Avoid the content mill, survive [and thrive!] in the age of AI, and build a solid financial future as a content writer.
My name is Kristen Powell and I am a writer.
I claim this not because I anticipate winning the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize … ever.
There are many, many writers more talented than I.
I am a writer because I make my living writing. And that is an accomplishment of which I am proud.
Better still – better than simply being able to pay my bills doing something I enjoy – I am also self-employed and I work remotely.
Which is a fancy way of saying, I can pay my bills, doing something I enjoy, in my pajamas (so long as I have a solid laptop and a reliable internet connection).
No commute.
No dress code.
No boss.
I write from a comfortable home office that I share with four fat and happy cats …
… and, while I work hard, I do so on my own schedule, which affords me tremendous opportunity to do the other things I want and need to do with my life.
That’s kind of the dream, isn’t it?
How I became a self-employed writer.
There are, of course, many forms of writing. You can be a technical writer, a ghost writer, a copywriter, and more. You can write resumes or grants. You can be a freelance journalist or a blogger. You can write (and now self-publish) whole books, both fiction and non-fiction.
I personally first got paid to write grants. (I worked as a grant writer for various non-profits for a number of years.)
A couple of years ago, I started working as a ghost writer and a technical writer. While this opportunity basically just fell into my lap, it wound up being ghost writing and technical writing that enabled me to transition to full-time, work-at-home, self-employment. (To date I still earn the majority of my income from these forms of writing.)
I also work, from time to time, as a freelance content writer.
And it is my interest in developing my content writing portfolio and career that led me to create Blue Blanket Writer.
Here’s the thing.
62% of writers in the United States are self-employed.
That’s according to our very own U.S. Department of Labor (and I am assuming the figure is comparable for much, if not all, of the rest of the world).
Wanna guess how much of the total U.S. labor force is self-employed?
Only 11%. (That’s according to the very reputable Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, another excellent source of information on the U.S. economy.)
Why writers are so disproportionately self-employed in comparison to the rest of the U.S. labor force, I couldn’t say for sure. But I imagine its a combination of the following:
Writers don’t need many tools to do their work — only tools that most people have at home … a computer, an internet connection, maybe some paper and pencils. It is, therefore, not necessary for a writer’s work to be done onsite, under a company’s roof, as is the case with many other jobs.
Writing is often solitary work, so no need for big teams of coworkers to get the job done.
Writing is very task based, making it easy for companies to treat writers as independent contractors … an employment classification that generally saves a company money. (I’d argue that the rise of freelance journalism has lots to do with this — the decimated budgets of news organizations and their consequent need to save money while still producing journalistic content.)
Or maybe its because writers themselves recognize that their work is uniquely well suited to working from home (or elsewise remotely), working autonomously, and working based on task completion and deadlines (but not based on punching a clock). And as working from anywhere, without a boss, according to your own schedule is something that many people dream of, writers jump all over the opportunity offered by being in a profession that allows and, indeed, encourages this.
Bottom line … if you are planning to be a full-time writer, it is best you spend some time thinking about being self-employed. (And not just the work from anywhere, travel round the world romantic bit.)
Which brings me back to writing.
Freelancing is the most common form of self-employment (Though not the only form … and this, as you will come to appreciate, is important.)
As a freelance writer you will need to think constantly about obtaining clients who wish to retain you for your writing services.
As your career and reputation grow and as you develop and maintain relationships with clients and with your larger professional network, consistently securing work becomes easier. And that work will also pay increasingly more.
But initially finding clients will take some effort.
And early-career freelance writing jobs, while they are definitely out there, often do not pay much.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the next time you read a post about making money online as a freelance writer, look closely at what sites (reputable sites) offering freelance writing opportunities or what freelance writing jobs on general job boards actually pay.
As a freelance writer you will need to be able to provide samples of your work.
To accomplish this, freelance writers are typically encouraged to create and maintain a portfolio of their work. (Though sometimes prospective clients request one-off writing samples specific to a given job.)
You can do this by accumulating samples of your work as you successfully complete client contracts … that is, provided your client allows you to retain attribution and share the work you have done for them (something that can be a little trickier with entry level freelance writing jobs) … and, of course, provided you have clients.
A little chicken or the egg, no?
Or, you can be your own client.
Early in my self-employed writing career, I was reading about creating a content writing portfolio and came across the advice to volunteer to create a website for a non-profit (for free) thereby showcasing my work. In the absence of a willing non-profit, the advice continued, simply create your own website of content (for no one in particular) that you then publish on the web as an easy to access (if unproven) illustration of your content writing abilities.
I was halfway down this path to creating a content writing portfolio (though well along in ghost writing and technical writing) when I came across affiliate marketing.
Here’s what you can expect from Blue Blanket Writer.
At Blue Blanket Writer we will explore how to become a content writer, build a writing portfolio of content that you own, and establish a provable track record of SEO success without ever having had a client … through affiliate marketing.
This will be an especially beneficial strategy if you are in the early stages of your content writing career.
As a natural part of learning affiliate marketing, you will learn how to create a full-blown website of content that you completely control — your fully realized website will be something impressive to share with prospective clients.
As a natural part of learning affiliate marketing, you will also be learning how to write content that ranks high in search engines – and the metrics of your success will be something you can easily show to prospective clients.
But what really makes this a winning strategy for writers is this.
Affiliate marketers earn money for themselves through their websites. And all the well written, beautifully designed, SEO optimized content that you are creating to demonstrate your content writing skills to others … well if you are doing the job right (which is the whole point) your portfolio website may itself earn you money.
In fact, if you are doing the kind of work you are telling prospective clients you can do, your site will earn you money.
It may earn you so much money (in time) that you never seek another client contract and, instead, become a kind of self-employed that is not freelancing.
You become an entrepreneur.
Regardless of what path you ultimately take — obtaining traditional employment, securing freelance contracts, or becoming an entrepreneur — this unique approach to building your writing portfolio will serve equally well. Plus it will be FUN!
At Blue Blanket Writer, we will also explore the field of content writing and the future of content writing in the age of artificial intelligence.
Business Insider recently published an article titled, “ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.” Not surprisingly, on the list was “content creation.”
Some day, this may be true. But today, in my opinion, we are still in the very early stages of figuring out how we as writers (and humans) will navigate, use, and interact with AI, including large language models like GPT4.
Suffice it to say that at this point, GPT4 is not ready to take any of your jobs. Rather this amazing technology (and it is truly amazing!) has opened up a whole new world of possibilities and questions – questions that are being asked, but that are far from being answered.
In my opinion, we as writers (and humans) have suddenly found ourselves on a frontier. And frontiers inspire inventiveness and afford opportunity. (Shout out to Frederick Jackson Turner! Don’t know who that is? Ask ChatGPT.)
What role will writers, particularly content writers, have in a world of large language models and generative AI? We, as writers (and humans), have the chance (and the responsibility) to be part of shaping this fascinating future. “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”(Shout out to Terminator franchise! Don’t know what that is? Come on.)
Finally, at Blue Blanket Writer, we will address the broader considerations of being a self-employed writer.
As I said at the beginning, being self-employed is pretty awesome.
But it is not a panacea and it is not magic.
There are some serious considerations that come along with being self-employed, including everything from obtaining insurance to maintaining healthy work-life boundaries.
What seems obvious … that being self-employed is different from being employed … may entail some surprises.
Nothing in life is without risk, but it is my hope that the tips, tools, and insights provided by Blue Blanket Writer can help you move forward in your career as a self-employed content writer while maintaining structure, stability, and balance in the rest of your life.
Let’s enjoy the journey!
Kristen Powell
blueblanketwriter.com
P.S. “Thank you, Caitlin Pyle.”
Who, you may ask, is Caitlin Pyle?
Caitlin Pyle is, among other things, the founder of Proofread Anywhere, a blog born out of her passion for proofreading, for helping others become proofreaders, and for helping “proofreaders earn extra income from anywhere in the world,” a blog that she grew into a multi-million dollar online business (and recently sold).
I discovered Caitlin Pyle while I was searching for something legitimate and substantial in the way of work-from-home employment. (At the time, it had not occurred to me to think of writing.)
While, as you can see, I did not ultimately choose a career in proofreading, I cannot overstate how much I gained from reading Caitlin’s generous, helpful, and highly-relevant blog posts, which cover much much more than proofreading.
Caitlin Pyle helped me envision the world of self-employment and I still remember the following words from one of her posts.
“I learned things and I did things and I got results.”
I recommend you check Proofread Anywhere (and its blog posts) out.
And once again, “Thank you, Caitlin Pyle.”