If you are dreaming of becoming a freelance writer, you alone can make it come true. If you have any doubts about it, it won't happen. Don't start finding reasons why it can't work, because if you really want it, it will happen. It is a lot of work; don't expect customers to run down your door. Your webpage won't get swamped with either views and even less requests. You are the one who has to reach out and get people in.
People find excuses why their career as a freelance writer doesn't take off. They are excuses, not reasons. Let's look at a few of them:
Living out in the green in the middle of nowhere is only then an excuse when you have no internet and can't get a connection set up. In that instance, you won't be reading this. Inversely, if you can read this article, then you have no excuse not to start right now. The internet has thrown the doors wide open, and you can get work from all the corners of the world. You just have to go after it. It won't find you, you have to find it.
If you live in such a remote place, you may also see an advantage in it. You know local businesses like no one else. Start talking to the business owners. Almost no business, however small, goes without a homepage these days. The local Bed & Breakfast needs to attract customers from far away places as much as the producer for fishing tackle round the corner. They need proper texts on their pages and blogs should be run to reel in customers for them. You can't get the job without talking to them, but you are in a uniquely good position to get the work because of your local connection. It is called working in a niche market.
You might even think of becoming an expert on all things local. You can run a travel blog about your area and use it as a show-case for your writing. If you write for the B&B, make your expertise available to other B&Bs in the wider area. If you get the fishing tackle running, get in touch with other companies that are in the same business. Expertise is a selling point; use it.
A small community gives you the leverage on networking, too. People know you or get to know you and are more likely to be helpful. They have family in other parts of the county, the country, or the world. Ask them about what they do. Ask for introductions. That's a way to get more customers in. A personal reference from a family member to another is something money can't buy. It is also something that is easier to get in small communities than big cities where anonymity has become the style of life.
Use social media and networking possibilities on the net to promote yourself. Running your own blog will make it easier to get people to read something coming from you. Or do it in form of your own homepage: that's something you should get anyhow at some point. Again, people won't just hit upon your page or your blog; you have to draw them in. Social networking sites help you to do just that.
In the end, it all comes down to you. Do you have the energy and time to invest into your freelance career? Would you rather sit back moaning that it can't work? It is entirely up to you and to no one else.
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