Tips to Jump-Start Your Writing Portfolio

When you first begin your freelance writing career, you may find it difficult to land writing jobs. Yes, you may be able to write well, but the problem is your experience. Without a writing portfolio many companies may not take a chance by hiring you. In fact, if you try to gain "exposure" by offering your services for free, companies may even turn that offer down. Michael Kwan just recently blogged about this. In Michael's blog entry, he shared his own experience about what it was like when he first started searching Craigslist for writing jobs. As he discussed his experience, he told his readers how he didn't have much of a writing portfolio at that time. He went on to say, " I even offered to write for free in exchange for some 'exposure,' but without a proper portfolio of work and a series of satisfied customers, they (the companies posting the writing jobs) weren't prepared to take a chance on me."

Maybe you've found yourself in the same position that Michael once found himself in, or maybe you haven't started responding to writing jobs yet. Either way, you'll soon discover you will need a writing portfolio to really succeed in landing a good writing job. Have no fear, though, because this article will give you some tips to help you build the writing portfolio you need.

The first step to building a professional writing portfolio is to decide on the topics you want to write about -- topics you'll soon be considered an "expert" on. We veteran freelance writers will say, "Write what you know"... and you should. However, in addition to writing what you know, you should study and research topics that you have an interest in -- topics you want to know more about. Doing both these will give you a good selection of things to write about, and you should enjoy what your writing, because you'll be writing about the things you know and love as well as the things you want to know more about.