Gold Mining For Freelance Success

Image from gold panning equipment.com

At first blush, you wouldn’t think that gold mining and freelance writing have that much in common. Well, this wise old forty-niner is here to tell you different. First you need to remember that being a gold miner is not the same as being a gold digger. Yeah, any of you gold diggers that choose a freelance writer as your mark, be sure and write to let me know how that turned out for ya.

In the mid to late part of the nineteenth century, people from all walks of life got infected with gold fever. They packed up or sold most if not all of their worldly possessions and took off to strange and exotic parts of the world in search of their fortune. They were in search of rare little nuggets that would allow them to live in a great lifestyle, if they got enough of them. These dedicated folks gave up security and they life they knew for a chance of making it big.

Take a good look at the previous paragraph. As a freelance writer does any of that sound familiar? I thought it might. A lot of us have given up the security of a full time job to pursue our dream of maybe making it to the big leagues. We are searching through tons of chaff for the nuggets that will speed us on our journey. Every once in a while, one of us will find the mother-lode and our writing career is set for life. Most of us will find just enough nuggets now and then to keep us going. Others will hit nothing but fools gold time after time and eventually melt back into the faceless society.

Here are some more similarities between mining for gold and freelance writing:

• Equipment – To mine for gold, a person could get by with a rock hammer, a shovel and a gold pan. That’s it. A thirty dollar investment is all it takes and you could be searching for nuggets. It is going to take a lot of hard work and you will need to practice your skills, but you could do it. Freelance writing can be done just as cheaply. You could set up a site, pay for a domain and run it with free software. This will set you back about ten bucks a month. Your only other expense is the time you invest. Like panning for gold, it is hard work and you may have to process a ton of chaff for a single nugget but it is possible.
• More Equipment – Now, a gold miner could also go crazy and spend ten grand on suction pumps and sluice boxes and all manner of accouterments. It will make the work easier and allow them to process a lot more ore a lot faster. Freelance writing is just the same. Spend ten grand on your site, advertising and installing fancy hardware and you too will be able to process a lot of material much faster and with greater success.
• Location – One of the basic tenets of gold mining is to go where the gold is.  In other words, it’s best to work the areas where gold has been found previously. Being a smarty-pants and setting off for parts unknown because you know better than everyone else is a sure-fire recipe for disaster and empty pans. Freelance writing is just the same. Your efforts are best focused on places where clients hang out. If you choose to delve into the outskirts now and then that is okay, but don’t waste too much of your time there.
• Tenacity – For gold miners and freelance writers alike, this is the most important advice: Don’t give up. Success in both of these ventures requires a tenacious attitude. Stick with it and success will come.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. What are your thoughts?

Posted by: George