Today’s job market can be tough, but it’s also a brand new world out there, and that world is hungry, practically starving, for constant content. That’s where you come in. If you’d like to make your living in your pajamas contributing to that content, here are a few tips you might want to follow to get started.
- Ask yourself what topics are the most interesting to you.
Who are you and how can you be useful to the marketplace? Are you a student? Do you love Fashion? Can you write a great tutorial on how to take apart and put a carburetor back together? Figure out your niche so you can market yourself better because everyone knows that you have to “write what you know” to write the best you can.
- Decide what type of writing you like to do
Whether it is articles, blog posts, web content or business marketing materials, there are tons of different type of writing you can do. This way you’ll have a more narrow focus when you start out there looking for jobs. And it can help if you…
- Find out what writing pays the best
You can use this decide or you can decide and then go out looking for what the market will bear. Obviously more creative content will probably be worth less than solid how-to articles, but you may luck out and get what you want to do. Expect that at first you’ll get the smaller, less expensive work and work up from there.
- Find out where the clients are
Although everything is global these days, it may be easier to get work close to home (see #1: write what you know). Check out around you and see who’s hiring the most in your area and if you don’t get much, expand your search out from there.
- Find places to enter the market
Network, network, network, and ask around. Then move to the more online stuff including reputable sites and ads, but just be careful because there are a lot of scams out there.
- Decide what to charge
When you first start out, you will have to take what you can get in order to build your portfolio. Make sure you do a good job and get recommendations and feedback from your clients so you can move on and charge what you think you deserve. Ask the client what they can afford or what their fee is before you go demanding your price though. And always make sure you get a contract.
- Don’t give up
Remember, nothing worth doing is easy, so get out there, try your best and you should be earning some cash in no time!
