Believe it or not, you don’t have to have the world’s best writing skills to be a freelance writer. Believe it or not, it isn’t all that difficult to find writers who have good vocabularies and know how to turn a phrase or two. What is difficult to find—believe it or not—is writers who actually take the time to make a good impression and take pride in doing the best job they possibly can.

Every single week I get e-mails from people wanting to work for Editor’s Ink, and many of those e-mails are so casual and unprofessional that I file them in the “no” folder (it’s actually labeled “Trash”). An e-mail inquiry about a job should be just as professionally written as a letter, with a salutation, a body, and a signature. If an e-mail is your only chance to catch the eye of a prospective employer, then it had better be professionally written. It’s sort of like the clothes you wear to an interview, in that it’s the first impression—sometimes the only impression—an employer will have of you before deciding whether to get to know you better. Just as it’s better to “over-dress” for an interview than to “under-dress,” an e-mail to a prospective employer can never sound too professional.

One key to successful freelancing that goes hand in hand with professionalism is being sure that everything you write is perfect. I’m not talking about things like word choice, factual accuracy, or knowledge of a subject, although things like that are certainly important. What I mean when I say everything must be perfect is that there should be no spelling errors, punctuation errors, grammatical errors, or any other blatantly obvious errors that are easily caught with a spell check program. And I’m not talking only about projects you work on; it’s just as important for your e-mails to be perfect, at least until you’ve established an ongoing rapport with an employer. With the plethora of electronic tools available to everyone these days, there is absolutely no excuse for a freelance writer to send out anything—even an e-mail—that contains mistakes in spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

If you succeed in having a job assigned to you, then punctuality is the “p” that will help make sure that employer wants to use your services again. If you’re given a deadline for completing a project, don’t miss it! Especially if you’re the one who set the ETA for delivery. If something comes up and it looks like you won’t be able to meet the deadline, you simply must let the employer know as far in advance as you can. Most employers will be understanding and accommodate a late delivery—but not if it happens repeatedly. One of the keys to being a successful freelancer in any field is being able to manage your time appropriately and not procrastinate. If you don’t have good time management skills and are consistently late meeting deadlines, then you won’t be a successful freelancer.

Although this post is titled “the three P’s,” I probably should have called it “my three pet peeves,” because these are the three things that frustrate me most when trying to find freelancers who can live up to the standard of excellence we promise our clients. Just take a look at any of the online freelance job posting sites and you’ll see that freelance writers and editors are a dime a dozen, so competition is fierce. To succeed as a freelancer, you must take the time to show prospective employers that you have what it takes to deliver the goods. In order to stand out from the crowd, you must make it clear that you are a professional, your work is perfect, and you will be punctual with your deliverables.

Tags: meeting deadlines, perfectionism, professional freelance editor, professional freelance writer

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