Hey, ProWriter!

Welcome back, and welcome to 2024!

We hope everyone had a restful holiday season.

If you’re a workaholic type and just couldn’t shut off long enough to have a glass of eggnog, then we hope you had a productive holiday season.

Either way, we’re glad to be back.

We have a great issue to kick things off this year, so let’s jump right in:

• Adapt or die! The founders explain how content will change in 2024 👴

• AI might take our jobs, but will it actually gulp kill us? 💀

• Follow this content creator and get tons of career value, free 🆓

• Struggling already in the new year? Here’s what to do 🚶

• Fresh pickings from the gig market to kick off 2024 🍎

See you next week!

- Dave and Dusten

#ProWriterTips 💡

What does the future of content look like?

Late last year, a lot of writers asked us about the future of content writing.

Things like: “How can I compete with AI?”, “What kind of content will businesses be looking for"?”, and, “How will brands go about hiring talent?”

We pulled together some end-of-year roundups to help answer some of these questions in our final issue before the holidays. If you missed that, read it here.

But, we didn’t include our perspective in that issue. So that’s what we’re doing today.

Here’s advice from the founding team on how we think content is going to change in 2024, and what that means for the careers of freelance writers.

Dave’s take:

“Quality content is more accessible to everyone with AI tools supporting the research and creation workflows. The power of content will be less on the what, and more on the unique how. You won’t be able to stand out by having lots of information in your content. You’ll need to deliver content in a format that trumps all your competitors. Take a unique perspective, add context that isn’t found anywhere else, include video and imagery, or even just deliver content in a creative and engaging tone (AI sucks at this). Writers will still need those hard skills to get opportunities, but their unique soft skills will set their content apart. Change up your pitching game to reflect those unique points, and promote them through your personal branding to attract your ideal client.”

Here’s a tip for adding some “unique perspective and context that isn’t found anywhere else” from Dusten.

Dusten’s take:

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘your network is your net worth’ before? If not, that’s what I think you should keep in mind heading into 2024. Content was getting stale even before AI arrived to 10x the problem. Moving forward, smart brands will want higher-quality, bespoke content. And your ability to tap into a network of subject matter experts to provide unique value to that content will make or break you. Networking is not everyone’s strong suit, but, it’s worth getting out of your comfort zone and giving it a try in Q1. Because by Q4, the writers who pull it off will be making good money, and the writers who don’t will be looking at a career change.”

If you have any questions, please reply to this email and ask! We read every reply, and if we see an interesting question, we’ll answer it in a future newsletter.

Want to check out all of our Writer Tips for free?

📺🎙️A word from our sponsor📲🤑

A writer is only as strong as their portfolio.

That’s why ProWriter built one that highlights your strengths and showcases your best samples.

ProWriter isn’t just a newsletter. It’s an entire resource for helping freelance writers launch their writing careers.

When you become a ProWriter member, you get:

✔️ A free portfolio to highlight your hard-earned skills and experience

✔️ Workshops, courses, and other resources to improve your skills

✔️ Access to a community of peers and coaches to help you succeed

Ready to grow your writing career?

Eye on AI 🤖

In this section, we bring you the top stories about AI that affect the creator economy (so you can stay a step ahead of the machine overlords).

Today’s robopocalypse headlines 🤖💀

• Lots of good bits and baubles in this Gartner (a tech research firm) press release, including forecasts on how AI will change marketing in the coming year. Read it here.

• Apple, mysteriously a holdout on the AI landscape, is reportedly making its way into the market, with LLM-enabled upgrades possible in the next generation of the iPhone. Read more here.

• Whenever John Mueller speaks, you should listen (even though he’s usually pretty vague). The SEO guru recently shared some thoughts on AI vs. stock imagery and how Google will make ranking decisions therein. Worth a read over on LinkedIn.

• Want to find an AI-proof niche? It might be healthcare (at least for now). A case study showed that ChatGPT incorrectly diagnosed 80% of pediatric cases it analyzed. At a minimum, sounds like some serious implications for asking this LLM for accurate medical information. Researchers and hypochondriacs beware.

• And in “the creator class is pushing back,” The New York Times is now suing OpenAI for copyright infringement.

• Lastly, we know AI poses threats to our jobs, but what about our very lives? At Futurism, scientists give their guesses on the probability that AI will drive mankind extinct, among other “extremely bad outcomes.” Brr!

100 content people you should be following 🤝

We made a big list of the most influential voices in the creator economy. Every week, we showcase a new thought leader you should be following.

#87 Joe Pulizzi

Joe is a content marketing guru, and of everyone we’ve featured in this section, he is easily among the most prolific.

Why you should follow him

• Joe is squarely focused on content creators and has the CV to prove it. He has written multiple books, coordinates the Content Entrepreneur Expo (CEX), and co-hosts several podcasts.

• Not sure where to start? Go with Orangeletter, a LinkedIn newsletter where he shares content marketing tips and related musings.

Joe is also very active on LinkedIn. Once his posts start popping up in your feed, the value will be obvious.

👉 Follow Joe on LinkedIn

Makes you think 🤔

So you’ve already failed in 2024

Dusten here!

I know you’ve seen the memes by now. Stuff like this:

I get it. Resolutions are tough! Half of the people who make them give up by February, and only 9% successfully make a change that lasts all year.

Pretty bleak! What do we even do resolutions for, anyway?

I think a big reason we can’t keep our resolutions is that we often make resolutions that are too big.

Get in great shape, totally overhaul the diet, make a big career move, these are big, lofty goals. It’s good to have big goals! But, it’s also easy to make big resolutions in the spirit of the new year without thinking through what you’re going to have to do to keep them.

So my advice is this: Make one small change.

Here’s an example. I’m a busy guy, which means my typical breakfast is a granola bar and a pot of coffee.

Here’s my one small change: Wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual, make myself two eggs, a piece of toast, and some Greek yogurt.

The difference between a measly granola bar + mid-afternoon caffeine crash and a bigger, high-protein breakfast, at least for me, has been huge.

I have more energy, I am more focused on the morning tasks, and I feel more ready to kick the day in the derriere.

That little change ends up being pretty big. Because it changes my whole day.

So squeeze in a 10-minute walk every day. Go to bed half an hour early, and wake up half an hour earlier. Make a small modification to your diet. See what happens.

Don’t commit to big, scary changes. Commit to small experiments.

If your small change doesn’t work for you, that’s fine! Make another. And another.

Your New Year’s Resolution should be to make small changes one at a time until you find a few that, by December 2024, have made big changes in your life.

Try it out! And let us know what happens.

Top Freelance Writing Jobs 💼 

1. 33social Digital Marketing is looking for a freelance home services blogger. $35-$40/h. Apply here.

2. Murphy & Associates is looking for a contract tech writer. Up to $44/h. Apply here.

3. ExtraHop is looking for a content marketing writer in cybersecurity. Apply here.

4. JumpSeat is looking for an agency copywriter. Apply here.

5. Barrington James is looking for a medical writer on a contract basis. Apply here.

6. Stream Companies is looking for a B2B marketing writer. Apply here.

7. Horizontal Talent is looking for a freelance SEO copywriter in fintech. Apply here.

8. Noisy Creations is looking for a casual, maybe-longer-term copywriter and content marketer for help with ebooks, articles, and blogs. Apply here.

9. Very mysterious, but Ethan of RareCircles is looking for freelance writers for a new consumer publication. Apply here.

10. Paulo Fernandes of the creative agency Luscious Orange is looking for a freelance web writer. Reach out on X.

Don’t forget — all the jobs we post here are remote and we privilege gigs with transparent pay.

A handful come from our personal networks and aren’t on any jobs boards… yet. So get on ‘em.

What’s on your 🧠?

Here’s your weekly reminder that if you’re one of our 5,000 subscribers, you can reply directly to this email.

That’s because we want to hear from you!

• We want your feedback, so we can make this newsletter better

• We want your questions, so we can create relevant content for you

• We want to build relationships, so reply with whatever is on your mind

Send us compliments, concerns, complaints, questions, story ideas, memes, whatever you got.

Thanks for reading, ProWriters!

Let’s have a great week.

Dave & Dusten

P.S. Want to look smart to all your friends? Forward them this newsletter.

If you’re that friend, subscribe to The ProWriter Newsletter here.

P.P.S. Want to really upgrade your freelance writing career?

🖥 Build your personal brand with a free writer portfolio.

🎓 Learn how to become a freelance writer with our free course.

📝 Get paid to publish content with our free Submissions database.

Until next week, see you on Twitter and LinkedIn.