The Portfolio Papers: freelancer writing samples

I’ve been posting about working with experienced freelance writers. Aside from asking about their years of writing work, which I talked about the week before last, look at their writing samples.

These could be from a variety of clients, and the selection will give you an idea of the subjects, industries, and formats that freelancer has worked on/in. I’d argue this shows more of their writing range than samples they’ve created themselves, because pieces written for hire demonstrate how well the writer reflected those clients’ brands, including voice, tone, and subject matter. And the more clients they’ve written for, the more reliable they are. As a freelancer, it’s easier to get new clients through referrals and networking than by cold pitching.

Even if a freelancer’s samples are from their days as an agency employee, they reflect flexibility in working for multiple clients. Getting hired at an agency also means other creatives found that writer competent and professional.

In my case, my samples also reflect different ways of working. I based the case studies on subject matter expert (SME) interviews, product messaging, and industry research. I created the blog posts by collaborating in print with SMEs, adding my knowledge of content structure and tone to their industry expertise, product knowledge, and thought leadership. Ebooks and emails were based on creative briefs and online research.

Let’s talk presentation. Writing portfolio sites provide the added bonus of letting the freelancer’s personality shine in the site design and the copy that introduces the samples. If the freelancer doesn’t have a site, they might send you samples as file attachments, or make them available in a shared folder. As long as the samples were written for a client, that’s the important thing.