Planning to be a freelance medical writer? Here is what you need to know.

Having a career as freelance medical writer is a good option indeed. But what you need to know is that there is no easy alternative to become a freelance medical writer. You will have to keep in account ‘n’ number of things.

You need to maintain a focus on the core specificities required for the job and will need to formulate a proper plan and decisions that will precisely reflect your medical/health writing goals.

From creating a portfolio to setting your rates, there is a lot of homework to be done before you jump start your career in freelance medical writing.

What is freelance medical writing?

As the name suggests, one has freedom of working from his/her desired location and can work for multiple clients and various medical documents at a single time, working as a freelance medical writer.

There is not going to be a fixed income, it all depends on how much you work and what rates have you set for yourself.

Stepping onto the freelancing dais:

You will be required to be well-off with these traits to begin with:

• Have a love and passion for writing
• Strong research and literary skills
• Being a Grammar-Nazi will certainly help you
• Knowledge of medical terminologies (will ease the work for you)
• A degree in life sciences or any medical field (though not mandatory)

Now that you know that you possess the basic skills required to start your journey, let's move towards another steps:

Creating a portfolio: If you have previously worked as a freelance medical writer or even as medical writer for any organization, you need to maintain a portfolio of your work. This helps your clients to know and assess your work and this will help you in getting projects. Showcasing your skills is the best way to get projects from different clients.

Choosing the right freelance websites: There are many websites that let you hunt for freelance medical writing projects. You need to choose the website you need to make an account on and look for projects. Go for more established websites. Some of such websites are:

www.upwork.com

www.peopleperhour.com

www.writersdepartment.com

www.freelancer.in

www.freelancewriting.com

Setting your rates: This is a very crucial element for a freelancer. If you are an experienced writer, you can create an impressive portfolio and showcase your work experience and set rates accordingly. For the beginners, it is always advisable to look for the rate other freelancers in the market have set and then fix yours accordingly. The competitive pricing strategy here is going to help you. Clients may consider you for lower price, but then keeping too low rates might also harm you. So, keep a hawk’s eye on the price other freelancer writers have set and analyze what rate would be safe for you.

You can also make your own website and upload your sample work there and create a good portfolio. You will need to learn the basic of making website or you can also hire a professional to make one for you.

Familiarity with basics of digital marketing: familiarity with SEO, SMM, etc. Will give you an added advantage when it comes to promoting your website and content.

The art of selling: Being a freelancer means that you have to play various roles and one of them is being a marketer. You need to market yourself as a medical writer. You need to convince the clients why you are better than others for a project.

Being a freelance medical writer comes with its own set of challenges:

• There is no fixed salary (deal with it!) you will earn as much as you work
• No added bonuses like medical insurance, provident fund, etc.
• Managing everything by yourself like maintaining accounts, keeping a track of your clients and their work
• Self-discipline is highly required as you will be monitoring your work on your own
• Self-understanding of the work becomes very important and you need to be clear about what client wants as there will be no one to guide you

Some advantages you can get as a freelance medical writer are:

• Working from the comfort of your home
• Chance to work on variety of documents
• Opportunity to work for multiple clients and projects at a time
• No hassle for daily commute
• Personal space
• Better work-life balance

Want to know more on how you can build your career as a freelance medical writer? Contact Turacoz Skill Development Program (TSDP), a learning platform oriented towards establishing efficient medical writers and help them in achieving their goals.

TSDP offers a variety of medical writing courses with an aim to train writers as per the industry standards and help them in staying updated on the recent trends and make a successful career in medical writing.

To know more, you can get in touch with us at:

trainings@turacozskilldevelopment.org

Turacoz Skill Development Program helps you in achieving your endeavors.