As a professional freelance writer, I have a pretty marketable skillset. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to distinguish one freelance writer from another. Many people claim to write well, but actually write in remarkably average fashion, or are unable to modulate their writing style and tone to meet the needs of a particular freelance writing client. Others can do these things, but do not do them well. Finally, there are a multitude of freelance writers who simply can’t stick with it. They grow bored of projects and of writing and often return to whence they came.
Along the way, professional writers like me lose out to those others on various writing gigs, usually because the category of “semi-pro” freelance writers often under-prices higher-quality writing professionals. Just as often, they over-promise what they can deliver, and how, and how fast. Either way, each lost gig is lost revenue for a freelance writing business.
Just a side note, do not get me wrong here. I do not think that I am the only worthwhile, or best qualified writer out there for every project. I can, and do, often lose out to other professional writers who are better suited to a particular project for one reason or another. Also, I do not begrudge those who do their best to become professional freelance writers, nor those who consistently hire whoever they think will be able to do the best job for the best price. Rather, what I am saying is that it can be very hard to distinguish among freelance writers, especially on paper, when many of those doing the hiring ask for the same things, and many of those seeking those writing jobs say that they can do the same things. This post is about one more way to potentially differentiate oneself as a professional.
There is nothing to be done about this scenario; it is simply the nature of the freelancing beast. However, a motivated freelancer can continuously add to their “plus column” in the mind of potential freelance clients by expanding their skill set.
Consider, for example, a freelance technology writer with several professional technology certifications. I get plenty of technical writing work because I have a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer or MCSE certification, even though it is years old and is for the Windows NT 4.x product line.
The point is that someone looking to hire a freelance writer for a writing project that is highly technical and requires at least the ability to “talk the talk” and be able to understand technical jargon without a lot of hand holding can look at my resume and feel confident that I fit that bill. Truthfully, many other freelancers may also be as capable, but less able to show it in black and white on a resume or professional biography or writing background. (If this applies to you, I suggest that you write several technology focused writing samples to show your capabilities and routinely include one or more of them with your pitch.)
Which brings me at length (thanks Google search engine spiders who are programmed to regard content above 400 or 500 words long as more valuable) to my point.
Many online writing gigs involve writing either web content or blogging for various clients. To do so, one need only be able to write the kind of high-quality web content the client requires. However, when a writing pro can also say that they have experience working with website technologies such as WordPress, FTP, HTTP, and the like, that makes them that much more marketable, because the client may not need to take simple Microsoft Office Word files and turn them into blog posts themselves if the freelancer is capable of publishing them directly into WordPress.
As a freelance writer who writes a lot of web-based content, I have built up plenty of experience in thing like WordPress, Dreamweaver, and those kind of technologies and applications. I am in no way a web developer, nor am I a high-end designer, but a client looking for a solid, well designed, SEO optimized, blog for their business could do a lot worse than me, and I can handle all of the content creation as well.
Today, I embark upon a new skill set addition. As I mentioned above, I do a lot of work with WordPress, including tweaking the CSS and HTML of WordPress themes. Unfortunately, there just are not that many good WordPress themes for writers out there. So, I think maybe I’ll start getting into programming WordPress themes.
If I can find the time, that is.
Wish me luck.
I need to go through and integrate my social networking and w
