Description: Want to make a living as a freelance writer? Here are the resources, answers, and real talk you need about what it takes to make a living as a writer for hire.

Drawing on her own varied and successful years of freelance copywriting experience, Jessie Kwak (author of From Chaos to Creativity and From Big Idea to Book) offers valuable insights on how to figure out if this fast-paced, ever-evolving career is for you — and how to make it work if you decide to go for it.

Verdict: In what is a deeply compelling, well-written and more importantly, highly informational new prose, From Dream to Reality: How to Make a Living as a Freelance Writer by author Jessie L. Kwak is, and even for a 30+ year veteran writer such as myself, most assuredly a book I had read back all those decades ago!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve had much more success than I could ever have hoped or dreamed for over all that time, but at the start, well, I would have helped propel me forward a lot sooner had this book accompanies me to all the libraries, student halls, coffee shops, and so forth.

Starting with the most important factor for a successful freelancer — mindset — Kwak walks you through everything you need to know about choosing your niche, setting up your business, building a portfolio and website, finding work, setting your rates, billing, firing clients, and growing your freelance career intentionally in a rapidly changing market.

Indeed, the book’s special focus is on business writing for hire, with valuable lessons for writers of all stripes. Freelancing isn’t for everyone, but if you’re the sort of mercenary chaotic good soul who would find your happy place in freelancing, you’ll find all the encouragement and tools you could need in this book, trust me.

Opening with the most pertinent of questions, So, you want to be a freelance writer? or you are simply freelance-curious and just want to test the waters, either way Kawk hears you and understands you.

For on the surface, freelancing sounds like a magical job where you get to set your own hours, choose your own clients, and work from anywhere. And you know what, it is a magical job and one - when fully accomplished - will have you loving your decision for life.

But there is obviously a lot of work that has to go into creating, prizing open and then profiting from those early pathways into the chosen industry that you have set your heart on burrowing into.

A few go-to tips that I found helpful myself, and which resonant in various forms throughout this solid guide as to how to become a freelance business writer, include:

Research the freelance writing industry
Develop necessary business skills
Ensure you have the tools of the trade
Understand current writing conventions
Work on improving your writing skills
Decide on a writing niche
Create a writing portfolio
Market your writing

And as Kwak herself adamantly states early on, this book hones in on freelance business writing and its various sub-niches. She doesn’t cover how to break into journalism or magazine writing (which is where I eventually found myself), or even how to make a living with your own writing as an influence, or thought leader - for those are just not her areas of expertise, although journalists, magazine writers and others will find plenty of useful tidbits in this book - but she can help you with the nitty-gritty of those types of freelance career.

So, in closing, why should you listen to her? Well, she has been a freelance copywriter for about ten years - which, in her opinion, puts her in the sweet spot for giving advice to new writers - and as much as she freely admits she didn’t start out wanting to be a freelance copywriter, she soon found her path, her niche and has been very happy ever after.

About the Author - Jessie Kwak is an author, ghostwriter, and freelance marketing copywriter living in Portland, Oregon. When she’s not writing, she can be found sewing, mountain biking, or out exploring new worlds both at home and abroad. She is the author of a supernatural thriller, two series of space pirate and space mafia sci-fi crime novels, and the productivity guides From Chaos to Creativity and From Big Idea to Book.

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