Writers’ Blog

It’s sometime back when I joined some webmasters’ forums, as being a writer it’s very crucial for one to explore the arenas of Webmasters’ world not only because you learn a lot from there but there lies a good market as well. The market, however, largely depends on how you explore, what you come up with and how you manage to get into a specific market.

I’ve been observing the Content areas of almost all forums and found a very interesting thing there both at buyers and writers’ end. A tread titled as “Looking For a Copywriter” when explored was requiring a writer to write some articles. Similarly a thread with the title “Experienced Copywriter For Hire” was telling the details of article writing services of the poster.

This is what made me curious to explore more and more, and the statistics I’ve come up with state that out of 10 threads with ‘copywriting’ in their title 9 were about content writing. I agree, most of the webmasters do not know the difference between two types of writings but why don’t such writers.

Forums’ markets for article writers is very well known for $0.01/word article and some writers even charge less than a cent. So if you’re looking for the reason why forums are such low paying writers’ markets, you won’t find a reason better than the one mentioned above.

Just curious to know, are you a content writer or a copywriter?

The opportunities in the field of Freelance writing are the ultimate driving force for people to pursue a career in it, but just like any other profession the opportunities in freelance writing are subjected to a list of challenges. So in order to avoid a fall through in your freelance writing career it’s of utmost importance to take a start from sound grounds. In order to hold sway the career is more pragmatic and start thinking about the requirements and your potentials from all possible angles.

With the variation in nature, attitude, interests, areas of expertise, and experiences of different individuals, the objectives and the goals also vary. This is the reason that one freelance writer projects his future position at a level different than the other, and of course the differences in the opportunities and the situations also play a sound role determining the success or failure of the individual. Some general principles can, however, be equally important for all freelance writers who are standing at the very threshold of their career and for those as well who are in the middle. These principles are as follows:

• Be honest to your work and the skills, i.e. select the areas where you’ve good command or if not then you’re willing to opt a research-oriented approach for acquiring excellence.
• Always be open to learning and avail the learning opportunities in the form of writing courses or workshops etc.
• Practice makes a man perfect so it does to a writer. Write more and more, i.e. do not write extensive without keeping a check on the quality, instead write, check it, point out week areas and in next writing avoid those flaws.
• Develop your portfolio, so that you can show clips of your work on demand. Building portfolio is, however, not an overnight deal, it needs a sufficient time frame to get developed. Developing an impressive portfolio is to have a foot in the door of freelance writing and can be efficiently managed by participating in online communities and also by submitting some of your write ups in local magazines and newspapers Probably you won’t get paid for those, but the magic they will do gives you with increasing rate of return.
• Make best use of Internet; do not waste time chatting, but studying the field and increasing your social circle by forumming and interacting with professionals.

Tips can only serve as mere guidelines; nothing can be done until someone starts it. And no ‘someone’ will help you starting your freelance writing career but you yourself, so just do it.

Freelance writing is an art as well as a science. Not every writer can be categorized as a ‘professional freelance writer’ and the main reason behind this is professionalism itself. How can this professionalism be maintained is a matter of great concern for one if he/she wants to develop his/her freelance writing career on sound grounds as the increasing number of freelance writers round the world have made it even money. Thinking on pragmatic track it should be realized at very first instance that muddling through doesn’t work within a professional environment so start working being realistic and in accordance with the market demands.

Being a professional freelance writer one needs to ferret out all information about the market demands, work patterns, communication styles, building an impressive portfolio and above all representation of all these in a suitable way. Another fact that cannot be ignored is that becoming a professional freelance writer is not an overnight phenomenon: it needs parallel time and exploration of opportunities, meeting a variety of challenges and developing a unique style.

On the other hand when one needs a freelance writer, he must ensure the professionalism so that the project can be done at its best with desired results. Though it’s a bit time consuming but if one knows about the qualities of professional freelance writers, it gets quite easy to figure them out from the massive list. Let’s sum up such qualities in only five. These are as follows:

1- Professional freelance writers maintain an impressive portfolio by keeping it updated, and hence can provide sample of their previous work anytime.

2- Attitude determines the professionalism in any field so it does in freelance writing. It gives the first impression to the client.

3- It’s part of professionalism to listen to your client in order to know what he wants to get done. So listen with third ear that means reading between the lines.

4- Listening alone cannot always work, and work cannot be done professionally until all the requirements are very well known to the writer, so asking questions becomes a compulsion in this situation. And in normal context asking questions gives clear picture of the demand to the writer.

5- Everything becomes fine when you get your efforts’ worth, and of course in terms of pricing your services. Price is basically determined on the basis of quality of the work and the level of effort needed for a particular project to be done. A Professional writer may be an expensive one but will give the client an extended sales and a marketing boost in return, which as compared to the price he pays is definitely much more.