Dinobrainiak

OP’s advice is great, but if I can mention one other thing, I might suggest simply telling family and friends that you’re interested in freelancing. It’s not a fool-proof strategy, but you might be surprised at how many small businesses are desperate for content (especially in niche fields). It’s actually very hard for companies to find strong, reliable freelancers. Of course, this strategy is contingent on your network, but many of my best clients come from referral/word-of-mouth. People have to know you’re available for freelancing before they can contact you about freelancing. I’ve seen so many would-be writers struggle to get started because they don’t yet have the self-confidence to identify as professional writers, so no one knows they’re capable of producing great content.

Okay, as long as you don’t mind!

I pay for Grammarly, which is fairly solid in terms of stylistic assistance. But the other tool I swear by is Wordtune. If I write a long and messy sentence, I can click a button and it’ll offer several choices to make it much shorter. Prior to using Wordtune, I used a free web app called Hemingway. Wordtune functions similarly to that, but with the addition of numerous phrasing options that you can select automatically and without the hassle of having to copy and paste your text into an app. (Wordtune has a Chrome integration that works on Google Docs.)

I pay for an AI-powered tool that helps me shorten sentences and phrases. I won’t name it because I don’t want to be seen as a shill but I thought I’d share so you’re aware they’re out there. I often freelance for print publications and I used to waste hours cutting my stories to meet set word limits. The tool isn’t perfect but it’s been a huge help to me!