Producing one or two pieces of quality work regularly may be the most obvious way to progress as a freelance writer, but could quantity actually be better in some instances?
When you look at any piece of advice on freelance writing, it will almost always come back to quality prevailing over quantity. From actual content produced through to the clients you’re working with, the quality of your work should always be of more importance than the quantity of it.
But is this always the case?
Imagine the situation. You’re a new writer and you’ve been pitching for a few gigs lately after getting some samples together for your portfolio
Of the gigs you apply for, two come back to you. One is a single, well-known company asking you to produce 10 blog posts per month for $20 each and the other is a new agency who want you to produce 10 blog posts, three articles and two press releases each month, all for $175 and all for different clients.
Now instinctively, you would go for the first option, right?
It pays more and you need to do less work to get the money, so the other option is likely to be disregarded almost instantly.
But the other option has its benefits – you just need to stop taking the offers at face value to see them.
For example, although the work would come through the agency, you’d actually be producing content for a greater array of organisations. Now not only is this fantastic for your portfolio (I worked for a SEO agency for several years and although my portfolio shows I actually only worked for them, it lists some of their key clients that I delivered content for), but it’s great for your own development as writer.
It’s said that variety is the spice of life and that’s spot on for freelance writing. By producing various different types of content for different companies, it makes things more exciting, ensures you don’t fall into a rut you’re too comfortable to climb out of and gives you a greater skill set in terms of the content you can produce to a high level.
If we were to make an overall decision between whether quality or quantity is better, the former would win all the time.
Looking back to when I first started writing, however, I sometimes wonder if my career would have progressed differently if I’d based my decision to take on gigs on more than just money – which in many instances, would have meant choosing quantity over quality.
It may have progressed in a worse way, as I wouldn’t have the relationships with the clients I do now, but it could very easily have been a positive progression – a greater amount of work would have resulted in more samples, more experience and more ‘clout’ behind me when applying for gigs.
As I said, I do believe quality should come first over quantity, but the more I think back, the more I wonder whether this should be more of a guide, rather than a rule.
The post As A Freelance Writer, Should Quality Ever Come Second To Quantity? appeared first on Get Paid to Write Online.
