7 Lessons from a Full Time Freelance Blogger

I am almost exclusively greeted with bemusement whenever I tell someone what I do for a living. It is something that I have gotten used to over time. “A freelance blogger? Can you even make money doing that?”

In fairness, if someone had told me that they were a freelance blogger 12 months ago, I would have probably reacted with similar bemusement. It is only recently that I have come to realize how lucrative freelance blogging can be. I am earning an equivalent of $100 per hour for some of my work.

It has been a big learning curve though – at the beginning of 2011 I barely even knew what a blog was. I’ve come a long way since then, and have gradually become aware of a few key things that have led me to where I am.

Now I want to share them with you!

1. Have a Blog

I haven’t sought out any work since last November, because people come to me asking if I can work for them. All of my recent clients have approached me my via my blog.

If you take a look at the blog, you will see that it barely screams “hire me”. On the contrary – there is a “Hire Me” link in the navigation bar, and that is it.

I blog in part about helping people to become freelance writers – i.e., I write for others like me, not prospective clients. And yet I still receive enquiries. If you build a blog specifically for your target clients, you should be able to fare far better than I do.

Stop wasting your time on job boards trying to find clients that may or not may not be interested in your services. When a client reaches out to you, you are already in a position of strength.

2. Get Bylines

Prospective clients often approach me having found my blog through a byline on a client’s blog. The logic is simple – if someone is looking for a blogger, likes your writing, and see that you are available to hire, they will probably contact you.

So whenever appropriate, you should get a byline. If a client initially balks at the idea, suggest that it can actually be of benefit to the blog, in showing that a recognized blogger is writing for them.

Bylines are of course not always appropriate – for instance, if you are ghost writing, or writing on a topic in which you have no real expertise.

3. Consider Intangible Benefits

How much you get paid should not be the only consideration when deciding whether or not to take on work. I still work with certain clients who pay me way under my “peak” hourly rate, because of the associated intangible benefits. These include:

• Authority – it is good to be seen as a writer for an authoritative blog.
• Traffic – certain blogs send my own blog a healthy amount of traffic.
• Potential – could the work lead to bigger and better things?
• Security – could the work be a long term source of secure income?

Such intangible benefits can help you to better rationalize the offer, and make a decision accordingly.

4. Never Price by the Hour

Here’s a little slice of freelance blogging 101 – never price work by the hour.
Instead, become faster at doing your work than everyone else, then charge the same per post or project. If you can write a 500 word article in 30 minutes and someone will pay you $50 for it, your equivalent hourly rate is $100.

The client is happy to pay $50 for a quality article – how long it took you to write it is irrelevant.

5. Type Fast

I’ve been using computers since the age of five, and naturally learned to type pretty fast (around 90 words per minute). I don’t touch type in a particularly beautiful manner, but it gets the job done.

But I digress. The point is, the faster you can type, the faster you can write blog posts. It may sound trivial, but it really isn’t. If you are interested in writing for a living, learning to type faster is effectively a business investment.

6. Write Fast

For the purpose of this article, there is a difference between typing fast and writing fast. Writing fast is about taking a blog post from its inception, to completion, in the quickest way possible.

Typically speaking, the better you plan a blog post, the more quickly you will write it. This may sound counter-productive, but how many times have you got to the middle a post only to forget the core issue you were trying to address, or how you were planning on addressing it?

Plotting a post out in bullet points allows you to address any potential issues before you waste too much time. Once you are done with the framework of the post, it is then just a case of fleshing out your bullet points.

7. Write What You Know About (or Charge More)

There is a common misconception that you must write about complicated topics (or that you need to be an “expert” on something) in order to earn good money as a freelance writer, but that is simply not the case.

It again comes down to speed. If you are knowledgeable on a topic, you can probably produce a related blog post in double quick time, which pushes your equivalent hourly rate up. On the other hand, if you are writing about a topic that you are not familiar with, it is likely to take you far longer.

Don’t fall into the common trap of charging the same rate across the board. Decide what hourly rate you would be comfortable with, consider each job on an individual basis, and charge accordingly.

Tom Ewer is a freelance blogger and the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a blog for anyone interested in quitting their job and building a better life for themselves. Join Tom on Facebook here!