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How To Increase Your Rates and Earnings As a Freelance Writer

Copyright (c) 2013-2023

Freelance writers fill a very important role in today's business marketplace. They create the on-demand, customized content that business owners everywhere need to push their businesses forward.

The actual jobs might include writing copy for marketing brochures and flyers. Those jobs might also include creating white papers, newsletters, and articles for online and print publications. Other writing jobs might include ghost writing press releases, books or information products. Specific to the Internet, some folks might pay you to write product reviews, website copy, or blog posts.

I, for one, personally dabbled in writing for a number of years, until I realized that business owners and managers were willing to pay me to create content for them on-demand. I started creating articles that would be used by business owners to promote themselves online early in 2001. For the next decade, I earned a really nice living as a freelance ghost writer.

When I got started in this industry, there was no such thing as Elance.com, Odesk.com, or any of the myriad of other freelancing websites. I honestly believe that this was an advantage for me. I did not have to let someone else tell me how much I could earn as a writer. I had the freedom to test prices and marketing strategies to see what was really possible for the average writer.

By no means do I consider myself to be the average writer, but during my years in the freelance ghost writing industry, I hired hundreds of writers to work for me, to help me create content for my clients.

I have worked with wannabe writers, average writers, and the extraordinary writers who made me look really good.

Just so that we are clear, my definition of a wannabe writer is someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money, without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to their clients or readers.



Your Clients Should Profit From Your Work

Let me be perfectly clear at this point. Businesses are in business to generate a profit.

Regardless of what your customers pay you to do your work, they should be able to earn a profit on the work that you do on their behalf.

When I was much younger, I worked in the restaurant industry. My managers worked hard to meet prescribed cost formulas that basically broke down to something in the neighborhood of 30% labor costs, 30% food costs, and 30% fixed overhead costs.

In order to keep my job when working in the restaurant industry, I basically needed to create a minimum of $3.30 in earnings for every $1 I earned on my paycheck.

The same principle applies when you are working as a freelance writer. You must provide the kind of content that will help your employer earn a profit, or the employer will replace you with someone who can.

In order to help your employer profit from the work that you create on their behalf, there are two questions to which you must understand the answer, before you sit down to write:

1. Who is the target audience? and

2. What goal does your employer want to accomplish with the written work?

To put this into perspective, I do a lot of article marketing. My goal from the article is not to sell a product or service. Instead, my goal is inform my reader and to lead him/her to take a specific action at the conclusion of the article. The action I want most of my readers to take is to click a link that I have included in the "About The Author" section following my article.

Other employers might have different goals and a different measure of success, so it is important for you to ask and answer these questions before you begin your work.



Distinguish Yourself From The Wannabe

As I stated previously, my definition of a wannabe writer is someone who looks at writing as an easy way to make money, without any real concern for the quality of work they deliver to their clients or readers.

One of the easiest way to distinguish yourself from the wannabe's is to charge rates that are more consistent with a living wage. Figure out how much you want to earn "per hour", figure out how much time it will take you to do the job, then charge rates consistent with your target numbers.

Another method to set yourself apart from the wannabe writer is to provide real writing samples to prospective clients, without resorting to giving away your work for free.

Far too often, talented writers will provide "free samples" to people who turn out to never have wanted to hire anyone at all. "Prospective customers" take the free samples and then promptly disappear, leaving the writer full of false hope.

Real buyers simply want to know that you are capable of doing the job you have advertised to do. They don't want you to work for free. They just want to see samples of what you have done for others, to at least get an idea of what you are capable of doing for them.

Instead of giving stuff away for free to people who will probably never ever buy from you, take some time and care to write an assortment of "samples" in advance to share with those who might want to see some writing samples from you.



Believe In Your Marketing

You should have confidence in what you do, and you should have confidence in the value that you are capable of producing for your clients.

When your confidence exists and it is unshakeable, people will sense that in your writing advertisement and your communications with them.

Business people honestly want to work with other professionals, in this case writers, and people who can deliver the kinds of materials the business can use for its profit.

The first step is to advertise yourself and give prospective clients confidence in your ability to do the job they need done. Then, you must deliver a product that your clients are happy to keep buying.



One Final Piece of Advice

A lot of new freelance writers make the mistake of believing that if they offer their writing services for cheap early on, then once they have proven themselves to their clients, they will be able to raise their rates to something that is more consistent with what they would like to earn.

However, with more than a decade of experience behind me, I learned that every time I increased my prices, I would lose 90% of my clients, and I would have to basically start building a brand new customer list from scratch.

People don't like change, and they especially do not like price increases.

If you still want to offer limited discounts to attract new customers, then do so at your own risk.

Your results might be different from mine. But personally, I would rather give discounts to people who spend a lot of money with me, than to give discounts to people who have never spent money with me and may never spend money with me again.




About The Author: Shop Amazon - Top Gift Ideas
If you are a talented and committed professional writer, I need your help. I need freelance ghost writers, who are willing to offer their writing services to the people shopping at my freelance writers marketplace. Learn more about what I offer to writers here: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/launch_news.php Then get signed up for free and start selling your writing services to my customers. My name is Bill Platt, and I am the owner of: http://FreelanceWritersReview.com/

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Top-Level Category: Business Online Articles || Related Categories: Writing and Speaking Articles and Business Offline Articles

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