VOLUME 24, ISSUE 10 – OCTOBER 2025
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. Recurring Projects Pay Off
Turn annual and seasonal work into reliable revenue.
II. Expand Your Role with Content Strategy & Other Services
Position yourself as a partner by offering audits, roadmaps, and more.
III. Profitable Case Studies in the Age of AI
Help clients highlight successes with authentic stories AI can’t fake.
I. Recurring Projects Pay Off
Turn annual and seasonal work into reliable revenue.
One of the easiest ways to generate new work is to revisit projects you’ve already done for clients.
Especially annual or seasonal projects.
For example, I have a client who runs a yearly consumer survey related to trends and sentiments about the upcoming holiday shopping season.
Each year, I write their trend report based on the results. Sometimes, like this year, I also write a related article and / or press release tied to that report.
In this case, I don’t have to reach out ahead of time. I just make sure I’m available if and when they’re ready. But if you aren’t following up with past clients about similar projects, you might be missing out on reliable freelance work.
What projects are repeatable?
- Yearly trend reports
- Annual reports
- Seasonal or yearly email marketing campaigns
- Product descriptions and sales copy for regular release cycles
- And so much more.
But just because these projects can be repeated year after year, it doesn’t mean they’re on your clients’ radar.
Clients might forget how successful a promotional campaign was and they haven’t planned to run one the following year. Maybe they still haven’t decided if they’ll outsource a report or take it in-house.
Reach out.
Take the initiative and get those clients to consider repeating successful projects, and hiring you for the job.
It’s up to you to keep yourself top-of-mind. Check in periodically. Suggest repeat projects for the following year (and do it early enough for them to budget for it). Pitch them on similar projects for other times of the year if it makes sense.
A quick email with a reminder of a past success might be all it takes to turn a one-time gig into a reliable recurring income source.
II. Expand Your Role with Content Strategy Services
Position yourself as a partner by offering audits, roadmaps, and more.
As freelance commercial writers, we’re often brought into projects late. We handle execution while others have already done the planning.
But what if you could get into these projects earlier, be a part of that planning process, have more influence over decisions, and get paid more?
You can enjoy these upsell opportunities when you offer strategic services on top of freelance writing.
For example:
- Content audits (finding content gaps, overlaps, and optimization opportunities for existing content)
- Editorial calendars and roadmaps
- Style guidelines and brand voice documentation
These have been some of my favorite, and most lucrative, projects over the years. But what I love most is becoming more of a partner to these clients.
Content strategy services bring you in early.
They also give you direct input into future content plans that could very well result in additional freelance writing work for you. And they pay well.
If you enjoy big-picture planning as much as writing copy, consider offering content strategy services to your clients.
III. Profitable Case Studies in the Age of AI
Help clients highlight successes with authentic stories AI can’t fake.
If you were involved in either the digital publishing or marketing and PR space about 15 years ago, you might remember the heavy focus on transparency and authenticity.
From the normalization of filters and heavily-curated social media accounts to current trends around generative AI, those two things took more than a small hit in recent years.
But as freelance commercial writers, we have a powerful tool to help clients stand out amongst fake competition and AI slop:
Case Studies
Sure. Someone can use AI tools to churn out fake case studies. But real ones have more impact.
They’re not just marketing fluff. They’re evidence-based success stories.
They’re also profitable commercial writing projects.
When you help clients publish authentic stories, real-world results, and testimonials as social proof, you help them position themselves as trustworthy and authoritative. And you help them sell.
That has value, especially at a time when authenticity can seem in short supply.
Have your clients shared successes on social media or elsewhere recently? You do keep an eye on their updates, right?
Reach out and see if they’re open to having you write a case study.
Whether you love or hate AI tools, they can help you make the case for case studies. Don’t ignore this high-value project if you’re looking to line up more freelance commercial writing work.
Do you have a FLCW success story or quick tip you’d like to share, or a question you’d like to see answered, in a future newsletter? Email your story to epub@wellfedwriter.com, and it could be featured in the EPUB.