Freelance copywriters: this is how you show off your portfolio

Authory is hands down the easiest way to share your work with potential clients.

Around a month ago a Facebook ad caught my attention. It was spruiking an app called Authory, a portfolio management tool designed primarily for journalists to collate all their work in one place.

Now, this sounds great if you’re a journo that actually has a byline, but what about ghostwriters and content writers like myself? It would be awesome to collate – and more importantly, back up – all my work in one place.

Full disclosure: I’m an organisation freak and have everything I’ve ever written in a neat and tidy Google Docs filing system. But of course, the live, published articles on client sites are the ‘proof’ that I’m a legit content marketer with years of writing under my belt.

And yet, those live articles could be moved, taken down or changed at any moment by my clients.

How can I prove I’ve written on a wide variety of topics, over the course of quite a few years? Authory seemed like the ideal solution to hold on to what I’d written, regardless of the direction my clients might choose to take in the months and years to come.

Giving new clients an idea of your skills as a freelance copywriter

This is precisely the peace of mind that potential new clients need to feel when considering working with me.

I want them to see a large body of work (‘she’s not a fly-by-nighter, tick’), a wide variety of topics and sources (‘she’s adaptable and can write about all kinds of things, tick’) and links to the live articles (‘other businesses trust her, tick’).

Authory is the perfect solution because it ticks all these boxes for me, and for my potential clients! This week alone I’ve sent my Authory link to two contacts in the Superpath community, and one person that contacted me directly by email.

Ok, so what actually *is* Authory?

Built for users who want to follow their favourite journalists across scattered publications, Authory is an easy to use portfolio page builder that allows fans of your writing to stay informed when you publish new articles across disparate platforms. With an in-built newsletter function, you can publish new work and have your followers receive a notification directly, without having to follow an entire publication or news site.

That’s the journo workflow: how about for content marketers?

This platform really comes into its own for people like myself who primarily ghostwrite and rarely have their own byline. Laying claim to my own articles, no matter which generic user is listed on the clients blog (gotta love that ‘posted by marketing’ author!), allows me to retain some ownership after each piece has been passed on to the client.

Plus, if those clients take down or redirect the article at a later date, Authory automatically backs up a copy so it’s saved in its beautiful published form forever.

For my use case, I don’t have a need for the newsletter function at this point, but have been actively using my Authory link to show off my portfolio to others.

Before & after

Previously, when a potential client contacted me and asked to see a few samples of my work, I’d have no choice but to send them a few scrappy links in an email.