Monday, September 8, 2008

Finding your freelance writing niche

All the gurus suggest - and it makes perfect sense - that the real freelance writing money goes to specialists rather than generalists. You've probably heard that a million times.

But until you HAVE a specialty, the question is always there: How do I become a specialist?

This came up during our mastermind call with Peter Bowerman a couple of weeks ago and then again during a call with one of the group members.

Basically, you didn't land on Earth as a freelance writer. Probably you worked as a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker (or in sales, banking, hospitality, retail, real estate...), and you've got years of experience in that field. Ahem... that's a specialty.

But even if you've sort of played the field, flitting from career to career, you may soon discover you have a specialty of a different kind: a type of client. Do you work for internet marketers? Academic publishers? Mom and pop shops? Web designers? Graphic designers? B2B clients?

If so, play up that angle. The whole point of having a specialty is being able to cut the learning curve, being able to jump into a client's campaign and pick up speed quickly.

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