How do you get experience when you're just starting out?
This can feel like a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation for freelancers: what do you do when you need clips to get work, but you don't yet have any published work to show potential clients?
It's not just freelancers who can struggle to get experience, though. If you want to improve your writing skills and gain confidence before embarking on something (from a new career to writing a non-fiction book), then getting more experience can be really helpful.
Note: Fiction writers can also struggle to get experience – particularly experience that leads to useful feedback – and we'll be covering that next week.
Here are five great ways to boost your writing portfolio:
#1: Guest blogging
Guest blogging means writing for someone else's blog or content-focused website. It's a really good way to get experience. As a guest blogger, you get instant access to someone else's audience, who'll hopefully give you some feedback in the form of comments, tweets, and so on. Plus, you get a published piece online that you can link to any time someone wants to see an example of your writing.
#2: Local magazines / newspapers
Your local area almost certainly has some sort of magazine or newspaper. Where I live, we normally have a free newspaper and a couple of free magazines aimed at parents in the local library, plus, several booklets of adverts that come through the door every month ... though of course not all of those are being circulated at present due to Covid. There are also a few local websites that round up news and events. All of these run on small budgets and would
welcome pieces from local writers.
#3: Small charity or non-profit
If you know anyone working for a small charity or a non-profit organisation, see if you can help out with writing (or editing) for them. Maybe you could write a half-termly newsletter for your child's preschool, a leaflet for a small local charity, the website text for a social enterprise ... chances are, there's someone who'd really appreciate your skills and help.
#4: Writing letters to magazines
There are loads of magazines out there on all sorts of topics – and many of them welcome letters from reader. Some even pay for letters, or offer a prize: here in the UK, the weekly women's magazines are good examples. While having a letter published isn't generally something you can put on your portfolio, it can still be a great confidence boost – and tailoring your writing to the publication is a real skill, especially as these letters are
typically very short.
#5: Writing for imaginary clients
A final way to gain experience is to write some pieces for imaginary clients. For instance, if you'd like to be a freelance copywriter, you might write a sales page for an imaginary product or service. I feel that this method is best used when you've tried other options first, as it's ideally best to have your work published "for real" if you want to include the pieces in your portfolio. But you can certainly use it as a writing exercise.
If you've been dreaming for a while of taking up writing as a career, then it's time to do something about it. :-) Pick one of the ideas above, or come up with your own, and start gathering some experience. Good luck!
