4 Ways Freelance Writing is Changing in 2024
What writers need to do to stay afloat in this competitive world.
Can I make money as a freelance writer in 2024?
Is AI taking away all writer jobs across the globe?
Is writing even a worthy career path to pursue?
If you ever asked these questions, you’ve come to the right place.
I’ve been a full-time freelance writer for the past 2.5 years. In this article, I’ll discuss the 4 ways in which freelance writing is changing in 2024, and what you can do as a writer to stay afloat in this competitive world.
This is going to be a long article full of value, and there’s a special surprise for you at the end. So make sure you grab a pen and paper to make notes and read until the end, so you don’t miss out on the special surprise.
So, coming back to the topic, let’s talk about the four ways in which freelance writing is changing in 2024.
If you’d like to watch a more candid tutorial in video format, here’s a link —
1. It’s getting harder for generalists.
If you’re a generalist who can write surface-level articles on any topic in the world, it’s going to get hard for you.
If you want to set yourself apart from the competition and be irreplaceable to your clients, you need to have some sort of specialization.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Pick a niche of your choice
- Keep niching down,
- Establish thought leadership in your niche, and
- Become known as one of the few subject matter experts in that niche.
If you do that, then no AI or other freelance writer can replace you.
2. AI is changing the world of freelance writing
I have many freelance writer friends who lost their jobs to AI in 2023.
Right when the AI wave struck the world, everybody was mind-blown. People thought they didn’t need to hire writers anymore. All they have to do is get ChatGPT to write articles for them, and they’ll be sorted.
But guess what? That hype is dying down now. This is great news for all us writers.
What it means is companies that believed ChatGPT is going to create content for them have understood that ChatGPT on its own is not a very good content writer. You need to engage with ChatGPT a lot, tweak your prompts, and give better instructions so you can get a good quality article from it.
This takes time, effort, and a lot of expertise. The people who run a company no longer have the time and the headspace to create articles using ChatGPT.
Many of my writer friends who were laid off in 2023 due to AI have been approached back by these clients. They got messages like, “Hey, we missed you. Would you like to work with us again? Do you have the bandwidth?” etc.
If you know how to make the most of all available AI tools to produce better quality content for your clients, you can become irreplaceable.
Right now, business owners are focusing on articles that have human touch, including some storytelling and emotional connect, which is hard for AI to generate.
You can definitely use AI to summarize articles, organize your thoughts, get better ideas, do better research, etc. And as a freelance writer if you know that, you already have a powerful skill in your toolkit.
3. Content itself is changing
In 2022 and 2023, the kind of articles that were doing well were listicles and how-to articles.
Now with AI coming into the picture and people focusing more on emotion, every company wants very -quality storytelling-style journalistic articles on their websites.
The rules of the game are evolving, and it depends on you as a writer where you set the bar.
You can include your own experiences in the stories and create something super unique.
You can do interviews and feature pieces with experts.
There are so many different ways in which you can give value that doesn’t have to be a listicle. If you can diversify the way you produce your content, you can be a successful freelance writer.
4. Content repurposing is making a comeback
As a freelancer, it is your responsibility to give the best value to your client.
If some client hires you for writing articles on their blog, you can either only stick to writing articles, or you can give them a well-defined content strategy, which means you can
- Write scripts for their YouTube videos based on the content you create for their blog
- Write scripts for shorts, TikToks and Instagram reels
- Optimize the article and post on LinkedIn post, Quora, and Reddit.
There are so many ways you can repurpose the same content to reach multiple sections of the audience.
If you, as a freelancer, know how to repurpose content on multiple platforms, then you can be a super value addition to all clients. This might not work for big corporations who already have a team for social media. But if you’re working for small to mid-size businesses, content repurposing can be that one skill that sets you apart from everybody else in the competition.
The world of freelance writing is definitely changing. If you want to stay afloat and make more money in 2024, you need to treat it seriously. You need to treat it like a full-time job, even if you’re doing it as a side hustle.
Now, let’s talk about the surprise I promised!
On 11th March 2024, at 7:00 p.m. IST, I am hosting a live workshop on my YouTube channel. The topic? How to make money super fast as a freelancer in 2024.
This video is free for all to watch. All you have to do is turn on notifications so you don’t miss out on this. If you found this article helpful, please share it with other writers as well so they can gather some value from it.