How To Become A Professional Freelance Science Writer: A Quick Guide

Becoming a professional freelance writer is an attractive alternative to the normal 9-5 grind of the everyday. It is also particularly tough to get into: it can be even more difficult to break into the world of science, however. Luckily, if you follow this quick and easy guide, you will soon be your own boss, doing what you love when you want to.

• Build your portfolio

In order to break into the world of freelance writing as a professional, you will need to have a fantastic portfolio. This means having plenty of examples of your writing from all sorts of different areas and in all sorts of different genres. If you do not already have plenty of examples to showcase your work, try accepting smaller jobs that require all sorts of different styles and formats, and even lengths if you can manage it. Try to include especially technical and fiction writing, so that you can demonstrate your ability to create articles and other texts about science.

• At first, accept all the jobs you can

In order to build your portfolio and start gaining a reputation as an excellent science writer, you’ll need to start small. Try to take as many smaller tasks as possible related to the sort of writing you want to undertake. You can then start building up, taking better and better jobs that pay better until you can finally start accepting the sort of jobs that you want to be doing full time and professionally. It is a steep path, but it is totally worth it when you get to the top!

• Have fun and be creative!

The more you enjoy your work, the better it will be! You will presumably undertaking tasks to do with science because you are passionate about the subject and other topics within it. This means that doing research and reading around will be no problem for you: it may even be really enjoyable! The more you read other people’s work, too, the more creative you will be inspired to be. Try to think of new and interesting ways to present the information you want to present to your readers. And that you want to offer to your clients (remember that you have to please both the client and the readers, which is tough, but not impossible!). Most importantly, have fun trying new and interesting things and writing about topics that are relevant and modern.