Some random stuff on freelance writing...

After running an online writing business for almost one and a half years now, I've reached some sort of understanding on how to conduct a business online. Of course, the knowledge didn't come overnight and only after some pretty tense months when nothing much seemed to be happening. When I started out, the pay wasn't all that good but I was under the impression I was going to become a millionaire overnight (yep, them dollars are worth a lot in India). However, I had no business values to speak of whatsoever. No, I didn't go around scamming clients all over the place (I never have actually) but I had a pretty lax attitude to deadlines, with some ridiculous ideas to boot.

One of my most exciting moments was when I had this client offer me a job to write 200 articles on acne for round about $800 in around 10 days. Might not sound much (or it might just) to the average d00d in US, but it translates into around 36,000 bucks over at my place. Thirty six thousand can enable to you live in luxury for a couple of months without bothering with work again. So I sat down to work, churned out 20 articles a day non stop and finally finished the entire batch. Somewhere along the line, a warning sign did pop up in my head that the amount was huge, maybe I should ask for an advance. I did, half of the amount, but I received only $200. Well, my newbie self was pretty satisfied with it and thought the fellow was damn trustworthy and all that. Up till the time I was working on it, the guy was the epitome of friendliness but as soon as I delivered the entire batch, he blocked me on MSN and stopped responding to all mails. Next morning, I came back to find the $200 had been disputed. Eventually though, I managed to recover the money after giving proof to PayPal but the money was a pittance compared to the amount of work I had put in and frankly speaking, I was pissed.

I've read all over DigitalPoint of buyers getting ripped off by writers coming up with some really crap material. Sure, I sympathize with you, but it's really your fault. If you assign work to people who respond to your job requirements with "heyz, i cn write d artilce fr u, pm me", then rest assured, your articles are going to look similar. Actually, both writers as well as clients need to have a sort of screening process in their mind whenever they accept or give a job to someone.

Firstly, remember that the first impression is the last impression. Anything less than a perfect opening mail should be rejected straight away (barring the odd typo). If you're serious about your work, you'll send nothing less than a perfect opening mail. Secondly, one needs to get a good "vibe" from the other side. I personally always go with whoever feels right. They need to be polite, helpful and cooperative. But then, I've been burnt once by a client who was perfectly cooperative and then disappeared after delivery. Moral of the story? Go with someone who has an established reputation, be it a buyer or a seller. A client who treats you like his personal servant or with disdain needs to be told to stuff it, to be honest. I haven't really ever done it, except for this one occasion. And it felt good. Anyways, I'm digressing from the topic. Onwards with what a client wants:

Be on time

I can't stress this aspect enough. One thing I've realized after doing business for almost two years is that nothing puts a client off than being late. Many writers get away by constantly giving excuses but don't be fooled, your client isn't taking it very nicely even though he might not be showing it. I've lost a LOT of clients because I had a really lax attitude towards deadlines. A seven day deadline often became ten days. I kept him informed during the entire time, but then, I sensed he wasn't too happy even though he kept saying that it wasn't a problem. Keep to your deadlines. Your clients might never tell you outright to fuck off, but you'll notice they'll avoid your queries for more work by telling you its all allotted or none is available. Some will give you another try but will completely stop all communication after a while. You might not realize it's because of the deadline at first, neither did I, but after I sat down one day and recalled all my old clients, I realized I'd missed deadlines on all the ones who weren't currently giving me work. The odd deadline can be missed, provided you inform early and not on the last minute. That however, is more of an exception than the norm.

Proofread well

Boy oh boy, this one is as important any other. Your clients are probably people owning websites and the last thing they want on their hands is a shoddy article with grammatical errors and typos. Heck, nothing irritates me more than reading a bad article and I can't imagine how blue the other guy gets. Whether you write yourself or proofread, read each and every word very carefully. One of the most common mistakes with proofreading is to check only the quality of content and not the grammar and spelling. It's important to read every sentence separately to weed out mistakes. Proofreading is harder and more important than most people give it credit for. If you keep on making silly mistakes, the time lost in editing your article is probably too much for the client and he'll just move on to someone who can provide flawless articles. He pays for a good article and it's your basic responsibility to ensure your article is at least free of grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Build a rep

You're going to have a terribly hard time finding good new clients if you don't establish some sort of a reputation. Maybe you've worked with some big sites, have blog posts or anything which can show you can do your job well. Have a personal site talking about yourself and have samples of your work ready. You can even sign up at DigitalPoint or WarriorForums or WickedFire for that matter. You can build an online reputation by using the iTrader system there. It's a system which allows buyers and sellers to leave feedback about each others' services and can serve as a decent barometer of a client or writers ability (but not always). Once your rep is built up, you'll probably never have a shortage of work, even turning down clients on a regular basis. You see, the thing nobody tells you is that most writing gigs aren't advertised on forums or notice boards. Your rep spreads by word of mouth or by what clients can see of your work. Do your homework well, and you'll have clients come to you instead of the other way around.

I don't really have any more tips. Be on time, proofread well and have a decent online rep and you can probably apply for and bag any job you want and make long time clients as well. Probably a lot more to it, but that's all I can think of in a nutshell.