5 Ideas for Putting your Writing Skills to Work

There are a lot of people attempting to break into the freelance writing business as a work-at-home opportunity. It can be a reasonable source of income but finding the right working situation can be a real challenge. The websites for bidding on freelance work can be frustrating due to the competition and low bids that come in from all parts of the globe.

However there are a lot of companies and websites for companies that need quality copy written. If you can develop a handful of clients that continue to need work, you can take yourself out of the bidding wars and settle into a business at home that brings a steady stream of work to your desktop.
As with most businesses it is crucial to develop a working relationship so that your sources for jobs are comfortable with you and the quality of your output.
Finding those employers might be the most creative part of establishing a home freelancing business. Just bidding on jobs through Guru or similar sites will generally prove to be an exercise in frustration.
Here are five suggestions for finding steady freelance work:

1. Local news outlets often take freelance submissions.

The newspapers and television stations that are trying to build an Internet presence are doing so on shoestring budgets. Contact your local paper and see if they will take feature pieces on a one-off basis. Keep in mind that the printed news business is a very shaky industry these days; working with freelance contractors is more attractive than carrying full time employees.
This is one of those jobs that can turn into steady work, if you develop a relationship with the editorial staff – but your research may take you on the road occasionally.

2. Regional magazines accept freelance articles.

Many of them survive with a skeleton staff, using freelance writers to generate their content. You’ll be investing some hours in turning out product that may be rejected but it’s a good outreach tool. If you sell one article you will have established some credibility for future ideas. However, you must have the right knowledge based on the magazines theme so that you can deliver quality information.
In other words, you can find out such magazines based on your own interests or skill sets and you can also take this as a opportunity to prove your expertise. This directly or indirectly brings you more employers as you gain popularity through these magazines.

3. Online retailers need reams of copy.

The websites that sell hundreds of products have brief descriptions written for each of them. Someone is turning out that copy; the trick is finding your way to the person who is responsible for populating all those web pages with pictures and descriptions. It’s assembly-line work but it will keep you busy for many, many hours. I found this marketplace to be a good way to start out.
Interestingly, the work load never goes down because new products will be introduced into the market every day and you have to create product pages for those new products. Hence you will constantly get writing jobs through out the year.

4. Local website designers are often looking for good writers.

Working in the graphic arts and generating compelling written content are two very different functions.
If you can arrange to provide written material for a local site developer you’ll have a connection for occasional work, generated as the web developer lands new clients. Find them online and send them a pitch e-mail with a couple of writing samples.
This creates you a stream of work because whenever the web designer gets an offer, he will come to your for content writing. If you get in touch with 10 such designers, you can sit and do the work through out the day making lot of cash.

5. Occasionally you will find advertising agencies or PR firms that work with freelance writers.

Working in these fields requires the ability to grasp promotional concepts and generate written content that works with the overall plan. It can be a challenge to try and decipher what a creative director is thinking and put it into copy format, but these are also industries that find freelance talent valuable as opposed to keeping writers on staff.
To begin with you can find such firms through freelancing web sites and slowly get into offline contact. This way, you can build long term relationship with these firms and you will be engaged with work every day.

Bonus Idea: You can publish your own Profitable eBook.

eBooks are always popular over Internet and the demand varies based on the market or topic. Find out interesting topics that you love and write an ebook.

• List down the problems in the market and address them with your own solution.
• Even if you don’t have the knowledge, you can spend time to understand the market.
• You can show your potential writing skills to make a great ebook – information when neatly organized, people won’t hesitate to pay for it.
• You can also bring in affiliates to make your ebook more profitable than your writing jobs (that’s passive income).
• Have a look on this another article on writing a new ebook and definitely, you don’t need to have master’s degrees to publish your own ebook.

Conclusion.

Writers are always in demand as long as Internet is alive. It all depends on your writing skills and more important how you communicate with the employers. If you have the capability to understand the employers requirement and able to meet their expectations you will be praised. You will automatically gain more exposure to many such employers because you have a great profile.
All these takes time and you have to work persistently – have a long term plan for your writing career and break them into short term plans to work ever day. Hope you are clear with these ideas, now go ahead and put your writing skills to work !