Jan

Do you look for freelance writing gigs or do you ask for them?

I have had an interesting start to the New Year. I made it a goal that I would find at least one new client during January, and I’ve landed one today. But it came about in an interesting way.

Judging by the emails I get asking about how to get into online writing, it seems that most people want writing jobs to fall into their lap. Now this CAN happen, but you need to show you are capable of writing and that you are a professional first. If you don’t have a blog or a website and you don’t have any clips or any kind of presence at all online, you can forget about people approaching you for work.

It’s like me asking you if you could come and plumb my new bathroom in. I don’t know you; I have no evidence at all that you’re a plumber. So it makes no sense for me to ask you. Yet many would be writers expect writing jobs to appear out of thin air. Sorry, it doesn’t happen like that – at least not when you’re a newbie. You have to get out there and earn your stripes first.

Anyway, back to the story. I started looking around for freelance writing gigs online and applied to a few I thought might be worthwhile. But I also went one step further. I got onto Google and started using all kinds of different search terms to try and find possible outlets for work. I tried all kinds of things – ‘looking for blogger’, ‘SEO company’ (many of them use freelance writers) and all manner of other search terms too. And I found lots of sites that could potentially be looking for writers.

Some of them were indeed looking for writers. They had a page telling me so. So I applied for more information. But not all of them had this page. Some of them clearly used writers but there was no ad telling me they were looking for writers.

Now I’m guessing that some writers would look for a ‘writers’ wanted’ ad, wouldn’t see one, and move on to the next site. But I can testify that it doesn’t pay to do this. Because every site has a contact page. And every site represents a chance to get a foot through the door as a writer. If you send them a quick note, asking if they are looking for writers, you never know what response you are going to get in return. Certainly you might get nothing but silence (I’ve had that happen a few times). But you may just get some nice person saying ‘Actually yes, we ARE looking for writers!’ And in a short while you might have a new job to celebrate.

Try it and see. You just never know…

Tags: different search terms, do you look for freelance writing gigs or do you ask for them, freelance writers, freelance writing gigs, goal setting, job, jobs, marketing, new clients, writers