Now let’s look at the potential drawbacks.

Why you shouldn’t use a pen name

The first and most important downside is this: a pen name might limit your ability to get jobs.

After being a freelance writer, I started my own content agency where I instantly found myself on the other side of the freelance table — I was the employer.

The stuff I learned from that side of the table was extremely illuminating, and a big part of the reason I started ProWriter with Dave.

Here’s how this connects to the point.

A big thing about hiring writers is that no matter what kind of job you post, and no matter where you post it, you get flooded with applications.

In fact, most of the applications you get aren’t even qualified candidates. They’re just writers crawling jobs boards sending a pitch to every post hoping for a bite.

If you take those away, there are about a third left that actually have some experience or interest in your niche.

The problem we’d run into, though, is that we would often hire writers that sent us good samples only to find out that they… probably weren’t the original authors of the samples they pitched us with, if you catch my drift.

We were catfished, I’m saying.

So to solve this problem, we started doing a deeper dive on the applicants who seemed qualified from their pitch samples.

This meant searching the web for other digital “footprints,” like a social media presence, and bylines at credible sites (it’s one of the reasons we built the ProWriter Portfolio — to bring all of these footprints together, making it easier for employers to vet candidates).

You might be seeing the problem for pen name writers here, but let me spell it out.

If you choose to use a pen name, you might run into trouble getting hired unless you spend some time creating digital “footprints” for your alter ego. This means that you’ll probably need a couple of social profiles, a separate email, website, (a ProWriter portfolio!), i.e., a whole ‘nother digital life to maintain.

I’ve talked before about the power of using a real picture of yourself in the signature line of your email pitches, and prominently across your digital spread. The same applies here.

And using your real photo with a pen name… kind of defeats the purpose.

Game it out

But let’s say you’re committed to the pen name idea, comfortable operating a second digital life with your same face all over it, figured out whatever tax and business implications using a pseudonym might require, etc.

What happens if you want to change your mind?

Let’s say you transition out of your day job and into freelancing full time. You start building a name for yourself, make appearances on podcasts, guest column at major websites, etc. You’re really taking off!

By then it’s too late to change.

It’s not like you can change the byline on every article you ever wrote. You’ve already built brand credibility with this pen name. That means you’re stuck with it. Every new article you write under that name makes it that much more difficult to change your mind later.

Even if you’re not destined to ultimately become a roundtable guest on a cable news program under that pen name, what if you simply change your mind and start applying for jobs under your real name?

If you’re sending employers like me samples of your work with someone else’s name on them, that’s going to put up a red flag.

Lastly, there’s something to be said about owning your work. There’s honesty and integrity in it. If you’re in for a pep talk along these lines, Todd Brisson has an excellent essay on it here.

All in all, this makes a pen name a little more trouble than it’s worth. It complicates things unnecessarily.

What if you still really, really need to use a pen name?

Finally, let’s say you’re one of those who want to get close to the third rail and write on really controversial topics. Stuff you might have doubts about publishing under your real name.

Hear me loud and clear: A pseudonym will not protect you.

I know, I know. We did say that anonymity was probably the best reason to use a pen name. But that privacy is not ironclad.

If you build a name for yourself on controversy, you’re entering an environment where other influence-seekers online are incentivized to kneecap you. Doxxing is a threat you have to contend with. Whether right or wrong, it’s reality.

Personally, I don’t think anyone should say anything publicly they wouldn’t put their real name to.

But I realize that’s old school. And I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate reasons for anonymity.

I’m saying a pseudonym is not some privacy silver bullet.

I don’t know if it’s even possible to privacy-proof your life such that you could never be found out.

Recognize the risk that comes with dabbling in controversy. If people want to find out who you are, in this day and age, they will.

Our advice?

You’ve probably picked it up, but our bias definitely leans toward “don’t use a pen name.”

Still, there are credible reasons for wanting to use one. For those of you who are still leaning toward it, we hope we gave you a good rundown of the risks and considerations you should take into account.

Our last piece of advice is simply this: Commit to the bit.

If you choose to write under a pseudonym, then yes, you should put some work into creating a digital presence that you plan on sustaining throughout the course of your career.

I know of some writers who use multiple pseudonyms in different niches. That seems to be making things harder than they have to be, but it works for them, so no judgments there.

Make sure you think carefully about how using a pen name isn’t tight-seal privacy protection in the digital age, and that it can impact some employment opportunities if you’re trying to pitch samples that appear to have been written by someone else.

Editor Robert Lee Brewer even suggests pitching and communicating under your pseudonym for the duration of a relationship with an employer (up to the point where they have to actually pay you).

He says that it prevents the editor from accidentally bylining your real name, and avoids other points of potential confusion. It’s good advice.

Takeaways and resources

Reminder that ProWriter offers a free, professional writer portfolio, which we referenced several times in this article. You can claim yours and start building it out in minutes here.

Finally, as always, find me on LinkedIn if you have any questions or feedback.

Career Help

‘One thing I wish I knew…’ 6 freelance writers give advice for newbies

by Dusten Carlson

January 17, 2021

We talked to some freelance writers we know about their experiences breaking in, and what advice they have for writers who are just starting out.

My first job in freelance writing was literally handed to me. A friend of mine knew I wanted to be a writer. He had a friend who was the editor of a modest news aggregation blog. My friend asked me if I wanted an introduction. I said yes.

Without that first gig, I’m not sure how I would have started.

This was pre-Upwork/LinkedIn/reddit days. Content mills weren’t really the household names they’ve come to be in the industry.

The only one I knew of was Textbroker. I’d tried using it, but didn’t understand what clients wanted. Assignment briefs were sparse and confusing. A lot of them asked for “SEO content.” WTF was that?

And it never once occurred to me to find an editorial email address at the bottom of a site I wanted to write for and send a pitch. Websites don’t exactly hang “now hiring writers” banners on their homepage. I assumed that anyone who worked at Huffington Post made a connection through a big journalism school, and that ship had already sailed for me.

These gaps in my knowledge sound ridiculous looking back. Embarrassing, even.

But I shouldn’t be so hard on old me. These gaps are all too common.

Nowadays, aspiring freelance writers have more options to break in.

There are numerous job boards and content mills to find gigs to cut your teeth and build a writer portfolio on.

You have easier access to editors and business owners on social media.

Googling “how to become a freelance writer” will bring up all kinds of resources (some more helpful than others).

But a lot of freelance writers I talk to still have some of those big, familiar knowledge gaps I had.

They just don’t know how to get started.

Sure, there may be more options, but maybe that brings on an options paralysis.

Which courses will actually help me figure out how to break in?

Where do I get good jobs?

How many articles do I have to read before this all sinks in?

They say you start a business to solve a problem you yourself have. That’s a big reason Dave and I started ProWriter.

People have responded positively to the blog posts we’ve written, educational materials we’ve created, and ad hoc observations we’ve shared about the freelance writing space so far.

That’s awesome! That’s what we were hoping for.

But, we think it’s important to hear from other writers, as well. People who are working hard. In the “trenches,” so to speak. Other freelance writers like you.

What they’ve learned, what they’d tell themselves on Day 1 if they could go back.

We picked a handful of freelance writers we know well to help you understand where your priorities should be when you’re just starting out.

There might be things you’re anxious and worried about. Hopefully, these writers will give you permission not to.

There might be questions you have. Hopefully, these writers will help answer them.

You might feel very strongly that you should just do something. Hopefully, these writers will save you the headache. Or, better yet, give you permission.

We’ll take our backseat now and let these writers take over this blog post from here on. We hope you find it valuable.

The writer portfolio is critical early on

Ashley Reign:

“In the beginning, a lot of it is about building a resume rather than scoring a high-paying job right out of the gate. […]

“Focus on finding gigs that will allow you to do work you’d be proud to add to your online portfolio. Look for clients that will credit you and/or provide a link to your website or byline, even if they don’t pay all that well. As your resume and portfolio grow, so should your asking pay rate.”

Jeanette R:

“One piece of advice: Build a diverse portfolio and get published in places that maintain an archive. […]

Mandy Lutman

“Promote your self-published material and personal (professional) blogs alongside your professionally-published work. Both are important.”

Elizabeth Belanger:

“Were I able to go back in time and advise my past self on my future freelance writing career, the most significant piece of advice I’d likely give myself is to develop a specific niche sooner rather than later. Being knowledgeable in certain industries or topics is fantastic, and clients who appreciate well-written, expert-level content are likely to request more work from you!”

Learn technical skills, like SEO

“On the content side, I didn’t pay enough attention to the technical side of SEO and everything it entails (from keyword ideation to titles and headings to schema to metadata) at the outset. […]

Casey Watson

“While I’ll never be a wizard on the technical side, I found my ability to understand my client’s needs and meet their expectations grew once I knew more about the technological challenges they face in getting found and heard.”

Piper Gourley:

“One skillset I would like to continue to expand my knowledge on is search-engine optimization (SEO) writing. As the web continues to become an even wider medium for writing, and more articles about the same topics are being produced, SEO skills have become more relevant to writers than ever. SEO pieces also tend to bring in more money than non-SEO writing, both for freelancers and publishers, so mastering SEO is a profitable skill to commit to in the long-run.”

On self-care and other career advice

Mandy Lutman:

“Don’t overwork yourself. Burnout is a real and scary thing and having a work/life balance is important from the get-go. It’s very easy to fall into the workaholic hole, but if you do, it’ll take years of healing to dig yourself out of it.”

Casey Watson:

“Anticipate that you’ll succeed. That sounds terribly inspirational-poster, but I mean it more practically. […]

“If your goal is to develop a remunerative sideline or even a stable source of sole income, anticipate — but don’t expect out of a sense of entitlement — that it will happen. From the start, develop habits and systems that will allow you to sustain what you’re doing.”

Piper Gourley:

“It’s important to be flexible. You’re going to be writing for a smorgasbord of clients. Your style needs to be in flux with their needs. Adaptability is one of the most useful skills you can have. […]

Piper Gourley

“Rigid stylistic writing is not likely to get you very far in freelance work that requires you to deliver a variety of pieces (blogs, articles, advertorial writing) to various clients, all of whom have different expectations for your writing. Stay adaptable, ask questions when they emerge, and always, ALWAYS read the style guide, even if it’s a client you’ve already worked with!”

Casey Watson:

“One more thing! Find a portfolio set up that you like and systematically keep and organize your stuff as you go. It’ll help you in myriad ways.”

Final takeaways and resources

ProWriter offers a free, professional writer portfolio, designed to highlight experience and skills to help you stand out when applying for jobs. You can claim yours and start building it out in minutes here.

If you want to learn more about SEO and other more technical freelance writing topics, you can look at our resources library.

You can also check out our courses page here, and take our introductory course to freelance writing for free.

Finally, as always, find me on LinkedIn if you have any questions or feedback.

Content Strategy

Most writers aren’t SEO Specialists. But why not?

by Dusten Carlson

January 3, 2021

Writers that neglect SEO are leaving money on the table.

Here’s what you need to know to feel confident that your SEO knowledge is up-to-date and competitive in the freelance writing market.

I recently saw a job post on reddit. “Looking for an SEO expert and copywriter,” it said.

Though the OP admitted they weren’t sure whether they were in the right place, the post went on to list some pretty standard competencies: native english speaking, ability to write blog posts, and “expert in SEO.”

Imagine the OP’s disappointment when they read the top response, which begins, emphasis theirs:

An SEO Expert/Specialist is rarely a writer.

Looking at the title of this blog post, you might be thinking I’m going to pick a fight with this responder.

Not at all. This response is 100% correct.

The responder correctly identifies an “SEO expert” as a distinct role from that of a writer. This is an individual with skills in keyword research, technical SEO, and link building, among other things.

In that same response, the author also clarifies that a lot of writers market themselves as “SEO experts.” The problem is, their skills are outdated or questionable. Knowing how to keyword stuff content isn’t exactly a valuable skill, and it’s definitely not good SEO.

So far an SEO expert is not a writer, and writers are not SEO experts. Check. Agreed so far.

But what I want to do in this blog post is expand on something that the responder briefly mentioned, because I think there’s more to say there.

“A copywriter with a background in SEO, or skilled in keyword placement, usually has only a bit of knowledge about the above.”

This is also true.

But it just brings me to a question.

Why?

Why don’t writers know more about SEO?

And what should writers know about SEO?

(Okay, that was three questions. Bear with me.)

If a writer wanted to, they certainly could become an SEO expert. There are a lot of courses on the web that will teach you skills like technical SEO review, link building, and keyword strategy. As the responder notes, SEO Specialists charge a pretty penny for their services, too.

But that’s not for everybody.

Still, SEO is an in-demand skill that factors into a lot of freelance writing jobs. It’s mentioned as a preferred skill in most gigs we curate at our own jobs board.

And while we don’t have exact numbers on the freelance writing industry as a whole, we can give you a sense of perspective.

There are nearly 40,000 writing jobs on ZipRecruiter right now that ask for some kind of SEO competency.

That means there’s an opportunity here, and most writers are missing it.

Don’t just shrug those shoulders and go “SEO isn’t for me.” Every professional writer has to know something about SEO in 2021 and beyond.

So, what do you need to know?

Step one: Know more than your clients

As someone who runs a digital content agency, let me assure you:

Most clients who say they want SEO writers don’t understand how SEO works.

Some think it’s a magic formula that will make them “go viral.” Most of them understand it’s something they have to do, even if they’re not sure why. They just hear that it creates success, and they’ve heard it enough that there must be something to it.

Precious few know anything about SEO, and even in that group, most of their knowledge is out of date.

This is just one reason why I’m extremely critical of “learn as you go” advice for freelance writers. When I hire writers, a good chunk that sell themselves as “SEO writers” are full of outdated SEO “hacks” at best, or black hat tactics at worst.

These writers aren’t actually trying to trick anyone, either. They think they learned SEO on the job. But their SEO “knowledge” is the result of a bad game of telephone between themselves and low-pay, know-nothing clients that hasn’t changed since 2013.

To recap:

Most clients don’t know much about SEO
Most writers know bad or outdated SEO
This is a vicious, mutually-reinforcing cycle.

This is one reason why the SEO Specialist role that the reddit responder invoked is a real thing.

But as they mentioned, an SEO Specialist isn’t really a writer. It’s a more holistic role. They look at a website’s infrastructure, loading time, user experience, and a bunch of other checkpoints that have nothing to do with writing.

Insofar as they touch content, it’s mostly the look, the formatting, and the readability they care about. They might not know how to create great SEO content, but they know bad content when they see it.

Also, while an SEO Specialist is a real and vital role, it’s an expensive one. And it’s often out of the budgetary reach of a lot of small-to-medium-sized businesses, which make up the bulk of employers of freelance writers.

So what’s the solution for writers?

Know more about SEO than your clients do.

Don’t worry about becoming an SEO Specialist, but you should be the content expert in the client/freelancer relationship

There is nothing more empowering than knowing more about content than your client does.

So many writers look to their clients for instructions on how to do their own job.

This is a byproduct of the “learn as you go” model.

Skip that model. It has only lead to burnout and heartbreak for both clients and writers in the freelance market. You don’t need it.

Does this mean we’re telling you to become SEO Specialists?

Like we said above, you can if you want! But that’s not what we’re prescribing here.

Instead, your goal as a freelance writer should be understanding more about how SEO works (and your role in it as the writer) than your client does.

Being a content expert is about calling balls and strikes when your client asks you for questionable deliverables or to implement sketchy strategies.

If a client asks you for some reassurance that the content you’re writing them will “trend” or “rank,” you should feel confident saying something like this:

“Well, SEO success for you is going to have a lot more to do with things like continually publishing SEO-optimized content, your domain authority, the amount of backlinks you get over time, your site optimization, and a bunch of other stuff a writer doesn’t do. It’s not 2013 anymore, writers can’t really promise instant success. Google is too smart. What I can promise is the SEO-optimized content part, based on your SEO strategy. The rest, you might have to consult an SEO Specialist or do a little homework on.”

You, as the writer, should know how to write SEO-optimized content.

But there are no quick wins anymore. SEO requires a holistic, consistent approach.

As the content expert, knowing SEO in 2021 and beyond is about knowing what you’re responsible for and what you’re not responsible for.

Good SEO requires good content. You, as the writer, are a critical part of that and cannot be replaced.

But it’s time to change the paradigm in the freelance market:

Clients need to be educated on the difference between good SEO and bad SEO.
Writers need to understand what they are and are not responsible for in SEO, and help educate clients.
And, writers need to write the killer SEO-optimized content that helps clients succeed.

What do writers need to know about SEO?

If you want to upgrade your profile as a freelance writer and beat out all the schmucks selling SEO snake oil, I have two pieces of advice for you:

Understand how SEO works holistically (so you can confidently explain what you are and are not responsible for).
Learn how to write SEO-optimized content (you’ll be much more impressive to employers if you can format and optimize your own content).

Learning technical SEO might not be your cup of tea. I get it.

But anyone can understand how Google works, what is involved in SEO, and who’s responsible for what.

You don’t need to design keyword strategies and identify ranking opportunities. That’s a different job.

But you should know best practices around using keywords, headline optimization, web readability, and formatting.

Those aren’t mystical digital skills you can’t learn. They’re basically the same principles of copywriting that professional writers have used since the dawn of time.

Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver. Be honest with clients. The only way to climb the ranks in Google Search is with high-quality content over time.

But that assumes the client’s site is SEO-optimized (read: NOT your job). If it isn’t, that will hold them back, but that’s not your responsibility.

If your client has a bad content strategy for ranking pages, that’s also not your responsibility (unless you’re being paid to design the content strategy).

Being a content expert isn’t about knowing everything there is to know about SEO. But it is knowing enough about how it works to understand the writer’s role within it, and where to advise your client to help them succeed as they improve their overall SEO.

If you want to learn more about SEO, and the writer’s role in it, you can check out our paywalled guide here. We’re also rolling out a course that covers SEO writing in more depth in a few months. You can sign up to be notified when it’s available here.

Getting Started

5 popular freelance writing gigs and how much money they pay

by Dusten Carlson

December 21, 2020

Most freelance writing gigs fall into these 5 buckets. Here’s what you need to know to get higher-paying jobs and what you can expect to earn.

Are you looking for ways to get more money out of freelance writing?

You’re not alone. We talk to a lot of writers at different levels of experience. Whether you’ve only just started doing some research on becoming a freelance writer, or have been at it a while and feel stuck in a rut, the feeling of “where are the good jobs?” is extremely common.

So why is this the case?

Two main reasons.

One, payouts in freelancing don’t really follow any form of comprehensible logic we’re aware of.

Some employers go by cost-per-word (CPW), some by unit, (i.e. $100 for one blog post), or other payout schemes that are less on the up-and-up.

This leads writers, especially those earlier in their careers, to have a pretty poor sense of what their time and talent is actually worth.

Two, a lot of writers we’ve talked to aren’t always sure what they’re qualified to do, or what kinds of skills they need for specific projects.

Some writers definitely have that rugged “how hard can it be?” approach to life. But there are a lot of writers who pass up jobs they could actually probably get just because they feel unqualified.

That’s why I wanted to put together this article.

As a former freelance writer, editor, and ultimately, director of a content agency, I have a pretty good sense of:

the size of the freelance writing industry,
what employers are actually looking for in a writer,
what’s common in terms of pay, and,
the skills required to get the good-paying gigs.

One of ProWriter’s goals is to create more transparency into the often opaque and confusing freelance writer market.

In that spirit, this article is designed to help writers like you understand the most common types of writing gigs available, the skills required to get them, and how much money you can expect to make.

Let’s dive in!

No. 1 Content Mills

“Content mill” is a slang term used by freelancers to describe platforms, agencies, or publishers that push out a lot of low-depth content.

Some hallmarks of a content mill content include:

Minimal research required
News aggregation
Emphasis on “clickbait”
Limited editorial support
Volume (lots of articles per day)
Listicles meant to “trend”
Short “SEO” pages
Low pay

What to expect: Pay at content mills

At a content mill, you can expect between $0.03 CPW and $0.05 CPW. Depending on length, you can expect about $10-$20 per article.

Some employers pay out traffic bonuses for articles that get a lot of pageviews. But be very wary of being paid based on traffic numbers alone.

Base pay per article or per word plus a traffic incentive might be a good deal for some entry-level writers. I once wrote an article for a popular entertainment website that trended, and my bonus paid my rent that month.

Note that a lot of content mill work is not bylined; this means it has limited strategic value to a freelance writer, since it’s not easy to build a portfolio on ghostwritten content. When employers like me get applications with portfolios full of ghostwritten content, it usually sends up a red flag.

A lot of more experienced freelance writers knock content mill work since it tends to be low-pay, low-quality, and demanding. It’s definitely more entry-level work that you want to try and grow out of over time, especially as you learn more skills and pick up more experience.

What to know: Content mill skills

As far as skills needed for content mill work, they are pretty minimal. Employers might place emphasis on keeping readers “hooked,” and writing good headlines.

But honestly, any entry-level writer should be able secure this kind of work.

Be warned that content mill work can encourage bad writing habits (e.g., writing quickly to earn as much money as possible, sloppy research).

Most new writers start with content mill work to build up their portfolios. There’s no shame in that. But look for bylined opportunities and make sure those bad habits don’t follow you to higher-paying work.

No. 2 Blogging

Once you’ve reached the level of paid blogger, you’ve officially graduated.

You’re not quite in the captain’s lounge of freelancers yet, but you’re in a class of serious professionals with real skills that businesses are looking for. Congrats!

Put that champagne away, we’re not there yet.

Blogging is probably the widest field within freelance writing.

It has, by far, the most opportunities available, tons of topic and niche diversity, decent pay rates, and a very doable learning curve. Unlike content mill work, many of the skills bloggers develop translate into other kinds of freelance writing.

For these reasons, blogging is a well that professional freelancers often draw from throughout their careers between large projects.

In blogging, your primary clients will be businesses. Their goal is to publish content that is competitive in Google Search results (also called SERP), promote their brand on social media, or showcase their thought leadership within their industry.

When businesses regularly publish good content, they attract more customers. Simple as that.

Business blogging is a wide field. Big brands like Apple and Disney have their own blogs, and local businesses in your own backyard have them as well.

Because of this, most writers will “niche down,” or pick a couple of industries to focus on. The narrower you can focus your niche(s), the better money you can make (as long as there’s demand for content in that niche).

What to expect: Pay for bloggers

As far as pay, don’t accept less than $0.10 CPW for this kind of work. Most writers will charge more than this (up to $1.00 per word) but that will be tough to justify when you’re starting out. You also may end up settling for lower CPWs if you secure blogging work through an agency, since they are doing the client acquisition and management part of the relationship.

Becoming an authoritative writer in a particular niche, or exploiting a popular/growing niche where there isn’t much competition can help you sweeten the pot.

You may want to scope out a project cost or a contract with businesses if you expect to be doing recurring work for them, instead of calculating by CPW.

For instance, if you’re doing keyword research, topic ideation, and content strategy, that’s something you should charge extra for.

What to know: Blogging skills

Content mill skills will serve you very poorly in blogging. Good blogging takes time, careful research, and thoughtful organization to be successful.

You should know the best practices of SEO, particularly in the context of writing, and what a writer is responsible for.

Beyond that, you should be good at writing creative titles optimized for search, web formatting (e.g., using headings, readability), and make sure you’re always up-to-date on best practices in blogging.

Like we’ve mentioned, blogging techniques are valuable and crossover to other forms of writing. It’s a real skill set that can be built on as you grow in your career.

No. 3 Copywriting

Now you’re looking at writing like a professional! Writers at the copywriter level of skill are elites within the industry, and charge accordingly.

A copywriter is like a blogger who gets a booster shot of human psychology, persuasion, and sales technique.

You’ll still use all of the skills you learned as a blogger. But don’t assume that being a good blogger makes you a good copywriter automatically.

Copywriting requires more finesse and a real understanding of what drives people to take action through content.

We’re not talking about clickbait, here — those content mill skills will not carry over well to copywriting.

Copywriting is a craft. The principles of copywriting are those defined, honed, and practiced by the likes of the legendary David Ogilvy, or modern gurus like Joanna Wiebe.

Copywriting is about conversion — it’s about using your skills as a writer to drive a reader to take an action. In Ogilvy’s time, that action was something like, “buy this expensive car.” In Weibe’s context, it’s “click on this page, fill out this form, become a sales lead for this business.”

Copywriting vs blogging

Let’s compare and contrast copywriting with blogging.

Blogging contributes to the overall brand recognition of a business, and drives sales over time. Someone might have Googled a question about a problem they were having, found one of many blog posts you wrote for your client, read it, and then become a sale for your client months later.

It’s difficult to establish a connection between one blog post and a sale. But the more high-quality content a business publishes, the more sales increase over time.

It’s not as ambiguous with copywriting. Copywriting is as close to the “sale” as it gets.

You’ll be writing landing pages, ad copy, advertorials, and other content assets that are designed to make a reader take an action, often called a “call to action” or CTA (e.g., click a button, fill out a form with your name and email).

Success or failure is measured by a click-through rate (CTR) of some kind (i.e., how many people who clicked on your page and then completed the CTA instead of leaving).

If one blog post doesn’t rank on Google, it’s not that big of a deal. But if a sales page doesn’t convert users, it’s a failure. The writer might not be solely responsible for that failure (the web page design might not be user friendly, or maybe the product is just not interesting), but the onus is definitely more on you to do a good job.

What to expect: Pay for copywriters

Because you’re close to the sale, you can make a lot more money. Whoever is hiring you is likely expecting to make thousands of dollars in sales from your asset over time, so you can easily charge a substantial fee.

If you’re just starting out and a client is willing to pay you a few hundred bucks for 1,000 words, it might be worth taking the gig to get some experience. But once you get the hang of things and can boast a strong CTR rate with new clients, you can charge $1,000, even $2,000+ per asset, easily.

We’d recommend staying off CPW and going per-project on this one, maybe with an hourly consulting component if the client expects you to revise and optimize the page over the course of a campaign.

What to know: Copywriting skills

The hard part about copywriting is that you need to up your writing skills by a significant factor.

In terms of craft, you’re moving from the kiddie pool to an Olympic-sized model. You’re going to need to do some research, read some books, attend some webinars, take some courses, all of it.

You need to know about human psychology, sales triggers, persuasive copywriting, and a heck of a lot more. Your blogging skills will help you get off to the right start, but don’t expect to pick it up over time just by “trying it out.”

You’ll also want to up your networking game as well. These kinds of jobs aren’t exactly posted on ProBlogger for just anyone to apply to.

To get started in this world, it might be a good idea to partner up with digital marketing agencies that hire freelancers for their campaigns.

If you take to copywriting, full-time positions are abundant. They also pay well at around $58,000 a year.

No. 3 Technical Writing

If you’ve spent some time searching for writing jobs, you’ve inevitably run into a dearth of “technical writing” gigs at jobs boards like Indeed.

But what are they, can you get them, and what do they pay?

We won’t spend a whole lot of time on this one for now (we may update this post later with more information). But for the most part, these are highly, highly specialized writing jobs.

Not because they require some arcane writing skill you don’t possess or can’t learn; but because they usually require deep subject matter knowledge and expertise in highly-technical industries, like engineering.

It’s not uncommon to see technical writing jobs requiring applicants to that have PhDs. Seriously.

However, as you develop your niches, it is worth keeping an eye on these gigs, especially if you are exploring more technical fields.

Your path in

Lots of businesses and organizations in fields like tech or medical will put out “white papers,” which are basically long-form ebooks or presentations designed to educate industry peers about a new product or breakthrough.

White papers are not written for a general audience, not just anyone can write them. But you don’t necessarily need a PhD to write one, either.

If you have industry knowledge above the public average, and could write a white paper that would be helpful to other knowledgeable non-experts like you (e.g. journalists, investors), then these are good gigs to keep an eye out for.

Why?

Because they come at a pretty penny. At the low, low end, a white paper might earn you $1,500 minimum. The truth is that most white papers pay out an average of $3,000-$4,500. At the higher end? $7,000 to $10,000.

But again, these jobs are rare and do require more experience and expertise on the part of the writer. As you grow in your career, keep an eye out for these gems.

No. 5 Marketing writing

One way professional freelance writers keep the bills paid as they bounce between bigger gigs is by providing marketing content to businesses, non-profits, publishers, and other organizations.

Side gigs writing a newsletter or social media content can pay between $15-$80 per hour depending on your experience level and what’s involved.

If you’re charting a career path toward copywriting, marketing writing is a good stepping stone. This kind of content will require a more conversion-oriented writer, but the pressure won’t be as high as it is for a typical sales campaign.

It’s rare to find gigs where you simply write the copy for social media or newsletters. These days, employers are looking for content creators who can do it all.

That means if you take on a part-time gig as a social media manager, an employer will likely want you to have skills in graphic asset creation (even if that just means you’re a Canva pro) as well as some expectation of channel monitoring, or content strategy development.

The good news is, the more that’s involved with social media management, the more you can charge. It’s not a bad side gig for freelancers, and a lot of small businesses need this kind of help.

Takeaways

If you’re just getting started as a freelance writer, you might be working a lot of content mill gigs to pay the bills. That’s fine, but don’t get stuck there. Most importantly, don’t develop bad habits that you can’t use in higher-paying work.

Some content mills are better than others, but for the most part, get your bylines, build your portfolio, spend your off-time learning new skills, and get out.

As you can see from the other freelance writing gigs we detailed below, if you start with blogging, you’ll have more pathways into different kinds of higher-paying work. That’s why ProWriter resources for new writers emphasize hard skills for bloggers. It really is the foundation for most forms of writing you’ll end up pursuing.

ProWriter is developing a course that covers the hard skills today’s bloggers need to master. The lessons will cover topics like titlecraft, formatting, and copywriting in more depth than any other resource on the web.

You can check out the course details and sign up to be notified as soon as the course is available here.

Career Help

Is freelance writing a good side gig?

by Dusten Carlson

December 7, 2020

Trends continue to show growth in freelance markets, but is a writing side gig all it’s cracked up to be?

This post will help you understand the opportunities in the freelance writing space, and point you in the right direction to get started.

How we work is changing fast. A recent study by Upwork showed that the freelance market has outpaced the overall workforce since 2014. It also suggests that freelancing will constitute the clear majority of the workforce within a decade.*

Whether you’re a working professional who has transitioned to remote, a college student looking for experience, or a stay-at-home parent trying to enter the workforce, millions are exploring freelancing options for making extra cash.

But maybe you’ve heard horror stories about freelance writing. Shady employers that ghost without paying writers. Being trapped in a “content mill” writing low-quality content for pennies.

There are plenty of posts like that on reddit and Facebook. If you’ve seen them, you just might be wondering whether freelance writing is all it’s cracked up to be.

Is freelance writing a good side gig?

If you want an opportunity to make some extra cash, desire a flexible schedule, and can find space to work at home, freelance writing can be a very rewarding pursuit. But don’t go searching for jobs just yet. Many new writers lack the skills employers are looking for, which can result in a rocky start to your side career.

There are a lot of perks to being a freelance writer. You work from home, your schedule is your own, and you can pursue writing in fields you either have subject matter knowledge about from your education or career background, or simply find interesting, whether it’s pop culture or a personal hobby like gardening.

But making the wrong career decisions early on can lead to burnout and frustration. If you want to avoid those landmines and improve your chances of finding the kind of success you’re hoping for, read on.

Why freelance writing?

We cited some broad statistics about freelance market growth at the beginning of the post. But the numbers get more interesting the closer you look.

Though economic trends suggest that many are turning to freelance work out of necessity, the majority (61%) became freelancers by choice, and 51% say they wouldn’t go back to a normal 9-to-5.

Even if professionals turn to freelance to meet a short-term financial need, many find that the freedom and flexibility associated with a freelance career beat having a boss.

How hard is it to find work? About 25% of freelancers in the same study said that they can find a gig in a day.

You can be stuck in a bad job for months or years until you manage to make a change. Whereas in freelancing, moving on from bad gigs to the next thing is a weekly, if not daily, occurrence.

Of course, freelance writing only encompasses part of the freelancing space as a whole. There are graphic designers and web developers, and workers like rideshare drivers that make up the $1 trillion freelancing market.

Why should you look to freelance writing for opportunities?

For starters, the barrier to entry is a lot lower than computer coding (but it’s not zero — put a pin in that, we’ll talk about it in the next section).

The earnings vary depending on experience and what kind of work you do. But to give you some idea of what to expect, statistics from Upwork show that content writers on their platform earn between $15-$80 per hour.

There’s also a ton of low-hanging freelance writing work. You just need to know where to look for the right opportunities.

If you’ve already done some searching, you might have an impression that the only freelance writing jobs are at low-pay content mills or writing technical copy you need a PhD to understand.

Where are the good jobs? The jobs that are closer to $80 an hour?

In content marketing.

Content marketing as an industry has shown consistent and significant growth year over year for the past five years.

Content agency CEO and industry thought leader Julia McCoy notes that businesses see the value in content, and are continuing to invest heavily in it. She goes so far as to call content marketing “the future of marketing.”

There’s an incredible amount of diversity in content marketing, as well. Not only are there jobs available in every industry you can imagine, but the variety of assignment types is impressive as well.

Content marketing writers create:

Blog posts for brands and businesses
Email copy for marketing campaigns
Product descriptions
Website content
Case studies
Video scripts
Social media content
And more.

If you’re feeling like content marketing isn’t for you, don’t click off just yet.

I meet a lot of new writers who seem crestfallen when I talk about opportunities in content marketing. “That’s not really the kind of writing I want to do,” they say.

Many are creatives with dreams of writing novels, screenplays, or comics. Some are hoping to build a name for themselves in opinion writing for magazines and digital publications.

I tell them the same thing.

“That’s great! Keep at it. But content marketing pays the bills.”

Helping a company tell their story and sell more widgets might not set your soul on fire, but it’s widely available work that pays well.

Whether you want to launch a career as a freelance writer or are just looking for a profitable side gig right now, content marketing is where it’s at.

But don’t rush out and start applying for jobs just yet.

How to get what you want out of freelance writing

It’s probably safe to assume that you want to know more about the $80 an hour writing jobs, not so much the $15 an hour writing jobs, right?

The problem is, those gigs are competitive.

But just because they’re competitive doesn’t mean you can’t get them.

As freelance writer Alice Genes notes, writers should worry less about competition in the freelance writing space and focus on increasing their “hireability” instead.

As an employer of writers, I couldn’t agree more.

The freelance writing market is absolutely oversaturated. But it’s oversaturated primarily with unqualified writers.

I’ve managed a digital content agency for the last five years. Whether I hire for a big brand content marketing project or a new media outlet writing listicles about cat memes, well over 90% of the applications I typically receive are unusable.

It’s not that the applicants are just not good fits for the job. It honestly seems like most of them are from people who decided to “try it out” and put out a few applications. “I’m willing to learn,” many say, without providing any samples, much less links to a writer portfolio or previous work.

A lot of new writers just assume writing is easy and anyone can do it. They don’t seem to really connect with the idea that freelance writing is a job, and that freelance writers are skilled professionals.

If you take one thing away from this blog post, it’s this: don’t go applying for jobs until you have the skills employers are looking for.

Good professional freelance writers are actually hard to find.

But it’s only these few professionals who have put the time in to understand SEO, copywriting, formatting, and more of the skills today’s employers really need to make their content marketing projects a success.

So, how do you get what you want out of freelance writing? Ideally, the $80 an hour jobs you want for extra cash, to justify going freelance writing full time, or to pay the bills while you pursue your passion projects?

It starts with professionalism. It starts with skills development.

Freelance writing is a real job. Treat it like one.

More resources

If you want to go deeper into the topic of becoming a freelance writer, check out our free How To Become A Freelance Writer guide.

You should also check out our free video course, which gives an introduction to the skills writers need to be successful.

Lastly, if you’re ready to start finding your first gigs, you can check out our Jobs Board which curates gigs from all over the web, and also hosts unique jobs from ProWriter employers. If you’re looking for bylined gigs in industries you want to make a name in, try searching our Submissions portal.

Also, our newsletter “Who’s Hiring?” will send the top jobs to your inbox each Monday. Sign up for that here.

Finally, if you have any questions or feedback for me, you can reach me directly on LinkedIn.

*Bear in mind that this study was published two years before the COVID-19 pandemic, which some experts have argued will accelerate certain economic trends. To wit, more recent analyses have shown millions more Americans finding freelance work for the first time.

Writer Tip

6 quick SEO tips that will help your copy

by Dusten Carlson

September 6, 2020

For writers, good SEO is all about writing content that readers value. Here are some universal tips to help you pull that off.

SEO can be a bit of a loaded term for freelance writers.

Your clients seem to expect you to know a lot about it. They’ll usually have a strong conviction that it’s important to get on the front page of Google, but a vague idea about how.

That’s where you come in. You’re the writer, so you know SEO, right?

Not so fast.

You might know a thing or two. But it’s also possible that some of the things you know are already out of date.

It’s kind of an unfortunate (and unfair) reality that writers often face unrealistic expectations from clients when it comes to SEO. Sure, there is no SEO without content, but that doesn’t mean that writers should carry water for technical, user experience, or reputational issues that might be dragging a site down.

SEO is not magic. One SEO-optimized article isn’t going to save a business.

If there are technical SEO issues (e.g., your client’s site load speed is in the gutter), then it doesn’t matter how good the content you’re writing is.

If your client is suffering from reputational damage, there’s not much your work can do to save them.

I also often hear from a lot of writers that there are ambiguities with clients about who’s responsible for content strategy, like keyword research and figuring out what to write about. You can read our post on that question here, but TL;DR, it’s not you (unless you’re being paid for it).

What are we getting at here?

When it comes to what writers need to know about SEO, the answer is this: you only need to know what you need to know to do a good job with the writing.

For writers, good SEO is about creating copy that readers find valuable.

Good SEO is just good writing that readers love.

Seems deceptively simple, right? How exactly do you create good content that readers love?

By looking at the kind of content that Google rewards.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”#SEOtip Google likes what its users like. That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader. #writertip” quote=”Google likes what its users like. That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.”]

Google’s business model depends on putting the best content they can find in front of their users. If you want to be valuable to your clients and offer them that kind of content, which stands the best possible chance to rank in Google Search, you need to know what kind of content Google likes.

To bring this full circle, Google likes what its users like.

That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.

Now how do you do that?

These 6 tips will get you off to a good start.

6 quick SEO tips that will help your copy

No. 1: Improve your copy’s readability

After you write your first draft, put your editor cap on and look at your copy with these things in mind:

Are my sentences short?
Do I effectively transition between ideas?
Are my paragraphs “scannable”?
Have I used headings well to break up the copy?
Is my copy error-free?

You can also as yourself questions about tone. Are you writing for a general audience? You should, even if you’re writing more technical copy.

Are you using big vocabulary words or excessive industry jargon? This might make you feel impressive to your client, but it drags down the reader.

Try scoring your work against the Flesch Kincaid model. If you have a WordPress account, you can download the SEO Yoast plugin which will help immensely.

No. 2: Put a lot of thought into the title

A keyword-stuffed title won’t help you rank in Google these days. You have to spend extra time crafting a title with a reader in mind.

If your content is the best match for their specific question or has information you think they need, how will you get their attention? How will your title tell them “Hey! Over here! This is it!”?

Consider the following:

The title should be highly specific to the topic at hand.
It should use words that provoke emotion (but be balanced and strategic here, it’s easy to overdo it)
Headlines should be about 55-60 characters long, or roughly 6-8 words.
It should use the focus keyword in the first 3 words if possible
It should have a sentiment of some kind, or a “tone”

You can use tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to help guide your efforts. Shoot for a score of 70 or above.

No. 3: Use keywords strategically

Keyword use is probably the most misunderstood aspect of SEO for writers.

Long gone are the days when cramming a bunch of keywords into copy tricks Google into ranking content highly in search. (Don’t try it. You might get your client hurt.)

Some SEO experts have pointed to this as evidence that keywords don’t matter anymore. And since Google is opaque about how Search actually works, that theory seems as good as any.

Keywords are certainly less important if by “less important” you mean that it’s impossible to spam Google with blackhat SEO.

But obviously keywords play an important role. A keyword like “how to fix sink” isn’t a magic incantation, it’s something a user is actually looking for and needs an answer to.

Google wants to match quality content to users, and keywords are still an important part of that.

So, use your keyword in the title as we mentioned, in the introduction of your copy, and a few times in the body.

You can and should also use related keywords if they’re relevant to the topic.

Do not try aiming for an arbitrary keyword density score, or cramming unrelated keywords into your copy. That will dilute your copy’s ability to rank for the topic you’re writing about.

And don’t sacrifice readability for an exact keyword match. “Good cupcakes Atlanta GA” isn’t going to read well if you just jam it into your copy.

Google is smart enough to recognize it semantically if you write it into a sentence naturally (e.g., “If you’re looking for good cupcakes in Atlanta, look no further!”).

No. 4: Use high-quality links

Linking plays a huge role in what Google values. So much so that there are a multitude of ethically-dubious business models built around trying to “sell” links (“If more sites link to your content, Google will think your site is important!”).

We won’t get too deeply into that mess. But links do play an important role for writers, particularly when it comes to research.

You’ll most likely want to link out to supporting facts, figures, data, and commentary for anything you write. Linking is a good SEO practice.

But what you link to matters. If you’re linking to spammy, low-quality sites with bad information, Google notices, and will penalize your client’s site for promoting shifty content.

This means writers need to perform high-quality research and only link to high-quality sites. This can get complicated since many sites at the top of Google search for your topic may be competitors of your client. It goes without saying that you don’t want to link to them.

But links to published, authoritative studies, or non-competitive sites are valuable, so be judicious in your research and include links where you can.

No. 5: Write a good intro hook

One big signal to Google that content is valuable to readers? They stick around to read it.

Using your first 100-200 words to “hook” a reader is critical to getting them to stick around. Good writers use a variety of tools to keep a reader engaged, including:

Framing the article using a real-world anecdote
An attention-grabbing opening sentence (a bold claim, something shocking or humorous).
A surprising or shocking statistic or data point
An intriguing question that your content answers

If a reader clicks on your title, reads the first few sentences, and exits out of the page, that tells Google that the content wasn’t valuable to them, or that they didn’t find what they were looking for.

Some of that is inevitably going to happen. But if the introduction falls flat, is boring, or doesn’t pull in a reader, and most readers bounce off the page, it will hurt ranking.

No. 6: Add stuff your competitors missed

Google wants content that is unique, compelling, authoritative, relevant, and high-quality.

In layman’s terms, this means that your content has to do better than your client’s competitors.

Take a look at the top-ranking posts for a keyword or topic your client wants content written for. Ask yourself, or your client:

Do we have unique insights that our competitors don’t have?
Do we have data or statistics that are more recent or relevant?
Is there supplementary content we can add to give more value to the reader?

Of course, sometimes you will luck out and find results that don’t match the search query very well. In this case, the door is wide open to write a great piece of relevant content that has a strong chance of taking the top spot.

Takeaways

Many writers do eventually come to specialize in more strategic SEO and offer those services to their clients. But when you’re starting out, we think it’s important to laser-focus on the parts of SEO you need to know to do the writing part well.

For writers, that means writing well.

It means don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.

If you do want to learn more about SEO, we have a much longer article on this topic here.

If you have any feedback for me, I welcome it! Please reach out on LinkedIn.

Writer Tip

3 creative writing techniques you can use for almost anything

by Dusten Carlson

August 23, 2020

Is your writing too dry? Here are some creative writing techniques you can use to add a splash of color to your content.

Working with him was a real headache.

As a writer, he did everything right. His content was organized, meticulously researched, and well-formatted.

Annoying, right? (Kidding. The bad part is still coming.)

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something was … off. Even though his assignments met all of the requirements, I still found myself rewriting chunks of his copy before publishing.

This went on for months. I could not, for the life of me, figure it out. What was I supposed to do?

It wouldn’t be fair to let him go, because he was technically doing everything right. But at the same time, rewriting his content before publishing it wasn’t working either.

How could I coach him on how to improve if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong?

Then one day it hit me like a truck.

The content was just boring.

The assignment? Pop culture listicles. It’s cotton candy content. It’s supposed to be fun and engaging, maybe even a little humorous.

But his read like a dry, Wikipedia article. Just one fact after another in a bland, generic tone.

The facts and information were there. The sentences were short. But there was no flavor to the content. Nothing to keep the reader engaged.

And that’s what I found myself adding in constantly. Humor, personality, fun — the creative flavor that was missing.

Let me clarify something

I’m being very tongue-in-cheek in my retelling of this story about how “annoying” this writer was. It wasn’t the writer’s fault at all.

It was mine, as his editor, whose role it is to help him improve.

But there’s a happy ending to this story.

Once I figured out exactly what was going wrong, it was easy to coach him into the light. He became a better writer, and I became a better editor.

But what happened between us was incredibly instructive.

Indeed, “boring” content is something I continued to run into constantly with other writers.

There are a lot of reasons for it:

Writers are unfamiliar with the topics they are given
“Young” writers cut personality out of their writing to appear more “professional”
The writer is simply disinterested in the assignment

Let me be clear: Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers.

It’s a real, marketable skill that not everyone has.

But what are the boundaries?

It’s a fair question. How do you know what will be appropriate for a given assignment? How much is too much and how little is too little.

That’s why when I try to coach writers on either adding more creativity to their content (or easing up a little bit) I tell them to stick to the following 3 techniques.

These obviously aren’t the only creative writing techniques you might use in your content, and there are some assignments that just don’t call for a creative touch (technical writing, anyone?).

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers. #writingcommunity #writelife” quote=”Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers.”]

But these techniques are ubiquitous in most kinds of content you find on the web, whether we’re talking B2C, B2B, blog posts, sales copy, editorials, or those cotton candy listicles we mentioned earlier.

I hope it helps! But if you have any questions or follow-up, I’ll give you some details on how to reach me at the end of the post.

3 creative writing techniques to use in your work

No. 1: Anecdotes

An anecdote is a short narrative intended to illustrate a point or a theme that will be the focus of an essay, book chapter, or article. It’s a fairly common practice for editorials at publications like The Washington Post and The Atlantic and in non-fiction books.

You should recognize this one because I used it to start this blog post!

This is a useful tool because it hooks a reader’s attention and establishes a human connection by “putting a face on a problem.”

Where this is most effective: direct response sales copy, blog posts of any kind, news stories, and editorials, as well as more advanced career assignments like non-fiction books.

No. 2: Similes

“Then one day it hit me like a truck.”

Hopefully no one who read this literally thinks I was hit by a truck with the answer painted on the side.

This is a simile, or a figure of speech that uses comparison (e.g., “like,” “as”) to describe something in more vivid terms.

It would be fine if I’d said “then it hit me,” but by adding “like a truck,” I’m using a concept you can picture (the truck) to illustrate the actual impact I felt when I discovered the answer to my problem.

This is a great tool and you’ll see this one more than any other. Watch how other writers use this in the content you read as well.

Where this is most effective: Pretty much anywhere, though I’d avoid it in something more professional like a press release.

No. 3: Self-insertion

You can also think of this as “breaking the fourth wall.” It’s a quick aside where you as the author step in to say “what everyone is thinking.”

It can be used for humor or irony, but there’s a version of it deployed in more serious, journalistic content as well. For example, if a political figure is quoted saying something that is not true, the writer may, in the next sentence, insert a detail that contradicts the quote.

You might not often have the opportunity to write in first-person, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use self-insertion.

I did it in this article when I inserted the parenthetical (technical writing, anyone?) a few paragraphs up. That’s a human insertion that isn’t technically first-person, which just goes to show there are more opportunities to use this than you may think.

Where this is most effective: direct response sales copy, blog posts of any kind, news stories, and editorials. Anything that calls for a “relatable, human” tone.

Final thoughts

Remember not to overdo it with creative writing.

While these techniques are incredibly useful when it comes to framing an idea in human terms, creating a visual to keep a reader engaged, and breaking tension, they can be abused.

You might make a conscious choice to use something like an anecdote to frame an article in the introduction. Doing so will certainly get readers engaged immediately, which every good intro is supposed to do.

Otherwise, I always tell writers to take a second look at their content before they turn it in, and to look for opportunities to add more creative writing techniques when the content starts to look dry or slow down.

Alternatively, look for creative writing you inserted organically in your first draft that doesn’t actually work on a second look, and eliminate it.

If you have any more questions about creative writing, or anything you think I missed, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Career Help

5 smart tips for first-year freelance writers

by Dusten Carlson

August 17, 2020

Freelance writers need to make the right moves in their first year to set themselves up for a long, rewarding career.

In our experience as freelance writers and, later, the employers who hire them, these 5 things make the biggest impact on a writer’s long-term success.

The day you decide you want to try and make money as a writer kick-starts a whirlwind 12-18 months that treats most writers like a kite in a hurricane.

Just in case you think I’m picking on you, I’m putting myself in that group, too. I had no idea what I was doing. I wrote free articles for a short-lived local Nashville music paper nobody read, thinking somehow someone at Gannett Media would notice me and give me a prestigious column somewhere. And if they could do it sooner rather than later, that would be great. The rent is due.

It didn’t happen. Instead, I waited tables and wrote tons of “trending news” content for various sites, worked 10-12 hours a day, every day, and eventually, gave up for a normie 9-5 desk job.

Sure, I kept up with some freelancing on the side and eventually found my footing, but at that time in history, 12-18 months in, a success story in the industry I was not. And that’s because at that time, in my early 20s and fresh out of college, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

This is not an uncommon story for freelance writers. Recent data on the market is pretty bleak, with a majority of freelancers making less than $10,000 a year and very few who make it to year three without giving up.

Still, it is possible to claw your way to the top tier, make a good living, and not one that requires 80 hours a week to accomplish.

But how?

We’ve written at length about how hard it is to find good information on becoming successful in freelance writing. There are hundreds of millions of articles about freelance writing online, but how many of them are really, truly helpful?

What if you don’t want tips on building your own website, or vague advice like “just sit down and write!” How do you start making money now, and, what things do you need to do in that first year to keep your earnings increasing into year two and beyond?

In my experience as a writer, and more importantly, someone who eventually made a career out of hiring them, here are 5 tips that, if I could go back in time to that Nashville-based waiter/wannabe writer, I’d give him.

He did find his feet eventually. But he could have done it a lot sooner, and made many fewer mistakes.

If you’re considering a career in freelance writing or are stuck in your first year, I hope these tips help you as well.

In this post we’ll cover:

Why your portfolio is your career’s secret weapon
Securing recurring work from satisfied clients
Complimentary skills to develop and how

Let’s go!

No. 1: Use your real name

I do not know what it is about a pen name that is so alluring. I think maybe it just makes you feel more like a writer.

Of course it doesn’t actually make you more of a writer. And it might unintentionally hurt your career.

Let me explain.

As someone who has spent a good chunk of their career in this space hiring writers for various projects in every conceivable vertical (for publishers, for brands, for marketing campaigns, you name it), I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received an application from someone I couldn’t verify.

This means, they send me a pitch on their services, but I can’t find them anywhere else online.

This application always ends up in the trash.

Employers don’t have the time to roll the dice and take a chance on someone who can’t provide proof of concept. We’ll get into how your portfolio plays into this later on, but first and foremost, be a real person with a digital footprint. Not having that in this day and age is a red flag.

Now you might have good reason to not want to be published under your real name. That’s fine. But don’t conceal who you are from the person hiring you. Once you get the job you can let them know your byline preferences.

But on that note…

No. 2: Get bylined work early

A lot of newbie freelance writers get stuck in low-pay ghostwriting work early on.

It might not be right, but it’s normal. I can’t change the game, but I can help you play.

One of the best ways to break out of this part of the market is to seek bylined work as soon as possible.

Ask current clients for bylined opportunities (the worst they can do is say “no”), submit to sites that allow for an author byline, and if worst comes to worst, self-publish a bunch of content on Medium or elsewhere that looks a lot like the kind of writing you want to make a career out of.

Slowly but surely you’ll build up your clips.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Ask current clients for bylined opportunities. The worst they can do is say ‘no.’ #writingtip #writingcommunity” quote=”Ask current clients for bylined opportunities. The worst they can do is say ‘no.'”]

From an employer perspective, ghostwriting clips aren’t worth much, especially for higher-paying gigs. You only need to hire a writer who stole good ghostwritten clips from someone else once. Thereafter, you’ll always be skeptical of writers who can only provide ghostwritten content.

Believe me, this happens a lot, and it drags the whole industry down.

If you’re committed to publishing under a pen name, just make sure you get bylined consistently with that pen name. Those still wouldn’t be preferred clips for me personally, but it’s better than the alternative.

No. 3: Strategically build a portfolio

I cannot stress enough the importance of a writer portfolio. We take this so seriously at ProWriter that we built one that writers can use for free.

Your portfolio is not a museum where you hang trophies. It is the most important tool you have. It’s more important than a good pitch. It’s more important than nailing an interview.

Employers get bombarded with hundreds of applications, and most of them are from writers who are not qualified for the gig. So these employers, busy with their other responsibilities, have to optimize how they work through applications. And for the most part, the portfolio is the first place they start.

They need proof of concept. They need to see you can write.

Will any ‘ol portfolio do? No. I’ve seen hundreds of applications with links to Google Drives and Dropbox folders containing Microsoft Word documents that are articles the applicant supposedly wrote for some client.

How can I, as an employer, know that this is something the applicant wrote, or that a client even accepted and used it?

I can’t.

It’s much better if I can see something published somewhere under your name. If a client of yours liked your content enough to publish it with your name on it, you must be the real deal. Even self-publishing on Medium shows me something a Dropbox link doesn’t. It’s not easy to just rip off someone’s writing and put it up online somewhere, especially with how sophisticated plagiarism checkers are getting.

Your portfolio is key to your success, and every link you can put in it with your name on it is a building block in the fortress of your career. Find bylines jobs, do a great job with anything with your name on it, and get a portfolio to show it all off. It makes it easier for employers and it makes you look a lot more professional.

No. 4: Make the ask

The number one thing writers can do early to start building a steady, recurring client base is this: when a job is done, ask for more work.

That’s it.

Don’t say “let me know if you ever need a writer again.” Say, “do you have another job you need my help on?” Don’t split the difference and hope they call you. Get a “yes” or a “no” (a “let me poke around and email you in a week” is fine too).

This is not an obnoxious thing to do. You’re not putting your client out by asking for more work.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”‘The number one thing writers can do early to start building a steady, recurring client base is this: when a job is done, ask for more work.’ #writingtip #writercommunity” quote=”The number one thing writers can do early to star building a steady, recurring client base is this: when a job is done, ask for more work.”]

Let me tell you a few things from the employer side of this point:

Whenever, whenever, a writer has asked me for more work, as long as I was happy with the work they did, I either found something for them to do or passed them on to someone who needed a writer.
Whenever, whenever, a writer has said “keep me in mind for future jobs,” even if I was happy with the work they did, I forgot all about them.
Out of hundreds of writers I’ve worked with in my career, I can name the ones who consistently ask me directly for more work on one hand. ONE. HAND. And I always go to them first. That means just asking is a HUGE advantage.

Yes, you will hear a lot of “no.” But “no” doesn’t kill you. Just move on, keep asking, you will hear “yes” enough to build a client list.

No. 5: Seek out complimentary gigs

On any number of jobs boards you’ll see part-time gigs for things like “part-time editor” or “communications/marketing intern” or something. While these jobs might not be your dream gigs, I highly recommend a few months in as many different content production roles as possible.

Writing tweets as an unpaid intern for 10 hours a week right now doesn’t sound that exciting, and writing press releases for small companies might sound pretty dull too, but these are good gigs to cut your teeth on early in case a better (paid) opportunity comes up later.

A part-time editor position should be paid and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Learning content production from that side of the table will make you a better writer a lot faster than your competitors.

Final thoughts

There’s no changing the fact that the first year for many freelance writers is a slog.

But don’t get stuck in a rut. Use that time to flatten your learning curve and you’ll be ahead of 90% of the market.

Most importantly of all, do good work. Especially if your name is on it.

If you don’t have a writer portfolio, you can set one up through ProWriter for free here. If you’re looking for your first gigs, you can check out our jobs board or follow us on Twitter where we post writing gigs daily.

Happy hunting!

Career Help

100 of the best writing tips there are

by Dusten Carlson

August 2, 2020

We skipped all the generic, cheesy writing tips that don’t actually help anyone.

These are real, practical tips for writing and career you can actually use, designed for hard-working, salt-of-the-earth professionals making a living as freelance writers.

There are plenty of articles online that offer writing tips, but if you ask me, most of them are pretty vague.

“Write every day!” or “make sure your writing serves the reader!” are fine tips, but they’re a little too broad and generic to really be useful to a professional writer.

We’re talking to a different group of writers out there — writers who write for a living, and who want to figure out how to be even more competitive in an already-saturated freelance writing market.

If you’re still reading, I’m guessing you’re in that group. You’re looking for writing advice that will actually help you improve your craft, your career, and at the end of the day, your ability to make money, right?

Well good, you’re in the right place then.

Sure, if you need help writing your novel or screenplay, you mostly just need to sit down and do it.

But if you’re a freelance writer by trade or are exploring freelance writing as a career option, we wanted to offer some advice that will help you focus on what matters and how to become the best freelance writer you can be.

ProWriter’s staff have worked both as freelance writers and with freelance writers for many years, and in that time we’ve learned a lot about what people who hire writers are looking for and what skills make writers more likely to get great gigs.

With that in mind, here are 100 of the best pieces of writing advice we could come up with. They cover:

Skills you need to focus on developing right away
Early strategic moves that’ll help you in the long run
Real talk about finding (and keeping) better gigs

Let’s get to it. And if you think we can or should go deeper on any of these points, shoot me a note on LinkedIn. We want to be as specific and helpful as possible for writers trying to earn a living every day!

100 tips for professional writing

1. Get your name on your work

Start building a portfolio of bylined work on Day 1. You might need to ghostwrite to pay the bills at first, but the only way out of that is to build trust with clients (and Google) by putting your name on great content.

2. Plan for periods of low workload

The most successful freelance writers we know understand that the market can swing wildly. Diversify your craft, build up your emergency fund, and invest in good professional relationships to weather the valleys.

3. Widen your perspective

This is the point in most advice lists where you’re told to travel and have experiences. But what we mean here is to look outside of the freelance community when it comes to improving your skills. Don’t just hang out in freelance Facebook groups or read blog posts at sites for writers (yes, this includes ProWriter). Subscribe to SEO blogs, marketing podcasts, and widen your media diet so you can keep tabs on what’s hot in the zeitgeist and what’s working in digital, social, and search. All of that has a direct impact on your efficacy as a writer and your value to your clients.

4. Invest in your own professional development

You don’t have a boss to hand you a plane ticket to some conference or workshop. You are ultimately responsible for making sure your skills are bleeding edge. Constantly be on a proactive lookout for YouTube videos, free webinars, and articles on hard SEO skills, how to write engaging titles, emotional triggers, and whatever else will keep you competitive in your vertical.

5. Develop complementary skills and market them

For example, spend a few Saturdays taking graphic design courses at sites like Udemy so you can create custom images or infographics to help with social promotion. Learn WordPress so you can set up websites quickly. Anything you can do to position yourself as the all-in-one solution for your clients will not only help you get more jobs, it’ll also put you in a stronger position to negotiate for higher rates.

6. Incorporate

Become an LLC and market yourself as a business (even if you are a business of just yourself). Writers that act like like real professionals are treated like real professionals!

7. Diversify your client base

Building a book of business of direct relationships with good-paying, recurring clients takes time. Pitch your services to digital publications, marketing agencies, and others while you build your dedicated client base.

8. Take low or unpaid work if you must, but…

Make sure you get something out of it that helps you. Most writers need to take less-than-ideal work starting out, but try to negotiate for something that gives you a strategic advantage down the line, like a byline.

9. Think ‘content’ everywhere you go

Practice self-awareness. Maybe there’s a new hobby you’ve picked up, a funny or heterodox opinion you have about something, or a new trend you find interesting. If you’re interested in something, you’re almost certainly not alone. But you might be the first (or best-suited) to write about it. These random thoughts of yours could be opportunities for pitches or potential gigs.

10. Never market yourself as ‘willing to learn’

While it’s good to have this attitude in general, it comes off as a red flag for employers. Most of your clients don’t have time to mentor you. In an ideal world, every client would at least give you constructive feedback at the end of a gig, but we don’t always live in that world. Focus on what you can do and deliver.

11. Build a portfolio early

You need to create a professional portfolio right way and put the work you’re proudest of in it. A portfolio is a billboard for what you can do. If you can’t build your own website, you can use an online writing portfolio (like the one we built at ProWriter). And please, for the love of all that is holy, do not use Google Drive or Microsoft Word. It doesn’t look professional.

12. Maintain your portfolio

I know a lot of good writers who haven’t updated their websites, portfolios, or LinkedIn profiles in years. Make a habit of keeping up your portfolio whenever you finish a job. Clear out old clips that don’t represent your abilities anymore, and add new work you’re proud of. You never know who’s looking at your page.

13. When pitching, get to the point

You ever have a friend who tried telling you a story, but keeps backing up to establish context? Boring, right? Editors are busy people. All they need to make a decision is what your unique angle is, and then, efficiently as possible, why you’re the one to write it.

14. Include success stories

If a client gives you a compliment on your work, ask for a review. If a job you did created some kind of tangible success for a client, ask for details. Include this in your portfolio or your outreach to new clients if it makes sense. It’s proof of concept that you can deliver. Don’t just say you have a track record of success. Show it.

15. Nail the first draft

This is about getting as much information out of your client as possible before you write. Agree the expectations, the goals of the gig, and what kind of messaging needs to be reflected early on. That way if they push back, you can point to exactly what you did to fulfill what you both agreed to.

16. Ask about recurring opportunities

Don’t feel awkward or uncomfortable about asking an employer for more work after you’ve completed a job. The worst they can say is “no” and if you did a good job, they’ll keep you in mind for the next gig.

17. Be transparent about deadlines — and keep them

It’s tempting to promise a new client the moon, but you don’t want to set yourself up for failure. Early on, try to under-promise and over-deliver on deadlines until you get a good sense of how long it takes you to do something. Then you can give more accurate estimates to clients.

18. Take breaks

Writing is a sit-heavy job with long hours. Sitting is the new smoking. Don’t forget to get up and walk around every hour or so.

19. Create boundaries

We don’t mean with clients (though those are important too). If you’re working from home, you need to create boundaries to protect yourself from … yourself. Set up an office space away from your distractions.

20. Wear pants

I hear you, a “flexible” dress code is part of the work-from-home appeal. But try dressing up like you’re going to the office one morning and see if it makes a dent in your productivity.

21. Keep an eye on where there are needs and fill them

Let’s say you have 3 clients in a row that ask if you can do email marketing copy. Take the time to try and learn that new skill. It might not be a one-off need — it might be a trend you can get in front of.

22. Turn social signals into content

Let’s say you and your friends are out drinking and all of you get fired up and enthusiastic debating a particular topic. That might be a pitch. Let’s say you had a quick take on Twitter that generated more engagement for you than usual. There you go, another pitch.

23. Make sure you have your own projects

This will sound corny, but you do need a “you” project. Even if it’s a personal blog. In the same way financial planners tell you to set aside a certain amount of money for savings and treat it like a bill every month, do the same with your schedule and set aside time for the “you” project.

24. Let people see your face

This is a subtle psychological thing, but trust us on this. When clients can see that you’re a real, normal human, it will help you establish trustt. I’d go so far as to say ‘find opportunities to SHOW OFF your face.’ Ask for a Hangouts chat instead of a phone interview. Anything you can do to establish a human connection will help.

25. Start a newsletter

This could be your “you” project, and yes, you will only have a dozen subscribers, two of which are your mom’s work and personal emails, for a long time. But keep at it. Find an angle. Write like you have a list of 10,000.

26. When you’re discouraged, remind yourself that writers will always be needed

This is not a job robots are replacing anytime soon. As long as there are humans looking to relate to one another, buy things from each other, and find ways to explain how they feel, writers will have opportunities.

27. Take other jobs if you have to

Again, sometimes this market ebbs, especially if you’re early on in your career. Don’t take it as a sign of your failure. Do what you must to make sure bills are paid, but look for your angle back in. It’s only over when you stop investing in it.

28. Set expectations with clients

The number one way client relationships spin out of control for new writers is over revision requests. Like #15, have your client define for you what a successful final piece of copy looks like, and agree in advance to the number of revisions you’ll allow. On that note…

29. Use contracts

Sure, you’re probably not a lawyer, and you probably don’t have $1,200 lying around to hire one to write you a contract. But do the research, ask other freelancers, do what you have to in order to get a template contract right away, and use it for every job. It’s the best way to define expectations and protect yourself from potentially crappy clients.

30. Invest in people

When you find clients you enjoy working for, try to establish more personal relationships with them over time. This is a people business, so invest in people.

31. If things are slow, keep submitting

The same way you don’t want gaps in your employment history, you don’t want big gaps in your writing output, and not just for professional reasons. You need to write to keep your muscles strong, so when things are slow, it might be a good time to find sites you can submit content to and write a few columns, op-eds, or articles about your passions and interests.

32. Move on quickly

“Never give up” is good advice for your writing on the whole, but some young writers take this to mean that they need to keep following up with potential employers until they get a firm answer. This kind of approach doesn’t work in dating, and it doesn’t work in business. Do one follow-up and then cut the cord.

33. Apply/pitch every day

Most full-time writers I’ve worked with say that they continue to apply for new gigs and pitch outlets they want to write for every day. Work out a routine where you do just that. Check job boards frequently first thing in the morning, and come up with angles to pitch outlets you want to work for.

34. Become more reliable than in-house talent

Many marketing and PR agencies will hire freelance writers to help them manage their projects. I’ve seen this relationship from both sides, and trust me when I say the agencies get “hooked” on good, reliable writers. If you’re one, they will turn to you for their press releases, blog posts, and more, even for the convenience of getting it off their plates.

35. Never welch on a deadline

If freelance writing was a religion, welching on a deadline would be the sin that can get you excommunicated. Always deliver. If you can’t make a deadline, say so upfront. If you need more time, give a few days’ notice.

36. Don’t copy/paste your cover letters

For freelancers, a cover letter doesn’t need to be a formal, 500-word document. Employers hardly have the time to read through hundreds of these for each job they post. A simple email cover letter is enough, and just a few sentences explaining why you’re right for the gig. So don’t copy/paste a form letter for every job. We can tell.

37. NEVER plagiarize

You’d think this doesn’t need to be said, but I’ve let go of a surprising number of writers for plagiarism. Freelance writers are busy, and shortcuts can be tempting. But with the number of tools employers use to scan billions of pages on the web for plagiarism, you will get caught and your career could end up (and honestly, should end up) in jeopardy.

38. Keep finding new niches

You might be really good at one niche, but new niches are popping up all the time, and your own personal interests change as you mature. Don’t settle. As you explore new hobbies and interests in your personal life, think about exploring them as niches in your career as well.

39. Use your real name

I can’t tell you how many writers I’ve worked with attempt to use pseudonyms, but sometimes it feels like up to half. Unless you’re in witness protection, use your real name. Like #24, employers want to know they’re hiring a real person. On that note…

40. Be easy to find and vet

I’ve had writers with zero digital footprint (and asking to be paid in cryptocurrency) apply to jobs I’ve posted. These applications go straight into the trash. Most people live increasingly online lives, so if you’re not easy to find when an employer Googles your name + writer, that’s going to send up a red flag. If you don’t have a lot of bylined work yet, an online writing portfolio, website, active LinkedIn, and maybe an Instagram that all clearly belong to the same person are the bare minimum!

41. Find people you trust to critique your work

Sure, this isn’t always doable on a deadline, but for content you really consider to be representative of your voice, have a trusted (and ruthless) professional connection (like an editor) who can pick the whole thing apart. This will make you a better writer.

42. Develop mindfulness

I’m not talking about meditative practice. Mindfulness in the context of your career means paying attention to what works. You consume content for your own purposes all the time — education, entertainment, you name it. Try to reverse-engineer what you’re seeing. What about the headline made you click? What about the article kept you reading? Did you start getting bored at any point? Did you click away before you were finished? Why? What would have kept you going? What would you have done differently?

43. Set manageable goals

If you’re like me, you wake up most mornings feeling like you’re either going to take over the world, or that you need to talk yourself into getting out of bed. Both cases turn out to be bad predictors of my overall productivity. I either overestimate what I can do when I’m feeling good, or underestimate when I’m feeling lazy or unmotivated. Set manageable goals for yourself. If you get through you list and have some extra giddyup, keep going!

44. Don’t just schedule it, segment it

We’ve already made a few points about making sure to have passion projects on the side. This point is about figuring out which times of day better suit each kind of writing you do. If you work all day and try to leave a few hours at night for creativity, but find that you feel more creative in the morning than at night, then switch it up! Spend a few hours on passion projects during the day and clean up any day-job responsibilities in the evening.

45. Whatever you want to write, there’s a structure for it

A lot of young writers think that they can just sit down with a blank page and follow their thoughts wherever they go. That might be a good exercise for teasing out interesting ideas, but the result is rarely publishable. Every kind of writing you want to do, from clickbait listicles to the great American novel, has a format. Learn it.

46. Develop business skills

Being a good writer isn’t enough. You’re going to need to develop some business management skills, some marketing skills, some accounting, even some interpersonal soft skills. That last point might be the most important of all. You might not physically see people you work with often (or at all), but like we’ve said before, writing is still a people business.

47. Don’t show your mom your work

What I mean is, don’t go to your mom, or your friends, or a spouse, for feedback. They’re going to love it no matter what, and even if they do have notes, you’re probably not going to take them anyway. Ask mom and co. for shares when it’s done, not feedback during the process.

48. Treat every relationship as a win/win

Let’s say you’re given a regular byline by a publisher. Not only is this a huge opportunity for you to shine, it’s also an opportunity to return value to the publisher and make them and their brand look good. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. Be mindful of this always. If your jobs aren’t mutually beneficial, quit.

49. Find the heterodox take

A lot of writers struggle with originality. “What can I say that hasn’t already been said?” If that’s you, see if there’s an opportunity to go against the grain. Is the status quo wrong, or outdated? Can you make a persuasive case that the dominant opinion on a topic is misguided, or missing critical information? Can you get 1,000+ words out of it?

50. DON’T FALL for ‘get rich quick’ promises

There are a lot of resources out there that purport to help freelance writers launch their careers with promises of six-figure incomes and houses on the beach. Take these with a bucket of salt. It is possible to become an elite freelance writer that makes that much money and works to the sound of the ocean in the background, but there are no fast solutions. Success in this field is like success in the gym. It takes time, patience, and discipline.

Hey, look at you! You made it halfway!

You’re doing great. Now might be a good time to get up and walk around, grab a drink of water, use the bathroom, whatever.

And yes, we really do have 50 more pieces of advice to give you. Buckle up!

51. Make friends with editors

We alluded to this in #41, but let’s spend a little more time on the point. Think about how much you can get out of a professional relationship with an editor. Not only can they help you improve as a writer, they can give you insights into what editors look for in a pitch, a reliable long-term freelancer, and more. Seek these connections out!

52. Improve your craft, but with purpose

A lot of writers think they get better by just practicing. Practice is important, but don’t forget to seek out and learn new skills, as well. Keep an eye out for blog posts, courses, and podcasts that go deep on hard skills.

53. Tell the truth

If you don’t believe it, don’t write it. If you do believe it, make sure you can back it up. On that note…

54. Make sure you know how facts work

A fact is information that can be verified by more than one qualified source. If information is alleged or unconfirmed, disclaim it as such or avoid it altogether. On THAT note…

55. Learn where facts come from

Figure out where good, reliable information comes from, and how to attribute it. While this arguably most important in journalistic writing, good research skills matter in more forms of writing than you think!

56. Say ‘yes’

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson once said, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say ‘yes,’ then learn how to do it later.” Same goes for writing! Just make sure you deliver in the end.

57. Don’t forget to have something to say

Writing is about more than stringing pretty words together. Every piece of copy, from a tweet to a novel has a purpose, a goal, and a message. Make sure you have a clear idea of what it is going in.

58. Keep things simple

Figure out one point you want to make. Or three. Build your content around that. Otherwise you might ramble.

59. Write short sentences

It helps readability (and SEO for web).

60. Eliminate adverbs

Yes, adverbs are words too, and they can add flavor to your copy. “Eliminate adverbs” may sound like pretentious novelist advice, but give it a try. You’d be surprised how often you don’t need them, and how using fewer of them makes them more effective.

61. Write extra on your first pass so you have plenty to cut

Believe me, you will.

62. Network

Writers may be fiercely competitive for gigs, but they’re reliable for shares!

63. Think about how it’ll age

Don’t write anything that might come back to haunt you later. (Later? Trying to come up with 100 writer tips is haunting me now). This doesn’t just apply to writing hot takes on controversial topics. It also applies to phoning it in and submitting bad copy!

64. Take a persuasive writing course

What you’ll learn, even in a basic 101 course, will apply to almost every form of writing from ad copy to an op-ed for a major magazine. And…

65. Become a student of psychology

How people think and what they respond to is critical to good writing. If you’re going to “read more” to become a better writer, throw in some nonfiction as well. (If I can make a couple of recommendations, Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman and Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger are good places to start).

66. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t enjoy reading yourself

The jobs that pay don’t always overlap with our passions, but take pride in your work regardless. Offer something in everything you write that you think is missing, or you would enjoy discovering as a reader.

67. ‘And’ is a great place to start a new sentence

Working on that “shorter sentences” tip from #59? A little stuck? Look at those long sentences. Did you say “and” anywhere? Try cutting your sentence in half right there.

68. Assume people will read your work

They will! And, equally as important…

69. Don’t read the comments

Ignore unhappy people blowing smoke on Twitter, in comments, or in reviews. If you feel confident in your work and know you did a great job, there’s no reason to rain on that parade.

70. Get rid of distractions

Don’t work with Netflix on in the background. It doesn’t work. Tune out your distractions so you can work faster and better. Then you’ll have plenty more Netflix time later.

71. Don’t reward yourself if you didn’t accomplish anything

We’ve all tried sitting down to write only to waste our time on something else instead. We move on, feeling a little guilty, but reassure ourselves it’s “part of the process.” Well, cut it out. Reward yourself for completing something, not almost starting.

72. Don’t announce ‘plans,’ announce ‘dates’

Research shows that publically announcing your goals makes you less likely to accomplish them. I know, I know, you think that putting yourself out there will create accountability. But the opposite is true. You get just enough of an endorphin kick from your friends cheering you on that you feel accomplished enough to do … absolutely nothing. Instead, do the work and announce the release date. Then it’s already done and you deserve that cheering.

73. Get a hobby

This is technically not writing advice, but your writing will benefit from it. Don’t make writing your life. Find something else to do that you can enjoy. Engage the other parts of your brain and body. And hey, if you get really good at that thing, maybe it can become a new niche for your writing as well.

74. Write for ‘scanning’

Short sentences? Check. Short paragraphs? I know it feels weird to have some paragraphs that are a sentence or less, but varying your paragraph size helps with readability, the all-important SEO metric. Try it.

75. Offer to do guest posts

Find blogs or other sites that cover topics you know like the back of your hand. I mean topics you know so well you take them for granted. Topics you don’t even think of as niches yet. But they are, so use that to build your portfolio.

76. Treat every opportunity like an American Idol audition

It’s tough, I know. Some opportunities don’t feel like they’d go anywhere, and others are just for some quick cash. But you never know which employers need more work at higher levels, with more regularity, and for more money, so always aim to impress.

77. Water down your vocabulary

You’ve probably heard that writers need to build a big vocabulary. Maybe for your novel, but keep it between a 5th and 10th-grade reading level for everyone else.

78. Outline

Yes, I know, you feel like you have the topic down pat. Or, you can research whatever you need on the fly and it’ll just be much faster that way. But trust me, taking the time to sit down and outline your main points, pull in the research you need to support each, and fill it in from there is the more efficient way, and it results in better copy. Going rogue without an outline just increases your chances of getting stuck or turning in mediocre copy with too much bloat.

79. Learn your hooks

A lot of writers starting out think that the lift is in the body of whatever they’re writing, and often give barely a thought to the intro or those transitions that keep readers going throughout the copy. But hooking the reader and keeping them engaged is critical to successful copy of any kind. Spend more time studying what works there than anything else, because if you can’t get a reader invested, they’re not sticking around for the hard work you put into the rest of the piece.

80. Learn the art of the title

No matter what you’re writing, the title needs that perfect balance of relevance, emotional trigger, and creativity. The title is the reader’s first impression of your work, so take the time to learn the craft and apply it with purpose.

81. Find tools

Grammarly, CoSchedule Headline Analyzer, Yoast SEO, and many more. Find and use whatever tools you can get your hands on to help you improve your writing.

82. Ask for shares

You’re never too good to ask people to share your work. I know it feels awkward, but anyone you ask can always say “no,” so you might as well make the attempt!

83. Keep writing and editing separate

Some jobs require you to edit on the fly, I get it. But whenever you can, give yourself some breathing room between the writing and the editing. You’ll be surprised how often what sounded like a good idea at the writing stage doesn’t hold up after you’ve slept on it.

84. Every word adds value

Some jobs come with arbitrary word counts. For others, writing a few more pages or paragraphs feels like the right thing to do. But don’t let length corner you into providing low-value content. Filler. Fluff. You know what it is. You’re a word person. You know how to squeeze a few more words out of a sentence. But it’s a bad habit to get into. Make sure every word adds value.

85. Learn from the mistakes of other writers

We’ve all read something that seemed to fall a little flat or feel a little awkward (not this blog post though, right? RIGHT??). Take a mental note. What didn’t work? How would you make that point better?

86. Ask for examples

Whenever you take a new job, ask your clients for previous examples of copy they felt was particularly successful for them or representative of who they are. What they give you speaks volumes about what they want to see. Reverse-engineer it and then do better.

87. WWWWWH

No matter what you’re writing, there’s a “who, what, when, where, why, and a how. Take the time to figure out the answers to these questions when you’re outlining.

88. Don’t ask for feedback

Not from your employer, anyway. Most of them don’t have the skillset, the vocabulary, and especially the time to help you figure out what you need to work on. Develop a network of peers to help you with that.

89. Always ask for another job

If it was a one-time gig or the employer just says “no,” then cut your losses and moe on quickly.

90. Watch for redundancy

We use the same words, the same turns of phrase, and the same metaphors all the time. Double-check your work.

91. Don’t put yourself in this situation

The one where you have no choice but to rush, or turn in subpar work. Maybe you’d never done a particular kind of job before and didn’t know how long it would actually take you. Maybe it’s good old-fashioned procrastination. Either way, don’t let it happen.

92. Compliment good craft

When you see other writers do something well, take some time to compliment them on it. Nobody notices those little craft quirks but other writers. Let’s lift each other up!

93. Don’t turn in copy with a single error

‘Nuff said.

94. Pay it forward

Writers are competitive, but there are ways we can help each other out. If you’ve outgrown a gig or are in a situation where you’re offered a good opportunity that’s below your pay grade, pass it along to someone earlier in their career who can handle it.

95. Read it out loud

If it doesn’t sound right to you, it won’t read right, either.

96. Aggregate experts, not ideas

A lot of writing requires research. But don’t just look around for generic ideas to put into your article. Find the experts, and quote them by name. Add your own questions and insights (or those of your client) on top of it.

97. Remember…

You want to tell your reader what to do with the information you’re giving them, no matter what you’re writing. Have a clear idea of what that is, and explicitly say it. Don’t leave it to their imaginations.

98. Formatting hacks

A lot of these tips are about readability and keeping readers hooked. If you can’t tell by now, the format itself plays a huge role in that. Where to place headings, how to tease with hooks and transitions, short sentences and paragraphs — learn how to upgrade your copy with formatting tricks.

99. Be competitive!

Be the best damn writer and write the best damn content you can.

And finally…

100. Kill passive voice FOREVER.

Yes, this is the most important tip. Passive voice is one of the top giveaways of an immature writer. Destroy it with impunity. This blog post is 5,000 words long, and you better believe I went through it after my first draft and eliminated as much passive voice as humanly possible.

You made it! Thanks for sticking with us to the end.

I hope you found these tips useful. If so, please share this article, or the tip you found most useful, with your network. Once again, find me on LinkedIn if you have questions or want to keep the conversation going.

If you’re a new freelance writer looking for more writing tips, you might get a lot out of our Writer’s Guide to SEO (it’s free, doesn’t require a download or anything). If you’re looking for ways to show your work to your clients, you can also sign up for a free ProWriter profile here.

Content Strategy

Are you a writer? Then you need to learn content strategy

by Dusten Carlson

July 27, 2020

Your client should be able to explain what they want. Many can’t. If this happens to you, what should you do?

Every writer should know enough about content strategy to fill in the gaps and educate their clients if necessary.

We’ve all had clients who have funny ideas about what makes content successful.

How often have you seen a job post that says something vague like “we’re looking for writers with proven success” or talked with a potential client who wanted “sticky content that goes viral”?

Proven success? What does that even mean?

What are you supposed to say when you apply for that job? That you can drive huge amounts of traffic to their website? That you can get a lot of shares on Twitter? That you can write content that ranks highly on Google?

That’s probably what they want to hear, but it’s just lip service.

Ranking content in Google is a complicated, long-term endeavor of which good writing is only a part.

Shares on Twitter don’t automatically translate to clickthroughs to the site.

A huge amount of traffic doesn’t automatically mean huge sales.

And yet, so many clients have vague metrics for writer success and are convinced by superficial promises of “big wins.” They don’t think they’re hiring freelance writers, they think they’re hiring magicians who can turn a few hundred bucks into quarterly sales records.

Why do they think things like this?

I’ll tell you who you usually can’t tell you why: Your client.

Because there’s a big problem with the dialogue between freelance writers and their clients.

“Gee, only one?”

Alright, there are many. But one problem at a time, okay?

Today let’s talk about one that’s particularly hard to put your finger on — Figuring out who is responsible for content strategy.

In my experience, this simple role misunderstanding causes nothing but headaches for clients and freelance writers both.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s the fastest way to ensure a new relationship with a client ends before it begins, with everyone leaving the table disappointed.

Why does this keep happening, and who’s responsible for fixing it?

Let me tell you a quick story.

I recently got coffee with an entrepreneur who wanted to pick my brain about content. He runs one of those box delivery startups and is beginning to see some real traction.

He has a few thousand followers on his social channels, and from all outside appearances, his marketing efforts online look like they’re successful.

But he runs a small team, and a lot of his content is whipped up on the fly and with no real strategy behind it. He’s on the cusp of a big business break and he has heard that blogging is a successful marketing tactic. But he’s skeptical.

“It’s just such an investment,” he said. “If I pay a writer a few hundred bucks for a blog post and it doesn’t go viral, then it was a waste of money. A sunk cost. Writers just don’t understand this.”

Is this your expression right now?

Mine too. Let’s talk about it.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”‘There’s a big problem with the dialogue between freelance writers and their clients — figuring out who’s responsible for content strategy.’ #writingcommunity #freelancewriter” quote=”‘There’s a big problem with the dialogue between freelance writers and their clients — figuring out who’s responsible for content strategy.'”]

Just from hearing him say this, I could tell we had a handful of misunderstandings on the horizon when it comes to expectations. Putting my content strategist hat on, there are a few things I’d advise him on at this point.

Problem #1, he assumes going viral = success. If he were running a business that depends primarily on advertising revenue, like a publication or a blog, then going viral would indeed be the right strategy.

But his revenue model is based on products he sends customers in the mail. Is going viral really the right way to go?

Maybe. If he has a lot of money to put into content creation. But, Problem #2, he has a small budget for content.

This means top-tier freelance writers are probably out of his range. He’ll need to hire first-year freelancers who are still cutting their teeth and building their portfolios.

There’s nothing wrong with those writers of course, but they probably don’t have enough content strategy experience to explain why “going viral” is a bad strategy for him, or what he should do instead.

Which leads to Problem #3, he implicitly assumes that success or failure is on the writer.

At that level of pay and experience, freelance writers should pretty much only be expected to do a job and collect their check, not feel pressured to guarantee results for a strategy they didn’t design and don’t have any input on.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”‘Many clients don’t seem to think they’re hiring freelance writers — they think they’re hiring magicians who can turn a few hundred bucks into quarterly sales records.’ #writingcommunity #writelife” quote=”‘Many clients don’t seem to think they’re hiring freelance writers — they think they’re hiring magicians who can turn a few hundred bucks into quarterly sales records.'”]

If he can’t afford top-tier, experienced freelance writers, then all of the content strategy is on him, and the success or failure of the content is his as well.

So, if we’re keeping track, this client misunderstands:

What it means for content to be a success for his business
How much investment it takes to succeed with content
Who is responsible for the success of his content

The saddest part of this story? Running into clients like this is not uncommon for freelancers.

This is you right now, right?

If you’re the first-year novice writer this guy was able to afford, this puts you in an awkward situation.

First, it’s possible that you just don’t know enough about content strategy yet to explain to the client where he’s wrong, even though you probably intuit that he’s wrong.

Second, even if you do know he’s wrong, and even know some of the reasons that he’s wrong, you might feel that it’s not your place to educate your client, or you might lack the confidence to do so.

Whatever the reason, the client now assumes that you know enough about content strategy to make this one piece of content an absolute, unqualified success for him, and you assume he knows something you don’t, or just hope that the content you put together does what he wants it to do.

You’re both now co-pilots in a project headed for disaster.

And to think, it could have been avoided.

Who is responsible for content strategy?

What does all of this mean for writers, especially ones that are earlier in their careers?

First: In an ideal world, your client is responsible for content strategy. And you’re well within your rights to expect that of them.

They should know things like:

Exactly what kind of content they need produced
What it should look like
Which channel(s) it should be optimized for
What topics they want to cover
What keywords (if any) they want to target, and
Have a realistic idea of what success looks like.

Simply put, if you’re not being paid to do so, your role isn’t to create a strategy. Your role is to execute their strategy.

Sure, maybe you can advise them here or there on technical stuff they might be missing, like headlines.

Let’s say you hire someone to paint your living room. They show up at the address, but it’s just an empty lot. They call you, confused. “Where’s your house?” Just as confused, you retort “well, you have to build it.”

No.

No no no.

This is not how it will go.

Writing is a skill, just like painting a house. It doesn’t mean that a house painter can also build a house. Similarly, a writer isn’t necessarily a content strategist.

And if a writer is a content strategist, then they, like the house painter, wouldn’t build the house for the same cost as it takes to paint the living room.

Here’s the reality check…

Between you and me, as the freelance writer, you’re completely justified in expecting that your client has already figured out exactly what they want.

But…

… it’s probably not going work out that way every time.

Heck, most times.

All too often, the client doesn’t actually have a strategy (or doesn’t understand what they should actually want) which means that many are setting themselves up for disappointing results.

And who are they going to blame? They’re going to blame you.

Even though it’s 100% their fault.

Here’s what writers should do.

Yes, in a perfect world, you’re not supposed to be the content strategist (unless you’re being paid for that).

But you can’t wait for clients to become the content strategist. If they are, that’s awesome. If they aren’t, you have to step in and educate them.

This means:

If you’re a writer, you’re also a teacher. Your students are your clients.

Understand a simple reality: Most clients you’ll be working with on a freelance basis aren’t content people.

They don’t know the ins and outs of your skillset. That’s why they’re hiring you. You’re the content person.

Most small business owners spend their days wrapped up in product and sales and payroll. Ultimately, they just want to be successful.

Most of them know that good content can be a big advantage over their competitors.

They just don’t know what success actually looks like, when to expect it, and what kind of content gets you there.

So what are we telling you to do, really?

We’re not advocating that you offer free content strategy services to your clients. Anything but.

We are saying that writers at all levels, but especially early on, need to prioritize learning content strategy.

If you’re a first-year writer and have one takeaway from this post, that’s it.

Start learning content strategy today.

And don’t stop learning content strategy.

Make it part of your professional development.

Read marketing blogs and subscribe to marketing newsletters.

Learn, learn, learn.

Every writer picks up content strategy over the course of their careers.

But they do it haphazardly. They learn from experience.

We’re saying start the process now. Do it on purpose.

So you can offer free content strategy advice to clients?

No.

So you can recognize red flags your clients throw your way about content strategy.

So you can understand what you’re getting into.

So you can help manage expectations.

So you can push people who hire writers to set tangible, realistic goals for you.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”‘If you’re a writer, you’re also a teacher. Your students are your clients.’ #writingcommunity #strategy” quote=”‘If you’re a writer, you’re also a teacher. Your students are your clients.'”]

You can’t define your client’s goals for them, but you should ask what their goals are and be able to chime in if you think they’re unrealistic.

And if your client is lost and doesn’t know what their strategy should be, offer to create one for them (for pay, of course).

When it comes to the dialogue between freelance writers and their clients, we need to lead a paradigm shift.

Study after study after study after study after study shows that good content is a major driver of business growth and success. Every client who wants to hire a freelance writer already knows this.

But it takes time. It is an investment. Most clients don’t know this part.

That’s the expectations gap. That’s why clients think one blog post will set quarterly sales records.

The only way to fix this problem and hit the reset button on client expectations is to normalize conversations like this:

Client: “I want content to go viral.”

Writer: “Are you sure that going viral is the right strategy for you? What’s your ultimate goal?”

Client: “To sell more stuff, obviously.”

Writer: “Okay, well, going viral isn’t necessarily the best way to do that because [insert XYZ reasons].”

Client: “Oh. Well, what do you think we should do?”

Writer: “It sounds like you need to spend some time thinking about content strategy, or hire a content strategist. It just so happens, I could offer my services…”

That means you need to collect all of the knowledge about content strategy you can, as soon as you can.

Okay, sold. How do I learn more about content strategy?

There aren’t a lot of good resources out there that are specifically geared toward writers. You’ll have to mostly stay away from freelance writing blogs and look for resources in marketing, PR, digital media, and more, depending on what lane you’re trying to steer into as a freelance writer.

Even if you’re getting your start writing listicles for a viral website, you can learn things about stuff like headlines and readability that will benefit you when working with a B2C blog.

Even if you want to become a master blogger, there are things you can learn about email subject lines and social media advertising that translate over.

Good copywriting habits are good copywriting habits.

Also, ProWriter is, in part, an attempt to bridge the divides we’re talking about.

That’s why this blog exists, and why we publish content like this on our social channels:

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If you’ve ever been too afraid to ask what these acronyms mean and how they matter to your job as a writer, fear no more! We put together quick cheat sheet for you. ⠀ ⠀ More resources for freelance writers available at: https://prowriter.co/⠀ ⠀ #prowriter #freelancewriting #contentwriter #writingtips #contentwriting #writingadvice #copywriters #wewrite #writersofinstagram #writersofIG #writingcommunity #writersconnection #freelancewriterslife #seo #seotips #marketing

A post shared by ProWriter (@prowriterhq) on Jul 7, 2020 at 6:19am PDT

We publish content every day in an effort to help writers, especially those earlier in their careers, increase their knowledge of content strategy.

That way you can coach your clients instead of letting them set both of you up for failure.

Needless to say, happier clients means more jobs for you which means a happier you!

If you have any suggestions for topics you think we should cover, feel free to email us directly at [email protected]. Or, start a conversation with me on LinkedIn.