By Joe Dyton
“I can write about anything’’ can be a useful selling point if you’re pitching your freelance writing services to general companies or publications. But, how many general companies can you think of at this moment? Most companies have some sort of speciality. As a freelance writer, you should too. I can say from experience that you’ll become appealing to more prospects once you figure out how to pick your freelance writing niche .
Rather than say you can write about anything, your sales pitch should be, “I have a lot experience writing about your industry.” Think about it—a prospect has to choose between two freelance writers. One can “write about anything” and the other has written about the prospect’s industry before. Who do you think the prospect is going to choose? Heck, whom would you choose?
There is nothing wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades writer. But it will be easier to find freelance writing clients if you have experience writing about one or two topics. Or as you may have heard in freelance writing circles, having a niche.
If you’re thinking, “But, Joe there are so many topics and industries out there. How do I choose a specialty?” that’s OK. The funny thing is you might already have some areas of expertise at your disposal that you’re not even aware of. Let’s discover them together.
Here are a few places that can help you pick your freelance writing niche.
Your past job experience
Whether you wrote in your pre-freelance writing career or not, you know the industry well. You can leverage that knowledge to make yourself more desirable to freelance writing prospects. If you have experience in more than one industry that is even better. That’s just another area of expertise you can use to find work.
Let’s look at this from a writer and non-writer standpoint. If you wrote at your previous job, pitching is that much easier. Say you wrote for a healthcare company or publication. You should be looking to healthcare-related businesses because you can easily say, “I spent X years writing about the healthcare industry and I’d love put that experience to work to help your team create as much content as it needs.” A healthcare company in need of a freelance writer will be happy to have the option to bring someone on board who knows about the industry.
If your freelance writing career will be your first time writing, that’s OK. As you pitch, you need to boost your experience in that particular field. So if you worked in finance, not as a writer, but a CPA, financial planner, etc., your pitch would be more along the lines of, “I have worked in finance for X years and would love to use my training, knowledge and experience to write for your company. Sometimes it’s easier for companies to wait for someone to develop the writing skills than industry knowledge.
One suggestion: if you have a non-writing job, but know you’d like to be a freelance writer eventually, seek out ways you can do some writing at your full-time job. See if you can help writing marketing copy, contribute to the company newsletter or blog. If those opportunities aren’t available, consider taking a writing course so you have at least a basic skill set to sell alongside your industry experience.
The subject(s) you studied in college
I majored in journalism in college and have had writing jobs ever since. A lot of people wind up in careers that had nothing to do with their major, however. Is that you? If so, you have four (or more) years of experience in a subject matter that you can also sell to freelance writing prospects. Maybe you studied accounting in school, but wound up working in an unrelated field like real estate. If you didn’t want to make real estate your freelance writing niche, you could use your accounting education to sell your writing services to finance publications, blogs or companies.
Instead of saying you worked in accounting for X amount of years, you can say that you studied it:
“I majored in accounting when I attended (your school). I’d love to use the knowledge I gained during that time to help your (firm, company, publication) produce as much content as it needs.”
Something that interests you
How does that saying go? Find something you’ll love and you’ll never work a day for the rest of your life. What could feel less like work than spending your day writing about something you’re passionate about? Writing about your favorite subject on a freelance basis? Talk about a dream job!
If you have writing experience in a topic you want to make your freelance writing niche, you’re well on your way to an enjoyable freelance writing career. If your writing experience and preferences don’t match, you have a little more work to do, however. For example, if you work in insurance, but want to write about video games, you may need to find some video game writing experience. There might be companies or blogs that would be willing to bring you on if you’re a solid writer, but those chances decrease if you’re going up against someone with gaming writing experience.
So, how do you get writing experience in your dream niche to make yourself more appealing to prospects? If you’re an experienced writer, but in a different area, explain that you’re confident that your writing abilities and passion for the topic will compensate for your newness in this arena.
Also, be willing to do a test writing assignment even if you have to do it for free. I typically don’t recommend writing on spec, but if you really want to write about a certain topic and don’t have an experience with it, you don’t have much leverage to refuse. Your other option is create samples of your own to show to prospects. Again, you’re writing for free, but the potential payoff is writing about a topic that you enjoy.
You’ll land freelance writing clients with a general writing background—I did before I focused on a couple of specialties. You will likely land more by becoming an expert in a topic or two however. Prospects usually just don’t want a writer—they want a writer who also knows their industry. Pick your freelance writing niche and see how quickly you’ll move past the writers who tell prospects that they can “write about anything.”
Thanks for reading.
Joe
Joe Dyton (@JoeDyton) is the President and Founder of Dyton Writing and Editing, and a freelance insurance, real estate and personal freelance writer. He’s written for Connected Real Estate Magazine, GEICO and Student Loan Planner. He can be reached at joe@dytonswords.com.