How to Rock Freelance Writing: A Rage Against the Manuscript guide

By Steff Metal

• Want to earn money from your writing in a way that's fast, fun, and reliable? 
• Are you excited to build a brand as an expert in your niche?
• Are you ready to take the plunge to writing full-time, but don't know where to begin?

 

In How to Rock Freelance Writing, bestselling author, veteran freelancer, and publishing coach Steff Green shows you how to slay the competition, find clients, pitch editors, and build a badass author brand – all with the goal of getting you paid for your words.

 

As a freelance writer you'll learn how to:

• Define your measure of success and set attainable goals.
• Choose the types of freelance writing that appeal to you.
• Use the 7-step method to generate ideas, create articles, and sell more words for more money.
• Land the best gigs with your dream publications and clients with clever pitching and insider tips.
• Sell one piece of writing over again to triple your income.
• Research, plan, write, and format different types of articles for print and web.
• Write faster, get recurring work from existing clients, and enjoy what you create.
• Find (and win) the most lucrative freelance jobs before they're even advertised.
• Double your income with simple hacks.
• Create an engaging platform to offer your own products and services.
• Find unique and emerging opportunities in freelancing to build your audience and earn a living.
• Build a sustainable long-term income as a freelance writer.
• PLUS, get 60 writing prompts to inspire ideas for your first freelance piece.

 

Steff breaks down the 7-step process that's seen her go from failed archaeologist and obscure music blogger to a successful freelancer and USA Today bestseller with a six-figure income. With dozens of examples and real-talk from her own career, Steff shows how imagination, creativity, and perseverance can help you achieve your writing dreams. 

How to Rock Freelance Writing isn't just a book about selling articles to magazines or working with clients, it's about grabbing your dreams by the balls, living faster, harder and louder, and cranking your art up to 11.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rage Against The Manuscript
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780995142442

Book preview

Chapter One

You want to earn money as a freelance writer but you don’t know where to begin…

You’re not alone.

In 2007, I was thinking the exact same thing. I had just finished my archaeology degree and discovered – perhaps I should have seen this coming – no company was going to hire a blind archaeologist.

That’s OK, I decided. "I’ve had a great time digging in the mud, cleaning rocks and studying artifacts. I’ve been on several digs, worked in a lab, been a museum curator… I’ve done archaeology. It’s time to explore something else."

But what to pursue? I needed to earn a living somehow, and I’m the type of person that needs to at least enjoy what I’m doing. All my life I’d followed my passions on to adventures – that’s how I roll. When I looked at everything else I enjoyed – all the hobbies and interests and passions that held sway over me – I kept coming back to one thing: writing.

I wanted to write.

I had just returned from an incredible overseas adventure and wanted a career that facilitated many, many more such adventures. I wanted to get cracking. I wanted to write everything I had put off in university. By the Gods, I just wanted to write.

And (this is important), I wanted people to pay me to write.

I had no idea of how to begin. I didn’t even know how writers earned money or if they even did. But I’m nothing if not an optimist, so I simply began.

I sat down at my computer and started writing all the stuff inside my head – I finished my vampire novel, I wrote pages of terrible poetry, I wrote snippets of articles, ideas for websites, pages of my memoir (who wants to read the memoir of a twenty-year old? What was I thinking?), and many more useless attempts at writing something that could earn me a living. I got a boring office job, and every day while I twiddled my thumbs waiting for stuff to do, I spewed out words like a cat who’d eaten too much foliage.

As a classic Millennial, I Googled, How to Make Money as a Writer and tried everything Google suggested. I learned about pitching magazines, writing query letters, and the difference between journalism and copywriting. I discovered novel writers might struggle for years to get a publishing deal, and even if they did it probably wouldn’t pay the bills, so many writers used freelancing and copywriting work as a way to build a sustainable career.

I figured if I started writing and set the goal that I wanted to be paid, the money would eventually follow. It sort of did. A couple of months after I decided I was going to give this writing thing a go, I sold my first short story to an Australian short story anthology and received a check for $50. Not the millions I had hoped for, but a definite, positive start.

I was rather stoked with that $50 check. But, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t like writing short stories all that much, and I could see it was never going to pay the bills. Instead, I got hooked on the idea of writing for magazines.

I love reading magazines. I subscribe to online periodicals and devour the glossies at the supermarket checkout. I love the snazzy writing, the short snippets of articles, the creative layouts, and all the pretty pictures. Did I want my name in there? You bet I did!

So I wrote a few more articles, got a few more little checks (the first one was $10.50), and months and years went by and I pitched bigger publications and got slightly bigger checks. And after a few years, I started craving work I could do regularly, month after month, which led me to copywriting and blog post writing for companies. This regular freelance writing work enabled me to take some mad crazy risks with my writing business, some of which paid off.

One of those risks was self-publishing my first novel in 2014. I’d already done a few experiments with self-publishing (I’ve had a PDF wedding planning guide online for several years). Self-publishing fiction turned out to be one of the most incredible, life-changing decisions I’ve made. Now, I’m a USA Today bestselling author with a six-figure income.

I still do a little freelance work, but I’m much pickier about what I write about and who I write for. You’ll hear more about my freelance writing career throughout this book, so I won’t bore you with the story now. I’ll never forget how freelance writing taught me how to run my own business, how to value my work, and enabled me to quit my day job and transition into a full-time fiction author.

As a freelancer, I worked on everything from website content for a gothic corset company and blog posts on disability issues to ebooks on business tips for tech startups. I met incredible editors, publishers, and business owners – many of whom I’ve stayed in contact with over the years, and who have supported me as I’ve transitioned into a fiction author and publishing teacher.

Freelance writing isn’t just awesome for writers; it can be a valuable marketing tool for any small business. If you want to be seen as a kickass expert in your niche, if you’re a non-fiction author wanting to grow your audience, then credits from well-known publications or blog posts on reputable websites say to your customers, I know my shit, so follow me. If your work involves getting your message out to more people, you might as well get paid while you’re at it.

(For example, an early reader of this book runs a beautiful handmade artisan soap company. She competes against numerous other soap companies, both in her local area and online. She used the ideas in this book to pitch articles for magazines and to her local newspaper. She now has regular columns on a craft blog and a local organic living magazine – she’s paid to write about what she loves, and she gets in front of audiences that adore her products.)

Articles I’ve written have led to more work. If you can get in the door at a publication and you do a good job, it’s much easier to get future pieces accepted. Plus, you never know who is reading or talking about you. Once, I wrote two articles for a dude who was working on a local startup, and although I didn’t get paid much for the work and the guy wound up closing his startup soon after, he told a friend about me. That friend worked at a much-larger startup as a marketing manager, and when he was charged with putting together a team for a new product, he called me. Those two articles I wrote ended up being the doorway to my first day job in the tech industry.

Freelance writing can be a stepping-stone to a book deal, or a TV spot, or a million other exciting opportunities you haven’t yet contemplated. I am constantly amazed at the awesome people and cool opportunities open to me because I’ve chosen writing as a career.

So, are you ready to give freelance writing a go? Let’s rock this.

Steff

Chapter Two

What Is this guide about?

If you’re reading this guide, I’m going to assume a few things about you:

You love to write.

You have some basic grasp of how to write well.

You love reading magazines, blogs, websites, ebooks, and other written media.

You think writing for these types of media would be fucking cool.

I’ve written this book for writers or small business owners in the position I was in back in 2007 – you know you want to get paid for writing, but you don’t know how to make that happen. Because I dig down into my methods, writers with some experience freelancing may also learn something. It’s often interesting to read about how other writers approach the craft and business of writing.

If you’re an expert freelancer with decades of experience behind you, this is probably not the guide for you. I’m not going to pretend I’m any kind of industry heavyweight – I’m just an industrious writer who has figured out how to make a living with words.

In a nutshell: this book will tell you how to get started writing articles for publications (magazines, blogs, websites, etc.), and then offer some tips on how to spin that work up into more lucrative contracts and business models so you can make a living with words.

Who am I to tell you how to do this? If you didn’t see my name on the book, I’m Steff Green, sometimes known as Steff Metal on account of my love of delightful Norwegian men in corpsepaint wandering around fairytale forests. Before I transitioned into mostly writing fiction, I’d written well over 3000 articles for publications and companies in print and online on topics as varied as writing, music, travel, relationships, business, productivity, and disability awareness. That work has led to incredible opportunities for me, including well-paid jobs, long-term freelance contracts, books and courses, podcast interviews, ghostwriting work, and more.

Freelance continues to be part of my career because I believe it’s a good idea for a writer without a boss to have her hand in as many pots as possible. It’s definitely a smaller part now, but when I add up what I still do on this side of things and where freelance has taken me, I’m surprised by how important it still is in my business (more on that later).

Although I do talk a bit about building a writing career as a freelancer, this guide does not give you a detailed plan to quit your day job and freelance full-time. For many writers, that’s not the point. I think it’s much more useful to give you the tips and tools to get started in freelance writing and let you decide how to shape your own career. Many people enjoy writing freelance simply to see their name in print, or to promote the brand or business or cause they’re passionate about. Others who want to write full time see freelancing as only a stepping stone toward a bigger goal. It’s important to try different types of writing and consider different career paths and figure out what’s right for you. The free in freelancing means you can design your writing life however you want.

I’ve had a wild ride as a writer and will continue that adventure for many years to come. I hope you can join me – and experience the thrill of seeing your byline on the front page of your favorite publication.

Chapter Three

Why do you want to be a freelance writer?

A very good question, and an excellent place to begin this book.

I’m a firm believer in giving life your absolute all. If you set your mind to do something, you can’t just half-ass it and then say, Well, it was bound to be a failure anyway, when you give up after not making a million dollars in the first week.

If you want to do something, you might as well knuckle down and do it (as long as you’re not hurting anyone or breaking any laws in the process). And if you’re going to do