Today's post is the second from one of our regular guest bloggers, Ruth E. Thaler-Carter. Ruth will be blogging monthly on various topics in the area of freelancing. Look for her posts under the main title of “Freelancing Basics.”
STC members who have strong skills and experience in tech writing or editing can do well as freelancers. As noted in last month’s post here, it may take some effort to find the clients and projects that pay what you deserve to receive, but the results will be worth those efforts. As one of my colleagues said in response to that post, “… a nonprofit [is] happily paying me very well for my work. I concentrate on clients like that and let the penny-pinchers fall away.”
Before making those efforts, be sure you’ve laid the necessary foundation. You don’t want to hang out your shingle before you have what you need to back up your contacts and queries. Build (or have a colleague build for you) at least a nominal website with information about your background, training, skills and experience, ideally with samples of your work. Set up a work-related email address based on your website domain name. Get business cards. Get the programs and supplies you’ll need to do the freelance work. Set up a profile at LinkedIn, a business page at Facebook and a Twitter account for your business.
One way to find those better-paying freelance projects is to go old school. Forget craigslist, guru.com, odesk, elance, Demand Studios, etc. They may seem to offer lots of opportunities, but you usually have to bid for the work, and those clients are more interested in the freelancer who accepts the lowest fee than the one who’s the best writer or editor. Don’t go near the content mills (see my February 2013 post). Go directly to potential clients are likely to respect and reward skills and experience.
If you want to stay in the tech niche, start by contacting everyone you’ve ever worked for and with as a tech writer or editor to let them know you’re available for freelance projects. Put that business card in the mail. Post an “I’m open for business” message with your website URL at LinkedIn and Facebook. Get active and visible in the STC Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for freelancers; be more than a checkbook member. If there’s a local chapter in your area, go to meetings to make sure people get to know you; they’ll be more likely to think of you when they need a freelancer if they’ve met you in person. You may not end up doing much local work—most of us freelance for clients all around the country, thanks to today’s electronic connections—but then again, you might. And local colleagues have contacts elsewhere; if they can’t use you, they may know people in other cities who can.
Contact local businesses through your hometown newspaper and offer your services for writing and editing work. Pay special attention to news of new companies and ones that are expanding. You might be pleasantly surprised at how well some of them will pay.
If you’re comfortable with public speaking and think you have something to say that’s worth hearing, offer to make presentations to your local STC chapter, Chamber of Commerce, Rotary/Lions Club/Elks, etc. Being visible generates business.
Expand your efforts from there.
If there are causes or not-for-profit organizations you believe in, contact them to see if they can use your communications services. It might even be worth volunteering to help with an organization newsletter or website, to get your name in front of prospective clients and build up experience in working on projects a little different from your usual tech work. I would rather donate a few articles to a worthy organization than write for peanuts for a content mill or cheapskate client who trolls for the freelancer willing to accept the lowest fee from an online site.
Get Writer’s Market and subscribe to Writer’s Digest, Poets & Writers, and the Writer magazines, and use them to research publications and rates—you’ll find some tech outlets as well. Look into other professional organizations, such as the National Writers Union, Editorial Freelancers Association, or National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, to expand your reach and add to your job-finding services.
Think about hobbies you enjoy and find clubs or associations for them. Everything has a publication—I once edited a national newsletter for an association of kitefliers!—and many of them pay, and pay well, for knowledgeable writing and editing.
Whatever you do, don’t undervalue your skills and experience. There are a lot of amateurs and wanna-bes trying to get established as freelancers. STC members have a jump on most of them; don’t waste that edge!
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is a long-time, successful freelance writer/editor who has made presentations for STC about freelancing at the Summit, a local chapter conference, and through STC webinars. She is the author/publisher of Get Paid to Write! Getting Started as a Freelance Writer and author of Freelancing 101: Launching Your Editorial Business for the Editorial Freelancers Association.