Starting out as a freelance blogger can be rough. You have no money, no support from anyone, no portfolio highlighting your experience, and you’re stuck at whatever computer you happen to be working from.

I understand your pain — I was in the exact same scenario when I first started blogging. When I managed to find my first few jobs, they were cheap gigs that paid peanuts. It felt like it was impossible to get anywhere in my blogging career until one day, when I was feeling down and frustrated…

I was sitting on the couch watching TV after a long day of writing 1,000 word articles for 10 bucks apiece. A spy drama called Burn Notice came on the screen and I realized something: starting out as a freelance blogger is exactly like being a burned spy! 

After reading that last sentence you probably think I’m insane. And you’re probably right. However, let me explain. 

“I can’t do this.”

“I don’t know enough about this topic to charge THAT much.”

“I’m not an expert in this area.”

Any of those lines sound familiar? You’re not alone. Those were the exact thoughts running through my head when I was approached by a startup that wanted me to write about big data analytics for online retailers—a topic I knew very little about.

Sure, I knew about tech companies, but I’m not a data scientist and I’ve never worked in retail, so I wasn’t sure if I could bring enough value to the table. The only thing I had going for me was I had a genuine interest in the subject. I had been hearing about big data in ecommerce for a while, and I wanted to break into the industry. That’s why I took the leap when the opportunity presented itself.

Turns out, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Taking the job and forcing myself to become an expert in their industry opened a lot of doors. Not only did the client re-hire me for several projects, I was also able to use my experience to pitch other companies in the field, thus growing my client base.

This blog post will show you how you can do it too. Here are 3 steps you can take to increase your knowledge so you can write insightful blog posts about any topic—and charge competitively for doing it. 

Feel like maybe you could charge more for your blogging services?

Yep, you probably could. We proved that in The Be a Freelance Blogger Rate Guide, and now the Copypress Community has carried out a survey of 247 writers to create a free report, The State of Freelance Writing 2014. It’s not just about writing rates — there’s a ton of information in there about bylines, SEO and other writerly stuff.

But one thing’s painfully clear: most of the online writers Copypress surveyed don’t charge enough.

To give you a quick overview of some interesting points from the survey results, here’s the infographic the Copypress people made to accompany the report. To download the full report with all the details for free, you’ll need to go here and register for a download link.