by Michy Lynn

Created on: February 18, 2009

When I quit my day job to become a freelance writer, I had nothing to fall back on but my desire to work from home and succeed. I nearly didn't. The first year I freelanced, I barely made enough money
to live. Borrowing to make ends meet, termination notices on bills, and lots of Ramen noodles for dinner later, I have now completely replaced my income from my 'real job', and I am a full time freelance writer.

The first two years were lean times though, because I made many of the mistakes new freelance writers make. I read everything there was to read about freelancing and writing for pay. It was overwhelming, and even with all the warnings out there, I still fell victim to the scams and users of the freelance writing world. Today, I know up from down, what works and what doesn't, and I wouldn't trade what I do for anything.

So how do you go about working a freelance writing career and make money doing it?

Freelance Writing Tip #1 - Diversify Your Portfolio

While it is important to make your niche in freelance writing, that is, to find a subject about which you can write knowledgably and write well, if you paint yourself into a niche, it may become difficult in the future to break out and write about other things. Eventually, you'll find you've written so much on one niche topic that you are simply regurgitating the same information in each article.

Branding yourself an expert on a particular topic or two is a good thing, but don't get stuck in that niche market and limit your writing. When your portfolio is well diversified, you are more marketable as a freelance writer, and you can earn more money writing on a wider variety of topics.

Freelance Writing Tip #2 - Write for Multiple Publications

While writing for one publication can provide a steady income and make a name for your writing, you should never put all your writing eggs into one basket. After you've sold a few arti
cles to one publication, they may offer you a staff freelance position. This is a fantastic place for a freelance writer to be, because you get to skip the normal query process and submit your writing and pitch article ideas to the publication directly, and usually for higher pay, or a base income.

However, if that is your only writing job, and you're not writing for new publications and submitting queries or articles on spec, what happens to your freelance writing career when/if that publication goes south?

Freelance Writing Tip #3 - Query New Publications Almost as Much as You Write

Writing queries

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