Excellent post, Jen.

Here are my thoughts on skills essential for successful freelance writers:

* Marketing ability (as you said), combined with marketing persistence. Marketing is 100 per cent cumulative. You must be persistent — and you must have a plan.

One teeny tiny ad on Craigslist is just a snowflake in the desert.

But 100 ads on Craiglist (all different, and all leading to different landing pages) will rock your world. You’ll have so many writing jobs you can triple your income in a couple of months.

Of course Craiglist is not the only way to promote; there are dozens of ways. Do what you enjoy, and what’s fun for YOU.

* Persistence in general. Nowadays, everyone’s busy. This means that you need to keep contacting editors and other buyers, even if it seems they’re ignoring you — chances are they’re not. Your messages are just buried under the 405 other vital messages they need to respond to.

Is persistence a skill? Whatever, it’s essential. Here’s a famous quote on persistence:

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge

* Writing skill (not writing talent.) Writing skill develops over time. You can usually work out how long someone’s been writing by reading a paragraph they’ve written. The longer you write, the more transparent your writing.

If you want to become a writer, you can. The desire to write is a good indication that you can do it. If you want to become a successful writer, then the stronger the desire, the faster it will happen for you.

And the more you write, the more your writing skill will develop — it’s a completely natural process.

* Finally, the ability/ skill to divorce yourself from your writing — to be objective. New writers protect their words like a starving dog protects a chunk of bloody raw meat. Over time, you become less rabid. You know that whatever you write now, you will be able to write it differently (and perhaps better) tomorrow, so requests for changes and revisions don’t both you.

Great topic, Jen. Of course there are many other skills successful freelance writers need to develop, but I’d say persistence is the most essential. You can do anything with persistence.