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Dear Clients

A look into why serious writers won’t give away their work for free

They’ve asked how many years of experience I’ve had writing; they’ve requested my resume

They’ve asked me questions about why I like to write and asked me to sell myself

Literally 20 minutes later, hiding at the very bottom of the in-depth application form is a request for

An experienced client would click on the links I sent them to gauge whether I would be

Yet the novice or cheap clients request a free article that will take at least 2 hours to

Too bad, check out the links I painstakingly added ever so neatly

When I was a new writer, I would be excited by this request; for sure I’ll

I wouldn’t go into their place of employment and ask for a free sample of furniture,

The article requested is oftentimes not something I can use again and end up deleting it

Think of it this way, how much time would it take to submit free writing samples every

An experienced, or considerate client will visit my links and decide if my writing style is a

A cheap client will ask for as much free stuff as possible; this should serve as a

As mentioned, these samples can be in the form of your own blog post

As a new writer, I created a blog for just a few dollars, wrote some articles, hit

A serious client will respect your time as much as their own

This may be true, but one thing that concerns me about free sample writing is that they’

Asking for free work shows a disregard for the writer's profession

Would an office worker show up to work on their first day for free? Absolutely not

However, they do offer their experience by way of their resume or CV

When I’ve submitted samples to such places as content mills, for example, I would never hear

So to me, that indicates they’ve put together a whole lot of free samples written by

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scammed as a freelance writer

It’s embarrassing how I would fall into this trap more than once

) But what we’re showing the client is that we don’t value our work enough to

The joy in writing for yourself will be an experience all on its own

If you want to gain experience, offer to be a guest blogger for instance on another site

You’re paid by byline, not cash, and you can use these links for samples