An increasing number of people do make at least some money from freelance writing, whether that is for print or for the web. Success in the freelance world is largely a matter of attitude and of course some level of writing skills.
If you think that freelancing will make you rich over night, forget it. You can certainly make a tolerable living as a freelance writer, but it takes time, and it takes a lot of work with little return. If you love writing these things won't matter much because you will keep going until you break through.
Freelancing is not an easy way of life but it can be very satisfyong and a lot of fun - providing you put in the work first. If you think freelancing is for everyone then I would have to disagree, but if you're serious and you love writing then you might want to look at the tips below.
Whether you're a stay at home mum who needs to add something to the family budget, or you have a full time job that you are looking to give up and get on with writing, there are a number of things that will help you to get started on what you really want to do.
If you don't already have a blog, then get on over to blogger and start a free one. A blog helps you to get into the habit of writing on a regular basis, and it's a way of getting your writing noticed. When you post something to your blog then get it on feedburner, this publisizes your blog and makes it available to a wider audience.
Read other people's blogs and if you enjoyed the post then leave a comment, not just like the blog, but something related to what you have read. When you comment leave a link back to your own blog. Once you have a number of posts up, then you have somewhere that prospective clients may go to see your writing style.
Whether you write about writing or you have some other reasonably defined niche such as parenting or computer problems, write some articles and submit them to article directories with a link back to your blog and a sentence or so offering your services. Try to submit at least one or two articles a week to three or four directories. Some people may click on your link and want to know more about what you are offering; many won't.
Article writing and submission has three major benefits, people clicking on your link and visiting your blog, a more visible web presence because these things may come up if they relate to a person's search terms, you will have some work that you can point prospective clients to when they ask to see some work - don't ever write free samples, a lot of writers get scammed with that one. Some people will take the article that you have written, along with any written by others and they've got most of their project work for free.
Head on over to digital point which is a forum for webmasters, bloggers, and freelance writers. Get engaged with some of the topics, once your profile gets known you can look at some of the 'writers wanted' posts. Many of these will only be offering 1cent a word, sometimes less, but the 1 cent a word stuff is ok when you are trying to get started.
There are plenty of people on the web wbo ask for other people to write a guest blog. Off your services when you see this, you don't get paid but you do get a lot more exposure.
Join some of the social networks such as blog catalog and blogsvine. You submit your blogs and other people can read them, you can read and comment on the work of others. You can get a fair bit of traffic that way, which gives your blog a higher profile, and more likely to be read by people who want someone to write for them.
Once you have done all of the above you will have made some useful contacts, got your work known, and hopefully have found a paying job or two. When the work starts to come in this will give you a lot of satisfaction, but you can't rest on your laurels if you're trying to kickstart your freelance writing business. The final thing that you should do is join something like Get a Freelancer, where freelancers bid for work, most of the jobs on offer are very low paying, but you do find them with reasonable pay. I have found that Digital Point is a good source. If people are happy with the writing you do for them, not only will they give you a visible rating, they may recommend you to others on the forum.
There are any number of winning ways to kickstart your freelance writing business, make a start with these five and let me know a few I might have missed.