There's so much work out there for freelance writers these days that it's impossible NOT to make money in my opinion. Too many are their own worst enemy. Following are three things freelancer writers either need to stop, or start, doing to increase their earnings.

1. STOP Wasting Time on Non-Quantifiable Marketing Methods: And by this I mean primarily social media. Don't get me wrong, social media is important and you should definitely have a presence on the biggies, but it can be hard to quantify how much of a direct return you get using social media.

And, this is why I advise freelance writers to use more direct methods like cold calling, email marketing and networking via Chamber of Commerce meetings.

You see, you can quantify these, eg, I made 20 cold calls and landed two writing jobs, three requests for more info and four instructs to call back in a week. In contrast, when you send out a tweet or post to Facebook, you never know how many people see it and act upon it.

Social Media Marketing Tip: Use automated tools like HootSuite to stay in front of prospects, while getting on with your other work.

2. START Niching It: As in, identifying a profitable niche, and marketing to them exclusive. Cultivating a niche provides several benefits, eg, you can:

Charge more – because you'll be considered an authority on a subject;

Work less – because the more you specialize, the more you ALREADY know and have contacts/sources in place for. This cuts down on the amount of research you have to do, which in effect raises your rates; and

Land clients faster – because you can ask existing clients in that niche for referrals and easily identify large pools of prospects to market to within a niche. For example, if you wanted to specialize in legal SEO content writing. Where's a good place to start getting contact info? Well, the ABA (American Bar Association), right?

Every practicing attorney must belong to it; hence it's a great source to find thousands of prospects pretty quickly.

3. START Upselling: This can take many forms – everything from asking from setting up a consistent way to ask for referrals, to packaging/bundling services and offering a discount.

You leave so much money on the table when you don't do this. So take a couple of your most popular services and bundle them. For example, if a client hires you to write weekly blog posts, ask them if you can distribute them to their social media accounts, saying something to the effect of, "We'll automatically post the content we create to you to your social media accounts for an addition fee of just $X."

Even upselling just 5 or 10 percent of your existing clients can dramatically increase your income as a freelance writer – and it's so easy.

These are clients who already know and like your services (otherwise they wouldn't be using you), so point out other ways you can help them.  Many are blissfully unaware of all that you may offer – so it's up to you to tell them – constantly.

Conclusion

This is an exciting time to be a freelance writer. Opportunities are everywhere – and in many forms. But you must concentrate your efforts and have systems in place to snag clients. These three tips help you do just that.

Author Bio
Yuwanda Black heads New Media Words, an SEO writing company. She's self-published over 50 eBooks and is the webmaster of InkwellEditorial.com, a leading portal for information on how to start a successful, home-based freelance writing career. She can be found on Twitter at @InkwellEditor.