Freelance writers work across many different platforms, industries and client networks. Determining the best way to display your work can be challenging, especially if a significant amount of your projects fall into the “ghost writing” category.
By taking careful measures to retain the rights to use any of your completed work, you are able to include it in your marketing profile, offering insightful representations of your talent and voice so that prospective clients can clearly see you are the right person for the job.
Here are a few clever ideas to help you determine the “best fit” for your portfolio presentation and how you can use it to secure new contracts with past, present and future clients.
As a freelance writer you probably have work coming in from a variety of clients and across different platforms. It’s difficult to decide how you display your work, especially if you have done the work as a ghost for someone else. Always remember as a freelance writer to maintain the right to use what you’ve written as part of your portfolio, whether your name is on the final published work or not. In doing this you can use your previous work as your marketing tool, because let’s face it, who wants to hire a writer if you don’t have any idea what their writing looks and feels like. This post will help you figure out your “best fit” approach to the work you have done and how to use it to find new prospects.
The Portfolio “File Folder”
As a freelancer, many of us have compiled a cloud-based file folder of all of the electronic copies of our completed works. Have you ever seen a freelancer give a link to this folder as their portfolio? Here’s some tips to do it better if this is your style. Giving this type of direct access to your work can raise some security risks and may not be the most professional way to deliver sample writings, but if you find yourself going down this route, remember to do the following:
- Break the documents into Genre or Subject – Prospective clients are not interested in reviewing copy that is unrelated to their industry or is not at least loosely representative of the type of dynamic voice and style they are seeking. Take care to organize your completed works into different groups, styles, lengths and presentation. When it comes time to forward appropriate writing samples, you can efficiently drill down to the most relevant material. don’t just have them all there, your potential client might not care about your “Healthy living” blog posts if they want you to write a technical paper on the newest electronic technology. This way you can also only share the folder relevant to the client.
- Use the SAME naming structure – make yourself a template, use the same folder naming structure, use the same file name structure and include a date – it makes it easier to know what is contemporary and what may be a little older or dated.
- Use tags – this is HUGE! Tag the files for easy searching later on. If you’re like me and have hundreds of documents, tagging them allows you to not only have them sorted by genre or subject but also by keywords for reference later on.
*Remember that as a freelance writer, if you do this to share only viewing rights and take precautions to not allow copying.*
Your Profile
Be a firm believer in LinkedIn, it has been used professionally for many years and can been a great resource. As a freelancer you can also use it for portfolio purposes. IT’S SO EASY. You go to your profile, and add projects or publications and even posts. If you are looking to build some LinkedIn buzz, write and post a few things for yourself and publish them on your profile (make sure it’s relevant for what you are hoping to accomplish and make sure to share it with your network or make it public!) LinkedIn offers you a way to display your achievements, to share your work, to connect with potential clients and acts like a resume all at the same time. You would be a fool to not use it – its FREE!
The Portfolio Website
There is a multitude of free website design sites, most of them offer cookie cutter options for portfolios so with limited design skills you can make one for yourself. Creating a website for yourself takes your professionalism up a notch in the eyes of a new prospect. Sites like Wix or WordPress offer cool options with easy templates. Freelancers Union posted a great article on the five best options for portfolio sites. In giving your potential clients a place to go to that is visually appealing and organized you put yourself ahead of the “file folder portfolio.” Remember to still organize your work by genre and subject matter, and use tags to be able to search through your portfolio. If you want to get really schwanky you can even purchase a domain name to link to your site.
With any way that you decide to present your work as a freelance writer there are a few key things to keep in mind. Weed out the work that is outdated and not what you as a freelance writer would consider your “best work.” You don’t want to put work on display that you are not satisfied with, just because you did the work doesn’t mean you need to showcase it. Your portfolio should be diverse and the best of what you are capable of, you should be proud to show it off and it is a great asset when pursuing new prospects. Generate buzz about your previous work, talk it up on your social profiles and always offer links your portfolio, use it often and show the world, and potential clients, what you are capable of!
