Great points, Randy.

Your excellent comments bring up more of my thoughts on this. I too had to start out in a new-to-me area — risk management writing — while on the job. The difference is I was on the job and being trained. The training included an editor looking over my work to make sure I was doing things correctly. That matters.

Have I taken on new topics? Sure. But I’ve made sure that there was enough overlap in my skills and expertise to make that transition easy. I’m fortunate again — risk management touches every industry, so the transition was somewhat easier, though there are still areas I wouldn’t go near as I’m not going to be able to take on those areas with enough knowledge (medical writing, for example). I have never “parachuted” in. As you pointed out, that’s just winging it and hoping it works. There’s also a chance that it won’t work.

The active marketing — you nailed it. That’s how you get yourself out of those situations. You don’t have to niche (though I’ve argued that it does net more money in the long run). Actively seeking clients whose needs align with what you like doing is a win-win.

All of us start somewhere, and many of us have learned to write about things we had no knowledge of when we started out. Heck, I write about additive manufacturing, and that didn’t even exist when I started out. But there’s a difference between being able to learn to write about a variety of topics and being able to parachute in and deliver good writing that meets the targets’ requirements.

Parachuting in—winging it—is something you do only in desperate circumstances. And companies that post for freelancers aren’t desperate. They’re overrun by letters of introduction from people who don’t meet their qualifications and from some who do. It’s beyond counterintuitive to urge them to ignore the writers whose portfolios are on target in favor of a writer whose portfolio is not.

On top of that, the argument that writers don’t need subject matter expertise is self-defeating. When you have experience in the topic at hand, don’t you tout that? Or do you think, “Eh. I know this subject cold, but this prospect would really be better off with a neophyte, so I won’t apply.” You can’t make experience an asset when you have it and irrelevant when you don’t.

But mostly, YES to getting yourself out of those cattle-call situations by marketing and networking instead of hoping freelance postings can serve as your prospect pipeline. You can still look at those postings. But think of them as a resource for identifying companies you want to market to, do your homework, develop contracts, and take yourself out of the slush pile.