9 Companies Hiring Remote Freelance Writers In 2025
forbes.com – Sunday April 13, 2025
It’s no secret that one of the easiest side hustles or full-time freelance businesses to pursue, with minimal setup costs or time to launch, is freelance writing.
Freelance writing can be started even if you have minimal experience, and one of its other appeals is that you can get paid top dollar by the world’s leading B2B SaaS companies, all while working from the comfort of your home, as a digital nomad in Bali, or from the beach in the beautiful white sands of the Caribbean islands.
The freelance writing industry is experiencing a boom. Content marketing is a multi-billion-dollar sector, with more companies allocating this highly effective outreach method as part of their marketing budgets. Statista projects that global content marketing spend will almost double in the years between 2022 and 2026, reaching an eye-watering $107 billion next year.
So if you’re skilled in writing long-form content, providing detailed explanations, and contributing subject matter expertise instead of merely writing as a traditional journalist or generalist, then there is plenty of scope for you to build a thriving freelance writing business.
A look ahead to the 2025 Bournemouth Writing Festival
greatbritishlife.co.uk – Friday April 11, 2025
In the heart of Bournemouth, an award-winning festival is quietly changing lives. More than a celebration of storytelling, the Bournemouth Writing Festival is a movement - one that champions unheard voices, nurtures creativity, and makes writing accessible to all. Returning for its third year, April 25-27, the festival offers three days of 100 inspiring talks, workshops, literary agent 1-2-1s and networking events to inspire all writers to write. But beyond the bestselling authors and industry experts, its true impact lies in the community it serves.
This year’s Bournemouth Writing Festival includes free workshops for adults with additional needs as well as those facing homelessness or financial hardship. ‘Pay what you can’ sessions, alongside showcasing underrepresented writers, also ensures that everyone - regardless of background - has a chance to be heard. This includes The Outsiders Project, supporting ex-prisoners and recovering addicts, which helps participants find their voice through writing and performance.
Young people are also at the heart of the festival. In partnership with the RNLI and Hengistbury Head Writers Group, a competition for schools and home-educated children is encouraging children to craft thrilling water-based adventures while learning about water safety. Teaching resources were created to help them shape their stories including a video and educator resources. Free drop-in sessions (April 26) are at the co-working space Patch Bournemouth in the former Bobbys in The Square.
Johnson & Alcock and New Writing North unveil new award for debut writers
thebookseller.com – Thursday April 10, 2025
Johnson & Alcock, in partnership with New Writing North, has unveiled the Great Northern Read Award for debut writers based in the North of England, with a writer to be awarded the prize each year from 2026 to 2028.
The award, which will become part of the Northern Writers’ Awards, will cover the spectrum of commercial, genre and book club fiction, with an emphasis on gripping, immersive storytelling. It will be open to genres including, but not limited to, crime, mystery, historical, romance, fantasy, SF and book-club fiction.
The winner will receive £2,500, bespoke mentoring from the Johnson & Alcock team and access to New Writing North support including membership to the Society of Authors, networking events and one-to-one support from the talent development team.
Writing festival to host first naked workshop
bbc.co.uk – Thursday April 10, 2025
Aspiring writers are being urged to "strip off to get inspired", following in the footsteps of authors like Victor Hugo, Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming.
Bournemouth Writing Festival, which runs from 25 to 27 April, has announced it will be offering its first naked writing workshop.
The ticket-only event was organised in partnership with British Naturism and will take place on 23 April at Springbourne Library.
Festival director Dominic Wong said: "Obviously some people may be shy at first but once you're in the swing of it everyone wants to be involved."
The writing festival will feature authors, TV and film screenwriters, journalists, editors, writing coaches and literary agents.
Mr Wong said: "Whilst this session will be a first for the festival, naked writing certainly isn't new in literary circles.
The AI Romance Factory
bloomberg.com – Monday April 7, 2025
Genre fiction publisher Inkitt has influential backers and a vision for infinitely customizable A.I.-driven content. What would be left for the human creators?
Manjari Sharma hadn’t written much when she decided to start a novel. She’d graduated from university during the Covid-19 pandemic and was reading romance stories to quell her restlessness while locked down in her parents’ house in Lucknow, India. One day she settled into bed and started typing one of her own.
Sometimes in the months that followed, her parents would drift into the yellow-walled bedroom where she liked to work, and she’d scoot over so they could get on the bed and watch the epic series Mahabharat on TV. They knew she was writing but didn’t know the details. Sharma—whose pleasure reading had made her an expert on American romance—was drafting a novel that started with an overweight, insecure American high schooler named Keily being tormented by a hot football player. (“‘You’re fat and dumb,’ James had said with a condescending smirk, ‘like a pig. I should call you Piggy.’”) It would end with them falling in love.
Sharma started publishing installments of the novel on Wattpad’s free platform, titling it Fat Keily; after it was done, seven months later, she also put it on another free platform called Inkitt, based in Berlin. In both places, the novel attracted lots of readers and rapturous comments—“Punctuation be damned! I absolutely love this story!”—and before long, Inkitt was proposing that she move the novel from its free platform to its premium subscription-based platform, Galatea, where Sharma would receive a share of sales. She agreed, and her novel, renamed Keily, took off again. In early 2024 she learned Inkitt wanted to turn it into a series.
This time there was a catch. Sharma recalls being told that she was welcome to write the next books if she could get them done within a few weeks. Otherwise, Inkitt would hire a ghostwriter to do it, though her name would still be on the cover and she’d still get royalty payments.
Sharma had no real choice; her contract with Inkitt gave it the right to do just about anything it wanted with Keily, including come up with sequels. Plus, her life had gotten busy in the years since she first drafted the novel. She’d gotten a master’s degree in mathematics and started an internship in artificial intelligence at the Royal Bank of Scotland. She accepted the ghostwriting offer.
The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing: submissions now open
stroudtimes.com – Wednesday April 2, 2025
Stroud Book Festival is delighted to announce that The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing 2025 is now open for entries, writes Caroline Sanderson.
Free to enter, the Laurie Lee Prize for Writing was created in 2022 to acknowledge and honour the work of Stroud’s most famous son, Laurie Lee (1914-1997). It was established under the umbrella of Stroud Book Festival with the blessing of Laurie Lee’s family, and his literary estate. The 2024 winners were Laura Kinnear and Estella Jones.
The Prize is open to unpublished writers currently resident in Gloucestershire, and to those who were born in the county. The criteria also now permit entries from anyone studying at school or university or working in Gloucestershire.
The theme for this year’s prize is JOURNEYS, and submitted writing on that theme can be fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
Scandal-hit creative writing website NaNoWriMo to close after 20 years
theguardian.com – Wednesday April 2, 2025
The US nonprofit, whose online community encouraged members to write a novel in a month, has been rocked by controversy in recent years
NaNoWriMo, the US-based nonprofit organisation that challenged people to write a novel in a month, has announced it is closing down after 20 years.
NaNoWriMo – an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month – fostered an online community of participants aiming to write 50,000 words of fiction in November. It began informally in 1999 before becoming a nonprofit in 2006. Each year, tens of thousands signed up to the organisation’s flagship programme.
On Monday, NaNoWriMo announced its closure to community members via email. A 27-minute YouTube video posted the same day by the organisation’s interim executive director Kilby Blades explained that it had to close due to ongoing financial problems, which were compounded by reputational damage.
Bournemouth to host romance writing festival for writers
bournemouthecho.co.uk – Saturday March 29, 2025
The Romance Writing Festival will be taking place on October 18.
The event will feature Sunday Times bestsellers Milly Johnson, Paige Toon and Katie Fforde.
The programme is filled with panel discussions, workshops and networking opportunities.
Writers will also have the chance to book one-to-one sessions with agents and editors.
The festival will take place at Royal Bath Hotel, where attendees can explore a marketplace to connect with industry professionals.
DK ventures into children’s fiction with new imprint DK flip
thebookseller.com – Sunday March 23, 2025
DK has launched its first children’s fiction imprint, DK flip, “dedicated to publishing flippin’ marvellous fiction”, having previously only published children’s non-fiction.
DK flip will publish across chapter books, early middle-grade, middle-grade, teen, graphic and YA. There are 14 titles scheduled to publish in 2025 on the DK flip list with 18 scheduled so far for 2026.
Acquisitions to the list will be made by Arabella Stein, trade strategy director at DK, and Francesca Young, associate publishing director, with support from the wider editorial and design team in-house at DK Children’s.
In addition, the DK+ division under managing director Mark Searle has a growing team of editors and designers now focused also on fiction. DK’s current rights, sales, marketing and PR teams will work closely with the DK flip design and editorial team.
Hayward poet Pat Doyne holds free metaphor workshop
tricityvoice.com – Wednesday March 19, 2025
On Saturday, March 22, award-winning poet and Hayward resident Patricia Doyne will conduct a free Zoom workshop on the power of metaphor. “Ever since we read ‘Fog comes in on little cat feet’ in grade school, we have been aware that words can have meanings beyond the literal,” Doyne says. That means hooking into figurative language in all genres—non-fiction and fiction as well as poetry—to make writing clear, strong and unforgettable.
Doyne will discuss the use of metaphors to establish moods and images. This is an interactive workshop. Participants will practice creating metaphors and may share them if they choose. The event is sponsored by Fremont Area Writers and is open to all.
Pat Doyne holds an MA in creative writing from San Francisco State. Her first book of poetry, Regeneration Isn’t Always Spontaneous, was published in 1976, after which her career as a poet went on hiatus while she taught in the Castro Valley Unified School District and raised her children.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
