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Advancing Your Writing Career: Where do You Go Beyond Hubpages? Part 1, Freelance Writing

Updated on October 20, 2015
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You want to be a writer, and you came to Hubpages to start polishing your skills and learning the tricks of the trade. Great! Now what? You feel like you’re ready to take the next step toward a rewarding career writing full-time on the internet, but leaping from an open-submission writing site into steady income seems like a stretch.

What’s the next step? At this moment you’re sitting at a crossroads and, depending on your ultimate goals with your writing career, there are several roads you can take. Here’s the good news – this isn’t a final decision. These paths often converge several times, and it’s easy to leap from road to another if you’re not achieving the results you desire with your chosen path.

Not really sure what is involved with freelance writing? Here's a great run-down of the pros and cons of striking out as a freelancer

Writer for Hire: 101 Secrets to Freelance Success
Writer for Hire: 101 Secrets to Freelance Success
There's a LOT to know about starting as a freelance writer. Here is a collection of up-to-date tips geared toward the modern online freelance writer.
 

The following is the first of three logical steps you may take at this point, all of which can be started right now. They will require additional skills, probably additional time investments (depending on how much you’re already investing in Hubpages), and also come with much greater earnings potential. Bear in mind, you don’t want to let your Hubpages account go – not only is this a source or recurring income, but it can be an essential piece in any one of these paths.

Once you’ve read this hub, please take a moment to add a comment answering the question below, and then go on to Advancing Your Writing Career: Where Do You Go from Hubpages? Part 2.

Freelancing for Clients

Freelancing, at least at first, generally involves going into online freelance marketplaces such as Elance, Guru, and oDesk and seeking work from individual clients.

  • Additional Skills. While many types of freelance writing will require the same skills you’ve learned on Hubpages, it will also require an increased ability to organize and budget your time. These jobs come with deadlines, and not meeting deadlines can spell the death of your freelancing career. You have to learn how to assess a given job, factor in all of the elements involved, and give an accurate timeline for the job.
    You will need to learn how to craft a good proposal, which is essentially a value proposition for a potential client. A good proposal will tell the client exactly what you will give them, when, and why what you have to offer can’t be found anywhere else.


  • Investments. Many freelance websites have a small subscription fee that will be assessed every month or every quarter. While most freelance marketplaces offer free membership options, these are generally only sufficient to get acquainted with the site, and possibly land a first job to “get your foot in the door.” You will also have to invest more time, and make sure to factor your unbillable hours (i.e. invoicing, bookkeeping, writing proposals) into overall project costs.

  • Returns. It may take a little bit of work to get your foot in the freelancing door, but, on average, once you have a few feedbacks on your profile, the work starts coming in fairly steadily as long as you are delivering on your promises. Freelancing can offer a steady job, which will allow you to get away from employers and spend time with the kids. There is no recurring income, usually, but you will have a paycheck.

  • How you can use Hubpages. In order to demonstrate your skills and the value of your work to potential clients, you should have a well-developed portfolio. This may sound like a daunting task, but if you’re already active on open-submission websites such as Hubpages then it’s very easy – use your Hubpages account as your profile. While this may take a little bit of work to ensure that everything on your account is up to the standard of your current writing, it’s a ready-made and easily-accessible example of your writing. In addition, bringing those old hubs “up to snuff” may help your earnings improve. Hubpages is also a great way to keep a little bit of recurring revenue going, which serves to stabilize your income and leverage your skills.

Now that you’ve read this hub, I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment to help me with something. I am currently working on a training program aimed at teaching people how to advance their writing career. Please comment and tell me, what is the single biggest question you have when it comes to starting or advancing your writing career?

I hope this hub has been useful, please go on to Part 2 for another logical step for advancing beyond Hubpages.

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