Most freelance writers never make the leap from “writer for hire” to “solo entrepreneur.” They stay stuck in survival mode, undercharging, avoiding risk, and are reluctant to invest in their own freelance writing business. But the difference between the struggling and successful freelancers is more often down to mindset and execution than talent.
Every freelancer has difficult times, but when it becomes the rule rather than the exception, it indicates the problem is in the approach. In this guide, get insights from successful solopreneurs. Also, discover your 30-day pivot plan to attract the right clients, generate consistent income, and build long-term success.
TL;DR: How to Grow a Thriving Freelance Writing Business
- Adopt a solopreneur mindset: Stop thinking like a “writer for hire.” Treat your freelance writing business as a company with systems, goals, and strategy.
- Specialize and rebrand: Identify your niche, refine your offer, and update your pricing to reflect your expertise and value.
- Build repeatable systems: Create daily workflows for marketing, client outreach, invoicing, and project management to ensure consistency and scalability.
- Market like a pro: Commit to regular content promotion and outreach to maintain steady client pipelines. Don’t rely on a single project or client.
- Measure what matters: Track metrics like client lifetime value, conversion rates, and income growth to guide smarter business decisions.
Why Most Freelancers Stay Stuck in Survival Mode
Chief among the issues that keep freelancers from scaling are undercharging, lack of business systems, and fear of risk. The average rate for a writer is $34.75 per hour. On freelance site Upwork, the average rate for copywriters specifically is $30 per hour. Of course, writers can and do earn much more than these figures. But those who do tend to view themselves as one-person businesses, or solopreneurs, and act accordingly to drive their success.
The “Writer-for-Hire” Mentality
Copywriter and advisor to copywriting businesses, Joanna Wiebe, highlights the importance of “working on the business (not your client’s) every day.” When your schedule starts to fill up with assignments, it can make doing work on your own business more difficult.
After all, you only have so many hours in the day. But setting aside time to invest in your own business is an important factor in long-term success and a bulwark against the dreaded feast-or-famine cycle. And as freelance writer Caitlin Lemon says, ‘Nothing in freelancing is permanent. Putting your name out there is still vital to networking and landing new clients, even during the “feast” times.’
The Cost of Avoiding Risk
Many freelancers want the guaranteed monthly salary that a regular job provides. But they don’t want to market themselves consistently or invest in branding, marketing, or sales. The result is often that they struggle to consistently get work.
But some level of risk is generally required to get a reward. And the biggest risk of all may lie in taking no risk at all. On this topic, entrepreneur and writer Tim Ferriss says, “The best results I have had in my life have all come from asking the simple question: ‘What is the worst that could happen?”
When it comes to growing your freelance business consistently, you must invest resources one way or another. The question is: will it be with your time by trying to do it all yourself, by outsourcing tasks, by investing in tools, or a mixture of all three?
Shifting to a Solopreneur Mindset
Many freelancers tend to be reactive, whereas successful solopreneurs understand they are running a one-person business and take a proactive, systematic approach. They focus on what they control: leading outreach, delivering high-quality deliverables on time, cultivating strong client relationships, and driving ongoing marketing and sales.
They invest in the right tools and, where necessary, people, such as outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants or assigning them to other writers.
Start Thinking Like a CEO
A strong CEO makes decisions aligned with their underlying goals and overarching vision. They don’t let desperation in or allow their vision to waver under stress. They understand that even with a short-term benefit, the long-term outcome will be negative.
You can also embody this sort of position for your own business by maintaining consistency in the kind of work you do and who you do it for. Renowned marketing commentator and author Seth Godin says, “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.”
Build Systems, Not Just a Portfolio
The most successful solopreneur businesses understand the crucial importance of systemization. They build repeatable, often automated or semi-automated outreach, production, client relations, marketing, and sales processes. Align them under one core specialty area that represents your professional focus. For instance, your work with one client can lead to a testimonial or a success story from that client.
You also have work examples to show would-be clients. You can then use this type of asset for marketing or sales enablement to attract more clients in the same area, and so on. In such a way, you create a wash-rinse-repeat system to grow your business.
On niching down, well-known copywriter and author Bob Bly advises, “Specialize, or at least tell prospective clients you do.” Solopreneur and LinkedIn top voice Justin Welsh says, “The systems you install today will dictate what kind of business you have.”
Your 30-Day Repositioning Plan for Success
This month-long roadmap will help you transform from freelancer to solopreneur with tangible, low-cost actions you can put into motion and build into a complete relaunch.
Week 1: Clarify Your Offer and Ideal Client
What do you do best, have the most experience in, and use to help companies the most? And can you articulate this in a way to your ideal client in a way that resonates with them? Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Writer, highlights the importance of understanding your customer. He explains, “What motivates people to buy is when they get that you ‘get’ them—that you understand their world, and have shown how your product/service will impact their company in ways important to them.”
First of all, think of a way to present yourself as an expert writer in a niche area for a specific type of company. For instance, it might be a B2B banking web copywriter or a LinkedIn tech executive ghostwriter. Specialists typically command higher rates than generalists, and there tends to be less competition, too. Once you have clarified this offer and identified your ideal client, the key is to show that you can express their point of view. Do this and you’ll be much better positioned to be in higher demand.
Week 2: Rebrand and Reprice
Refresh your digital channels to align with your updated market position. Include your website, portfolio, social media profiles, and rates to reflect your niche expertise.
Purposeful, confidently set pricing signals professionalism. Rates that are too low tend to signal inexperience, raise questions, and often attract demanding, bargain-hunting clients. Your pricing should reflect your specialist knowledge and experience, as well as what you deliver to your clients.
Update your marketing and sales collateral to reflect these changes. For instance, these may include your rate card, proposal template, service brochure, and any presentations that you use on sales calls.
Week 3: Build a Marketing and Sales Habit
By week three, you will have the foundations in place! At this point, it’s about defining how to invest in your own business with marketing. We recommend you pick your preferred method(s) and channel(s) and commit to showing up and doing the work periodically, such as once or twice weekly or maybe once fortnightly.
You can write a LinkedIn or Substack newsletter or attend a local business networking event. The key is your consistency. And for online content, you can use scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite. We can again refer to copywriter Bob Bly to understand what target to aim for: “You should do enough marketing so that you don’t care [if a single project falls through]. You’re not relying on that one project to come through.”
For business development, make manual outreach a priority. Try a “10 by 10” approach, where you contact 10 new companies and ideal clients by 10 a.m. every day.But if it’s not feasible, you might consider a lower amount, say three or five instead of 10, or use an automated tool like Apollo to help.
If you have the financial means, you can also hire a virtual assistant through Upwork. Use Canva Pro for branding, Calendly for scheduling, and Google Workspace for email and storage.
Week 4: Systematize and Plan for Scale
In your final week, it’s time to systemize. Consistency depends on systems, and business success depends on consistency. Now is the time to define the processes and workflows you’ll apply each day to grow your business.
Business advisor Jay Abraham highlights that there are only three ways to grow your business: increase your number of clients, increase the average transaction value, and increase the frequency of repurchase.
Systems will form the bedrock of your business operations and build in resilience and a business continuity framework. It’s time to move beyond ad-hoc approaches and establish workflows that match your growth as a solopreneur.
Are there any areas in your writing workflow that you’re not happy with? Now’s the time to identify them for an update. Defining a streamlined system for all areas of your business during this final week will provide you with a clear business roadmap. The crucial areas to focus on are production (the work itself), client relationship management, accounting and bookkeeping, marketing, sales, and branding.
While it might feel like a lot to take in, breaking it into stages makes it manageable. By the end of the month, you’ll have redefined your positioning and stepped fully into your role as an expert solopreneur.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Let’s look at two common traps to sidestep on your new path.
Saying Yes to Everyone
Accepting every client, often out of fear, will invariably lead to burnout. Instead, staying faithful to your core vision will help you to align with clients and work that resonates with you. It’s also worth keeping in mind that for every yes, you’re indirectly saying no to other things you could be doing.
That might be working with the right kind of client, who was just around the corner, or spending time on your personal life. Seth Godin has highlighted the importance of knowing when to say no: “Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.”
Ignoring Business Metrics
Companies that hire you often want to see numbers that demonstrate your impact. That’s why it’s essential to track performance metrics such as client lifetime value, SEO ranking performance, landing page conversion rates, and the number of deals your sales collateral has helped close.
Don’t have any metrics to use? Well, you don’t get if you don’t ask, right? Don’t be afraid to ask your clients for this kind of data. Companies do it all the time with their own client success stories and understand the importance of doing so.
Real Success Stories and Mindset Wins
Real writers have made this shift by changing how they think about their work.
Jessica Walrack built her own thriving freelance business and emphasizes the importance of diversifying your income streams as a solopreneur. She says, “decide how much time you’re willing to give to any one client. For me, the max is now 20%.” This approach shields Jessica’s business from over-reliance on any one or two clients.
Kat Boogaard quit her nine-to-five cubicle-based job to go freelance and never looked back. She niched down to focus on writing on career and entrepreneurship in particular. She shares many of the systems and processes on her website that have worked for her, and she has been featured in major media publications such as Forbes and Business Insider.
Kara Detwiller focused on maintaining high professional standards and being the kind of writer clients love working with. Through her consistent dedication and high-quality deliverables, Kara generated 85% of her income in one year with nDash.
Building a Freelance Writing Business That Lasts
The transformation from freelancer to solopreneur comes down to a mindset shift: no longer seeing yourself as a writer-for-hire, but stepping into your new professional identity as a specialist solopreneur running a one-person business. Your mindset, your operational systems, and your perpetual marketing and sales are the foundation for this new you.
Your 30-day transformation starts when you are ready.
FAQ: Freelance Writing Business
How can I grow my freelance writing business?
Focus on developing a niche, refining your pricing strategy, and marketing consistently. Building systems for outreach, client management, and financial tracking creates the structure your freelance writing business needs to scale.
What’s the difference between freelancing and running a freelance writing business?
Freelancers focus on completing assignments, while solopreneurs build an actual business, developing branding, strategy, and long-term client relationships to ensure sustainable income.
What are the biggest mistakes writers make when starting a freelance writing business?
Underpricing, failing to specialize, and avoiding self-promotion are the top culprits. Sustainable success comes from consistent marketing, clear positioning, and disciplined business habits.
About the Author
Timothy Woods is an executive ghostwriter and the founder of Woods Copywriting, and is based in Dublin, Ireland. Check out his profile for more information: Timothy Woods.