Creating a Good Writing Portfolio
- by Alex
- in Freelance Writing
- posted October 13, 2014
The Purpose of a Good Writing Portfolio
Establishing a good writing portfolio is the first step to getting new clients and showing your credibility. The purpose, of course, is to show off your skillset in a meaningful and practical way. This is a step that is often overlooked or, worse, is done incorrectly. While you may assume, in the beginning, that any work is better than no work, that is simply not the case. Poor quality work or work that is not edited can leave a bad impression on your clients. If you are a new freelancer and you do not have any great work to show, it honestly may be a better idea to just not have a portfolio until you have some solid work under your belt. Otherwise: this is the article for you.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind when you are choosing the items to put in your portfolio:
- Use your best work – This should be obvious. Use the BEST examples you can of the work that you can do. Spelling and grammar should be impeccable.
- Have a variety – Don’t limit your portfolio to one type of work. If you are able to write in a wide range of documents, your portfolio should show that. Have one or two examples of each type. Note: Type, in this case, would be – reports, web content, SEO optimized articles, essays, short articles, long articles, ebooks, academic works, etc.
- Don’t put too much – A good portfolio is your best work. Not all of your work. Cull the worst documents from your portfolio. Keep them, but for reference, not for show. Your portfolio should be easy to browse and look at. Quality over quantity.
- Organize – Please. Arrange it so people can find things. People are not apt to spend more than ten seconds looking if they don’t see something that catches their eye. Maximize that time.
Creating New Portfolio Pieces
There are two primary ways to get new pieces for your portfolio: Make them for yourself or do them as work for other individuals.
Making the New Pieces Yourself
This is somewhat self explanatory as well. Just write the pieces you want in your portfolio. This will be tailored, usually, to your weak points. If you have no press releases but you are confident you could write one, then do so. Same with resumes, or anything else. Use the new work you create to shore up weak points in your portfolio or to bolster your work samples for a new project you are bidding on.
Using Work
If you opt to use work that you have done for others, there are a couple of issues you need to clear. Do they mind if the work is used in this way? Do they know you are doing this? These are questions and, in some cases, answers, that you need to clarify with your client prior to using the work. In most cases, you will be paid for this work and the rights will be transferred to the client. So it is no longer yours to do with as you please. Make sure they are both aware of and okay with you using the pieces in your portfolio. If not, you can always ask them to be used as a reference.
This brings me to another point: A lot of freelancers give advice to beginners that they should “work for free to build up clips”. NO. NO NO NO. I would advise never doing free work (outside of any work you may wish to do for a nonprofit or on a volunteer basis). Not only does it dilute your brand, but it will destroy your self-esteem about the entire process as well. If you need to build up clips, just bid lower than you normally would or view sites like Elance or Freelancer (beware of scams on both sites. Do not work without the escrow being funded). A good mindset to have, even as a total beginner, is that you are now a business owner. Act like one. Set your hours, establish ground rules with clients ahead of time. Don’t do your work for free.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I’ll get back to you with a reply. Best of luck, everybody.
-Alex
