Are you interested in working from home and becoming a freelance writer?

I’ve been a freelance writer for a little over a year now and I get asked a lot about where to find freelance writing jobs.

And not just any gigs. Good quality freelance writing gigs.

I know when I first started, I was obsessed with landing my first client. I had no clue what I was doing; I was a stay-at-home mom who decided to leap into freelance writing full-force…well, part-time full force…from scratch.

So, you know what I ended up doing? I stalked other freelance writers. I went to their websites, looked at where they were writing, read blog post after blog post, made a ton of mistakes along the way, but eventually found how to attract high-paying clients.

But, you don’t have to do that. I’ve found 20 ways a beginner can land freelance writing work. And good writing work too! I’ll go through each of them in detail for you today!

If you’re just thinking about freelance writing, bookmark this post and come back to it when you’re ready to take action.

And if you want to get serious about freelance writing, check out my complete course,Write Your Way to Your First $1k, and learn my proven framework for freelance writing success.

1. Start Cold Pitching

Do you know cold pitching is a fabulous way to land recurring gigs? There’s much less competition and you’ll have a better chance at landing a gig when you contact clients directly.

What is cold pitching?

It’s when you contact bloggers, entrepreneurs, companies, small businesses or startups and let them know how you – a freelance writer – can help grow their business.

Yes, I know, it sounds hard (and scary) doesn’t? Especially if you’re brand new to freelance writing. But, you know what? It’s totally easy to do.

First you need to locate businesses to cold pitch to. Maybe you noticed they don’t have a blog – but should. Or, on Twitter you see they are trying to grow their online presence and you think your content can help with that.

Once you locate these places, all you have to do is draft up a cold pitch and send it off!

In your pitch make sure to include:

• How you found out about them
• Who you are
• How you can help them

FREE: Click here and grab my ultimate cold pitching swipe file

2. Pitch to a Job Board Ad

If you’re new to freelance writing and you want to find quality jobs, responding to job ads is your best bet. It’s also the main way many new writers use for finding consistent work.

And it’s something I tell my course students to do as it helps you gain confidence as a new freelance writer.

A bonus to using job boards over a freelance market place like Upwork or Guru to find a writing gig, is there isn’t any bidding. Entrepreneurs, small businesses and start-ups post job ads to freelance writing job boards and you pitch to these ads.

Sometimes you are asked to give your rate; other times the job ad specifies a starting rate for content.

While there are paid job boards you can use, I would suggest you first start using free job boards. I was able to find my first freelance writing job writing 800-word blog posts for $100 on a free job board.

Here are the job boards to start pitching to:

• Problogger
• Blogging Pro
• Canadian Freelance Writing (you don’t need to be Canadian to apply to these jobs)
• AllIndieWriters Job Board
• Contena

3. Follow Tweets From Job Boards

Did you know social media can be a goldmine for landing gigs? I didn’t know either until it happened to me several times. Twitter is a great place to find freelance writing jobs quickly and it’s a great way to build relationships with potential clients.

And by following certain freelance writing job boards you won’t be hard-pressed trying to land a gig during a dry spell. For example, I found this tweet recently:

Here are 11 basic Excel tricks that will change your life

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Business Insider/Sara SIlverstein

Microsoft Excel is an amazing piece of software, and even regular users might not be getting as much out of it as they can. Improve your Excel efficiency and proficiency with these basic shortcuts and functions that absolutely everyone needs to know.

1. Jump from worksheet to worksheet with Ctrl + PgDn and Ctrl + PgUp

2. Jump to the end of a data range or the next data range with Ctrl + Arrow

Of course you can move from cell to cell with arrow keys. But if you want to get around faster, hold down the Ctrl key and hit the arrow keys to get farther:

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

3. Add the Shift key to select data

Ctrl + Shift +Arrow will extend the current selection to the last nonblank cell in that direction:

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

  

4. Double click to copy down

To copy a formula or value down the length of your data set, you don't need to hold and drag the mouse all the way down. Just double click the tiny box at the bottom right-hand corner of the cell:

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

5. Use shortcuts to quickly format values

For a number with two decimal points, use Ctrl + Shift + !. For dollars use Ctrl + Shift + $. For percentages it's Ctrl + Shift + %. The last two should be pretty easy to remember:

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

6. Lock cells with F4

When copying formulas in Excel, sometimes you want your input cells to move with your formulas BUT SOMETIMES YOU DON'T. When you want to lock one of your inputs you need to put dollar signs before the column letter and row number. Typing in the dollar signs is insane and a huge waste of time. Instead, after you select your cell, hit F4 to insert the dollar signs and lock the cell. If you continue to hit the F4 key, it will cycle through different options: lock cell, lock row number, lock column letter, no lock.

Business Insider/Sara SIlverstein

7. Summarize data with CountIF and SumIF

CountIF will count the number of times a value appears in a selected range. The first input is the range of values you want to count in. The second input is the criteria, or particular value, you are looking for. Below we are counting the number of stories in column B written by the selected author:

COUNTIF(range,criteria)

SumIF will add up values in a range when the value in a corresponding range matches your criteria. Here we want to count the total number of views for each author. Our sum range is different from the range with the authors' names, but the two ranges are the same size. We are adding up the number of views in column E when the author name in column B matches the selected name. 

SUMIF(range,criteria,sum range)

8. Pull out the exact data you want with VLOOKUP

VLOOKUP looks for a value in the leftmost column of a data range and will return any value to the right of it. Here we have a list of law schools with school rankings in the first column. We want to use VLOOKUP to create a list of the top 5 ranked schools.

VLOOKUP(lookup value,data range,column number,type) 

The first input is the lookup value. Here we use the ranking we want to find. The second input is the data range that contains the values we are looking up in the leftmost column and the information we're trying to get in the columns to the right. The third input is the column number of the value you want to return.

We want the school name, and this is in the second column of our data range. The last input tells Excel if you want an exact match or an approximate match. For an exact match write FALSE or 0. 

9. Use & to combine text strings

Here we have a column of first names and last names. We can create a column with full names by using &. In Excel, & joins together two or more pieces of text. Don't forget to put a space between the names. Your formula will look like this =[First Name]&" "&[Last Name]. You can mix cell references with actual text as long as the text you want to include is surrounded by quotes:

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

10. Clean up text with LEFT, RIGHT and LEN

These text formulas are great for cleaning up data. Here we have state abbreviations combined with state names with a dash in between. We can use the LEFT function to return the state abbreviation. LEFT grabs a specified number of characters from the start of a text string. The first input is the text string. The second input is the number of characters you want. In our case, we want the first two characters:

LEFT(text string, number of characters)

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

If you want to pull the names of the states out of this text string you have to use the RIGHT function. RIGHT grabs a number of characters from the right end of a text string.

But how many characters on the right do you want? All but three, since the state names all come after the state's two-letter abbreviation and a dash. This is where LEN comes in handy. LEN will count the number of characters or length of the text string. 

LEN(text string)

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

Now you can use a combination of RIGHT and LEN to pull out the state names. Since we want all but the first three characters, we take the length of our string, subtract 3, and pull that many characters from the right end of the string:

RIGHT(text string,number of characters)

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

11. Generate random values with RAND

You can use RAND() function to generate a random value between 0 and 1. D0 not include any inputs, just leave the parentheses empty. New random values will be generated every time the workbook recalculates. You can force it to recalculate by hitting F9. But be careful. It also recalculates when you make other changes to the workbook:

RAND()

Business Insider/Sara Silverstein

Already mastered these? Check out these lesser-known Excel shortcuts:

NOW WATCH: This is what separates the Excel masters from the wannabes

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IN 2020 WE CAN WEAR SONY COMPUTERS ON OUR WRIST

Our present need for internet connectivity is so profound that secondary devices like the Nextep Computer are bound to happen. Developed to be worn as a bracelet, this computer concept is constructed out of a flexible OLED touchscreen. Earmarked for the year 2020, features like a holographic projector (for screen), pull-out extra keyboard panels and social networking compatibility, make the concept plausible. Ten years from now is not too far away, so how many of you think we’d be buying such gadgets?

Designer: Hiromi Kiriki

23 INCREDIBLE NEW TECHNOLOGIES YOU’LL SEE BY 2021

WHILE WE can’t really predict what the future holds, we can look at how far we’ve come with technology in merely the last decade and realize the present we know now will, very soon, find itself memorialized in nostalgia. Here are some technologies on the horizon that are poised to change your life.

2012

Ultrabooks – The last two years have been all about the tablet. Laptops, with their “untouchable” screens, have yet to match any tablet’s featherweight portability and zippy response times. However, by next year, ultraportable notebooks — Ultrabooks — will finally be available for under $1000, bringing a complete computing experience into areas of life which, until now, have only been partially filled by smaller technologies such as tablets and smartphones. They weigh around three pounds, measure less than an inch thick, and the hard drives are flash-based, which means they’ll have no moving parts, delivering zippy-quick startups and load times.

The Mars Science Laboratory – By August 2012, the next mission to Mars will reach the Martian surface with a new rover named Curiosity focusing on whether Mars could ever have supported life, and whether it might be able to in the future. Curiosity will be more than 5 times larger than the previous Mars rover, and the mission will cost around $2.3 billion — or just about one and a half New Yankee Stadiums.

The Brain Cap, from U of Maryland.

The paralyzed will walk. But, perhaps not in the way that you’d imagine. Using a machine-brain interface, researchers are making it possible for otherwise paralyzed humans to control neuroprostheses — essentially mechanical limbs that respond to human thought — allowing them to walk and regain bodily control. The same systems are also being developed for the military, which one can only assume means this project won’t flounder due to a lack of funding.

2013

The Rise of Electronic Paper – Right now, e-paper is pretty much only used in e-readers like the Kindle, but it’s something researchers everywhere are eager to expand upon. Full-color video integration is the obvious next step, and as tablet prices fall, it’s likely newspapers will soon be fully eradicated from their current form. The good news: less deforestation, and more user control over your sources.

4G will be the new standard in cell phone networks. What this means: your phone will download data about as fast as your home computer can. While you’ve probably seen lots of 4G banter from the big cell providers, it’s not very widely available in most phones. However, both Verizon and the EU intend to do away with 3G entirely by 2013, which will essentially bring broadband-level speeds to wireless devices on cell networks. It won’t do away with standard internet providers, but it will bring “worldwide WiFi” capabilities to anyone with a 4G data plan.

Read more: 10 ways technology will change travel by 2020

The Eye of Gaia, a billion-pixel telescope will be sent into space this year to begin photographing and mapping the universe on a scale that was recently impossible. With the human eye, one can see several thousand stars on a clear night; Gaia will observe more than a billion over the course of its mission — about 1% of all the stars in the Milky Way. As well, it will look far beyond our own galaxy, even as far as the end of the (observable) universe.

2014

A 1 Terabyte SD Memory Card probably seems like an impossibly unnecessary technological investment. Many computers still don’t come with that much memory, much less SD memory cards that fit in your digital camera. Yet thanks to Moore’s Law we can expect that the 1TB SD card will become commonplace in 2014, and increasingly necessary given the much larger swaths of data and information that we’re constantly exchanging every day (thanks to technologies like memristors and our increasing ever-connectedness). The only disruptive factor here could be the rise of cloud-computing, but as data and transfer speeds continue to rise, it’s inevitable that we’ll need a physical place to store our digital stuff.

The first around-the-world flight by a solar-powered plane will be accomplished by now, bringing truly clean energy to air transportation for the first time. Consumer models are still far down the road, but you don’t need to let your imagination wander too far to figure out that this is definitely a game-changer. Consider this: it took humans quite a few milennia to figure out how to fly; and only a fraction of that time to do it with solar power.

The Solar Impulse, to be flown around the world. Photo by Stephanie Booth

The world’s most advanced polar icebreaker is currently being developed as a part of the EU’s scientific development goals and is scheduled to launch in 2014. As global average temperatures continue to climb, an understanding and diligence to the polar regions will be essential to monitoring the rapidly changing climates — and this icebreaker will be up to the task.

$100 personal DNA sequencing is what’s being promised by a company called BioNanomatrix, which the company founder Han Cao has made possible through his invention of the ‘nanofluidic chip.’ What this means: by being able to cheaply sequence your individual genome, a doctor could biopsy a tumor, sequence the DNA, and use that information to determine a prognosis and prescribe treatment for less than the cost of a modern-day x-ray. And by specifically inspecting the cancer’s DNA, treatment can be applied with far more specific — and effective — accuracy.

2015

The world’s first zero-carbon, sustainable city in the form of Masdar City will be initially completed just outside of Abu Dhabi. The city will derive power solely from solar and other renewable resources, offer homes to more than 50,000 people.

Personal 3D Printing is currently reserved for those with extremely large bank accounts or equally large understandings about 3D printing; but by 2015, printing in three dimensions (essentially personal manufacturing) will become a common practice in the household and in schools. Current affordable solutions include do-it-yourself kits like Makerbot, but in four years it should look more like a compact version of the uPrint. Eventually, this technology could lead to technologies such as nanofabricators and matter replicators — but not for at least a few decades.

2016

Space tourism will hit the mainstream. Well, sorta. Right now it costs around $20-30 million to blast off and chill at the International Space Station, or $200,000 for a sub-orbital spaceflight from Virgin Galactic. But the market is growing faster than most realize: within five years, companies like Space Island,Galactic Suite, and Orbital Technologies may realize their company missions, with space tourism packages ranging from $10,000 up-and-backs to $1 million five-night stays in an orbiting hotel suite.

The sunscreen pill will hit the market, protecting the skin as well as the eyes from UV rays. By reverse-engineering the way coral reefs shield themselves from the sun, scientists are very optimistic about the possibility, much to the dismay of sunscreen producers everywhere.

Read more: 13 future car technologies for your road trip in 2020

A Woolly Mammoth will be reborn among other now-extinct animals in 2016, assuming all goes according to the current plans of Japan’s Riken Center for Developmental Biology. If they can pull it off, expect long lines at Animal Kingdom.

2017

Portable laser pens that can seal wounds – Imagine you’re hiking fifty miles from the nearest human, and you slip, busting your knee wide open, gushing blood. Today, you might stand a chance of some serious blood loss — but in less than a decade you might be carrying a portable laser pen capable of sealing you back up Wolverine-style.

2018

Light Peak technology, a method of super-high-data-transfer, will enable more than 100 Gigabytes per second — and eventually whole terabytes per second — within everyday consumer electronics. This enables the copying of entire hard drives in a matter of seconds, although by this time the standard hard drive is probably well over 2TB.

Insect-sized robot spies aren’t far off from becoming a reality, with the military currently hard at work to bring Mission Impossible-sized tech to the espionage playground. Secret weapon: immune to bug spray.

2019

The average PC has the power of the human brain. According to Ray Kurzweil, who has a better grip on the future than probably anyone else, the Law of Accelerating Returns will usher in an exponentially greater amount of computing power than every before.

The Web Within Us. Image by Anna Lena Schiller.

Web 3.0 – What will it look like? Is it already here? It’s always difficult to tell just where we stand in terms of technological chronology. But if we assume that Web 1.0 was based only upon hyperlinks, and Web 2.0 is based on the social, person-to-person sharing of links, then Web 3.0 uses a combination of socially-sourced information, curated by a highly refined, personalizable algorithm (“they” call it the Semantic Web). We’re already in the midst of it, but it’s still far from its full potential.

Energy from a fusion reactor has always seemed just out of reach. It’s essentially the process of producing infinite energy from a tiny amount of resources, but it requires a machine that can contain a reaction that occurs at over 125,000,000 degrees. However, right now in southern France, the fusion reactor of the future is being built to power up by 2019, with estimates of full-scale fusion power available by 2030.

2020

Crash-proof cars have been promised by Volvo, to be made possible by using radar, sonar, and driver alert systems. Considering automobile crashes kill over30,000 people in the U.S. per year, this is definitely a welcome technology.

2021

So, what should we expect in 2021? Well, 10 years ago, what did you expect to see now? Did you expect the word “Friend” to become a verb? Did you expect your twelve-year-old brother to stay up texting until 2am? Did you expect 140-character messaging systems enabling widespread revolutions against decades-old dictatorial regimes?

The next 10 years will be an era of unprecedented connectivity; this much we know. It will build upon the social networks, both real and virtual, that we’ve all played a role in constructing, bringing ideas together that would have otherwise remained distant, unknown strangers. Without twitter and a steady drip of mainstream media, would we have ever so strongly felt the presence of the Arab Spring? What laughs, gasps, or loves, however fleeting, would have been lost if not for Chatroulette? Keeping in mind that as our connections grow wider and more intimate, so too will the frequency of our connectedness, and as such, your own understanding of just what kinds of relationships are possible will be stretched and revolutionized as much as any piece of hardware.

Truly, the biggest changes we’ll face will not come in the form of any visible technology; the changes that matter most, as they always have, will occur in those places we know best but can never quite see: our own hearts and minds.