Part of our "Start a Successful Freelance Writing Career" Video series
( Read the transcript )
Get your foot in the door, then start writing about things you love. Maybe you have a degree in business management, but you have turned to a career in writing because you don't particularly enjoy working in a business management capacity. Even if you don't enjoy the business management sector, you undoubtedly have vast knowledge on the topic, so you might as well start out writing about related topics. If you can prove yourself as an efficient writer you will build up your résumé and get some bylines. You can then branch out
and apply for other writing jobs which interest you, and use your previous writing experience as proof that you can deliver a well-written piece.
Don’t fake it. It is one thing to take on a writing job about something which you are not entirely familiar with but you have the ability to research effectively. For example, you may not know much about choosing an air purifier, but with the abundance of research and marketing materials available makes it a relatively easy topic to tackle if you are hired to write general articles. It's another thing completely, however, if you fake credentials and lead an employer to believe that you have the credential necessary to write about something which you know absolutely nothing about. It becomes even more of an issue when the topic can be a possible liability issue for the organization you are writing for.
Consider this scenario: you are asked to compose an article regarding cash-out mortgage refinancing. You may not even own a home, let alone know much about taking equity out of the loan for cash. Instead of passing up on the job, however, you take it and do some quick research on the Internet. Since you do not have personal knowledge regarding mortgage products, you don't really know where to do your research so you just take the first website that pops up. Unfortunately for you, the website turns out to be an advertisement website for a less than scrupulous mortgage lender. You take all the information you need from this site, and therefore deliver an inaccurate article to the buyer which endorses a mortgage cash-out system that is generally not accepted as legitimate.
The best case scenario is that the buyer of the article recognizes the shady nature of the information in the article and gives you another chance to redeem yourself. A more likely scenario, however, is that the buyer recognizes the inaccuracy of your writing and decides to not use you as a writer anymore. The worst case scenario goes a little something like this: The buyer doesn't know anything about cash-out mortgage refinances either, so he or she takes your writing as accurate and valid and posts it on the website. A reader follows the advice in your article, winds up in a horrible financial situation - compliments of your shoddy advice - and winds up bringing legal action against both the publisher and you.
You can avoid nightmares like this by not accepting any writing jobs which are beyond your scope of expertise. Stay away from writing about medical, financial, and legal topics, unless you have the expertise and schooling to back up what you write about.
Tip: I once composed a series of financial tips for a website I work for. Since financial topics are a specialty of mine, I never thought to provide any type of references for the suggestions and advice I was writing. The editor, however, insisted that I find sources to backup everything I wrote because otherwise this made me personally liable for everything I said. That means that is a reader took my financial advice and it turned out badly, the reader could sue the website along with me personally. This was the first time I thought about something like this happening, but now I am always careful to only offer advice in my writing regarding things which I have the expertise to talk about.
Don’t fake it. It is one thing to take on a writing job about something which you are not entirely familiar with but you have the ability to research effectively. For example, you may not know much about choosing an air purifier, but with the abundance of research and marketing materials available makes it a relatively easy topic to tackle if you are hired to write general articles. It's another thing completely, however, if you fake credentials and lead an employer to believe that you have the credential necessary to write about something which you know absolutely nothing about. It becomes even more of an issue when the topic can be a possible liability issue for the organization you are writing for.
Consider this scenario: you are asked to compose an article regarding cash-out mortgage refinancing. You may not even own a home, let alone know much about taking equity out of the loan for cash. Instead of passing up on the job, however, you take it and do some quick research on the Internet. Since you do not have personal knowledge regarding mortgage products, you don't really know where to do your research so you just take the first website that pops up. Unfortunately for you, the website turns out to be an advertisement website for a less than scrupulous mortgage lender. You take all the information you need from this site, and therefore deliver an inaccurate article to the buyer which endorses a mortgage cash-out system that is generally not accepted as legitimate.
The best case scenario is that the buyer of the article recognizes the shady nature of the information in the article and gives you another chance to redeem yourself. A more likely scenario, however, is that the buyer recognizes the inaccuracy of your writing and decides to not use you as a writer anymore. The worst case scenario goes a little something like this: The buyer doesn't know anything about cash-out mortgage refinances either, so he or she takes your writing as accurate and valid and posts it on the website. A reader follows the advice in your article, winds up in a horrible financial situation - compliments of your shoddy advice - and winds up bringing legal action against both the publisher and you.
You can avoid nightmares like this by not accepting any writing jobs which are beyond your scope of expertise. Stay away from writing about medical, financial, and legal topics, unless you have the expertise and schooling to back up what you write about.
Tip: I once composed a series of financial tips for a website I work for. Since financial topics are a specialty of mine, I never thought to provide any type of references for the suggestions and advice I was writing. The editor, however, insisted that I find sources to backup everything I wrote because otherwise this made me personally liable for everything I said. That means that is a reader took my financial advice and it turned out badly, the reader could sue the website along with me personally. This was the first time I thought about something like this happening, but now I am always careful to only offer advice in my writing regarding things which I have the expertise to talk about.
