10 Steps to Become a Freelance Medical Writer
Get your solo medical writing career off the ground
Have a hankering to go freelance? Or perhaps you're exploring freelance medical writing as a transitional phase until you figure out what comes next? Forbes reports that over one-third of the workforce identifies as independent workers in 2024 as freelance work continues to gain momentum.
Whatever your reason is for going freelance, you’ll need to be prepared, especially since it’s generally harder to break into freelance work without an industry track record. Harder, but not impossible. Here are ten actionable steps you can take to launch your freelance writing career.
Are you ready to launch and grow your specialist freelance medical writing business?? Get on the waitlist now for WriteCMEpreneur to make your mark in CME…
1. Take Stock As You Prepare to Go Freelance
Some of us want to work solo; some of us have no choice. Whatever your reasons for considering freelance work, think about the why, what, where. and how.
Why
If you eagerly embrace working freelance, chances are that you’ll have the energy and drive to make things happen. If you have to try out solo working, (e.g., your company is downsizing) then work on your mindset before you work on getting clients. A reluctant freelancer will find it difficult to muster the strength to create a niche, chase clients, and maintain a business.
What
What kind of medical writing are you going to do? Have you been in regulatory but fancy your chances at marketing wordsmithery? Are you going to offer a broad mix of services or tap a specialty niche?
Can you do both (for instance, write and edit documents for marketing clients and build up consumer health pieces on the side)? Even if you squirm at the thought of developing a business plan, at least consider creating a marketing plan, which should at the very least help you clarify your focus, scope, and goals. The Mighty Marketer is a great place to start.
Where
Most freelancers work from home, but if you dread the potential monotony and isolation, and like to get some face-to-face human contact now and then, there are other options.
These range from your local coffee shop (free wi-fi, comfy chairs, and decent music), to renting or sharing space in small business incubator sites or professional suites. These coworking spaces offer audio-visual equipment, conference rooms, and a water-cooler environment for a monthly rate. But if you just need the occasional public outing, the local coffee shop will probably do.
How
How you're going to facilitate your work depends on your services, your clients, and your business approach - all topics we'll cover in the rest of the article.
2. Business Structure & Liability
Many freelancers may not understand why they need to think about business structure. After all, you're just one person, right? According to Terri Lonier, author of Working Solo, business structure is an important consideration for tax liability and organizational structure issues, especially when it comes to managing risk.
At a certain point, you may have clients that you’ve known for years and you may not write the kind of material that seems especially risky. However, no one is exempt from legal liability - and now that you don't have the legal protection of the corporate world, you have a lot more to lose. Structuring your business as at least a limited liability company reduces some of this risk by protecting your savings, property, and personal/family assets.
If you decide to do business as a sole proprietor, then at least consider errors and omissions insurance, available according to the kind of medical writing you do and for whom (e.g. do you write mainly grant proposals, technical documents or publish under your own name?). This kind of insurance can run from between $1000-$2500 annually.
3. Prepare for Business Costs
The costs of setting up as a freelancer vary depending on the kind of work you do, your client base, and the complexity of your business structure. As a minimum, consider the following:
Legal costs (registering your business name, applying for city and state licenses)
Hardware (at a minimum: a computer and possibly a printer)
Software (word processing at the very least)
In addition, set-up costs will probably include some set aside for creating visual pointers to your business. Even if you intend to operate minimally (home office, established clients) branding is key to creating visibility, defining a niche, and differentiating what you do from all those other freelance medical writers. Brand building includes at least:
Clarifying your goals, client avatars, and project preferences
Logo development (for digital and physical marketing materials, like your website, social media pages, electronic deliverables, letterheads, brochures, and business cards)
A website—think of this as a shop front that establishes credibility about who you are and what you do. You can build a reasonable low-cost website with Wix, Go Daddy, or Squarespace (my choice), and many more options.
The costs associated with working as a freelancing medical writer may seem daunting. That's why it's commonly recommended to have some savings when you start out. It's also helpful to keep in mind that these investments pay for themselves when you start acquiring clients.
4. Find New Clients
Your home office is in place, you have a business name and you are fired up for business. What? No clients? Then you need to get busy. Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti 9-5 Guide, advises starting with a wish list.
This will help you map out the kind of clients and work you’re after (e.g. academic medical centers, CME organizations, hospitals, publishers, or pharmaceutical companies) and develop your marketing strategy (yes, you’ll need one, but fear not, there are scores of resources out there from experts like Marketing Mentor, Freelance Cake, and Pauliina Rasi Communications). I also recommend podcasts like Online Marketing Made Easy and High Income Business Writing.
Good clients, the ones with whom you’d like to nurture repeat business, come from a variety of sources—that’s the good news. The bad news is that digging for prospective clients is very time consuming. So you’ll need to apportion time (around 20%) for marketing and attracting new business. But how to go about it?
A great place to start is with AMWA's tips for new freelancers or this daily checklist for marketing your freelance business. Accompany this with general advice from seasoned writers such as Peter Bowerman (The Well Fed Writer) or Robert Bly (Secrets of Freelance Success) and soon you’ll be connecting with the right prospects, because you’ll know how to identify prospective clients through social networks like LinkedIn, trade associations, a simple Google search, and business directories.
Scour these and other resources (such as lists of medical device manufacturers, CME and nonprofit organizations, or AMWA’s professional directory) for contact information about the best person to approach within an organization and hit them with your marketing materials. A key resource for CME writers? The accredited education provider list from the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.
Pay-for-the-privilege-to-bid sites like Upwork can provide a solid grounding in hustle, and you’ll get rapid-fire exposure to the following processes:
Describing your services
Bidding on projects
Engaging with clients
Managing relationships
Negotiating rates, turnaround times, deliverables
Getting client feedback on your writing (this will be low fidelity, but you’ll get a feel for what clients appreciate)
Building confidence in how to spot red flags
And you can always sign up for newsletters that send out freelance opportunities like the Freelance Framework. Don’t neglect staffing agencies (e.g. Aerotek), especially if you are trying to break into marketing writing from a regulatory background—these can provide the opportunity to gain industry experience on a contract basis.
Finally, the American Medical Writers Association directory offers space to advertise your expertise and availability. Directory members say that this visibility generates leads and more than pays for its fee.
5. Invest in Technology
Although many freelancers manage their day-to-day projects with little more than Microsoft Office, others need to support complex projects with software that can handle PDF files, bibliographic material, graphic design, and more. Such software might include:
Adobe Suite or a similar software for PDF handling
Reference + bibliography (Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley)
Graphics/image editing and data visualization software (e.g. Canva, Photoshop, Infogr.am, Piktochart)
Finance management + invoicing (e.g. Quickbooks, Fresh, Harvest)
Video calling (e.g. Google Meet or Zoom)
Dual Monitor support
Project outlining and management tools (e.g. Trello, Asana, Click Up) )
Customer/client relationship management systems (e.g. Airtable)
6. Consider Contracts as a Freelance Medical Writer
To have or to have not? Many freelancers do not use contracts, though these tend to be solo workers who have been freelancing for a time, have built up a solid client base, and established trust relationships with those for whom they work.
As a newbie, a contract protects you from headache-inducing scenarios such as scope creep, non-payment, or potential litigation. There are several resources for designing contracts tailored to your specifications, but as a general rule, these need to cover:
The services you are going to provide (along with any measure of those services, such as hours, pages, pieces)
Number of revisions
Phrases to limit scope creep(for example, stating how many revisions the client is entitled to receive)
Copyright ownership
Payment amount, terms, and schedule
Termination terms (important to include this if the project isn’t working out)
Confidentiality agreement
If a client pushes back on signing a contract, that can be a huge red flag. Remember to always trust your gut when signing a new client. This applies not only to contract terms but to negotiating rates as well. Check out the Everyday Lawyer for resources.
So how do you set rates that feel good for you?
7. Set Your Fees
Setting fees can be tricky: those new to freelancing typically underprice their services, especially women. Once you’ve established a rate with a client who gives return business, you then have the additional challenge of raising your fees.
Laurie Lewis, author of What to Charge,, provides a comprehensive overview of rate pricing and lots of strategies for making sure that you’re covering your costs and making a profit. Check out AMWA’s salary and compensation survey, and for comparison, see standard rates for 2024 described by the Editorial Freelancers Association. There are other ways to research going rates for freelance medical writers You can ask clients with whom you have a strong relationship about rates for particular project types. You can search the internet for rate sheets too. Some medical writers post their rates on their websites. You could even ask ChatGPT or Claude to find rates for you.
8. Hone Client Management Skills
Once you’ve established some clients, or at least some industry contacts, think about how you will those maintain relationships. For some freelance medical writers, that could mean blasting out a general quarterly newsletter, or sharing stories with targeted clients about topics that interest them or are relevant to their industry.
The more personal and specific, the better. Cultivating lasting relationships may also mean that you consider sending holiday cards or arrange to have coffee once in a while.
Need to ditch a client? For instance, one that pays late, negotiates every last penny, or persistently wants to add more to a project without affecting the fee? Politely decline the next project (you’re too busy) or raise your rates exorbitantly (warning: this can backfire. The client may persist, in which case you’ve learned that your rates were too low).
Navigating client relationships is meant to be a learning experience, and the more you work with different clients, the easier it will become to set boundaries, spot clients you do or don't want to work with, and shape your business to your preferences.
9. Market Your Freelance Writer Services
If you are working solo, then you need to promote what you do, not only to those you see as your most likely prospects but to anyone and everyone. As Malcolm Gladwell argues in The Tipping Point, the power of social networking lies in being connected to, well, connectors, and the best way of doing that is making sure that everyone you meet knows about your business.
Use online resources like LinkedIn, medical writing communities, and email lists that fit your interests and that you can contribute to as a content writer or medical editor. In 2024, LinkedIn alone has 1 billion users. Whether you like the platform or not, you leave money on the table by not using it.
Engage with prospects and colleagues on LinkedIn. Follow up with people who view your profile or comment on your posts. Initiate conversations. You never know when your networking, especially those weak ties—will deliver you a client. Nurturing weak ties is crucial for freelancers because they provide access to novel information, job opportunities, and a wider client base beyond your immediate social circle.
You can also promote yourself to potential clients by joining their trade associations and participating in local association events, creating new contacts through volunteer work (e.g. a newsletter for a local health nonprofit), or serving your local chapter of AMWA. One of the keys to success in using social networking tools is your willingness and ability to befriend—to offer advice, answer questions, and support other professionals.
10. Grow Your Medical Writing Business!
You’re ready to take the plunge—there are a multitude of resources to help you create and sustain the kind of clients and work you want. Join the AMWA freelance listserv (Engage) for an ongoing conversation about freelance issues or WriteCME Pro for one-on-one mentorship, peer support, and personalized guidance on the technical and practical aspects of CME writing.
And remember to be kind to yourself: The freelance life is a life well lived when we work to live, rather than live to work.
Launch Your Freelance Specialist Medical Writing Business Today
The road to freelance writing can be difficult, but with the right support and resources, you can set yourself up to succeed. WriteCMEpreneur is a step-by-step program for aspiring and current freelance medical writers that will teach you the fundamentals of CME writing and how to find and connect with your first client.
→ Join WriteCME Pro, a CME-specific, skills-based membership for CME writers who are ready to create CME content with confidence.
→ Listen to the Write Medicine podcast or watch our YouTube channel for weekly best practices in creating content that connects with and educates health professionals.
→ Subscribe to the Write Medicine newsletter for tips, tools, and tactics to help you create CME/CE content with confidence