Aspects of online freelance writing you can manage on your smartphone

A smartphone is a powerful tool in any freelancer’s arsenal. Recently, I have been spending a lot of time on my smartphone typing blog posts for my own sites. And in this article I want to show you some of the areas where you can just rely on your smartphone to do your work.

Having a good laptop / computer can help make your life a lot easier as a freelancer. But I am here to tell you that not everything has to be done on a laptop. There is a lot that you can just do right there on your phone.

One…

Educating yourself

Once you get your first client, you never stop learning. There’s always something to improve – and the internet abounds with resources you can use to improve your skills (writing and marketing).

You can use your smartphone:

• to read free articles on the web. Just visit your favourite blogs to see any new updates they have right there on your phone.
• to watch relevant videos on YouTube to learn from other freelance writers more experienced than you
• to download free and paid ebooks, on a variety of topics, that you can use to sharpen your skills. Often you can read these ebooks using free apps such as Amazon Kindle reader or Foxit PDF reader.
• to take free and paid online courses.

Creating your portfolio (preparing your writing samples)

This is another area where you can use your smartphone especially if you are just at the beginning stages. You can use your smartphone to type articles that end up in your portfolio – whether on your blog or in Google Docs.

Looking for work

So, using your smartphone:

• to bid for jobs on various freelance marketplaces.
• to send cold email pitches.
• to reply to listings on various job boards.
• to look for work on classified ads websites.

Handling correspondence

Since you never know when a client may send you a message, you won’t just sit at a desk staring at your laptop or desktop computer. But you can rely on your smartphone – and turn on mobile data / internet from time to time to check for new messages.

You can use your smartphone to easily handle correspondence via email, video-calling apps like Zoom and Skype or messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Online research

Not all the research work needed before you start writing an article, ebook or a blog posts has to be done on a laptop, tablet or desktop computer.

Whenever you find some free time, you can just take your smartphone from your pocket / purse and start reading a bit on the material a client wants you to reference when creating content for them.

You can read articles, listen to podcasts, look up statistics, find case studies, search for infographics on Pinterest, check discussions (on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).

Typing content

I didn’t know how easy typing articles on a smartphone can be until I tried. Than I fell in love with it. So, far I have typed several articles just for this site alone – over 40 and I am even typing this one on my smartphone as well.

You can do the same for freelance client work. You don’t have to be always in front of your laptop anymore to start working on a piece outsourced to you. If you land a job, you can just pick your smartphone and start playing with an outline before typing the whole thing.

Then once you are done, you can send the text file / document from your smartphone to your laptop using Xender or Bluetooth for further editing and proofreading.

Sending the work to a client who hires you

Once you have fully typed an article and formatted it and it is ready for publishing, you can just use your smartphone to upload it to Google Docs (and share the link to it with the client) or send it as an email attachment via a webmail service provider such as Gmail.

Sending invoices

Once a client gets the completed work from you and they are happy and ask you to send them an invoice, you don’t have to look for your laptop to do so. You can just create the invoice right there on your smartphone.

Just log in to PayPal / Skrill / Payoneer, create a new invoice, add details such as the title of the piece you created and the amount you agreed upon, enter the client’s details (name and email usually), click send and wait for your money.

Creating an ad listing

You can place an ad listing for free on Niabusiness.com about the particular freelance service you are offering clients.

Usually a title and a description will suffice.

So, you can just create a text file on your smartphone (I use WPS Office on my Google Android device) with your ad title and a description. Then you can go to the relevant category on Niabusiness.com to place your ad (just copy and paste the text from earlier and paste it in the relevant fields in the Place Ad page).

Then wait for the ad to be approved. Once it is on the site, potential clients will see it and reply to it if they are interested in working with you.

And you can just reply to their messages from your smartphone.

Some tips for when using your smartphone for freelance related stuff

• Limit the number of apps you have open at any one given time. Anything that is going to distract you, should be turned off. Turn off any music apps. Turn off games. Turn off the Phone app. The fewer the apps, the easier it is switching between them.
• If you are going to be looking up things while you type for example, keep your browser app open.
• If you are typing articles (or just anything) remember to tap the Save button several times. Because you don’t want your work to get lost if you accidentally close the app or your battery goes empty.
• You can also use your laptop together with your smartphone. For example, you can use the big screen on your laptop to read something you are referencing while you type on your smartphone.
• Backup the files you create on your smartphone to your laptop or desktop computer. I usually use a USB cable, Xender or Bluetooth for this.
• Charge your smartphone fully if you want to use it for extensive periods of time.