If you’re reading this blog, and especially this article, then there’s every probability you’re a writer who wants to leverage the power of the internet to build a successful business.
Without a doubt, there are countless ways to make money online but there is no one-size-fits-all solution to building a successful online business. One of the major reasons many people choose freelance writing as a source of income is because of its almost instant ability to start earning money compared to other sources of online income and also because of the flexibility it provides when it comes to determining your income.
The sad reality is that a large percentage of those who want to make money as a freelance writer will never make a cent and a large percentage of those of you reading this blog will never make enough. I know that’s the least you’re expecting to hear from me, especially since I own and run this blog, but I’m telling you that because I want to be completely sincere with you and also because there’s nothing set in stone.
In other words, just as a large percentage of people reading this blog will never make enough as a freelance writer, a large percentage will also be able to live their dreams by following my tips.
The difficult question. however, is, how do you figure out which category you are in? How do you know if you will be the fellow to make enough to support your dream or how do you know if you will be the fellow who might never make enough? There’s bad news and good news. The bad news is that I can’t help you figure that out, and the good news is that I have outlined some reasons why most of you might never ever make any money freelance writing, and I hope by reading them you can easily know which category you fall into and you can start taking the necessary actions to build a successful career for yourself.
Writing Isn’t Your Thing
The most critical factor that will help you determine if you will never be successful as a freelance writer is if writing is not your thing.
By “writing isn’t your thing” I’m not trying to say that you suck at English or that you don’t know how to write a sentence. In fact, that is the least of the signals to show if you truly can be successful as a freelance writer since everything can be learned.
Another thing is that you don’t need to have a degree in English before you can succeed as a freelance writer. What I know is that the English language can never be completely learned so there shouldn’t really be any problem for you if you have the passion and desire to keep on improving as far as the language is concerned.
The problem I’m talking about, however, is that of finding writing extremely boring whenever you decide to take a pen. Maybe you prefer to play games instead?
There’s no need to think about this, and you should have been able to figure yourself out by now. If you’re one of those people who sleep a few minutes after taking a pen, or if you’re one of those people who have always detested creative writing then you probably would fail as a freelance writer.
You’re actually not condemned if you’re in this category and you can start taking measures to improve your career from now. Start working on developing a great passion for writing, and use every opportunity you get to write on a subject completely new to you – what I know is that it might take some time, but you will soon start to find writing completely easy and interesting.
You Only Care about Instant Results
One advice I’ll keep on giving freelance writers who want to build a successful business is to stop thinking about themselves as freelance writers but as businesspeople.
Freelance writing is no doubt one of the best ways to start making money online fast, but that doesn’t mean you should rush into it without having a plan. Your focus as a freelance writer shouldn’t only be on getting clients but should be on building an audience – which is exactly why I teach how to write for traffic and money.
The reason you need to master the art of building an audience is that you can never predict any client. The future could change and nothing is entirely within our control.
You can’t control your current clients, you can’t control their pockets and you can’t control your term with them, but you can control one thing – and that one thing is how many more clients will find you.
By building the right audience, all it takes to find new clients is an announcement, but as we all know, building an audience is the difficult part.
You Never Put Efforts into Improving Your Knowledge
The one thing about writers is that they always have to produce and what they have to produce can sometimes be unpredictable.
If you want to be a successful freelance writer then you need to realize that you will constantly have to be writing articles in fields you know nothing about and as a result, you need to ensure you’re not just on one spot.
How many hours a day do you spend reading? What do you read during that period? Is it just a book limited to your field or any other thing?
You need to start spending more time reading anything you can get your hands on. It can be anything from that book recommended to you by a friend to the latest news article – as long as it won’t corrupt you, every single article you read adds up and will end up being a great source of creativity in the near future.
You’re Not Good at Controlling Yourself
The life of a freelance writer comes with so many challenges. You have to meet deadlines, you have to write in fields you know next to nothing about and you have to work hard on separating your work from your passion.
We all want to watch that newly released movie with our family members and we also want to play that great game, but it is the duty of a writer to be able to separate work from desire so as to get the desired results. Failure to do so will result in your income suffering.