by Jill Black Copyright © 2001

As a freelancer there are many opportunities available for working from home as a career or providing an extra stream of income for your established information publishing business by filling the needs of a widely diverse market as a paid freelance article writer both on internet and in offline publications.

What is a Freelancer?

A freelancer is an independent writer who earns his/her living by contracting for work projects, working for no fixed employer, and may work for a number of employers at any given time. 

You will be required to negotiate terms and conditions  of work and all work must be completed to satisfaction  of clients requirements. 

Note: The objectives and requirements of both parties should be understood fully by both parties from start to save any problems later on - this includes terms of payment.

As a freelancer you need to keep up with latest developments to compete in marketplace.

This requires studying and researching needs of the  marketplace along with selling yourself to your potential clients.

Getting Started as a Freelancer 

The freelance market can be fiercely competitive at times  requiring emphasis on marketing your work effectively and  assessing your expertise and skills.

"How to" articles tend to sell well and most successful  freelancers maintain constant contact with marketplace  trends and requirements seeking those areas where they can fill needs of potential clients.

Write your resume with view of selling your strengths.   Use short sentences with each paragraph easy to read, clearly and concisely giving your qualifications or related experience for job. 

Usually you will only have a few seconds to make an impact on your prospective client and this can make difference between hiring you over someone else.

To find a niche (your niche) Web monkey has a very good article on finding and defining your niche as a web freelancer.

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/44/index4a.html?tw=jobs

Many writers prefer to stick within topic subjects they can write confidently on although a good freelancer can research and write on any topic if and when required.

When you are decided on subject niche you would like to fill seek out magazine publications, online and offline, on your chosen topic.

There are two main ways most freelancers find work -

Submitting to publications

Bidding on freelance contracts

If you do not wish to bid for work contracts until you have gained a degree of confidence in your abilities e.g. at some of sites listed below...

Seek out publications in your chosen field that accept articles e.g. if your interest in in fishing go to your local outlet selling magazines and see if they accept article contributions (this can usually be found inside front cover in most magazines)

Many freelancers start by submitting to local community newspapers/letters as a way of establishing credibility as a published writer. 

Send a query letter or email your chosen publications with your subject ideas and an outline of your proposed article and how they may contact you if interested.   However, still expect to wait some time (sometimes up to three months if approaching offline publications) for a reply as most editors are very busy people.

If you have any kind of life yourself, you probably won't be able to read every book your child brings home, especially if you happen to live with an avid reader. Last summer my 12 year-old daughter read more than a hundred novels – she is a much faster reader than I am and even if I had wanted to keep up, I couldn't have. If you have more than one child, good luck!

Somewhere, someone has banned even very finest literary titles. Books are subversive vehicles – they expose children to new ideas, alternate worldviews, and different perspectives and this is exactly what makes them so threatening. But by reading a wide variety of books with our children and then using those books as launching points for discussions, we have an opportunity to show our kids how to approach books with a critical eye.

Characters struggling with moral dilemmas can be used to start discussions about moral values of your own family. Exposure to mores of other cultures could be an excellent way to examine our own cultural assumptions and biases. For example, reading Deborah Ellis' novel, Breadwinner, (which looks at 6th grader, Parvana's experiences as a girl living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan) is a great way to launch discussions on gender relations, fundamentalism, or non-democratic forms of government.

If you are a believer in free speech and free exchange of ideas in a democratic society, then don't be too quick to strip your child's shelves of Garfield comics, or forbid her to read anything by Francesca Lia Block. Instead, be aware of what your child is reading, offer gentle guidance, make suggestions for possible reading material, and remain open to discussions that may be triggered as a result of your child reading something from a perspective other than one found at home.

There are some terrific novels out there for teens covering subjects from drinking and drug use (What They Don't Know, Anita Horrocks) to teen gambling (Double or Nothing, Dennis Foon), or learning to find your own way in face of outside pressures (Changing Jareth, Elizabeth Wennick). If you suspect it's time to have a chat about a subject like sexual orientation or religious beliefs different to your own, why not introduce topic through a book you can share and discuss with your child? The author's perspective does not have to match your own for book to be useful.