The 5 types of freelance writers I have encountered

Over the years I’ve commissioned hundreds of freelancers. I’ve also freelanced myself, so I’ve seen the process from both sides.

Despite the fact that everyone is a freelancer these days, the good ones are few and far between.

Here are the 5 types of freelancer I most often encounter…

1 The one who ghosts you

The - dare I say it - ‘ghost-writer’ is overjoyed to hear from you!

Super-excited about the commission, they’re all: “Omigod, I sooooo want to do this!” and then they fall off the face of the earth.

Perhaps it was too hard (although my commissions are not rocket science); perhaps the (one) source they approached didn’t get back to them, or maybe something else came along and they can’t juggle two commissions at once. Whatever the reason, nothing annoys me more than the freelancer who disappears.

This isn’t Tinder. It’s not up to me to eventually ‘get the message’ from your silence. It’s up to you – the apparent freelance writer – to deliver the message yourself.

If you can’t do it or have changed your mind, then say so.

2 The one who misses deadlines

I recently commissioned a pretty fun and easy 600-word piece with a month lead in time. The writer took six weeks.

Six weeks to write 600 words, and they used one source. I was embarrassed for them and horrified by what they produced because my brief had been CLEAR. Needless to say, they’re off my list of go-tos.

One of the things that’s sacrosanct if you’re going to be a freelance writer is hitting deadlines.

Your words are the beginning, not the end of the process.

There’s the first sub, the images to be sourced, the pages to be designed, the second sub, the publishing… And you’re holding everything up because you haven’t mastered one of the basics.

3 The one who never gets back to you

‘Open for work’ is writ large across every one of their socials and their bios literally scream ‘I AM AVAILABLE’. So, you contact them with a commission and… nothing. Not a tweet, email, Instagram message, Linkedin post or Whatsapp back. Tumbleweed.

You may be busy, and that’s honestly great for any freelancer. But being too busy to send a couple of lines explaining that is unprofessional and you’d better believe I’m bad-mouthing you to other commissioning editors.

4 The one who can’t write

There’s a not-often-discussed sub-genre of mediocre writers who land jobs they shouldn’t be in (nepotism, gift of the gab, cultural fit), producing barely literate work which the editors who have been landed with them are tasked with cleaning up into something readable.

Those ‘writers’ then look at the end result on the page and think ‘Hey, would you look at that, gosh I’m really talented!’, resulting in a surprising number of freelancers who cannot write yet have pretty decent portfolios.

This is an absolute ballache for commissioning editors who are then faced with 800 words of badly researched and written dross and no more time to re-commission.

5 The one who just gets it

And then, of course, there are the ones who just get it.

Unfortunately, my experience of freelancers has been that this type is in the minority. They’re quite easy to pick out from the quagmire though.

They email back quickly with enthusiasm and thoughtful follow-up questions. They update you a couple of times throughout the process to touch base. They hit the deadline, or if they’re not going to, they give you a head’s up and explain why before, not after the date has passed. They use an array of sources, produce copy that flows and offer alternative headers and comprehensive captions.

They’re a small bunch, but they’re out there.

If anyone is looking for good freelancers, give me a shout, I have some recommendations.