By Joe Dyton
As you embark on your journey as a freelance writer, you’re going to hear the word, “niche” a lot. As in, “you need to pick a niche to make it easier to find freelance writing clients.” Or, “pitch companies that are in your niche.” But what happens if you want to write for a new industry?
Sure there are times when your freelance writing niche can pick you. For example, I spent four years working for a commercial real estate magazine and 10 years as an insurance copywriter, so I typically pitch publications and companies in those industries. If you’re looking for a specialty to write about, think about your past job experience. Even if you weren’t a writer in your pre-freelance life, you can use the experience as a selling point to prospects.
But, again, what if you don’t want to write about your niche and prefer to write for new industry or about a different topic ? That’s fine, but it leaves you with a bit of a predicament—you have no way to show you can write about your desired field. Prospects typically want to work with freelancers who have experience writing about or working in their industry.
This does not mean writing outside of your area of expertise is impossible, however. It just means that you’ll have to work a little harder to sell yourself to prospects. Don’t ever let a lack of experience keep you from writing about what you want.
Here’s how you can write for a new industry as a freelancer without samples or experience:
Push your overall writing experience
If you have a strong writing background, but not in the field you want to write about you can still make it work for you. I speak from experience—I wanted to break into the personal finance field for a few years. I had a tough time finding gigs because no one wanted to hire someone who’d never written about personal finance before.
My fortunes changed when I went to a conference and got to pitch the head of a student loan consultation company, however. I was honest—I told him I had not written about the industry, but I was a hard worker, quick learner and was interested in the field. It was enough to land me a tryout—and a recurring gig.
Now, I know it helped that I had 20 years of journalism experience on my side, but there’s nothing saying that you had to have written that long. If you have any writing experience at all, that’s your secret weapon. Show off your best samples and explain that you want to—and can—do just as good of a job for your desired prospect.
Also, what do you write about now? Chances are you weren’t well- ersed in the topic when you were first hired. Use that as a selling point too. For me, I had no experience in the car insurance industry, and I ended up with a successful 10-year run as an in-house copywriter for major insurance company. Everyone’s written about a subject for the first time at some point—there’s no reason you can’t either.
Offer to write a spec assignment
Personally, I despise writing on spec for a prospect. I think about the line the Joker said in “The Dark Knight,” If you’re good at something, never do it for free whenever I’m asked to write an unpaid test assignment. Fortunately, my last few test assignments were paid. I’ve been on the other side of that coin though and there are fewer things less frustrating than writing something for free and not getting the gig.
If I wanted a freelance writing bad job badly enough, I’d write a spec assignment for free if asked. That’s the mentality you need to take if you want to break into a field that you haven’t written about before. Publications, companies, blogs, etc. will have plenty of writers to choose from who know their industry—if you want to break into their business, you need to show them that you can write about it and that might mean doing it for free.
Writing a spec assignment is a winning proposition for prospects because they get to see how well you can write about their industry without a financial risk. Yes, that means all of the risk is all on your end—you’re risking your time to work on an assignment that won’t pay or necessarily land you a job. It’s unfortunate, but when you’re inexperienced in a particular field, the prospect is holding all of the cards.
When you reach out to a prospect and they ask, “Have you written about X before?” simply admit that you haven’t, but you’re really interested in doing so and are willing to write a sample article to show what you can do. Not every prospect will take you up on your offer, but my guess is there’s more than one prospect in your desired industry to pitch, right? Keep going until you find one that’s willing to roll the dice on you.
I am not going to lie to you it’s typically easier to land a freelance client if you have experience writing about their industry. A lack of experience is not a reason not to try to write for a new industry however. Remember you have at least one of two things going for you—a strong general writing background or a willingness to write on spec to show what you can do. Put one or both of these assets to work when pitching new industries and you’re chances of breaking in will be that much greater.
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.