Fake it till you make it as a freelance writer
I don’t know if you should, but you might want to consider it.
I hate to admit it, but I’ve done this often. Quite recently as well. If my clients are reading this, I’m in a heap of trouble.
But.
I had to do it.
It’s that quintessential dilemma of the job applicant — where you need the job to get work experience, so as to qualify for that very job. Everyone’s been in this situation at some point in their lives, and nowhere is this more relevant than in the predicament of a writer.
The key component of getting work as a freelance writer is to have a portfolio of work that you can showcase. Something to show the prospective client what your writing looks like — what emotions it stirs within the reader. A portfolio is a requirement for anyone to judge whether you’re the right fit for their needs.
But what if you know deep down that you are the right fit but don’t have the written matter to back it up?
You stretch the truth.
Not lie. Just slightly stretch the truth.
I’m a firm believer in not lying outright. You can’t falsely claim to have written advertisements for Apple or an article for the New York Times. Those are traps that you’re laying for yourself to fall into headfirst.
However, if your client asks you whether you’ve worked with anyone relevant to their field, you might be inclined to say yes. If somebody asks you whether you’ve worked with FMCG content articles, you could say yes if you’ve written an article for some random retail store in the B2C space (Business to Consumer). Even if you’ve written an article for yourself which touched upon a similar topic, claim it.
And that’s the stretch. You’ve written for somebody in their field, maybe just not a big fancy brand that can light up the prospect’s eyes. Maybe the potential client is that shiny brand that you need for your portfolio to become stronger. And how else are you going to get that?
Your work cannot lie
If you tell the client that you’ve never worked within their sector, they’re just going to move on to the next person and forget about your existence. They might appreciate your honesty. But in all likelihood, they won’t care. They have bigger problems to solve.
However, if you do fudge the truth a bit and get the job — it’s now all up to your writing.
If your writing can’t hold up to the test, the client is anyhow going to move on. They’ll curse you for wasting their time and find someone else who can help them. They haven’t signed you on a retainer where they can’t fire you without payment. Even in that scenario if they really want to, you’re done. So it all comes down to whether you can actually deliver.
And if you can’t, I’d recommend NOT stretching the truth. That is a disservice to everyone. You’d rather lose the opportunity than not put your effort in.
In this transaction, both concerned parties are taking a chance on the other. If a client is trying to judge how you write, it’s entirely fair. And if you’re stretching the truth to land that client, I find it completely fair as well. You only have to ensure that you don’t act like a douche and fuck up the job.
The irony of faking it is that the guilt makes you work even harder. At least it did for me. I truly felt disturbed to have misled someone, but I was desperate to get the job. So I made sure that I doubled my efforts. And I feel that most people would. When you’re grateful that someone has given you an opportunity, you will respond equally.
When does it stop?
The aim isn’t to keep faking it for the rest of your life. It’s about ‘faking it till you have enough shit to show people’. If you’re only faking it without building anything for yourself, eventually it’ll catch up to you.
People can always see through the false narratives. You never know, you might end up getting blacklisted in the content writing market. And that can happen.
But the worst thing a freelancer can do is to make the life of a client even worse.
You’ve been hired to help, not to become a nuisance. You’re faking it to get the client, not to fake a career out of it. If you think this is sustainable, think again. This ploy must be used carefully and in certain moments only.
At the end of the day, don’t claim other’s writing as your own, don’t lie straight up, don’t cheat people, and don’t be an asshole. The aim is to fake confidence in your own skills. It’s almost like you’re lying to yourself. Do it until you build enough confidence in your own writing, that you no longer have the need to fake it. And hopefully it reflects in your portfolio by then.
‘A case-study on faking it’
I was approached for a freelance gig that needed me to write a 30-page report for an international audience. I won’t lie — I shivered at the thought of attempting it. From nervousness at the sheer size of the project, to the potential joy of seeing that money in my bank account. I had a bevy of emotions running through me.
But the first thing they asked me was whether I’d done any project like this before.
And everything came to a halt for me.
I had three thoughts in my head — I desperately wanted this project, I was petrified by it, and I didn’t know what to do about their question. I feared taking on such a mammoth task and failing. It was purely a sense of failure that gripped me. But I was teetering on the edge of being broke, so the decision was made amply clear to me.
However, the question still baffled me and I was unsure how to respond. I’d written massive newsletters and brochures for clients during my advertising days, but that was a while ago. My writing had changed, and I no longer had any of that writing available with me.
What could I do?
Well, I came up with excuses for why I didn’t have the writing in my portfolio, or why I couldn’t share my recent writing (hint: NDA). All of it was partly true, but I twisted it in my favour. Then I sold myself and my writing skills with a confidence that I didn’t know existed within me. Maybe the almost-being-broke part had something to do with it.
And I got the project.
And those fears of failure did come crashing down into me.
But I was also able to finish that project, I received the money in my account, I added another missing piece to my portfolio, I found out that I had the capacity to take on such massive projects, and I realised that I could fake it till I made it.
So yea. Maybe this is the worst possible advice anybody could ever give, and I get into a whole lot of trouble for it. But I’m just sharing what I did at one point in my life. I try not to anymore. Or maybe I’m just waiting for the next challenge to come around the corner. Maybe you should too.
