How to Prove You’re Worth Your Rate

By Adam Zetterlund

Have a look at Craigslist or visit a platform like Upwork, and you’ll see countless listings offering $5 or $6 per post. You’d be forgiven for thinking you could never compete with those prices. But let me share a little secret: you can compete and you don’t have to drop your rate to do it.

Read More

How to Get Your Clients to Pay Faster

By Adam Zetterlund

Freelancers love to extol the benefits of entrepreneurship to anyone who will listen. There are plenty of reasons to love working as a freelance writer. “You get to work from home in your pyjamas!” is one of my favorite selling points, for example.

Of course, freelance writing isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Working as a writer is a real job and it comes with plenty of unique challenges traditional nine-to-five workers don’t experience. One such challenge comes when you need to get clients to pay your invoices.

In a “normal” job, paychecks are deposited into your bank account twice a month. For small business owners like freelance writers, cash flow can be a real headache. This struggle is particularly painful for freelancers just starting out, but even established writers often grapple with the ongoing nightmare of collecting earnings on time.

If you’re struggling to bridge the gap between invoice payments, consider the following tips for getting your clients to pay you faster.

Read More

3 Steps to Get Started Writing as a College Summer Job

By Adam Zetterlund

Once upon a time, I was a broke college student with no job. I desperately needed to earn some cash, but the idea of spending the summer behind the grill at McDonalds made me want to cry. I knew I had decent writing chops, but I didn’t have any real professional experience to my name, and I didn’t even know where to begin looking for writing gigs online. I needed a college summer job and pronto.

Fast forward to today, several years later, and I still find people are amazed to discover that I work as a full-time writer. Just last week, someone asked me incredulously, “You can actually make a living doing that?”

And, writing online is maybe one of the best college summer jobs of all. The hours are flexible, earning potential is unlimited, and you won’t smell like burger grease at the end of a long day.

Whether you’re personally looking for college summer job ideas or you know a student who might be interested, I’ve put together this quick guide for anybody looking to pick up some extra cash over the next few months. These three simple steps will send you on your way.

Read More

9 Common Writing Mistakes You’re Definitely Making

By Adam Zetterlund

Starting a career as a freelance writer is relatively straightforward. Unlike some careers that require countless years of experience to get your foot in the door, working as a writer online requires nothing more than tenacity, dependability, and a bit of hard work. Oh, and writing chops don’t hurt.

Few clients will expect you to produce breathtaking prose at the drop of a hat, but your work does need to stand on its own. I can’t tell you how disheartening I find it to read copy peppered with misspellings and grammatical mistakes. I’ll be the first to tell you that every writer makes mistakes, myself included. Look closely and you’ll probably find errors in this very blog post.

While casual errors do crop up from time to time, it’s your responsibility as a professional writer to understand the ins and outs of the English language. If you’re still struggling to understand the difference between your and you’re, or you simply can’t wrap your head around to, two, and too, writing may not be the career for you.

Take a look at my list of common writing mistakes and make sure you’re not creating error-filled content.

Read More