It can feel hard to build a career outside of a major city. A strong network of human connections is still a much better asset for a professional than a strong Wi-Fi network, and with job instability, it’s important to have other options around if you lose work. Even better, you should try to have diverse streams of income at all times. 

But even if you leave the biggest American cities—like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—out of the picture, city living is expensive. And even if it weren’t, it’s not for everyone! 

And while the rest of the corporate, and creative, world may have to deal with the whims of CEOs going back and forth on remote work policies, writing is one of the few careers that was reliably fully remote before the pandemic and will likely stay that way for years to come. Creative and marketing writers alike have a little bit more freedom than most when it comes to the choice of where to live and still have a robust career, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t considerations to keep in mind. 

Make Yourself Known

It’s one of the oldest rules in advertising: There’s no better recommendation than word of mouth. And in this case, what’s true about the best breakfast burrito in town is also true for people; it’s better to be known as someone who will send prompt emails with impeccable copy than someone who will be crowded into the same train car on public transportation. 

But how do you build yourself that reputation in the first place? Creative writers at least have agents whose job it is to make them known to editors and publishers, but marketing and other professional writers don’t get any help. 

Here’s where living outside a major city might already put you at an advantage. If you’re working in a relatively smaller pond, it’s easier to become even a medium-size fish simply because there’s less competition. If your local work availability isn’t enough to sustain your income, your experiences will still transfer to bigger ecosystems. For example, if you’ve done small business marketing in your area and you’ve run out of small businesses, cafés and bookshops in bigger cities will want someone with your kind of expertise more than someone who is used to working for a big corporation. 

Invest the time in building up a good online portfolio and ask your clients if they would be comfortable serving as professional references so that when you try to make connections outside of your immediate area, your initial contact will make an impact. 

Be Flexible

Many people who use the flexibility of remote writing work like to travel. It’s wonderful to spend time in beautiful, remote places and still be able to make a living. But it’s a good idea to use a little bit of that travel time to show your face at professional events. 

If your industries have any kind of special interest groups, try to make it to conferences and retreats. If you do a lot of work for one specific company and they have any kind of in-person gathering, even a holiday party, consider making a long weekend trip of it. 

Social gatherings are (hopefully!) not a context where business is being done, but it’s these kinds of events that make a bigger impact. You want to have enough of a human relationship with people that they think of a person they enjoy laughing with at the summer barbecue rather than an anonymous email address when they’re considering using AI to cut corners. 

Take Advantage

There are so many things to consider when choosing where to live. Taking work out of the equation, you still have proximity to friends and family, climate, and, perhaps the most important, cost of living. Aside from people who simply don’t like overcrowded, polluted cities, many people who live in relatively rural areas do so to save money. 

Once your basic living expenses are covered, and you’re sure you have plenty of savings for emergencies and retirement, you have the option to simply decide not to work so much. Maybe that looks like doing the math and realizing the fewer big-ticket opportunities don’t matter so much if you’re not trying to cover a ridiculous rent payment. Maybe it means you can take your time finding more work instead of falling into a panic when you lose a big client. Maybe it means you have the ability to try out new formats, like writing social media copy or landing page copy, for smaller, local clients who will be more likely to hire someone without as much relevant experience. 

Don’t think of living in the country as an obstacle to be overcome, but instead as its own opportunity. 

There’s Enough for Everyone

When people make blanket statements like “you must live in a city to find enough work as a freelancer,” or “you can’t rely on remote work at all anymore,” or even “no one will ever hire human writers now that they can use chatbots,” you should feel free to ignore them. 

It’s not true that everyone has to make some arbitrary “right” choice in order to achieve their career goals, not just because there are many ways to go about living life, but also because there is enough work to go around. Having an attitude of limiting your choices in order to ensure your future is also a belief that you must sacrifice one thing in order to have another. And that is simply false; you can have your cake and eat it from the porch of your gorgeous forest cabin too.

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.