20 Special tips for Freelancer

Whether you’re moonlighting as a writer or it’s your sole source of income, you must take it seriously in all aspects, from workplace organization to work habits to professional development to marketing to client relations. Here’s some advice about succeeding as a professional writer:
1. Establish a professional work environment. Even if you don’t have a dedicated home office, set up your workspace to maximize your comfort and productivity, with equipment, supplies, and reference works well organized and handy. Impress on family and friends the importance of respecting your space and your time. (Working at home is a much more familiar concept than it used to be, but some people still don’t consider freelancing a real job).
2. Research reasonable compensation for your particular market niche or for the media in which you want to be published, and ask for it. If you’re just starting out, negotiate at the low end of the range. When you’ve reached a certain level of success, expect high-end compensation. Don’t waste your time on projects that pay little or nothing unless the topic or the client has some special meaning for you. Accepting meager pay depresses the freelance industry. But be realistic about your monetary worth in a highly competitive business.
3. Educate yourself about marketing, negotiation, and general communication skills to help build confidence when it comes time to submitting queries, discussing compensation, and corresponding during and between projects.
4. Develop the discipline to do the hardest or least pleasant tasks first and save the best for last. You may have a hard time getting started each day, but you’ll be glad you got the difficult work out of the way, and the day will only get better.
5. If you devote a certain amount of time to working each day but you temporarily have too little work to fill it, spend the rest of the time researching your next clients or projects and writing and submitting queries.
6. Treat all your correspondence as if it were an assignment: Write impeccably, with no content or factual errors. Double-check personal names, job titles, and company names before you type them.
7. Keep meticulous records when tracking submissions and responses, scheduling assignment timelines, and updating contact information.
8. Advertise using strategies old and new, from flyers and newspaper ads to online marketing and your own professional Web site. But don’t wait for work to come to you. In addition to researching national or international companies, organizations, and publications you’d like to write for, investigate local opportunities such as community-based nonprofit organizations.