How to Get Clips at the Beginning of Your Writing Career
So, you’ve decided that writing the career you’d like to pursue and you’ve got your office all set up with all the necessary writing tools and you’re ready to start applying for writing gigs. Wait – they all want writing clips! Now what? How do you show potential employer published clips when you don’t have any?
Blog!
One of the most obvious things you can do is start a blog and write about things you are passionate about and the things you would be interested in writing about for money. Keep in mind – a blog is not a diary (at least not in this case). It has focus and intent. It is clean and professional looking and shows viewers that you are able to portray a thought or an opinion or an experience or facts with your words.
There are an unlimited amount of topics that you can blog about. Do you like to teach people how to do things? Then you might want to consider writing a how-to blog with either a variety of explanatory articles in several fields or explanatory articles that are focused on one topic (example: how to cook Chinese food, how to make scrumptious desserts, how to cook without a recipe – could all be titles for a great cooking blog).
Treat your blog like you are already writing for pay and it will make a great place to send editors when they are interested in your work.
Article Directories
Article directories such as Ezine Articles, Bukisa, Triond, and so on give you exposure and give you the opportunity to earn some casual income at the same time. You can showcase your skills as a writer, make valuable networking relationships, and learn new interesting topics. You can also direct people back to other work you have on the internet.
Write for Free
This is not something I would suggest on a regular basis but writing for free – for a reputable publisher – can be an excellent source of credits. Keep in mind that a non-reputable publisher may not hold very much weight and may hold very little value; however, if you can find a website that has a good reputation in its field that is allows contributions this can give you a more solid background as a writer.
Get Published Online
In order to get paying jobs you’ll need to have some samples. Getting your name under some articles is critical to your start as a freelance writer so use one or more of these tools to forward your career.
I’ve been freelance writing for over two years and although I choose to do it on a part-time basis I still make about 1/3 of my monthly income from writing online. And part of my self-promotion strategy is utilizing all of my options.
You can use this article by going to the Content Source: How to Get Clips at the Beginning of Your Writing Career – Bukisa.com where you will find the source code to copy and paste into your website.
Article by Danielle
I'm a social media junkie and professional freelance writer living in small town Manitoba, Canada. I drink a lot of coffee and love my computer (named Garcia after Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds - the ultimate girl geek!), my kids, my husband, and my cats. In 10 years I hope to be that crazy lady travelling across Canada and the States with her three cats and her loving hubby. :) If you're interested in my professional services please visit my professional writer's site to find out more about my services or check out some testimonials from some of my clients.
has written 254 awesome articles for us at The Social Freelance Writer
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