How To Get Hired As A Freelance Writer With No Experience

Either you are a beginner and want to get started with a writing career, or you want to get hired as a freelance writer on freelancing platforms.

In both cases, this guide is equally enough to assist you.

The reason is that I have been in writing for years as a writer and as an employer.

Here is an overview of my writing journey.

I have written dozens of blogs, got featured in well-reputed magazines, got hired by Hostgator for a project, and inspired many companies with quality work.

On the other hand, I have hired many business blogs writers. In the process, I met hundreds of writers. A time came when the first email or bid was enough to reject 90% of the writers.

And it was not for no reason.

I found many reasons why employers don’t even want to respond to most freelance writers. And it was not the writer’s Experience most of the time.

Employers are always ready to hire freelance writers with no experience. Because they can easily agree to charge less than those who already have many projects in the queue.

So if you learn to avoid the basic reasons, you can easily get hired as a freelance writer with no experience.

Here is the biggest lesson I can give you to easily get hired as a freelance writer and get paid.

You don’t need 5 stars and thousands of completed projects in your portfolio, you just need to be the right person for the project. That’s enough to get the writing job.

Well, it’s not easy to qualify for a project. Being the right person is a tough job.

I have explained the whole process in two steps and discussed being the right person in the first one.

Here are the two steps to getting hired as a content creator and getting paid.

  1. Sharpen the saw
  2. Pitch the right people

Sharpen the saw

Frankly speaking, creating content isn’t hard.

There is no myth about producing great content. It can be stories, comedy, blogs, reviews, and copywriting. No matter which type of content it is, every person can write content if he prepares it well.

Here is the shortcut to becoming a successful writer.

Work hard the right way, and you will succeed for sure.

In writing, the most important thing is hard work. The problem is that people don’t want to work hard, and that’s why they are rejected by any sensible employer.

I have worked with many writers, their writing style was acceptable but they were not ready to work hard.

For instance, a couple of months ago, I hired a few writers for writing amazon affiliate reviews blogs. I told them everything, what to do, and how to do it. But in the end, they were not even familiar with the product.

How one can afford to pay for such content?

No one does.

So the first step to getting hired as a freelance writer is to get prepared for it.

Let me break it down into a few easy steps to make you understand how to get prepared even before pitching to employers.

Choose the niche

The first step in becoming an appealing writer is to become an expert in any field.

There are dozens of in-demand niches. It’s way much better to choose two or three niches to work on.

Because people want to hire experts in the fields. They don’t want to waste their money on people who don’t even understand the topic.

If you are not an expert, you can’t impress the employer.

It’s pretty easy for an employer to judge if a writer has a grip on the topic or not.

For example, if someone wants to hire a writer for writing digital marketing or SEO topics. If you don’t know the basics of SEO or digital marketing and you are pitching him, how can you be acceptable to them?

So what you can do in that case?

If a writer acquaints well with the basics of any topic, it’s enough to catch employers’ eyes for a while.

For writing on SEO topics, if you have read on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO at a basic level, you can easily grab the attention.

So if you want to get hired as a writer, you should learn the niche at a basic level, at least.

You can’t learn all the niches, it’s better to dig deep into a few in-demand niches.

You can easily search for in-demand niches by searching on Google, and by exploring some other freelancing platforms.

Here are some in-demand content types.

  1. Blog posts
  2. Ebooks
  3. Video script writing
  4. Copywriting
  5. Ghostwriting

Here are some high-paying niches.

  1. Personal finance
  2. Blockchain
  3. Marketing
  4. Technology

There are definitely some other high-paying content types and niches, I have mentioned a few of them. If you have found a different thing, that’s totally okay to go for it.

Learn how to write

A few days ago, I was looking for a niche writer. I met someone who had spent years in the relevant industry. The only problem with that guy was that he had no idea how to write blog posts.

I realized that he can be a valuable asset if he spends a little time learning how to write blog posts.

If you can write content, that’s not enough. Every content type has a different writing style, and if you don’t follow the techniques, you can’t win the race.

So the other important step is to learn how experts write content in that niche.

For instance, if you are in marketing, you should truly understand the AIDA model and storytelling. If you don’t follow AIDA it’s hard to grab the attention of the readers or convince them to buy the product.

Become an expert

As I mentioned earlier, people want to hire experts. They are even willing to pay a little extra to the experts because it will be worth the money.

Frankly speaking, you don’t need to become an expert in the field to become an expert writer.

If you want to get into the marketing niche you don’t need a marketing degree or years of work experience. You can be an expert writer with pretty fewer effort.

It’s even true for technical writers (most of the time).

The only thing that does matter in writing is the use of appropriate words. You can easily learn all the appropriate words within a few days or weeks.

Here is how to do it.

For instance, you want to learn about computers, and you want to feel the employer that you have a grip on computers.

Here is how to do it.

  • Learn the specifications of computers
  • Learn how do specifications play their role?
  • Learn what specifications matter the most in different industries?
  • What are advanced technologies involved in computers?

Once you have read tens of articles on the topics, you can easily discuss computers, even with experts.

No one can even imagine that you don’t belong to the industry. Once you will pitch to the employer you can speak with confidence about the topic.

Keep in mind that it’s just the beginning of becoming an expert. Once you will start working on different topics, you will always find new information, and you will keep growing over a period of time.

If you didn’t find anything new about a topic, you didn’t research well.

Work on your communication skills

Communication skills play a significant role in any industry. If you want to excel in any field, you need great communication skills.

Even you are an expert in the field and you failed to present yourself, all in vain.

So after becoming an expert in the field, the next big thing is to learn communication skills.

It won’t take much time to learn it. You can even enroll in a course on Udemy or Coursera. Otherwise, learn it free on Youtube.

As it’s not a communication skills post, so we can’t discuss all of them, but here is one of the biggest lessons I have ever learned for great communication skills.

Always discuss the value

First of all, try to understand that someone wants to hire you to solve a problem the right way.

Unless you don’t understand what’s the problem and how they want you to solve it, you can’t win their hearts.

So raise valuable questions to understand the problem.

Your goal should be to understand what do they want to achieve from your writings?

Once you are clear, and you believe that you can do it, make them believe that you can do it the right way.

Discuss the value they will get at the end.

Instead of discussing the price, discuss what they will achieve with your content. How your content will be beneficial for them in the longer, and why the user will be satisfied with your content.

In this way, you can convince them to hire you and pay you higher than most of your competitors.

Offer your services in an affordable price range

Once you are done with everything discussed earlier, now the only thing that can stop you from being hired as a freelance writer is your price.

If you believe that as you have read hundreds of articles on a topic, dozens of books in the field, and attended workshops, so you should charge much higher, you will lose many clients.

On the hand, if you are good at writing, you can deliver what they want from you, and you charge a little extra from all other writers, you will surely get hired.

It’s true that no one wants to hire expensive freelance writers. If they want expensive stuff, they will reach out to well-known experts instead of trying new writers or less experienced writers.

Thus offering an affordable price will make the employer greedy to hire you on priority.

Prepare your portfolio

Say you are done with everything, and you are pitching a company or person as a freelance writer.

What will they ask you in the beginning?

They will ask you for a sample because they want to see if you are the right person.

The sample doesn’t mean if you have already written hundreds of articles, it can be even one article published anywhere on the web.

If you are pitching a company, the best way is to understand the company goals, write at least one article on the topic they are interested in, and get it published on any well-reputed website.

If no one is accepting your content, you can publish it on Medium.

It’s also true that many editors find writers on Medium as well. So it will also give you the opportunity to reach out to magazines editors through the medium.

You can also show it as your portfolio to any company/individual you reach out to.

If we sum up all, we can answer one of the frequently asked questions.

How long does it take to become a freelance writer?

If you go through all the processes to become an expert writer in any field, it will take up to 30 days to become an expert freelance writer.

If you don’t want to become an expert writer, you can improve your communication skills and become a freelance writer within a week.

Also, the age doesn’t matter. If you are a teenager and you have a sound grip on the language and the topic, you can excel in the market.

Pitch the right people

Once everything is ready, the next big thing is to reach out to the right people.

There are two ways to reach out to the right guys to get hired.

  • Freelancing platforms
  • Businesses in your industry

Freelancing platforms

There are many freelancing platforms where businesses and individuals hire freelance writers. If you want to work as a freelance writer, you can join all of the platforms and start bidding on the projects.

Here are some popular sites to get hired as a freelance writer.

Businesses in your industry

The next easy way to get a writer’s job is to reach out to the right businesses in your area.

At least some businesses always need valuable writers.

If you could convince them with your skills, it will be enough for you to stick to some companies.

My friend Elizabeth is romantic stories writer. She is working for a few clients for years.

Your friends and fellows can also help you get hired as a freelance writer.

If they are working with some clients or businesses for different projects, they can introduce you as a writer. If there is any vacancy for a writer, they will surely prefer you instead of finding any freelance writer in the market.

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