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The World of Freelance Writing

Sir Walter Scott, a renowned Scottish historical novelist and poet, first
coined the word "freelance" in his novel, Ivanhoe. In his novel, Scott used
"freelance" to refer to a medieval mercenary warrior. In 1903, etymologists
officially recognized the word "freelance" and it made its way into the Oxford
English Dictionary.

Simply put, a freelancer is a person who is self-employed. Freelancers seek
out different projects, which vary in their size, scope and variety. In the case of
freelance writing, projects may include article writing, book writing, e-book
writing, technical reports, editing, proofreading, white papers, direct mail,
copywriting, newsletters, e-zine writing, and much more.

Current State of Industry

The freelance industry is literally booming. Sixty billion dollars of work is
now outsourced to specialists worldwide. According to the US Department of
Labor, "35 million Americans class themselves as independent professionals."
In the past three years, companies have increased their outsourcing by 22%.
A survey conducted predicted that companies using freelance services will more
than double from 20% to 50%. Being part of a $120 billion industry won’t be bad!
Why Exactly is FreelanceWriting Booming?
There are two reasons that clearly stand out above the rest.

1. The explosion of the Internet.
The Internet is a relatively new medium when you compare it to other mature
media such as television and radio. In fact, the Internet is still in its "Wild West"
days. Apart from being a huge information resource, the Internet is a huge
advertising medium wherein companies get their businesses.

2. Shift in business practices.
Back in the good old ’60s and ’70s, you could set up a successful business
and expect to reap profits for a long period of time. Businesses could afford fulltime
employees in all areas. With hyper competition and large fluctuations in
technology, businesses have adopted a different model. They only do the thing that
they do best and outsource all other activities to specialists.
In the age of corporate downsizing and insecurity of a job,many people
are taking on to a freelance lifestyle.

So rather than having a full-time writer on the company’s payroll, businesses
find that it’s more efficient to find and hire a writer who specializes in a particular
type of writing. If a company needs articles written for its website, the company
would post a bid on a website like Elance.com for a web content writer, get it done
and move on. If, at another time, the company needs a good copywriter, it would
post a bid for a copywriter, get the job done and move on.

For freelancers, this literally means a world of opportunity. You can work
from home doing interesting and rewarding work for customers all over the world.
You can be paid directly into your bank account and earn more than you ever
dreamed possible in your 9 to 5 day job.

Tip: If companies are focusing on their core skills, shouldn’t writers do the
same? Should you be a specialist or a generalist? More on this later…
Future of FreelanceWriting à Internet

The online market is as robust as it has ever been. And this time around,
unlike the late ’90s, companies are actually putting money on their web sites.
In 2004, Google had 4.28 billion pages in its database. The real figure of the
number of web pages on the Internet is predicted to be closer to 14 billion pages.
Can you estimate how many writers would be needed to write this colossal amount
of information?

On the Internet, "content is king." The whole Internet economy functions on
content. There are informational websites, websites selling products, news portals,
blogs and forums. The basis of all of them is words. That’s where writers come in.
As of March 2007, approximately 1,114,274,426 people worldwide use the
Internet, according to the Internet World Statistics. This number is expected to grow
much more. As of 2006, only 15.6 % of the world population had access to the
Internet.

Fasten your seat belts: You are at the right place at the right time! The future
of freelance writing is on the Internet and in company websites.

The best thing that ever happened to freelance writers may be the demise of
the typewriter. As typewriters died and computer keyboards and the Internet
thrived, a world of opportunity opened for people who write for a living, says Peter
Bowerman, an Atlanta-based freelance writer and author of The Well-Fed Writer:
Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less.
FreelanceWriting and the Internet

Back in 1991, a published author once remarked that you could expect an
average 70 rejections when you write something and send it for publishing, whether
you are a newbie or a seasoned pro.
Traditional freelance writing is tough.Many writers never make a
decent income.

Using traditional methods such as direct mail, cold calling and networking
took a lot of time and drastically reduced the income. The Internet made the
freelancer’s life much easier. You can communicate with your client while you sit
in your pajamas.

Another big relief has been the payment. There’s a joke among writers that
offline writers are only paid "seasonally." Sometimes you have to follow up with a
client to release the full payment, sometimes you don’t get paid for months, and
sometimes you don't get paid at all! All is a big hindrance on the most important
asset: time.

Today, with big websites such as Elance.com and other freelance exchange
networks, the headache is non-existent. These services accept advance payment
from clients and mail you a check every month. Neat! They will even do the
arbitration in case the need arises.

Apart from them, online payment processors such as PayPal enable you to
accept payment electronically. If you want to succeed as a freelance writer, you now
have to know how to leverage the Internet to save you time and avoid wastage in
getting clients and getting paid.

Most of the freelance writers who make great money at it these days have
diversified their client bases away from print media and toward the world of ecommerce.
As a result, when you’re just getting started, the best place to collect a
writing paycheck is online.

The Internet is no hype. It’s a powerful medium to reach out to people you
are looking for and it is a very powerful medium indeed. I have written assignments
for clients in the Netherlands, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom, all
while I was sitting in front of my computer and without lifting a phone or wasting
time contacting prospects and facing rejections. The prospects found me instead.
In the following paragraphs, you’ll see how you can use Internet to boost
your freelance writing. However, I strongly recommend you don’t limit yourself to
this book. The number of ways you can use the Internet is practically endless. Use
the tips in this book as starters and pick up from there. As one of my mentors says,
"You can never learn too much!"
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of
tomorrow.
~ Bill Gates

The Internet Hype Explained
Invariably through magazine articles, television or someone, you must have
heard that the Internet is "hot." So many people get drawn to the medium because
of all the hype created. However, very few are able to grasp as to why the Internet is
hot. In this section, we will try and understand the noise about the Internet.
We live in an abundant world. If a person wants to do financially well, there
are tons of opportunities available to all of us. The Internet is one such opportunity.
It is not the opportunity, but one of the many ways we can find financial success.
What Exactly is the Opportunity?

Every few years, there’s a new technology invented. When the radio was
invented, radio stations came about and a lot of people made money as radio artists,
program creators and studio owners. When the camera was invented, it spiraled into
a whole new industry we know today as Hollywood. There are actors, film
producers, sound engineers, choreographers and directors. It gave rise to a whole
big industry of script writing.

History has repeatedly told us that one of the best ways to make money is to
jump on a new trend and use it to your best advantage. Here’s a graph of how
people respond to a new technology.

You want to be an early adopter or early majority! It’s where people make
the most money. Remember, the Internet is still in its infancy stage and has a long
way to go. It’s also in the same paradigm as television and radio. Only 15% of the
world’s population has access to the Internet and Internet connection is going to
homes at blazing speeds. There’s a lot of scope for writers and new companies to
come around and make a mark for them.