There’s no doubt that freelance writing is competitive. Just take a few moments to browse through the profiles on Upwork, and you’ll see that there are thousands of other writers out there.

And many of them are competing for the very same jobs as you. A lot of people talk about this competition like it’s a bad thing, but personally, I think it’s fantastic.

Whenever you find a competitive market, that means there are a lot of buyers. In other words, for every freelance writer out there looking for work, there are many more clients out there looking for someone to hire.

And the truth is, most freelance writers don’t really know what they’re doing. I’m not talking about writing ability because that’s not the most important part of freelancing.

I mean most people struggle to be consistent, meet their deadlines, and actually hang onto their clients. That means if you’re average at most of those things, you’re already way ahead of most people.

And if you’re great at all of those things? Well, then I can promise you that it’s going to be a lot easier for you to find freelance writing work.

How to set yourself apart as a freelancer

Ultimately, the best way to succeed as a freelance writer is to prove that you’re so consistent and reliable that your clients would never even consider hiring anyone else.

Not sure how to make that happen? Here are three ways to set yourself apart as a freelance writer:

1. Answer your email ASAP

In the past year, I’ve started outsourcing various tasks in my business.

And I started to notice a very strange trend.

I would email a contractor I had previously worked with, and offer them more work...and they would take three days to get back to me.

And occasionally, when they did respond, they acted put out by the request.

What the hell? I remember thinking. I thought you did this for a living! I’m trying to pay you money -- why aren’t you more excited about it?

Sadly, this is pretty normal when you hire freelancers. Most people are flaky, and they struggle to even respond to their emails, much less get their work done.

So if you want to stand out among other freelancers, then start answering your emails immediately. Not within 24 hours -- as soon as possible.

I try to answer every email from clients and potential clients in less than an hour. Oftentimes, I answer within five to ten minutes, and people always thank me for this.

Editors and clients are busy people, and they don’t want to wait around wondering if you’re able to follow through on their assignment. If you take too long to respond, they’ll probably move on to another freelancer.

So start answering those emails immediately, and I’m willing to bet that you’ll start being the go-to freelance writer for most of your clients.

2. Go above and beyond their expectations

When a new client hires you they will often give you some editorial guidelines to follow. This could be things like using certain keywords or including bullet points and H2 headings.

But some clients will just send you a topic to write about, and that’s it. And if they’ve never blogged before, then you can just do your best and leave it at that.

If they have blogged before, then I like to check out their blog and make note of what’s included in every post.

For instance, I recently landed a new ghostwriting client who didn’t send me any editorial guidelines. So I went to her blog, read through her posts, and got a sense for how she writes.

I noticed things like:

The fact that she always included at least three links to other blogs on her website
Links to other resources on her website are always bolded and italicized
She tends to add a very short conclusion (only about two or three sentences) to sum up the blog post

And then, without being asked, I went and included those same things in the blog post I wrote for her. This is an easy, simple way to make your client’s life easier, and to stand out as a writer who goes above and beyond what’s expected.

3. Become a yes person

I’ve spent some time networking with other freelance writers, and I have noticed something interesting.

New freelancers work so hard to find that first client, and the minute they do, they often look for reasons to get rid of that very same client.

Maybe the job doesn’t pay very well or maybe they don’t really like the work.

But whatever the reason, they’re convinced they can no longer work with that person.

I’ve noticed that new freelancers are also very concerned about setting boundaries with their clients. They want to know how many revision requests they should accept, or how to deal with clients who don’t pay the invoice the minute it hits their inbox.

Sometimes I like to think back to my early days as a freelancer and ask myself, “What did I do back then that got me to where I am today?”

And the answer is that I said yes to almost everything.

I wrote Amazon product reviews for $10 a pop because it meant that I finally had some writing samples to share, and a great client review to boot.

I once spent an entire Sunday writing four blogs about -- I kid you not -- butt enhancement cream. (Thankfully, those blog posts did not come with a byline.)

I’ve written about some of the most boring topics you can possibly imagine. I’ve also said yes to tight and inconvenient deadlines.

In fact, this happened just recently. Much to my surprise, I received an email inviting me to contribute a guest post to Make a Living Writing.

Another writer had backed out at the last minute, and so the editor asked if I was willing to step up and write the article by the deadline.

I answered the email within five minutes and said yes.

Look, I’m not saying that you should let boundaries go out the window. There is definitely a time to stand your ground and say no. But it’s just a lot less often than you might think.

When you’re just getting started, the best thing you can do is to be open-minded. We think that new opportunities will look all shiny and exciting.

But most of the time, it looks like some really boring crap that you don’t feel like doing.

Final thoughts

Hopefully, this blog post has given you some insight into new ways that you can start to set yourself apart as a freelance writer. But what if you’re still struggling to find those first few clients?

If so, then I want to invite you to check out my free webinar, How to Use Upwork as a Freelance Writer. This webinar will show you how to find freelance clients using my favorite platform, Upwork.com.

You can grab your spot here:

Learn more