Setting Up Shop

Once you have your writing samples, it’s time to get a website. Potential clients will want to see your rates and learn a little bit about what you offer. Setting up a website is the best way to show off your services quickly and easily.

The easiest way to do this is through a blog, unless you have some web design skills. Blogger and Wordpress both offer free platforms that you can use to get started. Once you’re more established, you can move your site onto its own domain, or pay a designer to build you a site. But for now, free is the way to go.

Set up a site with a brief writing sample, a page of your rates, and some information about the services you’ll be offering. If you don’t know where to start, check out the forums at wwww.wahm.com or www.warriorforum.com - a search for “writers” or “writer rates” should turn up some good information. You could also use your favorite search engine to check out what your competitors are charging.

At this point, it is also a good idea to set up an email account devoted to your budding writing business. It looks far more professional to have an email dedicated to business, and it eliminates the possibility of a business email getting lost amongst your personal messages. I’ve used gmail with great success - it’s web based, and allows you to work from anywhere.