What Should I Know Before Committing To Freelance Copy Writing?

I’ve been putting a lot of thought of late into moving full steam into the arena of Freelance Copy Writing. I was turned on to the concept a while back, early on in my SEO writing activities and as a result bought into Peter Bowerman’s “The Well-Fed Writer”. I actually was more interested in his “The Well-Fed Self-Publisher” and subsequently got off of the track for pursuing freelance copy writing.
Now, however, I’m thinking that it could be more interesting to pursue some quality writing opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the SEO writing that I do. Every now and then some interesting topics are assigned to me, and I find when that happens, I truly enjoy the process.
If you’ve done any of this type of “web writing” you’ll understand just how little it pays. Understandably so. For the most part, and what I believe to be reality, this type of writing isn’t designed to be read by anyone real, living (or dead). Simply put, the search powers that be want “real” content; not words generated by some form of YACG (yet another content generator).
And that’s totally groovy. If you can deal with the lack of passion. If you enjoy putting words together and have them pretty much never read again, SEO can be a super easy way to make a living.  Just not much of a decently paying living. Again, I am grateful to have access to this type of work for the past year or so. I always do the very best I am able to with any given assignment. But I’m at that point of needing more.
More income for sure. More importantly, a real sense that what I’m creating is valuable to someone, will get read (and hopefully appreciated!) by a real, living breathing person (that is not me.) So, I’m now in that mode of contemplating whether or not it might be worth developing the contacts, putting out feelers for clients, dealing with clients when they do come, and generally making a successful go at becoming a Freelance Copy Writer.
While I’m no expert, my belief is that I have the chops to do the writing. I’ve several pieces which I’ll pull together in order to start a portfolio. Some good friends have indicated they enjoy my writing and feel I’d be well suited to pursue a living (at least for a while) in this arena. Of course, you really can’t trust the opinions of your friends. That’s why they’re your friends! 😉
There’s not a whole lot of folks reading this site, but if you are and have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions, it would be lovely to hear them. My biggest concern is that which I just don’t know about going down this road. If you can share your insight or experiences, let’s start a conversation. And thanks for your time and interest. Much appreciated!