Making Money Freelance Writing

The Writer's Digest Handbook of Making Money Freelance Writing, from the editors of Writer's Digest magazine, offers insight for writers seeking to turn to a freelance writing career.

For those starting out in the business, or those looking for inspiration from other freelance writers, this book offers information from various authors on how to keep the money flowing in; how to call an editor; guide to copyright, work for hire situations; the art of negotiation; how to make time for writing; beating taxes; work expenses and so on.

There are three sections in the book covering the above aspects and many more: Section 1- Conducting the Freelance Business, lists twenty-two articles on how to bring in the money, tips for the beginning freelancer, setting your rates, billing your clients, tax tips, making a full-time impression even though you are a part-time writer, and many more.

When I started my freelance career, the most important article to me in this section was, "Four Tips for Beginning Freelancers", by Liza Galin Asher.

In her article, Liza reveals some good tips for new freelancers to keep them on the right path. The first tip, Writing is a business, she talks about how freelancers are actually like salespeople only their ideas are their "products". This really is key to remember because if a freelancer doesn't work selling their written work, their talent and creativity will not be printed and thus, will go unnoticed. The more experience the freelancer gets in selling their work as well as writing it, they will become more proficient and will not have to focus so much on selling their work.

Think small and Local. Here Liza urges the freelancer to remember their goal is to get published and to jump to writing articles for big time magazines like Vanity Fair, or Vogue. Freelancers should start out writing for newspapers, trade newspapers and magazines in their neighborhood. It is good to start small and work your way up.