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I’ve been itching to write something today but this heat (triple digits!) and humidity gunk up my imagination/thought process. So I’m perusing the many writing tips I save in my Writing Tips folder, hoping to find some noteworthy tidbits for you. This is what I managed to patch together:

Guest Blogging

Do you guest blog? Do you have guest bloggers on your site? Guest blogging is a great way to increase your exposure, give you access to a larger audience and increase traffic to your own site. Likewise, having guest bloggers on your site adds credibility and again increases traffic to your site. Win-win. If you’re the guest blogger, be sure to familiarize yourself with the host’s guidelines and don’t miss your deadline – that’s a surefire way to not be invited back. Have a nice professional picture you can post with the blog; readers like to see who’s writing what. If you’re the host, make sure to lay out clear guidelines regarding what to blog about, the length of the post, etc.

Niche Freelance Work

It can be difficult to find a good niche these days but with a little homework you can find areas where you have the best chance of finding work (and earn money). While it’s good to write blogs/copy on topics that interest you, profit (you get paid) and demand (this area needs better coverage so there’s plenty of work) may lead you to write on topics or on sites you haven’t considered. With a little research, a good writer can create good copy on almost any subject and it could lead you to a regular, lucrative niche freelance gig. (That means money in the bank on a regular basis.)

One of the places I see a (desperate) need for good copy is on Indeed, the online job search site. It’s obvious after reading pages of job posts that the people writing copy for their companies are clearly not writers. One idea is to copy and paste poorly written job ads to a Word document, make the necessary corrections, then email both the bad ad copy and the corrected ad copy to the company’s HR or hiring person and offer your services. Include a link to your site, your Upwork profile, wherever you’re listed. 

Some other areas that need good copy are: law/legal, insurance, financial markets, how-to topics, and employment (resumé writing, curriculum vitae, job ads).

Charging for Your Freelance Work

So how much should you charge? Are you writing only copy or do you edit as well? Do you have a degree in English/Journalism or in some other field where writing was mandatory (e.g., Psychology, medicine, criminal justice)? What is your experience? What you charge will depend on the body of work you’ve already created. If you’re just starting out, you’ll likely have to take those low-paying gigs, like on Upwork, where they pay $1-5 for 100-500 words.

• Do you edit or proofread? Proofreading is a type of editing, as are copy editing and content editing. I find myself automatically editing for spelling and grammar no matter what I’m reading (which is why I picked up on the idea of writing job ad copy since so many are written so poorly). Proofreading is the easiest of the three and I prefer to charge hourly. You can also charge by the word; Writer’s Market suggests you charge $3 per page for proofreading.
• Copyediting is about improving style, formatting and accuracy so experience in this area is key. You can do light (accuracy, grammatical issues), medium (correcting flow, reworking text) or heavy (restructure paragraphs, style, flow, and grammar) copy editing, depending on your abilities. Writer’s Market suggests $4 per page for copy editing.
• Content editing is more intensive; you will often have to add what was left out or rewrite whole sections. Because this is a higher level of editing, Writer’s Market suggests $7.50 per page.

Miranda Marquit, an experienced editor, gives this advice: If you’re just starting out as an editor, you can charge around $20 per hour. An experienced content editor can charge as much as $50 to $85 an hour. Once you have established yourself as a proofreader, you can charge $25 to $35 an hour.

Write on!

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