i have questions about Freelance writing

Marketing skills, if you want to make money from it.

Just go into it being very aware that what you earn, writing for people, isn't primarily about your writing skills (yes, you have to have those, too, of course): it's mostly about your marketing skills. I don't mean for writing for marketers - I mean for yourself: to market your own professional services as a writer.

You may find a few posts in this recent thread pretty helpful.

Writing articles for $5 - $10, I suspect there may be more service providers than customers. Well, almost.

The customers for $5 articles aren't necessarily able to tell the difference between your work and the work of someone who's charging $20/$25. And you might have more customers at that price. (Yes, seriously).

It's all about the markets in which you choose to compete.

If you choose to compete in the low-price markets represented by Odesk, Elance, Getafreelancer, Fiverr and so on, you're effectively labelling your work "Low Cost Writing" and you're choosing to compete with people who are living and working in countries where $5 is a full day's pay.

Many people with genuinely valuable writing skills start off with very low-paid projects, thinking that this will help them to move on to higher-paid projects. It usually doesn't, at all.

It's really important, I think, to avoid at the outset the mistake of imagining that it's sensible to "start off by writing for low prices" with a view to raising your prices after clients have seen what you can produce. When writing for online markets, it simply doesn't work that way: when you write for low prices you attract clients whose primary motivation is to pay low prices, and you lose almost all of them when you increase prices later.

Yes ...

You might find some of these resources helpful/interesting (and most of the recommendations in them for "further reading" will also be pretty reliable ones, I think):-

Jennifer Mattern's blog

Carol Tice's blog

Freelance writing jobs (minmum payment requirement of $50 per article to be listed there)

Free report on how to attract new freelance writing clients during a recession

The Renegade Writer Blog

The "Irreverent Freelancer" blog

The Well-Fed Writer: Lucrative Commercial Freelance Writing - Land Lucrative Freelance Writing Jobs

Words on the Page.

And good luck!

@Alexa

+1 to that... thanks! I got some bits of info there!

article writing is a tough business for freshers... don't go with off shore sites.. people are just looking for cheap labor there.. you won't make more than $5 per blog to start with.. you'd rather beg..

Instead start on your own... pick a great topic you like to talk about and post it on ezine, etc.. start your own blog... learn the art... use social media to connect with some entrepreneurs who share the same thought as you do and directly work with them as a part of their PR effort...

I have written a blog on this topic here... hope it'll answer your questions and help you too: When Is The Right Time To Hire A Blogger? : Never Ending Thoughts…

Hope this helps.

cheers,
GT

Alexa kicked ass with her response - it *wins*...
hands down!

The only thing I'll add as an experience (retired)
freelance writer - is that she is spot on...

it IS about how you MARKET & SALE you writing
services.

The money YOU make, is - and I'm not kidding -
dependent on how much you WANT to make.

I remember when I started doing low-ball stuff
for about 30 days before I made the decision to
charge more for my service...

and I GOT exactly what I wanted.

From there, I kept pushing my prices higher and
higher - not out of greed - but curiosity - and
STILL often get the prices I wanted.

The most important skill, as Alexa said, is not the
writing ability...it's how well you *sell* what you
offer.

If you can sell someone on paying you $20, $40,
$100+ per article - you win the game. It takes a
little skill and practice to get people to see the
value you offer them...but eventually you'll get it
and wonder why people charge LESS than minimum
wage.

People will buy into you. And, they will be willing
to pay more for it - if not for your ability to write,
but for your enthusiasm to give them an experience
and give them your best for the price.

It's like a game...constantly pushing yourself and
what you think is possible - if you have the courage
to risk losing a client to ask for $10 more than what
you normally would ask for

...you could be in for a surprise - which set's a new
high for you.

This all comes from personal experience.

You might want to start with brushing up on the rules regarding capitalization.

Alexa gave you some excellent advice in her post. Listen to her - she knows her stuff!

imagoodguy, I am ALWAYS seeking content writers for my many websites, I am NOT a top payer but I do provide constant work for writers.

Send me a message and let's get some dialogue going, Usually I ask for a single proof which I feel is more than reasonable and I don't pick too much, I proof read and edit everything personally before it goes live so small errors are usually picked up on and corrected.

As you say you are from the USA, the only point to note is most of my sites reach UK audience so adding a few U's in words usually gets by.

Best regards
Arran Wood

You might also want to use this resource. I guess you can skip to
4. Practical Guides To Better Writing Skills
5. Copywriting Blogs
in the following link.
50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills - Smashing Magazine

First decide on which topic you are more interested to write and then research about the successful writers blog and their approach to write those articles and then start your writing.

Great stuff here...so many resources to check out. Thanks to all the posters and also to the OP.