Freelance Writing – Job Description, Salary, And All The Little Stuff

I talk about freelance writing a lot because it’s something I’m really familiar with. When I first got into the business though, I had no clue what to expect. How much money would I make? How would I get paid? What were the realistic expectations my clients had? If you’re interested in freelance writing, you may have some of these questions running through your head. Also, freelance writing is related to help in essay writing, so that's the way you can master your skills and get some money. Hopefully, the info below will clear things up a bit. Here is a general overview of freelance writing from a professional freelance writer.

Job Description: What Will I Do?

What will you do as a freelance writer? That all depends on what kind of jobs you get. Most clients use freelancers to write articles that they use for marketing. In this case, you will be given a topic of some sort and a keyword or two to incorporate into an article. You will also be given an expected word count to hit. The goal for those articles is to help get links back to the client’s website and to increase their search engine ranking.

You might also be asked to rewrite existing articles, which means you take the same content and reword it so it passes plagiarism checkers. Some work might be related to blog posting, where you can write in a lighter tone and often pick your own topics. Then there’s spinning, editing, and all kinds of other work, so just know it changes from client to client.

For everything you do, your work will need to be completely original (in wording, not in content) because most clients run their work through Copyscape. That scans the internet and finds work with the same wording as your own. You may want to use Copyscape to scan your essays for college courses, just to be on the safe side. Stay original and maintain proper grammar, and you should be good to go.

Salary: How Much Will I Make?

Salary also depends entirely on the client. I like working on fixed price jobs because I know exactly what I will make per article that I do. Many writing jobs will pay $.01/word for the work, meaning that you will make $4.00 for a 400 word article, etc. That might not seem like much, but I can often write six 400 word articles in an hour if the research is minimal, so at bottom pay, I’m already making $24.00 an hour. In other situations, you may make far more. You may very well make $.10/word, depending on the client and job requirements. Don’t expect to make something like that right out of the box, but the possibilities are out there. Then your monthly salary just depends on your work volume and pay rate.

Payment: How Do I Get Paid?

Since most online clients don’t send out checks, you’ll find that most of your payment goes through PayPal. If you go through freelance sites like oDesk and Guru, you might get paid on the site itself and then you will have to withdraw to PayPal or somewhere else using the withdrawal methods on the site. With PayPal, you basically use an online bank account that you can link to your real bank account for deposit purposes. You can also get a debit card through PayPal and just keep your money online. That’s what I do because money transfers take a few days to get to the bank. When you get paid will be determined by you and the client, but a lot of times pay comes almost instantly.

Requirements: What Do I Need for Work?

To be a freelance writer, all you really need is a computer, internet access, an email account that you check regularly (or learn to check regularly), and Microsoft Word. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, you might want to use something like Google Docs so that you can at least type your work with an editor. This is not ideal, but it is good to know if you are on a new computer and need a temporary place to write and save articles. You can access your articles from any computer by simply logging back into Google Docs. You can send your clients a link to your article if you do have to write it there. Otherwise, you’ll email it to them or upload it to a place on their site.

Beyond all of that, you just need to find work and get started. Check out my article on the Top 10 Websites for Writing Jobs Online to find different websites to get started with work. You can also find a guide to freelance writing with this article, How to Make Money as a Freelance Writer. This is the perfect job for a college student, stay at home mom, and anyone else looking to make money on their own time. Happy writing!

Sonja-Erica is an educational blogger and private tutor, has an experience in being a freelance copywriter.