Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me as a New Freelancer

When you first start out as a freelancer, nobody tells you much. Everyone who is in it figured it out on their own and generally acts as if you should too, or pay them to tell you. That’s fine. There are some things, though, that newbies should be helped to avoid. They are, after all, just needing to make a living.

So, I thought I would write a piece about the things I wish someone had told me before I went and wasted my time on them. I am sure there are many, many more. If you think of one as you are reading, or have questions about it, please leave a comment so someone else can find it and avoid the problems you had.

So, here they are, the things that I wish someone had told me when I set out to become a freelancer.

  • How good my writing actually was. This is not to brag, but once you get around a little, you will understand that the bar is not really very high. A lot of site’s editors want to make you feel stupid. Somebody should have told me that.
  • ·         Bid sites are not a “scam” but they won’t support American writers with a decent wage either. I spent a lot of disappointing hours writing proposals on these sites.
  • ·         Anyone who spends a lot of time telling you what an expert they are, likely isn’t. This takes a while to figure out, but once you start to notice that it’s only been three months and the “gurus” pictures have all changed, you get the hang of it.
  • ·         You don’t really need a middle man. Approaching the end user directly is the best approach.This is probably the biggest lesson of all, but once I learned it, things got a whole lot easier and started making sense.

There are so many things you learn just in doing a job every day. We don’t really think of everything we know, since so much of it just becomes automatic. From time to time I like to stop and look back and remember how I learned things. If you’d like to read more of my experiences and conclusions on these issues, the rest of the story can be found at MarkRMorrisJR.com

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Mark Morris

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  1. Elvis Michael
    07/05/2015 @ 13:15 PM

    You covered so many things here that resonates with me and many others in the field.

    1: Biding sites should have a tiered system, where the more skilled freelancers are equally paired with more “premium” clients. Instead, they just throw everyone in the same pool. The end result is a mess.

    2: The middle-man approach can be beneficial only because they already did the hard work of finding the client. But if you could skip that middle man, the profits could easily triple (or more). So it’s definitely worth the extra hassle.

    Take Demand Media, for example. At one point these guys were working with Salon.com. If I’m not mistaken, Salon typically pays $100 to $150 per article. Demand Media was only paying us $25 per piece. Even if they made some kind of deal to charge Salon a bit less, it couldn’t possibly have been anything below $75.

    Thanks for listing those hard truths, Mark!

    • Mark
      07/05/2015 @ 16:14 PM

      Thanks! It’s pretty much the same as any other industry. find a way to service the end user, make yourself stand out by submitting bids in a less competitive environment and pay attention to the lessons you learn as you go and you will go a long way.

  2. Claire
    07/12/2015 @ 08:08 AM

    Thanks for this article – I attempted to go the freelance writing route about a year ago, after finding myself redundant. In the end, I simply couldn’t find enough clients, and had no idea where I was going wrong, so I went back to a ‘normal’ job.

    I have a great deal of respect for anyone who can make it, though!

    • MarkRMorrisJr
      07/12/2015 @ 10:16 AM

      Thanks! Glad you were able to find somewhere that you fit. Over 40% of American workers are either self-employed business people, freelancers, part timers, temps or on call. That’s a lot of us and growing. If you decide to try again part time, the jobs list here on Writer Town has been a huge part of my recent success. Without it it’s very hard to piece it together from sites like Craigslit and cold calling.

  3. mcdice18967
    11/17/2015 @ 05:28 AM

    I found the content useful and relevant. for every freelance blogger.