Potential LIP Business: Freelance Writer
Illustration: Jonathan Woodward
Have you always fantasised about being a freelance writer? Maybe becoming a novelist, a copywriter, a witty columnist or a professional blogger?
Freelance writing is an ideal location independent career, giving you the freedom to write from anywhere and travel the globe as a LIP. It is however competitive, challenging to get started if you’re a newbie and perhaps not the most instantly lucrative career choice.
The internet naturally opens up a huge range of options for you to earn money from your writing - from blogging and articles to copywriting and ghost writing.
Below I’ve listed a few resources I’ve had bookmarked for a while plus a few others you might find useful…
My take…
As with any service-oriented business, writing isn’t just about using a scatter gun approach and seeing who will hire you. You should consider the following:
- Find a niche area for your writing such as focusing on writing about a specialist topic, writing for a particular industry or for a group of companies.
- Don’t just focus on writing for print publications such as magazines, newspapers and books; consider online opportunities such as blogs, blog networks and ezines.
- Treat your writing business as a business and create a strategic business plan and a marketing plan as a minimum.
- As with any business, it’s all about building relationships - identify key players in your market and consider how you can begin to build a relationship with them.
- Don’t rely on just one source for your income (your writing); plan and create additional streams of revenue for your writing business (e.g. coaching/mentoring, teaching, reviewing others work, ‘how to’ ebooks etc.)
- Above all, take a good hard look at the quality of your own writing and get others to review it and give you feedback. You will only ‘make it’ as a freelance writer if you can actually write well. If you can’t but want to, then focus first on learning and mastering the art.
Blogs that will help you become a (better) freelance writer…
For copywriting skills, look no further than copyblogger and you might want to start with this article.
For blog writing and blogging, of course there’s only one resource, problogger.
Chris Bibey’s blog is a useful resource about freelance writing and blogging and he apparently earns on average about $5k per month from his freelance writing.
Joanna Young is a Confident Writing Coach who can help you improve your writing skills for whatever purpose you choose to write - to make money or not.
The Fab Freelance Writing Blog looks to have some good information about some of the ‘newer’ (less traditional) freelance writing opportunities (if you can look past the overly-productised right-hand column).
Leo Babauta writes on Freelance Switch about how to become a freelance blog writer
Yaro Starak features a post on five steps to starting a freelance writing career.
Some paid writing opportunities
Demand Studios - is “Demand Media’s production house and powers over 50 websites visited by more than 30 million people every month” - and you can apply to be a freelance writer in your chosen topics.
451 Press - another online blogging house looking for writers to contribute to a wide range of topics on blogs. You earn revenue via a 40% cut of the advertising revenue generated by your blog, so again, perhaps not a huge money spinner, but something to earn you some pocket money.
WriteForCash - only for US writers, pays from $10+ per article.
Hubpages - not so much an opportunity to earn from writing but works a bit like squidoo in that you create pages (hubs) of useful information and earn money via affiliate revenue from eBay, Amazon, Google adsense on your Hub from visitors to your hubs.
Brave New Traveler has the definitive list of 50+ Travel Magazines That Want To Publish Your Writing
Become a Lonely Planet Author and submit your ideas for new books/series or pitch your expertise on some of the countries they’re looking to cover.
Use freelancing sites like WriterFind, WriterLance, Guru, TravelWriters and Elance to pitch for ghost writing and copywriting gigs.
Reading resources
Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2008
The Freelance Writer’s Handbook: How To Make Money & Enjoy Your Life
Note: I can only personally vouch for the Writer’s & Artist’s Yearbook as it’s the only one we’ve ever bought - however the other books have been ones that have popped up on many blogs and sites I found whilst researching this post and get good reviews on Amazon - btw, they are also Amazon aff links 
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Comments
Hi Lea - thanks for a great round up of resources - and the link
Congrats on the Problogger piece today - your fame will be spreading round the globe as we speak…
Joanna
Hi Joanna,
Glad to have a relevant opportunity to link to your useful blog. Hmmm, “fame” what a scary word!!!
Lea
Sure, Lea, and here’s the link to that resource that I forgot to post in the body of my comment: http://www.mybizoffice.com.
Sometimes the best writers are not the best business managers, so it’s always good practice to outsource parts of your business to experts who can do it better and more cost effectively . . . .and then use those hours developing great content and developing your clientele / business opportunities.
Thanks again! Did you coin the LIP acronym?
Hi Liz - thanks for the link. In the spirit of full disclosure, is the business yours or do you work there?
Yes, I did coin the LIP acronym! Shorter and easier to say than ‘location independent professional’!!!
Good coinage, then!
It’s not my company, but I do work there. I’m one of those people who can only work doing something I believe in. “Right livelihood” is what I aspire to at all times.
I love the company for how it helps people, and everyone in the whole chain or lifecycle connected to MBO benefits, from the freelancers themselves (obviously) to the clients (who are better off engaging independent consultants / contractors through MBO than taking the risk of paying them as 1099s or going through a high mark-up agency when that’s not necessary).
The community of LIPs using MyBizOffice are a diverse bunch. The majority is made of independent IT consultants, but one of the next biggest chunks, by occupation, is writers (both creative and technical).
This is a wonderful community of really talented people. As a side note, the company was originally founded as a co-op of freelancers who banded together for the legal protections afforded by incorporation and the convenience of having the back office accounting managed for them. It’s no longer a co-op, and the concept has grown over the past 20 years, but I think that spirit of rugged individualism is still here.
Also, have you heard of Jelly? http://www.workatjelly.com. I’m not affiliated with them, but it’s a great concept for people who work at home or independent of location, and I look forward to visiting a Jelly soon.
hi, Lea, how are you?
Thanks for this - what a fantastic resource. I’ve just added you to my feed reader - I look forward to reading more.
daniel
I took Ray Edwards http://www.webcopywritingexplained.com course about 9 months ago.
I’d recommend it if you already have a bit of online experience. I’ve since picked up one client that pays me over £1000 as a retainer to write his weekly newsletter and the occasional sales page. I’ve also picked up lots of other one off contracts.
Gavin
OutsourceSuccess
@Liz Greene - workatjelly looks very fun - what a great concept!
@Daniel - I am doing great thanks, and you? Glad you like the site, keep the feedback and comments coming!
@Gavin - thanks for the suggestion of the course.
[...] just found this article by Lea Woodward on freelance writing over at LocationIndependent.com. She’s put together a nice list of resources for would-be [...]
[...] not talking Pulitzer prize winning writing here. Yes, freelance writing is an attractive career option for LIPs, either as your lead focus or part of your wider portfolio. But that’s not what I mean by [...]
Great article! Another great resource for freelancer writers is to use a Portable Employer of Record for managing the back office. It’s a great way to work for multiple clients at the same time while maintaining a consistent employment record and being able to do taxes as a W-2. You can also get real group benefits, which is a big challenge for many LIPs.
MBO (or MyBizOffice) works with freelance writers and other LIPs. In addition to giving you the employment structure, MBO also invoices your clients and collects on your behalf, so the accounting and back office side of the business is handled by professionals. It’s a very cool solution to be completely Portable or Location Independent with your career.
Thanks again!