Freelance writing is a great way to earn an extra income for anyone who can write.
The demand for freelance writers is huge and growing all the time thanks to the demand coming from the internet.
The attraction of online freelance writing is the fact that you can work from anywhere and dictate your own hours, the amount you can earn will depend on the effort you are willing to put in.
Like every career though there is a lot of competition in the field as more and more people see it as a good way to earn an extra income.
Competition is a fact of life and you shouldn't be afraid of it, you should be ready for it and do everything you can to get an edge on your competitors.
Finding the right kind of work is the problem most freelance writers face, experienced and inexperienced.
By the right work I mean decent paying jobs that make freelance writing worth doing.
There's no point putting in vast amounts of effort for little monetary return, that's not why people enter the field.
To give you the edge there's certain things that will keep you at the top of the pack these are: 1: Quality Work Quality counts, make no mistake you will stand or fall in the freelance writing field by the quality of your work.
If the quality is good then you will be guaranteed repeat orders from customers.
People who are advertising for articles, E-books or reports want quality work and they know quality when they see it.
There was a trend a while back to go to the third world for cheap articles but many of these were low quality and demanded editing before they were suitable to use.
Freelance writing customers don't want this, why would you pay for an article that you have to waste time editing? The whole point is that you pay someone else to write it for you to save you the time and effort.
The last thing a customer wants to do is have to edit articles they have paid for.
So produce quality work all the time and your reputation will soon grow along with your ability to demand more pay for your work.
2: Marketing Skills You're a business and like any business you need to market yourself.
You can be the best writer in the world but if no one knows about you you'll never get work.
Marketing is as important as writing ability for a freelance writer.
You need to shout loud that you are a good freelance writer and available for work.
The writers with the best marketing skills will always get more work.
3: A Blog This fits in with the above, you need a blog to showcase your work.
It's an excellent way to market yourself, to get yourself out there and to give people an example of your work.
Blogs are easy to start and maintain and no serious freelance writer should be without one.
Like I said earlier you are a business and what good business doesn't have a website these days? 4: Ability To Network Get to know people, build relationships.
Your blog is a great way to do this.
When you get good work from customers don't just do the work and forget about it.
Contact the customer after asking if the work was ok, build a relationship with the customer.
It's easier to get repeat work from a satisfied customer than to get work from cold.
Use your blog to social network with people from across the industry.
Visit forums and participate, business forums, writing forums and internet marketing forums.
Internet marketers are always on the lookout for good writers.
Marketing yourself, a blog and social networking all fit together and are strategies you need to employ if you are to be successful in online freelance writing.
5: Referrals This is your best weapon to get more work and goes hand in hand with building a good client relationship.
Past clients will usually know other people who need a good writer.
So when you are working for a client, remember he or she will have friends who may also need a writer.
Referrals can bring you a lot of quality work in so do quality work for each client with referrals in mind.
Combine all the five points together and you have a strategy that will put you way ahead of most of your competitors.
Many people think that all you have to do to succeed as a freelance writer is to write.
This couldn't be further from the truth, marketing yourself is equally important.