Learning the secrets of freelance tech writers enables you to boost your freelance technical writing career and gain more clients.
Secrets of the freelance tech writers with Solomon
Meet Solomon Eseme- The smooth bearded Nigerian tech wiz, who made above $2000 in his first month as a freelance technical writer.
In this interview, he discusses his STACK-BRAND cheat system that made him achieve this in such a short time.
The secrets of the other freelance tech writers will help you stay on track If you’re a freelance technical writer looking to get into the tech industry, or an already established tech writer looking to up your game in the freelance writing world.
So stick around and read till the end to get the “STACK-BRAND” cheat.
How did Solomon get into technical writing?
“Well, it all started way back in 2012, I was in school and doing my best to master web development.
It was really tough then because I had no one to put me through, no mentor, just me and my big head (*laughs), and I had to do it all on my own. So I started writing as a way to deepen my understanding of tech.
On August 17th, 2017, I wrote down my first article in Medium, and other subsequent ones, as I love to share my experiences.
But there was this particular article I was struggling to write and after slaving for hours and doing the research, I came up with a killer article.
It took me a whole week to finish and when I eventually did, I was so happy because I had learned new things in the process.
After creating what I felt was a masterpiece, I sent it across to my friend, to help give me some constructive criticism.
Hmm, big mistake.”
Why do you say that?
“That felt like the worst mistake of my life, to be honest, and let me tell you why.
He told me that my work had “no context” and he didn’t say anything useful that could help me fix it up. Coming from a close friend I must say, that felt awful.
Let me put it like this so you understand. He chopped my self-esteem into 1-inched cubes and fed it to a grizzly bear. I never put a pen on paper or typed a single word on a computer screen in a full month after what he said, that’s how much it hurt me.”
Considering all your challenges, how did you make the money?-we’re all curious.
“Relax, I’ll get there. *laughs.
After sulking and feeling depressed about how my article had ‘no context’ (*rolls eyes), I made a stubborn resolve to post it on Medium regardless.
Wendy, do you know that to this day, that article is one of my best-performing pieces? In fact, IT IS!-it’s the article with the most views, the most engagements and it has landed me several gigs too. It basically blew up and since then, I continued writing and posting articles on Medium.”
Host: “Wow, this is a typical case scenario of why we need to be kind with our words. You almost didn’t write anymore!
I’m pissed on your behalf but let’s get back to the interview, shall we?”
So, how did you land your first client?
“I told you I started to write in 2017 right? I got my first client in 2020, three years later.”
What! Why?
“I had absolutely no clue that someone could get paid to write. I found out from a colleague (and friend) who talked about getting paid $20 to write long-form articles.
In all this time, what stood in my way of making my dream income was ignorance, but I guess everything happens for a reason. As a sharp guy, once I got this crucial information, I went on a brutal hunt for writing gigs.
Let me digress a little. I see a lot of writers these days limiting themselves to platforms like Upwork or Fiverr while there are a lot more different ways to land gigs as a writer.
In my case, I didn’t use any of those platforms. I simply made a google search and after searching for about three weeks, I got a job as a freelance technical writer with LogRocket.
Guess what? They didn’t pay $20 per article, instead, they paid me above $300 per article.
For a guy who was earning around $300 per month working as a software developer for a firm (with tireless work every single day), this was a huge breakthrough. I could take on 8 articles in a month COMFORTABLY, making my take-home above $2,000 a month”.
Could you share some of your bad experiences as a writer, did you ever have some nasty clients in your career?
“No. I can’t relate to that. I have always had very nice clients that offered me good pay for my work. At LogRocket, my first paying gig, I had the opportunity to grow because I was directly supervised and this groomed me to be a better writer. “
What other brands have you worked with as a writer?
“I’ve worked with a lot of tech brands, I can’t remember all of them but I’ll mention the few that come to mind. I’ve worked with LogRocket, Vonage, kinsta, Verpex, Section.io, MasteringBackend, and many others “
Do you have a central place where you can store, organize and filter all the content you have written?
Prior to now, I stored my works in my Dropbox app and organized them into folders but when I started landing a lot more gigs, the more articles I wrote, the more my samples were disorganized and difficult to find.
That’s why I switched to Contentre — A platform that helps freelance technical writers stay organized and gain more clients.
So, what’s the “STACK-BRAND” system you mentioned earlier all about?
“It’s about STACKing up very good samples to prove your worth. No one is going to settle for fluff and vibes. I’ve seen people market themselves really well, but the question is, do you have good samples to back yourself up?
The second thing is building a personal brand for yourself. Companies want to be associated with a brand so, you must do well to build one for yourself.
In my case, I have been stacking up quality samples since 2017 and by 2020, I had a pretty rich portfolio with a good track record of appealing to an audience.
Mark my words, because they’re important: STACK up samples for yourself and build a BRAND online.
You can STACK up great samples by picking a topic, writing about it, and saving them on a good platform like Contentre. That way, when you want to share your work with a client, you can send a simple link to your portfolio.
What’s great about this site is that it helps you create multiple personalized portfolios targeted at your client’s needs.
So, if you’re a writer with more than one niche or within your niche as a tech writer you’ve served up different types of written content like articles or sales letters, you can organize them all in Contentre.
Final thoughts
There is literally no shortcut to success. It’s a long and hard road but it’s not limited to anyone. Just get on the train and you’ll see, in some amount of time, everything will pan out.
Most importantly, let us know what you picked. Also, don’t forget his secrets as a freelance technical writer and STACK- BRAND with Contentre of course 😊
Read more behind-the-scenes stories on the secrets of freelance tech writers. Visit our Stories section for more.
Contentre helps freelance technical writers stay organized and gain more clients. It manages your freelance technical writing business in one place.
Now that you’re here, let me briefly recap the most important features Contentre can offer you:
- Organize your content in categories, topics, and tags
- Create and manage multiple clients
- Create and manage multiple personalized portfolios
- Get statistical analytics of your content revenue, top categories, and tags.
Originally published at https://blog.contentre.io on June 30, 2022.
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