Should You Write for Free?

Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.

Posted 5.16.24

Should you write for free?

It’s an ongoing debate in freelance writing circles. Both sides of the argument have valid points. “Writing for free doesn’t pay the bills,” says Carol Tice, founder of Make a Living Writing. “It undervalues the profession and harms the entire writing community.”

Can’t argue with that reasoning. But digital marketing expert Neil Patel has a valid comeback. “When you’re starting out, you have no choice. You need to write for free,” says Neil. “It’s the fastest way to build your portfolio.”

No question, there are plenty of reasons not to write for free. Good writers are skilled professionals who should be compensated fairly. Plus, the time you spend on free projects can take away from paid gigs or opportunities to grow your skills, like taking courses.

But that’s not the full story. If you’re on the fence about writing for free, consider these two reasons to churn out words when there’s no paycheck in it for you.

2 big reasons to write for free with Word Wise at Nonprofit Copywriter #WritingTips #ContentWriting #FreelanceWriting #ContentMarketing

1. Write for free to launch your biz

“How do I build a writing portfolio?” a new writer asked. “People won’t hire me without first seeing my work. But I can’t get clips unless I write.” If you want to be a paid freelance writer, you must have writing samples to show prospective clients.

But you don’t need to be paid to write content you can use as samples of your work. Your content simply needs to be good enough so that someone would have paid you to write it. When you’re just breaking into freelancing, write for free so you can …

Build your portfolio
“When you’re starting out, the fastest way to establish yourself is by giving your work away.” So says Jeff Goins, author of Real Artists Don’t Starve. Leverage free opportunities to build a stable of clips. For instance, offer your brochure writing services to a local business. Write web content for your child’s soccer club. Put together an article for a small-town newspaper and grab a byline.
Break into a new niche
You’ve got a background in IT and you’ve written plenty of technical content, but you want to break into the gardening niche. Do so — for free. Offer to write your local garden club’s newsletter.

You’ll gain more than just experience. You will have proof that you can write about slugs and watering systems and terra cotta patio containers — evidence that you can subsequently peddle to prospective clients.
Get referrals
Writing for free inevitably turns into paid gigs. Early in my writing journey, I wrote web content and email campaigns for a local organization — for free. About a year later, I got a phone call from a fellow volunteer with that organization. She knew I’d been the one to write all those new web pages and entertaining email newsletters. But I didn’t know, at the time, that she had connections in the regional publishing industry. Now, she needed content for a magazine. Would I be able to write six articles for a nice fee? Yes, ma’am.

2. Write for free to grow your biz

Do you have a website? Blog? Or maybe you post on social media.

If any of those is you, you write for free (unless your website is for paid members only.) According to the Content Marketing Institute, 86% of marketers — which include freelance writers, who must sell their skills — use content marketing to generate leads and drive sales.

If you offer free content online, you can extend your reach (and build your bank account) in a bunch of ways.

You generate leads
Week after week, you build content. You add those pieces to your blog or your site (and then post those links on social media) about growing zinnias in your backyard. You take advantage of opportunities on different gardening sites to guest blog about growing zinnias — always with a link to your zinnia site, of course.

And you pump out all that content without garnering any fees. But soon, an interesting thing begins to happen: you get inquiries. “You write really well. Will you help write content for our garden center?” or “Will you speak at a garden club about growing zinnias?”
You build authority
You continue to write well-optimized free content about growing zinnias and after a while, you accumulate all kinds of inbound links along with goodwill on the search engines. A user types in a search query about “growing zinnias from seeds” and she lands on your site. All of a sudden, you become her new favorite expert on growing zinnias. She trusts you and she turns to you with her questions. And so do plenty of others.
You add subscribers and followers
People find out about you from your lead magnet, free report, or offered on your site. They download this bit of free content about growing zinnias. Poof! You’ve got this follower’s email address. You add them to your email list and they begin receiving your weekly emails with more luscious information about zinnias, saving zinnia seeds, powdery mildew on zinnias, miniature zinnias…

And they also receive offers for your paid content: your books. Your zinnia tip sheets. Your minicourse on growing zinnias in containers. One by one, those subscribers click on one of your offers and buy. All of a sudden, your “free content” becomes paid content.

Use this fillable guide to create your own personal content strategy.

Write for free — and get paid

It’s not always smart to write for free.

Once you get a handful of quality clips under your belt … a few dozen pages on your website or blog with comments from followers … a solid response from an email series … well, now you’ve got enough sweat equity and results to charge for your words.

Yet people may want to take advantage of your hard-earned expertise because, they say, “Everybody writes. Why should I pay for it?”

So choose what to write for free with care. But don’t always get hung up on a paycheck. The truth is this: when you take opportunities to write for free, you find out that in fact, you will get paid.