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In this post: How I Got Started as a Content Writer

*I DO NOT Use AI to Write FOR Me

My 17-Year (Mostly Freelance) Writing Career Portfolio

Nondisclosure

Wrap-up: Hire Me

How I Got Started as a Content Writer

Brimming with the inevitable confidence of a varsity first-year student whose Higher-Grade B score was achieved without much studying -- I hadn’t studied from around four months into the preceding Matric year -- the otherwise plain, boldface Times New Roman message on one of the posters on the noticeboard never looked so beautiful. “Freelance Copywriters Wanted,” it read, on what was clearly a newer A4 page than many of the other, ever so slightly yellower ones…

…With the South-African-rand-equivalent parenthesised next to the $5-per-500-word-article remuneration primer line.

Reading between the lines had me bringing myself back a bit from beginning to imagine, a bit too vividly I thought, what I was going to do with the subsequent extra pocket money I was going to earn…

…All of this; doing something that came so naturally to me.

I’d never gotten paid for writing before, but so confident was I, that I would outshine any and all competition, that the inner conversation between my strategist-self and henchman-self was won by the former, who thought better of the idea to perhaps remove the poster so that nobody further would see it. Besides, I would have had to be considerably sneakier in doing so, as this notice was posted on the premium Client Service Centre noticeboard, where I assume the posters pay more to stick them, facing outward through the tempered glass wall.

That’s something you can otherwise get away with on the regular noticeboard, along which parallel passageway the foot-traffic can be non-existent at certain times…

It was however, additionally how I could effectively “hear” those words I was reading that would contribute to going on to set me apart as a professional Content Writer, going forward -- a professional Content Writer whose very latest freelance project was completed some 17 years later, in 2024!

In the same way that this otherwise plain text stimulated more than one of the mental equivalents of my senses, I ensure to stoke at least two senses in the imagination of the would-be reader of every piece I write… even if it’s something a bit more technical than usual, such as documentation or a whitepaper. Of course this is much easier to do when penning for more common content writing job projects, like reviews; blog posts; narrative essays and stories; company, business and individuals’ “about us” texts; and even sales copy.

I guess that’s what future-proofed my writing career against AI writing tools like Large Language Model content generators. That, together with my resolution to master the strategic incorporation of such tools as LLMs into my writing*.

*I DO NOT Use AI to Write FOR Me

The writing literary gods sure know I tried, but I do not utilise AI to write for me. And it’s not because there aren’t any really good and “convincing” ones. There are, like one which even includes real citations that exist on the web.

Notice how I referred to them as “real citations” and not necessarily as credible or trustworthy ones. I can tell you about a very real example of how an AI content writer I tried out cited unicorn farts, indicatively as part of a factual green energies list! I suppose the author of the source it was citing rather mischievously slipped that nonsense in, perhaps even deliberately as a prank on the whole AI drive.

The citation might also have been adapted from a fictitious piece, in which case the intent behind having LLMs do this is conceptually pretty clever, but citing unicorn farts as a clean energy source puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? …Certainly with regards to the ultimate, real-world value of the generated content.

So how then, do I incorporate the use of AI writing tools into my writing?

I do indeed have a computing background that was developed as more of a passion than an academic pursuit, with lessons I received in Web Development going all the way back to the turn of the Millennium, when I was 12 years old in grade six. Long story short; one of the hostel guardians at the boarding school I was in, in Potchefstroom, was studying programming at PUKKE.

He was kind enough to give a fellow computer enthusiast friend of mine and I lessons in HTML Web Development. Parallel to that, we’d always been the de-facto “computer guys” for fellow learners and teachers alike, religiously complemented with the latest monthly copy of the PC Format magazine!

What I’m getting at is that I was exposed to Artificial Intelligence, in some or other form, very early on, and so I’ve always viewed it from the point of view of someone who has the master- or kill switch to it, so to say.

I mean, sure, it’s definitely impressive what you can get the likes of OpenAI’s Chat-GPT to do, but the operative word is indeed YOU.

For instance, YOU have to prompt it to generate a list of the least common Portuguese names, because you might be writing copy for an anti-bullying piece which features a fictitious Brazilian kid whose uncommon name might be the lasso with which he’d typically get bullied, in that part of the world. No AI is going to take away that kind of writing job from you and go on to come up with that angle as just one of many layers merely going into the main subject’s backstory!

YOU have to prompt the AI LLM to establish a biologically binary gender for each of a list of 2,000 names and surnames, to make another example, from which you want to establish gender demographic percentages; perhaps to come up with one of many stats that will be presented as bite-sized info points in an infographic for a client… No AI is going to magically fire up, search and organise that kind of information, in that specific way, for a specific writing assignment.

So YOU have to be the one to come up with these prompts, tweaking and changing them as the need arises.

That’s essentially how I use AI; I use AI to quickly complete the kind of automated, quick information processing tasks computers are generally made for!

So I’ll NEVER type a topic-title into an AI writer and then go on to proofread what could very well be some convincing output at times, and then submit it to a client and collect payment, or even post it on my own writing portals like my blog. It has somewhat seemingly become one, but it’s not a cliché to say that AI-written content lacks the warmth of the complexities of simply being human.

My 17-Year (Mostly Freelance) Writing Career Portfolio

I remember my very first $5-article, very well, which was a paid test-article about cubic zirconium jewellery (more specifically rings). The year was 2007, and the first thing I bought with my very first writing earnings was Karyn White’s “Make Him Do Right” album, on CD. The fact that it had long since been priorly released by then (it was released in 1994) attests to another quality with which I set my writing standard a cut above many others.

That is the ability and natural urge to look beyond the hype and contemporary noise, and tackle “current affairs” in more of a composed, cultured and pedigreed manner. As hyped up as the contemporary hot topic perhaps justifiably is, the gist of the message conveyed around it is more compellingly delivered if there’s an interestingly-presented backstory or context to it.

The subsequent “call-to-action” is then much likelier to stimulate the engagement that makes up the ultimate goal of any piece of written content.

So that’s another quality with which I’ve managed to maintain the consistent delivery of a generous flow of writing work, landing most of my clients through word-of-mouth referrals, after having landed a few primary clients through content mills like what was then oDesk and GetaFreelancer, so too the occasional gig on Fiverr.

For some reason, I enjoyed my best run on Textbroker during my 15-month stay in Phuket Island, Thailand.

Even cold-pitching SEO agencies resulted in a paying gig, but that was more of an experimental approach to expanding on a good flow of work.

I have indeed touched on the types of content I’d been earning my money writing, but to perhaps be a bit more specific about my repertoire and experience, the projects I worked on include:

• Key-phrase-/keyword-integrated pieces: usually a blog post or an essay-type article, with the typically hyperlinked key-phrase central to an SEO campaign
• 5,000-word-plus e-books, ghost-written for Amazon KDP sale: as with the SEO articles, all rights are transferred to the client while I get a one-time remuneration, so no royalties…
• Technical articles and documentation
• Blog posts: ghost-written in the style and tone of each blog owner’s existing content
• Website content: like company or business “about us” information, and their products and services offerings (for individuals and events too)
• Press Releases (PR)
• Sales copy: for offer landing pages (like leads-capture pages and “primers”); the sales offer pages themselves; and even spokesperson-type video scripts
• Product reviews: don’t act like you don’t know about how some online reviews and testimonials are fabricated! I will neither confirm nor deny that I’ve convincingly written more than a few, myself
• “Emergency” content for fellow writers and clients who want to make sure to meet an imminent deadline

Nondisclosure

Fellow writers and recruiters (or content writing project managers) alike will be well-aware of the precarious nature a writer finds themselves in, when requested to provide samples and proof of previous, paid (and perhaps published) written work. This is because of the same request those recruiters will likely make as part of the agreement they enter into with the writer they plan to hire.

That’s nondisclosure, and it is indeed an agreement which I intend to continue to honour! So in and amongst the links contained in this post, which point more towards my public writer’s profiles, there are indeed those that point to credited published works, but discretion inevitably needs to be exercised in using them as a yardstick with which to gauge hiring potential.

99% of the time the client will have very specific requirements for what is usually some or other kind of SEO writing project. One might want an almost “cold,” to-the-point and plain presentation of the information, idea or product, while another might want a bit of “personality” to be creatively injected into the piece done for them.

Some common guideline requirements are pretty recognisable though, such as sub-22-word sentences so as to ensure the content falls within what is “typically loved by the search engines”. That’s why you get language rules such not starting a sentence with a conjunction getting “broken” with capitalised “ANDs” and “BUTs”.

So the bottom line is that each client is different… to state the obvious. And so each client comes with their own set of requirements and writing standards.

So when a client is dealing with a prospective writer, the best course of action is a test content piece, with a fair agreement worked out on remuneration, if any. This can be monetary or in the form of something like due crediting with publication.

Wrap-up: Hire Me

I trust that reading this post will give you a fair idea of the type of writing work you can expect from me, all things considered.

Get in touch if you want to hire me to add the requisite value to your Content Writing needs! Here’s a link to my CV/Resume as well.

As an interesting parting note: I remember once ending up being fed with virtually all the writing work in a team of remote content writers I was a part of, because some of the savvier end-clients picked up a marked difference in the quality of the articles they were getting. It was clear to them that different writers were indeed producing the content and unfortunately for many of the others, no amount of “normalisation” could bring their work up to the now-expected standard…