Freelance writing, or working as a self-employed writer, is an increasingly popular career path for many people. 

Freelancing allows individuals to have more control over their earnings and their work schedules, which can be more enticing to people than working in a traditional office job. 

Freelance technical writing is a specific kind of writing that can be difficult to get right, but is highly valued by many companies and businesses. 

If you have a talent for technical writing, then freelance technical writing might be the right avenue for you. 

However, there are a few things you need to know before you begin and some tips that can help you get started on the right foot. 

In this article, we’ll talk about what technical writing is, what technical writers do, and how you can begin your career as a freelance technical writer.

What Does a Technical Writer Do?

As mentioned earlier, there are many different industries that need the expertise and technical skills that a freelance technical writer can provide. 

And within those industries, there is a variety of different types of projects that you can do. 

You can pick one of these areas to specialize in or learn how to do all of them. 

The main goal, however, is to make the technical, complicated information you get something that is approachable and able to be understood by all.

Technical Articles

Just like regular freelance writers tend to spend a lot of their time writing blogs, technical freelance writers can also spend their time creating blogs and articles. 

The difference is in the type of content and topics that are covered in the blog itself. You might end up writing technical articles for publications and magazines instead of a client website.

Technical Guides or User Manuals

Another type of task that technical writers can do is creating how-to manuals and guides. 

These guides require the skills of a writer who can take complicated engineering or software information and turn it into simple steps that a customer can use. 

The types of guides you might create include: 

• Installation instructions
• Maintenance guides
• Best practices booklets
• Troubleshooting manuals
• Technical documentation

Policy and Procedure Pages

Businesses need to have their policies and procedures listed out clearly, often as required by law. They also might want these things documented for internal use as well. 

A technical writer can put together these policy and procedure pages or guides. 

The guides can then be used for onboarding, benefits packages, conduct guidelines, or meeting federal regulations.

People sometimes underestimate just how much technical writing ends up shaping the actual workflows of a company. I’ve seen policy documents so dense that even the people who wrote them seem confused after a few months. A good technical writer, though, knows how to break things down so someone new on their first day isn’t quietly panicking at their desk.

The funny part is these procedure pages don’t really win awards or anything; no one really reads them for fun. But when a crisis pops up or something needs to be double-checked, everyone suddenly appreciates clear, useful documentation. In some ways, it’s deeply thankless work—until it isn’t, and then suddenly it’s the only thing standing between order and chaos.

White Papers and Reports

Another typical job for a freelance technical writer is to create white papers or corporate reports. 

These detailed, technical papers are used to explain things like industry research, company reports and findings, or original research that is sponsored by the company. 

They are more technical than a regular article, but still need to be approachable to readers.

What Kind of Skills Does a Technical Writer Need?

A freelance technical writer needs to have a robust skill set in order to successfully achieve their goals and run a great business. 

While there isn’t any formal training or degrees required to be a technical writer, you will want to make sure you have other skills like: 

• Technical knowledge and expertise
• Excellent writing and grammar skills
• Editing and proofreading skills
• Project management skills
• Time management skills
• Marketing skills
• Sales skills

If you’re coming from a non-technical background, this probably feels a bit overwhelming—honestly, everyone starts out feeling like an impostor at some point. The trick is not to get bogged down in the lingo or the intimidation of new jargon, but to focus on your real job: making things make sense. Most of the time, clients care less about whether you know every acronym and more about whether you can figure it out and explain it to someone who’s even less familiar.

It helps, too, to remember that technical writing doesn’t require you to know everything all at once. Curious people actually thrive here. The best technical writers I know aren’t the ones with the flashiest degrees; they’re the ones who get excited about the hunt for answers and aren’t afraid to ask “dumb” questions. That bit of persistence usually makes the difference between okay documentation and something genuinely useful.

8 Tips to Become a Freelance Technical Writer

Now that you know more about what a technical writer is, let’s look at some of the best tips you can use while working on your technical freelancing work.

1. Develop a Technical Writing Portfolio

Because you will likely be working for big organizations and technical companies, you need to be able to show them what your skills are. 

A technical writing portfolio allows you to share your best work with potential clients and show them exactly what you can accomplish and why you are valuable to them.

2. Find a Niche

You’ll want to have a niche and area of expertise as you begin a freelance technical writing career. 

You can narrow it down into a specific industry or vertical or you can specialize in a specific type of technical writing. 

Either way, finding a niche helps you become more valuable to clients and stand out from the competition.

3. Use Technical Writing Templates

Technical writing can be incredibly difficult, especially if you are working with highly complicated or confusing information. 

Using a basic template for different types of writing projects like a whitepaper or a how-to guide can help you cut down on some of the outlining work and instead focus your time and energy on the writing.

4. Apply SEO Techniques to Your Writing

Just because technical writing is more complicated than traditional content writing doesn’t mean you should forego best practices like using SEO techniques. 

You still want your writing to be found by readers and bring in organic traffic for your clients.

5. Improve Your Research Skills

A big part of great technical writing is research skills. You might be writing about a complicated subject that doesn’t have much information available. 

You’ll need to be able to find robust and informative sources to back up your writing.

6. Practice Your Sales Pitch

Oftentimes, freelancers struggle with selling their services to clients. 

Most freelance writers aren’t salespeople by nature, and it takes time to build up those important sales and pitch skills. 

Practicing your sales pitches and working on your speaking skills can go a long way in making it easier to appeal to customers.

7. Set Accurate Rates

Another area that many freelancers struggle with is setting the proper rates. 

Many times, writers undervalue their services. Make sure you are pricing your services for what they are worth. 

Remember, as a freelance technical writer, you have a very defined and specialized skill set that is worth more than you might think.

8. Continually Improve Your Craft

There is always time to work on improving your craft and becoming a better technical writer. 

By doing things like attending classes, keeping up with research, and expanding your skill sets, you can become an even better freelance technical writer and find yourself being sought out by more and more clients.

You may also be interested in these articles:

• The Best 12 Freelancers Tools
• Discover the 20 Best Freelance Writing Tips to Create Fantastic Content
• How to Build an Effective Freelance Resume

Wrap Up

Technical writing is a much more complicated and complex type of writing than other types of freelancing. However, when it is done right, it can be incredibly beneficial to individuals who want to begin careers as freelance technical writers. 

If you have the ability to translate complicated ideas into approachable content, then it might be the right path for you.

No matter what type of freelance writing you do, one of the hardest parts is finding new clients and getting work as you start off. 

Thankfully, there are many websites that can help you.