How to Nail Your First Sale as a Freelance Writer

So, you’ve decided that you want to enter the wonderful world of freelance writing.

No boss, no set hours, and the luxury of working anywhere you’d like. This is what you’ve always dreamed of.

To be successful in the world of freelance writing, you need to have more skills than just writing. You need to know how to work with people, how to negotiate, how to use resources to find clients, and how to present yourself. You need to demonstrate value. You need to find the right person to talk to. You need to utilize the resources available to you.

You need to sell.

Selling is perhaps the hardest part of being a freelance writer. You not only have to provide quality content, but you also need to find someone to purchase said content. If you are new to the scene, this can be the most intimidating part of the process. Fear not, as I will provide you with easy-to-follow steps on how you can make your first sale and come one step closer to reaching your freelance writing dreams.

Find your niche

If you are a naturally curious person like I am, you may find this to be difficult. I have interests in a lot of topics, as most humans do. Potential clients, however, want to see that you are an expert at a specific topic and not a jack-of-all-trades.

Your niche shouldn’t be so small where there isn’t an audience for it, but it should still be focused. As an example, personal finance is too broad of a niche. You would want to find a small sub-category within that category, such as how to save money for college students or write about the best types of credit cards. The more specific you are, the easier it is going to appear that you are truly an expert on the subject.

Build your portfolio

If you don’t have any experience, then I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that you don’t need any prior experience.

The bad news is that you’re going to have to do a lot of work for free.

You need to have a decent-sized portfolio that demonstrates your expertise and writing style. If you haven’t published anything before, then you’re going to have to self-publish articles for free. This may seem like a waste of time at first, but this is a very important step of your freelance writing journey.

Find a platform to self-publish on, such as Medium, your own website, or a blog. This is going to be how you market yourself, and every potential client is going to look through it. Your clients are going to pay attention to the quality of your posts, the number of your posts, and how long you’ve been posting. If you’re wondering when you should have started building your portfolio, consider this Chinese proverb:

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Finding your first client

Now that you have your niche down and portfolio established, it is time to seek out your first client.

There are several avenues you can use to help find your first paying customer, but here are a couple of suggestions:

Sign-up for an account on Upwork, create a profile, and look for work within your niche.

Search for popular blogs and websites surrounding your niche. Some publications will have a dedicated space for you to submit or pitch content to them, while others will not. If they do have a form or email that is dedicated to accepting content, send them a snippet of your article and negotiate a deal for publishing rights of the content.

If the website or blog surrounding your niche doesn’t have a submission form where you can propose content for them, find any other contact form or email where you can get in touch with them directly. You will want to craft the perfect cold email, which we will discuss in the next section.

Look for businesses that sell products that relate to your niche. Pitch them the idea of running a blog for them on their website for a pre-determined rate per article.

Crafting the initial pitch

Now that you have determined where to find clients, it’s time to start selling.

When you are emailing potential clients, keep in mind that they hear from people that want to sell them services or products every day. A generic “Hey, I’m a freelance writer and would like to write for you” email is not going to suffice.

You want to create an engaging email that is just as creative as your writing is, while also not giving too much information away. You also want to personalize the email as much as possible; otherwise, they will just write off your solicitation as spam.

If you are pitching an article idea for a publication, your email should go something like this:

Greetings [company/website/blog name] team!

My name is [name] and I love the content you guys are creating. I just read [article title from website you're pitching to with hyperlink] and I was rolling on the floor laughing.

I actually also write content surrounding [niche], and I have a piece titled [the article you’re pitching]. Here’s the opening paragraph:

[Paste the opening paragraph of your article. You don’t even need to have the full article written yet, but be prepared to have it ready as soon as you get a response. Make sure you also write your article in a similar style to how other articles appear on the website you’re pitching to.]

I would love to publish this piece with you guys. Would you like to review the rest of the article? Please send me a reply and I’ll provide you with more details. I look forward to working with you!

Best,

[Your name]

[link to your website/blog]

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back right away, or at all. Try to send ten of these pitches a day and keep going until you get a response. Once you make this initial sale, you will now have an established business relationship that you’ll likely be able to utilize for future projects.

Deliver

This is the most obvious step, but also one of the most important. It took a lot of work to get your first client, and now it is time to do what you do best: write.

Deliver the content that you promised. Deliver by whatever set deadline that was established by you and your client. Deliver a quality product. Make sure everything is grammatically correct, the style fits the website you are writing for, and that it is an engaging read. If your client has feedback for you, take it with stride and incorporate the feedback in your next draft.

Celebrate

You did it! You made your first sale.

With your first sale under your belt, you can now:

Add your newly published article to your portfolio.

Contact your client again for future opportunities down the road.

Transfer some hard-earned money into your bank account.

It all gets better from here. The more clients you get, the easier the opportunities come. Soon, your dream of becoming a successful freelance writer will become a reality.