Elizabeth Hanes 0:07
Welcome to another episode of The RN2writer Show. I'm your host, Elizabeth Hanes RN. Listen, if you're worried that you need to use hard sales tactics or be an uber business person, to become a freelance health writer, you're going to be shocked at how low the bar to entry actually is to enter this profession. Seriously? What is your biggest fear about starting a writing business as a nurse? Do you worry that you'll have to master hard sales techniques to get any work? Do you worry that you'll need to be an expert at weird concepts like SEO? What the heck is SEO anyway? What does it stand for? Well, fear not fellow nurses. Today, I'm going to tell you the only three things you really need to know to become a freelance health writer, honest, and you're not going to believe how easy it is, you probably already have all the skills and knowledge you need. Many nurses expressed fear or skepticism to me about becoming a professional writer. Either they feel they can't write well enough, or they believe they need to be a marketing expert or something to really realistically make this work. That's not entirely true. In fact, you're going to be shocked at how easy it is for you to get into this profession. So let me get right to it and highlight the only three skills you need to launch a writing business. Number one, you need a basic grasp of American English composition and grammar. I mean, basic here people, I always say if you got C's on your college papers, you are good to go. The truth is the client is usually going to give you guidance on how they want you to write for them anyway. Number two, you need a basic understanding of the freelance writing process. And here it is, you pitch an editor or client, they give you an assignment, you complete the assignment and turn it in. They request for you to revise the assignment. You go back and forth potentially several times on that. Eventually they accept the assignment. Now here's the exciting part of the process. You invoice them, and they pay you. How cool is that? And that's all you need to understand about how this business works. And third, you need a smidgen of business acumen. I'm not saying you have to be a Lori Greiner to be a very successful freelance writer. I'm certainly not. And you'll be relieved to know you do not need to know anything about hard sales techniques. In fact, that is the exact wrong way to go about getting assignments from editors and clients. You do need to know a few business basics like does your jurisdiction require you to have a business license? How do you get a state tax ID number hint, contact your state's small business division or you Canadian nurses contact your provincial government. You need to know how to get an IRS e i n and pay quarterly estimated taxes, which is super simple to research online how to do that. And you need to know basic bookkeeping. It's especially easy if you use software like fresh books, honey books, or bonsai. That's really it. That's all you need to know to get started as a freelance writer. Now, is this all you ever need to know to run a freelance writing business? Well, no. Like nursing, there's a minimum level of knowledge and competence you need to get started. And then you build upon that as you go learning on the job. Think about that whole nursing novice to expert continuum. What I have covered here today is literally all you need to know to get into that continuum as a novice, and you're going to learn and learn and learn and the next thing you know, you're going to be an expert. You're going to be looking back on your career at how much you learned and you'll be super successful. But I want to emphasize everything I just covered in this video is more than enough for you to get started as a freelance writer, and I certainly hope you will do that. If you have questions about this, pop them in the comments. And be sure and join us next time for the next episode of The RN2writer Show.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
